Cosmopolitics Masters course, summer semester 2017 Tuesdays between 10.00 and 12.00 in Seminar Pavillon SP 0.04 Dr. Endre Dányi Department of Sociology, Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany Web: http://www.fb03.uni-frankfurt.de/46226207/edanyi E-Mail: danyi@em.uni-frankfurt.de Dr. Michaela Spencer The Northern Institute, Charles Darwin University, Darwin, Australia Web: http://www.cdu.edu.au/northern-institute/our-teams/michaela-spencer E-mail: Michaela.Spencer@cdu.edu.au *** Please don’t forget to enrol for the course on OLAT! *** https://olat-ce.server.uni-frankfurt.de/olat/auth/RepositoryEntry/4761550862 Course description One understanding of cosmopolitics can be traced back to Kant and associated with the extension of a particular – western, European, modern – way of being to the entire world. However, in an era of ecological crises, refugee movements, and increasing calls for indigenous sovereignty, such understandings of cosmopolitics seem neither possible nor desirable. If we want to engage meaningfully with such issues, we need to learn to do politics between different worlds. How is this possible? The aim of this advanced masters course is to address this question with the help of such renowned anthropologists, sociologists, and philosophers as Ulrich Beck, Bruno Latour, Isabelle Stengers, Helen Verran, and Eduardo Viveiros de Castro. Course structure The course is divided into two parts. In the first part, we discuss a set of readings which exhibit a variety ways scholars have figured differences of the West and its ‘others’ as studies of cosmopolitics. Each reading forwards a particular proposition around this topic, and in the process of doing so also generates resources that can be drawn on by other scholars. In the second part of the course, we consider how we might use these resources in our own empirical works in the Northern Territory in Australia, which are parts of an ongoing collaboration between the Department of Sociology at the Goethe University in Frankfurt and the Northern Institute at the Charles Darwin University in Darwin. More specifically, we collectively explore the possibilities of generating a cosmopolitical sensitivity at a time when the capacities of mainstream western political practices to deal with differences within and beyond their own framing appear increasingly limited. -1- Assessment All participants are expected to regularly attend and actively participate in the seminars, and comment on the readings and other materials on OLAT. Those students who need a mark for the course are expected to write a final paper of 5,000 words, due 1 September 2017. Detailed outline 1) Introduction (18 April 2017) What is this course about? What are the requirements? How to access the readings? Where to comment on them? These are some of the questions we discuss in the first session. Please don’t forget to enrol for the course on OLAT. Part 1: Cosmopolitics in the library 2) Cosmopolitan democracy (25 April 2017) The 1990s, as David Held has observed, deserves to be remembered as an era of democracy. The end of the Cold War gave birth to new problems, but also to new fantasies about politics – both in the former West and in the former East. In this session we trace the characteristics of one such fantasy, cosmopolitan democracy, first articulated by Immanuel Kant in a short piece on perpetual peace. Required readings: Held 1995; Kant [1795] 1970 Recommended readings: Archibugi 2003 3) Cosmopolitical realism (2 May 2017) In light of today’s political developments, cosmopolitan democracy as articulated by Held, Archibugi, and others seems rather idealistic. But would a more realistic version of cosmopolitanism be feasible and desirable? Ulrich Beck’s response, which constitutes the first part of a famous debate published in Common Knowledge, is a firm ‘yes’. This session is centred around Beck’s proposal, which he refers to as ‘cosmopolitical realism’ – in contrast with universalism and relativism as standard ways of dealing with otherness. Required reading: Beck 2004a Recommended readings: Beck 2000; Beck 2004b 4) A cosmopolitical proposal (9 May 2017) Beck’s understanding of cosmopolitan realism is certainly attractive if we envision the world (or the cosmos) as something that consists of a plurality of nation-states or cultures. But this is a -2- very specific understanding of the world, which – in its perceived openness – makes it difficult for other understandings to become articulable. This, at least, is what Bruno Latour argues, who in his response to Beck contrasts cosmopolitanism with cosmopolitics – a term associated with Isabelle Stengers’ work. Required readings: Latour 2004; Stengers 2005 Recommended readings: Braun & Whatmore 2010; Stengers 2010 5) Towards richer ontologies (16 May 2017) As a third (and somewhat accidental) participant in the debate between Ulrich Beck and Bruno Latour, Eduardo Viveiros de Castro accentuates the difference between cosmopolitanism and cosmopolitics by contrasting Western and Amerindian ways of knowing. According to him, what we are confronted with is not simply different views of the same world, but different worlds as such. In order to understand that kind of difference, we need to shift our attention from epistemology to ontology. Required reading: