Collaboratory in Critical Security Methods
The International Collaboratory on Critical Methods in Security Studies is an ESRC funded project (RES-810-21-0072)
Discussion of Laclau/Mouffe and Glynos/Howarth articles
I thought I might start with the text of Laclau&Mouffe and will limit my comments to the parts within which L&M restate their concept of discourse as I think this is the most interesting part for us. With their explanation that the 'totality which is discourse includes within itself the linguistic and the non-linguistic' they state that they don't deny the materiality of, say, a brick - a point they are highlighting when they speak about the football one is kicking in the street. Of course, one has to admit that L&M are not focusing on the relationship of discourse and materiality, their aim is to clarify that materiality is independent of discourse but that the way we grasp materiality, 'reality' is via discourse, i.e. through a system of relations between different objects, subjects and elements. And it is through discourse that things acquire meaning.
What I find convincing about their concept of discourse that it is the discourse which establishes relations between objects and these relations are not given. They are given only by the materiality of the object but by their socially constructed nature. This goes as far to say that 'natural facts are also discursive facts' (p. 84).
To me, this means that also the overall idea of 'natural facts' is a socially constructed idea and hints at one of our points of discussion, namely how can we know about the status of things and objects. The answer L&M give is to privilege social construction as point of entry to acquire meaning. This also points towards the question of whether the volcano would be as dangerous if there were no planes. That is exactly what I think L&M mean when they say that 'if there were no human beings on earth, those objects we call stones would be nonetheless; but they wouldn't be 'stones' because there would be neither mineralogy' (p. 84). Overall, and this is why I find their concept persuasive, our relations to objects, elements, things and other (human) beings give meaning to us, to them. I don't think that with this relational concept they deny materiality to play a central role. On the contrary, materiality like the volcano ash make us react, i.e. attempting to classify what is happening there - naming it and therefore giving it a particular existence - because we are unable to know the status of the object outside discourse.
What regards agency or subjectivity, the passages on p. 83 are somewhat outdated as, in particular, Laclau has revised his concept of subject and subjectivity. Yet, the idea that 'every identity or discursive object is constructed in the context of an action' (p. 83) remains, it is the act - of identification - which allows acquiring agency/ becoming a subject. This I would admit severely limits the possibility of non-human agency as the process of identification seems to imply a human being. As such, the agency of the volcano would be rather of an intermediary kind, i.e. by constructing the volcano as a threat to the smooth functioning of our travelling world it gains agency.
Owen Thomas says
For me, even though I have read relatively little L&M previously, I find this L&M reading perhaps the most ‘familiar’ of those we have discussed so far. That’s no surprise given the position of ‘Hegemony and Socialist Strategy’ as a foundational work of the discourse analysis method.
Obviously, a recurrent theme of our discussions is the differing ways in which our selected authors conceive of the relationship between notions of discourse and materiality, and distinctions of discursive, and non-discursive. I’d like to start with something Eva wrote above,
Of course, one has to admit that L&M are not focusing on the relationship of discourse and materiality
I agree that L&M do not orientate their discussion toward a discussion of discourse and materiality in such a way as Bennett or Barad do in more recent work, however this seems to be for the reason that such a separation would be inimical to their project. L&M say,
This totality which includes within itself the linguistic and the non-linguistic is what we call discourse … by discourse we do not mean a combination of speech and writing, but rather that speech and writing are themselves internal components of discursive totalities. (p.82)
I think I have mentioned this before, but perhaps thinking in terms of 'discourses and materialities' is already adopting a biased ontological position. For L&M materialities are a kind of discursive act, albeit an extralinguistic one. L&M contend that discourse configures existence as meaningful. Actions make existence meaningful, but at the same time action and meaning are indistinguishable.
The use of a term is an act – in that sense if forms part of pragmatics; on the other hand, the meaning is only constituted in the contexts of actual use of the term: In that sense its semantics is entirely dependent upon its pragmatics, from which it can be separated – if at all – only analytically. That is to say, in our terminology, every identity or discursive object is constituted in the context of an action. (p. 82)
Accordingly, it is the act that makes discursive reality – beyond which there is existence “extraneous to any meaning” (p. 83). Thus for L&M discourse “constitutes the subject position of the social agent … the same system of rules that makes that spherical object into a football, makes me a player” (p.82). Barad and L&M present different accounts of the act by which objects are constituted, although both seem to agree that the notion of existence outside of discourse is absurd.
Perhaps when Nadine first voiced the suggestion that we need a 'new grammar,' part of that new grammar is a question of how to capture the terms of our debate without already introducing a certain ontological commitment or division.
