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Method 3: Discourses and materialities

This methodological cluster looks at the relations between discourses and materialities. By exploring different conceptualizations of discourses and materialities, we wish to create a

methodological vocabulary/grammar and develop critical methods in particular contexts and sites. Some of these sites include the constitution of counter-terrorism through the governance of crowded places and through (de)listing of so-called terrorist suspects, the constitution of subjectivity in contemporary border and human (in)security practices. We also explore the role of materiality in the constitution of subjectivity, in the circulation of knowledge, and the relationality of scales and spaces. More

Kiersey and Stokes (2011) Foucault and International Relations

Kiersey, Nicholas J./Stokes, Doug (Hrsg.) 2011: Foucault and international relations. New critical engagements, London, New York: Routledge.

The book provides an overview of current debates in International Relations theory concerning the applicability of the research and methods of Michel Foucault to contemporary world order.

CfP: Materialism and World Politics

The annual conference for volume 41 of Millennium: Journal of International Studies will take place on 20-21 October, 2012 at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Greismann (1977) Terrorism and social meanings

Greismann, H.C. "Social Meanings of Terrorism: Reification, Violence, and Social Control." Contemporary crises 1 (1977): 303–18.

Article that critically discusses the social construction of terrorism at a time when critical reflections on the nature of terrorism have been sparse. Interessting link between power, elites and social construction processes.

Gusfield (1981) The Culture of Public Problems

Gusfield, Joseph R. The Culture of Public Problems. Drinking, Driving and the Symbolic Order. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1981.

Classic text on how certain problems become problems 'international action has to do something about'.

La Caze (2011) 'Terrorism and Trauma'

La Caze, Marguerite. "Terrorism and Trauma: Negotiating Derridean "Autoimmunity"." Philosophy & Social Criticism 37, no. 5 (2011): 605-19.

Herschinger (2011) Constructing Global Enemies

Herschinger, Eva. Constructing Global Enemies. Hegemony and Identity in International Discourses on Terrorism and Drug Prohibition. Abingdon, New York: Routledge, 2011.

  Constructing Global Enemies asks how and why specific interpretations of international terrorism and drug abuse have become hegemonic at the global level. The book analyses the international discourses on terrorism and drug prohibition and compares efforts to counter both, not only from a contemporary but also from a historical perspective.

Laclau (2005) "On "Real" And "Absolute Enemies"

Laclau, Ernesto. "On "Real" And "Absolute Enemies"." The New Cenntenial Review 5, no. 1 (2005): 1-12.

Links terrorism and Carl Schmitt's definition of enemies.

Laclau (1999) "The Politics of Rhetoric."

Laclau, Ernesto. "The Politics of Rhetoric." In Material Events: Paul De Man and the Afterlife of Theory, edited by Tom Cohen, J. Hillis Miller and Barbara Cohen, 229-53. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1999.

One of the rare contributions of Laclau on the materiality of discourse.

Harding (1987) The Method Question

 Harding, Sandra (1987) 'The Method Question', Hypatia vol. 2(3): 19-35.

A continuing concern of many feminists and non-feminists alike has been to identify a distinctive feminist method of inquiry. This essay argues that this method question is misguided and should be abandoned. In doing so it takes up the distinctions between and relationships among methods, methodologies and epistemologies; proposes that the concern to identify sources of the power of feminist analyses motivates the method question; and suggests how to pursue this project.

Austrin and Fransworth (2005) Hybrid genres: fieldwork, detection and the method of Bruno Latour

Austrin, Terry and Farnsworth, John (2005) 'Hybrid genres: fieldwork, detection and the method of Bruno Latour', Qualitative Research vol. 5(2): 147-165.

 This article explores tensions in the study of innovation, the practice of fieldwork and the narratives these produce, particularly as represented in the work of Latour. It argues that Latour’s ethnographic studies of science and technology parody a variety of sociological and literary genres, particularly detective fiction, and that he uses this literary device as a way of pinpointing unexpected links between fictional and sociological modes of investigation.