Viveiros de Castro 2004a Recommended reading: Viveiros de Castro 2004b 6) Indigenous politics and the limits of liberal democracy (23 May 2017) How does cosmopolitics, that is, the politics of different worlds, fit the institutional landscape of liberal democracy? Not very well, argues Marisol de la Cadena. Indigenous politics is often perceived as ethno-politics both on the left and on the right of the political spectrum, framing historical and current injustices primarily in terms of racism and (neo-)colonialism. While this is sometimes useful, de la Cadena suggests that we focus on the ways in which Indigenous politics may slow down and question ‘politics as usual’. Required reading: de la Cadena 2010 Recommended readings: Povinelli 2016; Sawyer seminars on indigenous cosmopolitics (http://sawyerseminar.ucdavis.edu/) 7) The limits of cosmopolitics (30 May 2017) What does it mean to recognise the presence of an implicit cosmopolitics within the knowledge practices of the academy? Mario Blaser begins to consider the effect of taking ontological difference seriously when this is reflected back on the social sciences. His suggestion is that taking an ontological approach to the engagement of differing traditions may help to shield against the possibility of one tradition inadvertently obscuring or eclipsing another. Required reading: Blaser 2013 Recommended readings: Blaser 2014; Blaser 2016 -3- 8) Cosmopolitical research (6 June 2017) Attending to situations where different knowledge traditions meet clearly affects academia. At the same time, academics may also affect such situations – in other words, they may also be caught up in doing cosmopolitics. As an involved researcher caught up in the action, Helen Verran takes on the role of a ‘philosophical translator’: an empirical researcher who pays attention to ways difference is being done in the field, as well as to how such means might also be revealed and maintained in the crafting of an academic text. Required readings: Verran 2002; Verran 2008 Recommended reading: Verran 2013 Part 2: Cosmopolitics in the field 9) Empirical case: Milingimbi Water (13 June 2017) On the small Aboriginal island of Milingimbi in northern Australia, Yolngu clan groups have been managing the island’s water flows for many thousands of years, caring for the two different waters of the Yirritja and Dhuwa moieties. These days, Western scientists and resource managers are increasingly worried that the groundwater supplies for the island are becoming exhausted. In the search for appropriate means for managing Milingimbi’s water, different ways of knowing and governing water come to the fore. Required readings: Buthimang 2008; Dányi and Spencer 2016a Recommended reading: Yolngu Aboriginal Consultants Initiative 2010 10) Empirical case: Common ground (20 June 2017) ‘The Intervention’ was a policy introduced by the federal Australian government in 2007, and imposed on Indigenous communities through the temporary institution of martial law and the arrival of army troops in remote communities. This policy was contested on a variety of fronts, including through the convening of a special public version of the Yolngu Ngarra’ law ceremony. It was through this ceremony that Yolngu elders in Arnhem Land insisted on the presence of a working legal system that ‘The Intervention’ contravened and failed to take into account. Required reading: Riyawarray 2008; Dányi & Spencer 2016b Recommended reading: Tracking the Intervention 2007; What is the NT Intervention? 2016 11) Empirical case: A new Indigenous representative in the NT parliament (27 June 2017) -4- In early 2017, after a hard fought election campaign, a senior Yolngu man, Yingiya Mark Guyula, was inaugurated as a sitting member of the Northern Territory Parliament. He is not Australia’s first Indigenous parliamentarian, however he has been the first to run on a platform of ‘Treaty’ and to openly acknowledge that his authority is derived from both Yolngu law and the Australian parliamentary system. His presence in parliament has been rather controversial, serving to unsettle practices and assumptions of liberal democracy as usual. Required Readings: NT parliamentary opening day 2017; Use of Language in Legislative Assembly 2017; New MLA ‘doesn’t want to make decisions for all’ 2016 Recommended readings: O’Malley Gray 1990; What might a treaty look like? 2017 12) Empirical case: Remote Engagement and Coordination-Indigenous Evaluation Research (RECIER) project (4 July 2017) A commitment to collaborative research between Western and Indigenous knowledge authorities throws up interesting challenges for both. Here we focus on a project centred around evaluating government engagement in several Northern Australian Indigenous communities, and attempts at working separately and together within the recognition that the concept of ‘engagement’ is itself not necessarily shared by participating researchers, or by government and community members. Required reading: RECIER website 2017 Recommended reading: Northern Territory Government, Remote Engagement and Coordination Strategy 2016 13) Cosmopolitics at home? (11 July 2017) Does cosmopolitics only happen elsewhere, in indigenous communities? For this session course participants will be asked to present specific instances where they feel politics occurs between different worlds, and thereby upsets ‘politics as usual’. 