I think Eva has done a great job outlining L&M’s ontology of discourse above so I wont go over that too much further. Sufficed to say that such a position is familiar to pragmatist ‘mind-dependent’ social construction theorists such as Richard Rorty (who I mentioned briefly in the Bennett form and will leave there), who also builds on a Wittensteinian platform. Such an ontological position seems, to me, directly at odds with the kind of ‘mind-independent’ ontology presented by Jane Bennett who suggests that there are “spirited actants” which reside outside of discourse. Would anyone disagree that Bennett is suggesting ‘mind-independent’ existence? I’m prepared to be convinced!
However as we mentioned in our last call, framing the discussion these terms tends to result in problematic discussions on whether, to quote Wittgenstein, “a nothing will do just as well as a something about which nothing can be said.” (Incidentally, I thought Eva last comment on the Bennett forum relating to biology was very interesting in this regard.)
My first point then, is that L&M reside on one side of the social construction coin that suggests the ‘brute’ status things are neither accessible nor capable of directly influencing our social world, and the ethical or geopolitical frameworks featured within them – they, as Eva rightly point out, require significant classification. Now I think Bennett’s work is something of a grey area, but the idea of “spirited actants” seems to be on the other side of the coin. The two seem somewhat inimical.
Where I think L&M are most helpful is in their assertion that our world is composed of (f)acts and not things and that these meanings constitute subject positions in a system of discourse. However I would have liked them to go slightly further toward developing this as a method – although I suppose that’s our job! – particularly in terms of providing a way of tracing how certain meanings become hegemonic. It is all very well to use the example of the subject positions entailed by playing football, after all these positions are written down in a book of rules and enforced by a referee who the players can see. In order to engage L&M’s work for critical security studies, it is necessary to uncover a system of discursive meanings – those held by natural and social phenomena – and, I would hope, understand how such a discursive system arose in the first place.
My second point then, is how do we use L&M’s ontology of discourse in security studies, methodologically? In part I suppose this entails unpacking how L&M conceive of the pragmatism that determines our actions and the meanings that are intertwined in them. This relates to Eva last point. How much agency is involved in this pragmatism? And why do we act toward the volcano in a particular way? It is helpful to consider I think that the volcano did not leap into existence on 20th March 2009, but it’s meaning did change dramatically. Why? What actant is responsible for this?
I think this entails a spatial and temporal consideration of discourse – or as I tried to categorise in the Barad forum ‘diachronic’ and ‘synchronic.’ This is one area where I think Barad and Foucault may be helpful, because thinking about material objects as a collection of discourses and things, but also utilizing a form of genealogy to trace the development of discursive formations, may help us to answer the question of agency and responsibility.
In pursuing this question further with regards to the volcano, I noticed this event:
Atlantic Conference on Eyjafjallajökull and Aviation International conference on the effects of the volcanic eruption in Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland on aviation
The conference will address the following questions
Now, I think it is a fair bet that poor old Eyjafjallajökull might get a large proportion of the responsibility, although blame may be located with the ‘failure’ of various agencies to predict and circumvent the volcano's effects. It is perhaps here that the role of non-human agency may be quite important, as changes to geopolitical space and boundary drawing could be argued as a necessary action because of the volcano’s function. To what extent will this conference question the discourses that necessitate these changes?
Maybe in this instance non-human agency does not bring clarity to the constitution of subjects and subjectivities but instead becomes yet another discursive act?
13 July 2010, 13:33
Eva Herschinger says
Please note: I have not included reactions to your comments, Owen, because I wrote my comments before I was aware of your post! Sorry!)
By focusing on relations, i.e. the relations a practice of articulation establishes between different elements of social practices which guide human action, G&H are explaining and advancing L&M’s idea concept of discourse relating different elements into a system of meaning further. Re-reading the text with an eye on the relationship between materialities and discourse, I would argue that G&H are conceiving the relationship above all via the notion of practices and, thereby, clarifying the relationship a little more than the L&M text (although it is also not the focus of G&H). Continuing on this, they say that they include the ontic/ontological distinction in a Heideggerian sense (p. 108): while they are studying empirical phenomena on the ontic level, this still includes an ontological inquiry as an ontical inquiry involves a reconstruction of phenomena in terms of one’s ontological presuppositions. I would understand this in a rather crude manner: on the one hand, practices we might study on the ontic level are given meaning by our ontological classifications; on the other hand, the classifications/presuppositions are the preconditions for the investigation of such practices (I hope this attempt to outline a co-constitutive relation makes sense…). Practices allow grasping the materiality of an object, of a phenomena and this allows us to investigate the latter.
