Sociotechnical Aspects of Globalisation Master’s seminar within the ‘Globalisation and Mobility’ module, Fall Trimester 2019, 15:00-16:30 on Tuesdays in Building 33, Room 1311 Dr. Endre Dányi Guest Professor for the Sociology of Globalisation Faculty of Social Sciences, Bundeswehr University Munich Werner-Heisenberg-Weg 39, 85577 Neubiberg, Germany Office: Building 33, Room 3113 Email: e.danyi@unibw.de Tel.: +498960044518 *** Don’t forget to register on Canvas *** Course description Globalisation has often been discussed as a process of ‘scaling up’, as if the global was the largest or highest level of analysis of social phenomena. Inspired by a range of works in history, cultural anthropology, human geography and the sociology of science and technology, this course intends to disrupt this line of ‘scalar’ reasoning by examining how the global can be thought of as the effect of diverse, inherently local sociotechnical practices. More specifically, the seminars discuss what versions of ‘the globe’ are being inscribed into the infrastructures of global modernity, from the management of pandemics through the regulation of the World Wide Web to the governance of climate change. The seminars are part of the module ‘Globalisation and Mobility’ and take place on a weekly basis from the 8th October to the 10th December 2019. The final grade comprises of regular attendance and active participation in the seminars (which includes posting weekly commentaries on the required readings; 25%), an in-class presentation of a recommended reading (25%), and a final paper of 6-8000 words (50%), due the 15th January 2020 (more on the latter below). Optional excursion If you are interested, I’m happy to organise an excursion to the Deutsches Museum (https://www.deutsches-museum.de/), the world’s largest museum of science and technology, sometime during the third or the fourth week of the term. It would fit really well with our discussion of the Cold War. -1- Course outline 1) Introduction (8 October 2019) What is this course about? How does this course relate to others within the ‘Globalisation and Mobility’ module? What are the requirements? Where can one find the readings, the discussion forum and other course-related resources? These are some of the questions we’ll address in the first session. 2) Romantic and baroque complexity (15 October 2019) How do the social sciences deal with reality in its complexity? The answer partly depends on what we understand by ‘complexity’. In the first half of this session we discuss the differences between romantic and baroque versions of the term, whereas in the second half we consider how we might think about ‘the global’ in baroque and romantic ways. In a sense, the rest of the course is a baroque exploration of globalisation. Required readings: Mol, Annemarie and John Law. 2002. “Complexities: An Introduction.” In John Law and Annemarie Mol (eds.). Complexities: Social Studies of Knowledge Practices. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, pp. 1-22. Kwa, Chunglin. 2002. “Romantic and Baroque Conceptions of Complex Wholes in the Sciences.” In John Law and Annemarie Mol (eds.). Complexities: Social Studies of Knowledge Practices. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, pp. 23-52. Recommended readings: Law, John. 2004. “And if the Global Were Small and Noncoherent? Method, Complexity, and the Baroque.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 22 (1): 13–26. Selected chapters from John Law and Annemarie Mol. 2002. Complexities: Social Studies of Knowledge Practices. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Additional reading: Law, John and Evelyn Ruppert. 2016. Modes of Knowing: Resources from the Baroque. Manchester: Mattering Press. 3) The Global of the Cold War (22 October 2019) Contemporary conceptualisations of ‘the global’ are not timeless; they are, to a large extent, the products of the Cold War (see, for example, the development of the Internet). How can historical accounts of science and technology help us better understand power relations inscribed into global infrastructures established in the shadows of a nuclear meltdown? And how durable are those power relations today, in the era of climate change? These are the main questions we’ll discuss in this session. Optional: excursion to the Deutsches Museum (https://www.deutsches-museum.de/) -2- Required readings: Oreskes, Naomi. 2014. “Science in the Origins of the Cold War.” In Naomi Oreskes and John Krige (eds.) Science and Technology in the Global Cold War. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 11-30. Oreskes, Naomi. 