Collaboratory in Critical Security Methods
The International Collaboratory on Critical Methods in Security Studies is an ESRC funded project (RES-810-21-0072)
Method 4: Situated knowledge
This group is interested in knowledge and practice as a situated phenomenon. The object of our study is situations that include multiple problematiques, with security being one amongst others. More
Roberts (1999) Philosophizing the everyday
Roberts, John (1999), "Philosophizing the everyday. The philosophy of praxis and the fate of cultural studies". In: Radical Philosophy, 98 (November/December 1999), pp. 16 - 29
The piece offers a coherent genealogy and critique of the concept of the 'everyday'. In this respect, it is useful for a wider discussion about the status and nature of situated knowledge, because it brings together the philosophy of praxis developed by Lukacs and the critical theory of Benjamin, with Lefebvre's ideas about resistance (and their incorporation into the Situationists' thinking) and with de Certeau's thoughts about everyday practices.
Emirbayer and Mische (1998) What is Agency?
Mustafa Emirbayer and Ann Mische (1998), "What is Agency?". In: American Journal of Sociology, vol. 103, pp. 962-1023.
This article aims (1) to analytically disaggregate agency into its sev- eral component elements (though these are interrelated empirically), (2) to demonstrate the ways in which these agentic dimensions interpenetrate with forms of structure, and (3) to point out the implications of such a conception of agency for empirical research.
Routledge (1996) The Third Space as Critical Engagement
An interesting discussion from a critical geographyer of the intersections between academia and activism - relates to the question of how we negotiate our own situatedness in research.
No abstract available
What is 'critical' about 'critical security studies' ? [thoughts for Stockholm roundtable]
For a long time, in International Relations and Security Studies at least, to be ‘critical’ is almost entirely congruent to being against the established Realist and Positivist tradition. This is associated with the end of the Cold War, and with the drastic changes that were made possible or enabled in our way of thinking by that moment. Twenty years after, critical IR theory (and a great part of Security thinking as well) seems to be still blocked in a perceived necessity to provide arguments against the pre-1990 tradition.
Huysmans (2010) What is in an act? Dispersing politics of insecurity
Huysmans, J. What is in an act? Dispersing politics of insecurity. Paper prepared for The Politics of Securitization, Conference organized by the Centre for Advanced Security Theory (CAST), 13-14 September 2010, Copenhagen.
First draft of a paper that examines what the politics of insecurity can be in securitising processes that efface acts. Please, do not quote without permission of the author. Comments most welcome.
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.
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
GRAC (2009) Ressaisir la citoyenneté aux bords du politique
Groupe Recherche Action (2009), "Ressaisir la citoyenneté aux bords du politique : expériences marginales et expériences instituées de participation politique à l'épreuve des projets de rénovation urbaine dans trois pays : Catalogne, France et Québec." Paris: Ministère de l'écologie, de l'énergie, du développement durable et de l'aménagement du territoire et de la mer.
This project consists in sociologically telling the forms of expression and action of political actors who are institutionally not part of public affairs because they are considered as being unable to contribute to define the common world. "Ordinary citizens" "marginals," "radical activists", "illegal migrants", etc.: a set of actors considered as partially incompetent or who are ignored in the regular political devices, but who nevertheless do participate in a political way to the transformation of city uses.
Haraway (1988) Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective
Haraway, Donna (1988), "Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective". In: Feminist Studies, Vol. 14, No. 3. (Autumn, 1988), pp. 575-599.
This article confronts at least one dimension of the situated question, and that is our own situatedness, initiating an important discussion on the possibility/necessity of objectivity in our research. Haraway is concerned with recovering the potential of scientific practice from radical constructivist feminism, and raises a number of relevant questions and problematics for those attempting to negotiate and situate their own knowledge production.
Boltanski and Thévenot (1999) The Sociology of Critical Capacity
Boltanski, Luc and Thévenot, Laurent (1999), "The Sociology of Critical Capacity." In: European Journal of Social Theory. Vol. 2, No. 3, pp. 359 - 377
This article argues that many situations in social life can be analyzed by their requirement for the justification of action. It is in particular in situations of dispute that a need arises to explicate the grounds on which responsibility for errors is distributed and on which new agreement can be reached.