To me, their focus on the contingency of practices that comes into play on page 109 is crucial: “Radical contingency opposes empirical contingency’s sense of possibility with a sense of impossibility: the constitutive failure of any objectivity to attain a full identity.” Crucial, since this failure and the radical contingency can be related to what we discussed on our possibilities of knowing the status of an object, of a thing. To me, this passage implies that our attempt to know something about the identity of an object is always doomed to fail since – if we grasp materiality via practice – the practice can never be fully constituted and, therefore, it will never grasp the ‘full essence’ of a thing.
Two points appear to be of further interest to us as these are issues we already discussed with the other articles: boundaries and agency. Let me start with boundaries since it allows addressing the question of methodology (by the way: this is one of the reasons why I worked with L&M universe). G&H say that practices– in particular political practices – “entail the construction of new frontiers to challenge old social structures” (p. 106) and that practices – and in particular a regime of practices – “is marked by an outside that partially constitute its identity and which carries the threat of subverting it” (p. 125). On the one hand, the concept of securitization is not very far from here (as an existential threat is essential to the act of securitization) and on the other it allows analyzing a field, a relation, a policy in terms of how subjectivity/identity construction works via the exclusion of others (objects and subjects), or to put it differently, is dependent on exclusionary practices. Thus, with this still a little crude methodological idea one can work one’s way towards the analysis of the dynamics of inclusion/exclusion in conflicts, cooperation etc. and the impact for the agency/subjectivity of actors.
My second point deals with their understanding of subjectivity/agency (I am putting here a slash, though I am really unsure whether this can be done...). Again they are reiterating that a subject as discursive construct depends on the relationship to other subjects and objects. And I would also say that human agency is central here – this becomes mainly visible by the need for identification as a central process in their conceptual universe.
Inasmuch as the actions of subjects emerge due to the contingency of discursive structures the subject always needs to situate itself anew. It is the dislocatory effect that makes subjects reconstitute their failed identities and social meanings by articulating and locating themselves in alternative discourses, as it is in the ‘nature’ of the discursive constitution of the social that articulations never cease, that subjects always struggle to identify with a signifier (due to the need to identify with something). It is political subjectivity, which is created in this process of constant identification and in this sense, the subject is not simply determined by the structure; nor, however, does it constitute the structure. (Sometimes, I asked myself in how far this understanding of subjectivity is still POSTstructuralist or if it is already POSTpoststructuralist…? But this seems to be an entirely different question!)
As always: Looking really forward to our discussion!
14 July 2010, 11:11
Nadine Voelkner says
Laclau & Mouffe’s comments on material objects and Glynos & Howarth’s piece on ontology are very interesting indeed so thank you Eva for suggesting this reading.
What struck me, and following also Eva and Owen’s posts, is the continued question about the (im)possibility of an outside discourse. Considering the theme of our cluster on the relation between materiality and discourse, this is turning out to be one of the more fundamental questions. In this context, what I find interesting is L&M’s differentiation between ‘being’ (inside discourse) and 'existence' (outside discourse). Secondly, I was excited about L&M’s point about the instability of objects and G&H’s point about boundaries, in fact reminiscent also of Bennett’s illustration of the Deleuzian assemblage. Finally, to the important question, how do we study this (method). Here, much like all the others, I think we can draw on L&M and G&H’s focus on processes, on acts/practices.
In relation to the first question, in my reading of L&M, rather than considering this an absurd possibility, I agree with Eva that they accede there is an outside of discourse. Similar to Foucault, considering also our earlier discussion about Foucault in the Bennett forum, they argue, “outside of any discursive context objects do not have being; they have only existence” (p.85). Their differentiation between 'being' and 'existence' is crucial here. The ‘being’ of a stone, the volcano, our sex (cf. Butler), or ‘natural facts’ are produced through us human beings (anthropos) giving meaning to these ‘material objects’. But, importantly, as L&M emphasize, “this does not put into question the fact that this entity which we call stone exists” (p.84).
A similar argument is made by Judith Butler in her book on "Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of 'Sex'", which we might want to consider for our future reading/discussion and/or for our library. Butler does not deny the physicality to human existence (in L&M’s understanding of the term) but argues that the way we conceive of/codify the materiality of the body, i.e. the identity we give to the body (e.g. male/female), is not a priori but the result of performative practices (doings or actions). Similar to Foucault, then, she is interested in “the notion of matter, not as site or surface, but as a process of materialization that stabilizes over time to produce the effect of boundary, fixity, and surface” (Butler, 1993:9). Put differently, she is interested in the objectification of materiality.