2014. “Changing the Mission: From the Cold War to Climate Change” In Naomi Oreskes and John Krige (eds.) Science and Technology in the Global Cold War. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 141-188. Recommended readings: Selected chapters from Naomi Oreskes and John Krige. 2014. Science and Technology in the Global Cold War. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Additional readings: Hecht, Gabrielle. 2011. Entangled Geographies: Empire and Technopolitics in the Global Cold War. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Serres, Michel. 1995. The Natural Contract. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. 4) Global Assemblages (29 October 2019) Whereas the previous session looked at ‘the global’ as a historically specific development, this week’s session engages more closely with ‘the global’ as a set of assemblages that can be traced in (almost) real time. More precisely, it looks at the possibility of tracing global connections anthropologically and, in turn, examines the kinds of challenges those global connection pose for anthropology as a discipline. Required readings: Collier, Stephen J. and Ahiwa Ong. 2005. “Global Assemblages, Anthropological Problems.” In Aihwa Ong and Stephen J. Collier (eds.) Global Assemblages: Technology, Politics, and Ethics as Anthropological Problems. Oxford: WileyBlackwell, pp. 3-21. Collier, Stephen J. and Andrew Lakoff. 2005. “On Regimes of Living.” In Aihwa Ong and Stephen J. Collier (eds.) Global Assemblages: Technology, Politics, and Ethics as Anthropological Problems. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 22-39. Rabinow, Paul. 2005. “Midst Anthropology’s Problems.” In Aihwa Ong and Stephen J. Collier (eds.) Global Assemblages: Technology, Politics, and Ethics as Anthropological Problems. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 40-54. Recommended readings: Selected chapters from Aihwa Ong and Stephen J. Collier. 2005. Global Assemblages: Technology, Politics, and Ethics as Anthropological Problems. Oxford: WileyBlackwell. -3- Additional readings: Otto, Ton, and Nils Bubandt. 2010. Experiments in Holism: Theory and Practice in Contemporary Anthropology. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Tsing, Anna L. 2005. Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 5) Performativity and Global Financial Markets (5 November 2019) What makes certain assemblages global are not simply their size or components, but also the role they play in the constitution of world-wide phenomena. This week we draw on the sociology of finance to discuss how economic models and sociotechnical devices help to perform global financial markets into being. We do this by examining dominant modes of calculation and legal reasoning in a series of case studies. Required readings: Knorr Cetina, Karin and Alex Preda. 2005. “Introduction” In The Sociology of Financial Markets. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 1-16. Knorr Cetina, Karin. 2005. “How are Global Markets Global? The Architecture of a Flow World.” In Karin Knorr Cetina and Alex Preda (eds.) The Sociology of Financial Markets. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 38-61. Recommended readings: Selected chapters from Karin Knorr Cetina and Alex Preda. 2005. The Sociology of Financial Markets. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Additional readings: Callon, Michel, Yuval Millo, and Fabian Muniesa. 2007. Market Devices. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. MacKenzie, Donald, Fabian Muniesa, and Lucia Siu. 2007. Do Economists Make Markets? On the Performativity of Economics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Riles, Annelise. 2011. Collateral Knowledge: Legal Reasoning in the Global Financial Markets. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. 6) Governing the Planet (12 November 2019) As we have seen, economic models and modes of legal reasoning have political effects: they help to perform certain versions of reality into being while making others invisible or difficult to attain. But what about politics and its established institutions? How can they cope with problems and challenges that are impossible to tackle on the national level? This question is particularly relevant when it comes to regulations concerned with climate change. This week, we mobilise recent works in policy studies and international relations in order to discuss the sociotechnical conditions of global governance. -4- Required readings: Martello, Marybeth Long and Sheila Jasanoff. 