Curiosity, Criticality and Materiality
Abstract
In this chapter Mark B. Salter, current editor of Security Dialogue, discusses with Can E. Mutlu the meaning and significance of technology for International Relations in light of his eclectic work. Salter, perhaps best-known for his dynamic presentations and engaging intellectual approach and recently for the two-volume project Making Things International, traces his engagement with technology across a vast field of contributions ranging from civilization in international politics, the genealogy of the modern passport, and critical security studies, touching on Foucauldian and Bourdieusian notions. In the conversation, Salter reflects on the recent material turn in IR and the expansion of this as a significant research area within critical consciousness in IR, with more and more people working on materiality, science and technology studies, actor-network theory. He points to the importance of remembering that we are not the first generation to experience this kind of epochal change, and that emancipatory change happens through engagement, and how technology is shaping the encounter with the Other—reminding us that scholarship can and should start with curiosity and intuition.
Theory Is Technology; Technology Is Theory
Abstract
New technology is undoubtedly changing world politics. But does this necessarily require new theories? In this interview, we explore the challenges facing a (political) theory of technology and how to understand the novelty of technologies such as Big Data. Ole Wæver recounts his early interest in technology and how theorizing technology demands that we look at different kinds of acts. Some of the main challenges include unintended effects and the assessment of decisions made within complex systems. We go back to Langdon Winner’s early work on the political character of technology, and discuss why his ideas might be more valuable than concepts often subsumed under the heading of ‘New Materialism’.
Chapter 17
Commentary: Belonging and Belongings: On Migrant and Nomadic Heritages in and for the Anthropocene
Rodney Harrison, Staffan Appelgren, and Anna Bohlin
Introduction
As the introduction to this timely volume notes, there has for some time been a significant gap in the field of migration studies in relation to understandings of how the experience of forced and undocumented migration mobilizes and sets in motion different forms of material culture, and related questions of how archaeologists, anthropologists, museums, and herit- age institutions can reflect upon and engage with such processes (but see, e.g. Bender 2001; Bender and Winer 2001; Byrne 2003; Basu and Coleman 2008; Dudley 2011; Soto 2016).
The New Novelty: Corralation as Quarantine in Speculative Realism and New Materialism
The foundational gesture of New Materialism and Speculative Realism dismisses vast swaths of past philosophy and theory in order to signify their own avant-garde status. The violence of this gesture, which tries to corral difference within past texts in order to feign its own purity, can be considered as a theoretical quarantine. Examples of medical and spiritual quarantine, the 2014 ebola epidemic and Jesus’ temptation, are analyzed to show that the figure is inherently compromised – the harder one fights to keep the other away, the more one becomes inseparable from it. Derrida’s reflections on the reactions against deconstruction show that this desire for progress is always inherently conservative; Meillassoux and Jane Bennett are considered as contemporary examples. A deconstruction of corralation and the academico-capitalist forces driving these ‘innovations’ might open us to reading the never-simply-past text, and to the possibility of the event.
Materialities and historical geographies: An introduction
Guest Editors (Special Issue on Posthumanism)
M Greedharry, M Yeo, R Fillion, B Buchanan…
… focused on the limits of human knowledge and challenged universal truth
claims, in recent years, several theoretical approaches, which appeared
separately, have sought to re-examine the enduring importance of matter …
Life in Common: Distributive Ecological Justice on a Shared Earth
https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/files/78647598/FULL_TEXT.PDF
Philosophy of Movement 