Collaboratory in Critical Security Methods
The International Collaboratory on Critical Methods in Security Studies is an ESRC funded project (RES-810-21-0072)
Library
Rose (1997) Situating knowledges: positionality, reflexivities and other tactics
This article addresses the discussion, particularly prominent among feminist geograph- ers, of reflexivity as a strategy for marking geographical knowledges as situated. It argues that, if the aim of feminist and other critical geographies is to acknowledge their partiality, then the particular form of reflexivity advocated needs careful consideration. Feminist geographers most often recommend a kind of reflexivity that aims, even if only ideally, at a full understanding of the researcher, the researched and the research context. The article begins with the author's failure at that kind of reflexivity, and that particular reflexivity is then discussed and described as `transparent' in its ambitious claims to comprehensive knowledge. The article then goes on to explore critiques of transparent reflexivity, many of which have been made by feminist geographers themselves. The article concludes by suggesting that some recent discussions of the uncertainties of research practice offer another model of feminist reflexivity that may succeed more effectively in questioning the researcher's practice of knowledge production.
Rabinow (2008) Anthropology of the Contemporary
Paul Rabinow is the Director of the collaboratory Anthropological Research on the Contemporary (ARC). ARC is devoted to collaborative inquiry into contemporary forms of life labor and language, it engages in empirical study and conceptual work with global reach and long-term perspective and creates contemporary equipment for work on collaborative projects and problems in the 21st century.
Paul Rabinow's talk on ARC is available on YouTube.
Kangas (2009) From Interfaces to Interpretants: A Pragmatist Exploration into Popular Culture
Kangas, Anni (2009), "From Interfaces to Interpretants: A Pragmatist Exploration into Popular Culture". In: Millennium: Journal of International Studies Vol.38 No.2, pp. 317–343
Anni Kangas provides one means of approaching popular culture from the viewpoint of pragmatics, more specifically the theory of signs and semeiosis by Charles S. Peirce. Such an approach could be one avenue for approaching visuality and symbols within critical studies of security as well.
Law (2004) And if the Global were Small and Noncoherent? Method, Complexity, and the Baroque
Law, John (2004), "And if the Global were Small and Noncoherent? Method, Complexity, and the Baroque". In: Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 22(1) pp. 13-26
What is it to be big? What is it to be small? And what is it to be global? Common sense,
including a good deal of the common sense underlying network metaphors for complex globality,
involves the assumption that the global is large, that it includes the (smaller) local, and that to
understand it we need to adopt a holistic approach in which we look up to explore emergent
complexities, and so obtain a provisional overview of the whole. In this paper I argue, following
Bigo et al (2007) Mapping the Field of EU Internal Security Agencies
Bigo, Didier; Bondotti, Philippe; Bonelli, Laurent and Olsson, Christian (2007), "Mapping the Field of EU Internal Security Agencies". Paper produced for the Changing Landscape of European Liberty and Security (CHALLENGE) Project of the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS)
This study is the result of a collective endeavour aiming at documenting, analysing, and understanding the dynamics underlying the European field of security. It has been constituted by the whole of the French Team (WP2) of the CHALLENGE project. The results presented in this study allow for preliminary conclusions regarding the overall processes underlying the European field of professionals of security. It also provides, along with four deliverables already produced with substantial empirical details concerning the field’s main agencies and institutions.
Bonelli and Bigo (2005) Mapping the European Union field of the professionals of security, A methodological note on the problematique
Bonelli, Laurent and Bigo, Didier (2005), "Mapping the European Union field of the professionals of security, A methodological note on the problematique" Synthesis report of two seminars organized at Sciences Po Paris (France) on October 10, 2005 and November 9, 2005.
The core of the investigation is to assess the impact of antiterrorist activities and legislation after 2001 in the European Union on struggle against crime, corruption, money laundering, and also on other illegal activities, including migration.
Dreyfus and Rabinow (1982) Michel Foucault : Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics- Chapter 4
Dreyfus, Hubert L. and Rabinow, Paul (1982), "Michel Foucault : Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics", Brighton: Harvester, Chapter 4.
These chapters (4 and 5) discuss the differences between Foucault's 'archaeology' and 'genealogy'. Along with a chapter from Paul Veyne, this forms the basis of our starting discussion in the Method 5 forum.
Marcus (1995) Ethnography in/of the World System: The Emergence of Multi-Sited Ethnography
George A. Marcus (1995), "Ethnography in/of the World System: The Emergence of Multi-Sited Ethnography ". In: Annual Review of Anthropology, vol. 24, pp. 95-117.
In this article George A. Marcus reviews the potentialities of multi-sited ethnography contra single-sited methodologies. According to Marcus, mutli-sited ethnography offers an epistemic and methodological palette enabling it to go beyond spatial or conceptual dichotomies usually limiting single-sited ethnography. Marcus discusses some potential criticisms or anxieties multi-sited ethnography might face and provides several "tracking" strategies for potential interdisciplinary researches that are at the heart of such methodological and epistemic posture.
Campbell (2003) Cultural governance and pictoral resistance
Discusses the critical spaces presented in images, and argues for the need of such critical visuality to not make itself an elite project, remaining up to speed with visuality deployed in the interest of popular governance and conduct of war.
Latour (1999) The Trouble with Actor Network Theory
Latour, Bruno (1999), "The trouble with Actor Network Theory". In: Soziale Welt, 47, pp 369-381.
This online paper by Bruno Latour offers an overview of some of the tenets of and misconceptions about Actor Network Theory. Three resources have been developed over the ages to deal with agencies. The first one is to attribute to them naturality and to link them with nature. The second one is to grant them sociality and to tie them with the social fabric. The third one is to consider them as a semiotic construction and to relate agency with the building of meaning.