In fact, Butler’s notion of performativity and materialization is fundamental to Barad’s theorization of the discursive-material practices of mattering. While inspired by Butler, Barad departs from Butler, criticizing her (as well as Foucault!) for privileging discourse over materiality and re-inscribing the dichotomy of nature and culture. Indeed, and I would say the same of L&M, Butler (and Foucault) is first interested in how materiality (in Butler’s case the human body) materializes in the social.
Crucially, and this may reopen our debate on Barad’s conception of the relation between materiality and discourse, she argues, Butler (and others) neglects “material agency [!], material constraints, and material exclusions” (in Meeting the Universe Halfway, 2007: 24). Bear in mind that Barad’s most recent book was written almost ten years after ‘Getting Real’. In ‘Getting Real,’ like Owen, I felt Barad privileges discourse. It is on this basis that I suggested she is anthropocentric by which I mean the centering of humans in producing ‘being’ (sex, stone, volcano). I don’t recall what she had to say about material agency per se as I read parts of her book nearly two years ago (and looking for something else at the time) but, time permitting, I’d like to know what her stance now is.
The point remains, and I wholeheartedly agree, there is no truth outside discourse, in the sense that “the idea of a truth outside all context is simply nonsensical” (L&M, p.86), i.e. there is no Platonic metaphysical essence in my view. On the other hand, just because we cannot make sense of what goes on outside of discourse doesn’t mean that there isn’t something always going on outside of discourse (earth will still circumvent the sun though not of course in the way I am describing this activity). To bring in L&M’s analogy, if human beings did not exist on earth, “those objects we call stones would be there nonetheless” (L&M, p.84).
This brings me to the second point which fundamentally differentiates Bennett (maybe also the recent Barad?) from Laclau and Mouffe, Butler, and Foucault.
Bennett is interested in movement in the physical world. This movement is what she terms thing-power or agency. But her use of the term agency, I still believe, is to aid our understanding her departure from anthropocentrism/human exceptionalism, i.e. human agency or human production, and to emphasize the non-human production by materiality like electrons, of air, of cells, of plastic, regardless of whether humans exist or not. Look beyond human agency to the more general capacity to affect. We don’t have to call this agency but thing-force. Quite right, for Bennett, materiality is ‘alive’ in the sense that it exceeds its status as objects and can manifest “traces of independence or aliveness, constituting the outside of our own experience” (in Vibrant Matter, 2010:xvi). Thus, thing-power can produce, regardless of human discourse. Put differently, thing-power produces outside of discourse. Hence, life in terms of vibrancy is not the sole remit of human beings but non-human materiality is vibrant too. Thus, both humans and nonhumans can be ‘spirited actants’.
Is she mind-independent? I think Bennett is moving beyond this kind of either/or question. She is interested in developing a new grammar to conceive of materiality’s role in the world in which humans are but one (small) factor. She wants to move beyond subject/object. Her call is to explore the possibility of affecting human and non-human bodies whether or not they are objects of knowledge (i.e. the possibility of affect/action/movement/agency radically free of representation). So, yes, we need a new grammar. Anyway, just a few thoughts and could go on forever so I’ll stop here for now.
The third point I wanted to flag up concerns L&M’s point about the instability of objects. What do they mean by this? They note, and I agree, the ‘being’ of things is different from their mere ‘existence’. Objects, they argue, are always articulated within discursive totalities. And discursive totalities, as most will agree, are never absolutely closed. Importantly, in L&M’s words, “there will always be an outside which distorts [discursive totality] and prevents it from fully constituting itself”. Thus, objects of discourse are instable because discourses are instable. L&M are mainly concerned with the outside of discourse as the site of other discourses. Since this is not of course their problem, other than mentioning the realm of ‘existence’ outside of ‘being,’ they leave us in suspense what the ‘existence’ of an object actually entails. What if the outside distorts discursive totality because there are not just other discourses but also non-discursive movement outside of a specific discourse?
Following Bennett, I take a discursive totality to be an assemblage. Similar to L&M’s notion of discursive totalities, Bennett argues an assemblage is “a living, throbbing grouping whose coherence coexists with energies and countercultures that exceed and confound it” (in blackout article, 2005:445n2). For one, these energies and countercultures will come from the 'existence' of things which is different to the 'being' that things assume in discourse (as L&M themselves argue). Indeed, as Bennett argues, “each member actant maintains an energetic pulse slightly ‘off’ from that exuded by the assemblage [discursive totality]”.
Finally, quite right, as Owen points out, whatever we believe in relation to this, the overarching question remains, how do we study materiality in relation to discourses of security.
Following L&M and G&H, the focus must be on the human practices which produce different forms of 'being' (whether the stone or our form of life).