14) Concluding session (18 July 2017) In the final session of the course we will be discussing possible topics for the final paper. Please prepare in advance a short (1 page) outline and send it to Endre and Michaela via email, or post it in the forum on OLAT. -5- List of required and recommended readings Archibugi, D. (2003). Debating Cosmopolitics. Verso. Beck, U. (2004a). The Truth of Others: A Cosmopolitan Approach. Common Knowledge, 10(3), 430–449. Beck, U. (2004b). Cosmopolitical realism: On the distinction between cosmopolitanism in philosophy and the social sciences. Global Networks: A Journal of Transnational Affairs, 4(2), 131–156. Beck, U. (2000). What Is Globalization? John Wiley & Sons. Blaser, M. (2016). Is Another Cosmopolitics Possible? Cultural Anthropology, 31(4), 545–570. Blaser, M. (2014). Ontology and indigeneity: on the political ontology of heterogeneous assemblages. Cultural Geographies, 21(1), 49–58. Blaser, M. (2013). Ontological Conflicts and the Stories of Peoples in Spite of Europe. Current Anthropology, 54(5), 547–568. Braun, B., & Whatmore, S. (2010). Political Matter: Technoscience, Democracy, and Public Life. University of Minnesota Press. Dányi, E., & Spencer, M. (2016a) ‘Power and Water on an Aboriginal Island.’ Paper presented at the Alien Energy workshop at the IT University in Copenhagen. Dányi, E., & Spencer, M (2016b) ‘Common Ground: Centres, scales and the politics of difference.’ Paper presented at the 4S/EASST conference in Barcelona. de la Cadena, M. (2010). Indigenous cosmopolitics in the Andes: Conceptual reflections beyond “politics.” Cultural Anthropology, 25(2), 334–370. Held, D. (1995). Cosmopolitan Democracy and the Global Order: Reflections on the 200th Anniversary of Kant's ‘Perpetual Peace’. Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, 20(4), 415–429. Kant, I. (2007). Perpetual Peace. Filiquarian Publishing, LLC. Latour, B. (2004). Whose Cosmos, Which Cosmopolitics? Comments on the Peace Terms of Ulrich Beck. Common Knowledge, 10(3), 450–462. Stengers, I. (2010). Cosmopolitics I. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Stengers, I. (2005). The cosmopolitical proposal. In B. Latour and P. Weibel (eds.) Making Things Public: Atmospheres of Democracy, MIT Press. -6- Viveiros de Castro, E. (2004a). Exchanging Perspectives: The Transformation of Objects into Subjects in Amerindian Ontologies. Common Knowledge, 10(3), 463–484. Viveiros de Castro, E. (2004b). Perspectival anthropology and the method of controlled equivocation. Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America, 2(1). Verran, H. (2013). Engagements between disparate knowledge traditions: Toward doing difference generatively and in good faith. Contested ecologies: Dialogues in the South on nature and knowledge, 141-161. Verran, H. (2008). Science and the Dreaming. Issues, (82), 23. Verran, H. (2002). A postcolonial moment in science studies alternative firing regimes of environmental scientists and aboriginal landowners. Social Studies of Science, 32(5-6), 729-762. Empirical sources Buthimaŋ, T. (2008) Garmak Gularriwuy: Gularri Water http://www.cdu.edu.au/centres/yaci/pdf/Buthimang_Gularri.pdf Independent Candidate for Nhulunbuy (2016) http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-03-09/independent-candidate-for-nhulunbuy-calls-forindigenous-treaty/7233392 New MLA doesn’t want to make decisions for all (2017) http://www.ntnews.com.au/news/northern-territory/new-mla-doesnt-want-to-make-decisions-forall/news-story/ac109e6e214d62ae57f76c8816ae7656 Northern Territory Government, Remote Engagement and Coordination Strategy (2016) https://dhcd.nt.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/188523/REC-Strategy-160926.pdf Northern Territory Parliamentary Opening Day (2016) https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=ABC%20Darwin%20nt%20parliament O’Malley Gray, M. (1990) Our Say: Yolngu in Arnhem Land https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dn9ASZrGumE&list=PL35E3527734253695&index=8 RECIER website (2017) https://www.cdu.edu.au/centres/recier/ -7- Remote Engagement and Coordination Strategy (2016) https://dhcd.nt.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/188523/REC-Strategy-160926.pdf Tracking the Intervention (2007) http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/special_eds/20071105/intervention/ Use of Language in Legislative Assembly (2016) http://www.yingiya.net/news/motion-use-of-language-in-legislative-assembly What is the NT Intervention? (2016) https://www.monash.edu/law/research/centres/castancentre/our-research-areas/indigenousresearch/the-northern-territory-intervention/the-northern-territory-intervention-anevaluation/what-is-the-northern-territory-intervention What might a treaty look like? (2017) http://www.cdu.edu.au/conference/gov-summit/index.php/2017/03/16/what-might-a-treaty-looklike/ Yolngu Aboriginal Consultants Initiative (2010) Milingimbi Water Djaka gapuw ŋamathang Care properly for our water. Report to the Power and Water Corporation https://www.powerwater.com.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0014/32135/Water_resource_manageme nt_-_Millingimbi_Water_-_care_properly_for_our_water.pdf -8-