2004. “Globalization and Environmental Governance.” In Sheila Jasanoff and Marybeth Long Martello (eds.) Earthly Politics: Local and Global in Environmental Governance. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 1-30. Jasanoff, Sheila. 2004. “Heaven and Earth: The Politics of Environmental Images.” In Sheila Jasanoff and Marybeth Long Martello (eds.) Earthly Politics: Local and Global in Environmental Governance. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 31-54. Recommended readings: Selected chapters from Sheila Jasanoff and Marybeth Long Martello. 2004. Earthly Politics: Local and Global in Environmental Governance. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press Additional readings: Leach, Melissa, Ian Scoones, and Brian Wynne. 2005. Science and Citizens: Globalization and the Challenge of Engagement. New York: Zed Books. Voß, Jan-Peter, and Richard Freeman. 2016. Knowing Governance: The Epistemic Construction of Political Order. London: Springer. 7) Critical Global Health (19 November 2019) Continuing last week’s inquiry into politics, this week we explore the possibility of critique through the example of global health. This field brings together anthropologists, sociologists and human geographers concerned not only with the adverse effects of big pharma, but also the intended and unintended consequences of humanitarian programmes and international NGOs. Required readings: Biehl, João and Adriana Petryna. 2013. “Critical Global Health.” In When People Come First: Critical Studies in Global Health. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, pp. 1-20. Biehl, João. 2016. “Theorizing Global Health.” Medicine Anthropology Theory. 3 (2): 127-142. Adams, Vincanne. 2016. “What is Critical Global Health?” Medicine Anthropology Theory. 3 (2): 186-197. Recommended readings: Selected chapters from João Biehl and Adriana Petryna. 2013. When People Come First: Critical Studies in Global Health. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. -5- Additional readings: Fassin, Didier. 2012. “That Obscure Object of Global Health.” In Marcia C. Inhorn, and Emily A. Wentzell (eds.) Medical Anthropology at the Intersections. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, pp. 95-115. Montgomery, Catherine M., Patricia Kingori, Salla Sariola and Nora Engel. 2017. “STS and Global Health: Critique and Complicity.” Introduction to a special issue of Science and Technology Studies, 30 (3): 2-12. 8) Postcolonial STS (26 November 2019) Almost all the readings in the course come from Science and Technology Studies (STS) – an interdisciplinary field fascinated with diverse sites and material practices associated with scientific knowledge. Perhaps more than any other discipline, STS has invested serious energy into revealing the political effects of established knowledge practices, which in many cases were and are still being used to legitimise racist, sexist, classist, and colonialist modes of governance across the globe. However, while thoroughly critical of those practices, STS exists mostly within Western academic institutions and follows mostly Western academic conventions. In this session we explore what it might mean to de-centre those institutions and conventions, and what role STS scholars might play in that process. Required readings: Harding, Sandra. 2011. “Beyond Postcolonial Theory: Two Undertheorized Perspectives on Science and Technology.” In The Postcolonial Science and Technology Studies Reader. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, pp. 1-32. Verran, Helen. 2002. “Postcolonial Moment in Science Studies.” Social Studies of Science, 32 (5-6): 729–762. Recommended readings: Selected chapters from Sandra Harding. 2011. The Postcolonial Science and Technology Studies Reader. Durham, NC: Duke University Press Additional readings: Anderson, Warwick. 2002. “Postcolonial Technoscience.” Introduction to a special issue of Social Studies of Science, 32 (5-6): 643-658. McNeil, Maureen. 2005. “Postcolonial Technoscience.” Introduction to a special issue of Science as Culture 14 (2): 105–112. Chakrabarty, Dipesh. 2000. Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 9) Life in the Anthropocene (3 December 2019) Whereas globalisation was one of the key analytical terms in the end of the 20th century, in the early 21st century many social and natural scientists prefer to talk about -6- the Anthropocene, that is, the geological era that recognises human activity as the dominant influence on the climate and the environment. The term is somewhat misleading: it is not humans in general who are responsible for the emission of greenhouse gases, but modern, industrialised societies organised around the promise of continuous growth. If this promise is no longer tenable, what are the alternatives? In this session we look at ruins, catastrophes and the apocalypse as potentially productive metaphors for thinking about collective life in the Anthropocene. Required readings: Gan, Elaine, Anna Tsing, Heather Swanson and Nils Bubandt. 