If we look to Butler, then we also focus on the human practices (performative practices), the iterative practices through which bodies are given meaning/identity.
If we look to Barad, then we focus on the material-discursive practices. Put differently, we consider the way human-, non-human material, and human discourse entangle to produce a phenomenon. Here, Barad follows Haraway in using the diffractive method (imagine the movement of water after throwing a pebble into water). In this way, Barad investigates boundary-producing practices, the production of object/subject and other differentiations in terms of relationality (e.g. water, pebble, interpretation, water speed).
If we focus on Bennett, then we theorize events (a blackout, a volcano eruption, a plane crash, rubbish) as “encounters between ontologically diverse actants, some human, some not, though all thoroughly material” (in Vibrant Matter, 2010: xiv).
Look forward to our chat next week! Nadine
15 July 2010, 17:06
Claudia Aradau says
I hadn’t read the two pieces that Eva suggested so it was nice to get reminded of some of the debates around discourse theory (as least L&M name it ‘theory’ at some point). I agree with some of the points that L&M make and I’ve also got a few sceptical comments. Before I get to those, it became increasingly clear to me that the texts we’ve read so far speak to different ontologies and that sets a limit to devising a ‘new grammar’ because one cannot mix these ontologies as they can be incompatible.
The point I take from L&M is that of mediation through discourse. How can we have access to things if not through discourse they ask? The fact that things can ‘be’ (versus ‘exist’) different objects resonates with Foucault’s point about the distinction between things and objects. In that sense, the discussion of the difference between ‘being’ and ‘existence’ that Nadine has pointed out would function in relation to the thing/object distinction. However, the first concept I had problems with is that of ‘discursive totality’. It was unclear to me what totality means, except that it was a non-dialectical totality. However, how can totality have an outside if it is totality? The building example did not really help either, as one can only think of a building as not the totality of the bricklayering process but also part of other practices, assemblages etc. Barad would also ask: what are the boundaries of the building? More interestingly, ‘totality’ does not surface in the G&H chapter and I was wondering whether they use it at all elsewhere. Is there a difference between ‘discourse as totality’ and ‘discursive totality’?
The other thing that I like is the fact that we grasp reality through a system of relations as Eva has pointed out. L&M name this system of relations ‘discourse’, Bennett and Deleuze and other may name it ‘assemblage’, Foucault ‘dispositif’, G&H regime of practices, Barad ‘apparatus’. I wonder though whether using ‘discourse’ for a ‘system of relations’ can lead to misunderstandings. L&M want to give ontological primacy to discourse - though it may be that ‘totality’ is equally important. Yet, if we agree that we need a new grammar perhaps what these different readings tell us is that we actually analyse relations. And to make a link with security, this is then not about exception, threat/enemy etc. but about how particular systems of relations work. For L&M (as for Barad) all systems of relations entail exclusions (as totality can never be ‘total’, complete, closed). This raises an interesting question for me about what kind of assemblage, system, discourse, materiality, material-discursive practice etc. security is. Some of the literature has by now equated security with the social, biopolitics etc. to challenge the realist underpinning of the ‘securitization’ definition a la Copenhagen School. Yet, I find this problematic (though also guilty of it) for two reasons: one, in the Foucauldian vein, it is based on a mis-translation of French; second, it implies that the security is about any assemblage, discourse, material-discursive practice. If all totality is incomplete and is based on an exclusion, does it mean we speak about security? I think not. Similarly I think Barad traces very different boundary effects but not sure why we should name this security. And back to the translation – it seems the English translation and Foucauldian have been inattentive to the distinction between ‘süreté’ and ‘sécurité’. The former referred to what we call ‘national security’. The latter much more ‘social security’. Although now the differences may have become increasingly blurred, given Foucault’s interest in social security, I am tempted to speculate that the dispositif he called ‘security’ has more in common with this understanding of security (hence the very particular meaning of policing in French).
L&M also equate the discursive with the social. In that sense, their reading of nature chimes with what geographers have called ‘the social construction of nature’. Nature is the result of human interventions and representations. There is another approach though that – in similar ways to the debates about ‘discourse’ and ‘materiality’ – bring in the ‘production of nature’. It may be interesting to read some of this.
The discussion of the relation between the social, discourse and security takes me to the G&H chapter. They are interesting because they work with the distinction between social and political practices. In that sense, they introduce a distinction that is not in L&M text (though Mouffe writes then later on the political). However, if the social=totality=discourse, anything else can only be part of the sum of all parts (of course, if we understand totality as non-dialectical). So not sure how the distinction between the social and the political works in G&H.
21 July 2010, 06:55