Can Science be a Political Agent without a Race for Power?

The article is an attempt to answer the question on the political subjectivity of modern science. It is hardly possible to speak of the specific political subjectivity of science and scientists as a conscious participation in the struggle for power. First, the race for power itself is not a major purpose for them: scientists concentrate on studying the world and creating new technologies. Second, even if they participate in such a race, they are not different from other social groups which protect their interests in political process. Changing the point of view on the political subjectivity of science enables to see its specific position in the space of the political. During discipline power and biopower formation and governmentality development, science became a basic element of public administration and politics. It forms the ideas of the objects managed, possible ways of interaction with them and creates the space of the political and management decisions implemented. In this case, social sciences and humanities obtain special political subjectivity. This also applies in a specific way to natural science and technical sciences. New scientific theories and technological solutions become representatives of non-human actors in the human world. They result in changing our ideas on “Nature”, a “scene” for history and political actions. The emergence of new non-human actors can cause the technological revolution which can influence the ways of political action implementation and provide new opportunities to execute political projects. This is an important element of the political subjectivity of science.

Post-Normal Science: Passing the Scylla of Uncertainty and the Charybdis of the Politicization of Knowledge

The goal of the article to assess and comprehend the legitimacy, advantages, and disadvantages of the idea of “post-normal” and “citizen science”, the problem of treating science as a political actor, as well as the potential “democratization” of contemporary science. The nature and epistemological status of “post-normal” and “citizen” science, their place, and potential role in political decision-making in situations of significant uncertainty of the future (which is especially characteristic of ecology) discussed. We are prone to emphasize the importance of the traditional criteria of rationality, dominant among scientists working under the milieu of the norms and principles of “normal” science. Despite the transdisciplinary nature of the problems and the format of decision-making that are at the core of post-normal science. Nevertheless, the political subjectivity of modern science far from being full-fledged. Science does not participate in politics in an independent actor acting on the same plane and on a par with other political actors (parties or other political structures). The acquisition by the science of the status of a political subject or the loss of such largely depends on the nature of the political climate of the society. Political subjectivity is an imitative political atmosphere that cannot be the immediate goal and value of science. Aspiration for political subjectivity as a norm for post-normal science implies a radical change in its “self-consciousness”, socio-cultural status, and thus, increasing its political weight. However, this aspiration has any reasonable theoretical and practical sense only as an integral part of the movement towards true civil society and democracy.

Post-Normal Times Laboratory

Nowadays, for science as a type of activity and a socio-cultural institution, the question of the boundaries of its own agency is extremely relevant. Various global challenges (energy, climate, pandemics, security, etc.) are in tune with the challenges for the very concept of science, for its norms and values. In a discussion article, V.N. Porus and V.A. Bazhanov discuss aspects of the political agency of post-normal science (J. Ravetz, S. Funtowicz) — a type of science that claims to go beyond normal science (T. Kuhn) as a process simple and definite solution of problems within the framework of the prevailing paradigms. This article discusses aspects of the political subjectivity of science in the language of locations, the most important of which is the laboratory, understood in broad socio-cultural and socio-epistemic aspects. With the involvement of historical and scientific (atomic-nuclear problem) and modern situational cases (COVID-19), the problems of the relationship between “scientific” and “political” in the location of the expanded laboratory are considered. In the extended laboratory, the situational realization of the political agency of science is carried out. It is emphasized that science has not yet acquired the status of an independent and full-fledged political agency, and the corresponding institutionalization. The political agency of science is specific and episodic. Loaded with complexity and uncertainty modernity is considered by a number of authors at the present time as a post-normal times. It is noted that in the light of the post-normal nature of modernity while striving for political subjectivity, science (at the level of a multitude of participating actors) should not change its “personal ontology” (responsibility for the truth), which is difficult to achieve without an appeal to the virtue of wisdom.

Leaving Home, Claiming the Street: Exploring Women’s Challenges in Turkey’s ’68 Movement

Despite worldwide interest in the history of the sixties—particularly in 1968—gender as a category of analysis has received little attention in the majority of academic research about them. Most national historiographies of ’68 have disregarded women’s political actions and their struggles with the gendered political culture. Like its counterparts, Turkey’s ’68 experience was also strongly gendered male. Given the underrepresentation of female historical agency and political subjectivity in the scholarship on 1968, this article aims to explore women’s accounts of Turkey’s ’68 experience with a particular focus on their struggles in leaving home and getting involved in political life.

Outrageous: Defending the art of free expression

This essay makes a critical defence of free expression through the spirit of outrageousness. Drawing upon the ideas of Oscar Wilde, along with artists such as Frida Kahlo, Francis Bacon, Gilbert and George and Jake and Dinos Chapman, it looks beyond the current attempts to reduce the question of freedom to quintessential liberal tropes. In doing so, the paper both offers a critique of the moral absolutism that’s taken over certain sectors of the so-called ‘radical left’, while demanding more political appreciation for creatives and those with the abilities to reimagine the human subject. Such a critique not only suggests the need to rethink the meaning for freedom beyond the play of libertarians, but it also calls forth a new political subjectivity who appears timely and yet timeless – the much maligned and theoretically ignored figure of the infidel, who allows us to break free from moral entrapments.

“BRAINWASHING FOR THE RIGHT REASONS WITH THE RIGHT MESSAGE”: IDEOLOGY AND POLITICAL SUBJECTIVITY IN BLACK ORGANIZING

Media outlets and academics often oversimplify and mischaracterize current manifestations of Black mobilization as a movement that opposes police violence against Black men, supports police reform, and desires assimilation and integration into the state. In reality, however, the movement is much more complex. We examine how Black Youth Project 100 (BYP100), a prominent organization in the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL), creates, teaches, and negotiates ideology. Drawing on fieldwork with Black organizers involved in the M4BL, in-depth interviews and conversations with Black organizers, and a content analysis of primary documents from the movement, we find that rather than promote assimilation, Black organizers use intersectional ideology to socialize members into an understanding of a racialized state. This socialization allows members to develop political subjectivity that not only challenges the state but also transforms their everyday lives and relationships.

Attributes of the Silesians’ political subjectivity in the context of a debate on the 2021 National Population and Housing Census and attempts to establish the Silesian language as a regional language

The objective of this paper is to present the attributes of political subjectivity of the Silesians in the context of the debate on the 2021 National Population and Housing Census, as well as the accompanying debate on the attempt to amend the Act of 6 January 2005 on national and ethnic minorities and regional language, which provides for the inclusion of the Silesian language as a regional language in the provisions of the Act. The thesis presented in this text assumes that the agitation and commitment related to the census not only make it possible to analyse the sense of identity and/or distinctiveness of the Silesians and to develop, for instance, reflection on the issue of recognition, but also open up a space for research on the political subjectivity of those who identify with Silesianness. I intend to use a political theory interpretation that does not focus on political competition or participation in the governing process, but takes into account political activities of individuals and groups also outside the strictly state sphere in the field where various social and political aspirations and interests interact.

Review on Damir V. Mukhetdinov, “The Muslims of Russia Looking for Political Subjectivity” (in Russian), Moscow: Medina, 2021

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Review on Damir V. Mukhetdinov, “The Muslims of Russia Looking for Political Subjectivity” (in Russian), Moscow: Medina, 2021

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