2017. “Haunted Landscapes of the Anthropocene.” In Anna Tsing, Nils Bubandt, Heather Swanson and Elaine Gan (eds.) Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, pp. G1-G16. Swanson, Heather, Anna Tsing, Nils Bubandt and Elaine Gan. 2017. “Bodies Tumbled into Bodies” In Anna Tsing, Nils Bubandt, Heather Swanson and Elaine Gan (eds.) Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, pp. M1-M15. Recommended readings: Selected chapters from Anna L Tsing, Nils Bubandt, Heather Anne Swanson, and Elaine Gan. 2017. Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Additional readings: Haraway, Donna J. 2016. Staying with the Trouble: Making kin in the Chthulucene. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Latour, Bruno, Isabelle Stengers, Anna Tsing and Nils Bubandt. 2018. “Anthropologists Are Talking – About Capitalism, Ecology, and Apocalypse.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 83 (3): 587–606. Latour, Bruno. 2018. Down to Earth: Politics in the New Climatic Regime. Cambridge: Polity. Stengers, Isabelle. 2015. In Catastrophic Times: Resisting the Coming Barbarism. London: Open Humanities Press. 10) Project presentations (10 December 2019) For the final session, please prepare a short (5-7 min.) presentation with the outline of your final paper. This should include a topic related to one of the themes covered in the course, a specific problem or question, possible empirical examples and a short list of relevant academic literature (additional readings are good texts to start with). Please note that your final paper will have to be written in English, following the conventions of academic writing. I’m happy to suggest useful tools and resources (see some of them below), and discuss writing-related concerns, throughout the term. The deadline for the final paper is 12:00pm on the 15th January 2020. Please send an electronic copy to e.danyi@unibw.de and give a print copy to Barbara Schmidt (33/3171) or leave it in Postbox 50. -7- Useful websites (feel free to suggest additional links) Science and Technology Studies associations European Association for the Study of Science and Technology (EASST): https://easst.net/ Gesellschaft für wissenschafts- und Technikforschung (GWTF): http://www.gwtf.de/ Society for the Social Studies of Science (4S): https://www.4sonline.org/ STS in Germany: https://stsingermany2019.com/ Science and Technology Studies journals, presses and online magazines Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience: https://catalystjournal.org/index.php/catalyst East Asian Science, Technology and Society: https://read.dukeupress.edu/easts Science and Technology Studies: https://sciencetechnologystudies.journal.fi/ Science as Culture: https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/csac20/current Science, Technology and Human Values: https://journals.sagepub.com/home/sth Social Studies of Science: https://journals.sagepub.com/home/sss Tapuya: Latin American Science, Technology and Society: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ttap20 Technology and Culture: https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/194 Technoscienza: http://www.tecnoscienza.net The Sociological Review: https://www.thesociologicalreview.com/ Duke University Press: https://www.dukeupress.edu/ Mattering Press: http://matteringpress.org/ Minnesota University Press: https://www.upress.umn.edu/ MIT Press: https://mitpress.mit.edu/ Engaging Science and Technology: https://estsjournal.org/index.php/ests Limn: https://limn.it/ NatureCulture: https://www.natcult.net/ Academic writing in English Howard S. Becker. 2007. Telling About Society. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Umberto Eco. 2015. How to Write a Thesis. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Online excerpt here: https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/umberto-eco-how-to-write-a-thesis/ Strategies for Essay Writing (Harvard College Writing Centre): https://writingcenter.fas.harvard.edu/pages/beginning-academic-essay The Chicago Manual of Style Online: https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/ -8-