Praxiography

Within less than a decade piracy has been turned from a marginal economic problem into a global security problem. A surprising array of international actors addresses piracy and coordinates their activities. In this contribution we interrogate this astonishing story of international cooperation. We argue that what we observe here is a global security governance arrangement under construction. We conduct a praxiographic analysis of the current counter-piracy governance arrangement. A praxiographic analysis takes as the main unit of analysis practice, that is, collective patterns of action which entail speech and doings. Based on this evidence we carry out what can be called an “informed speculation” about the future of the arrangement. Based on the notion of macro-securitization we develop three different forms of expectations (or scenarios) of what characterizes the piracy governance arrangement: 1) an interest based “alliance” or “coalition of the willing”; 2) as a forming “security community” of cosmopolitan or regional scale; or as a 3) hybrid “global security assemblage”.

O presente trabalho integra uma pesquisa dissertativa mais ampla, que tem como objetivo principal compreender diferentes modulações da articulação entre testosterona e masculinidades, a partir dos múltiplos atores e redes que se formam no agenciamento de seus diversos tipos e
processos de subjetivação articulados. Ou seja, pretende-se perceber as múltiplas maneiras pelas quais a testosterona é performada nessas articulações, de acordo com o modo de existência de sujeitos inscritos nas masculinidades que fazem uso da substância, seus efeitos na formação de suas subjetividades e na produção de seus corpos, considerando as diferenças de classe, escolaridade, raça e identidade de gênero que os atravessam. Parte-se da noção de Ontologias Múltiplas, de Annemarie Mol, bem como empreende-se uma análise sobre a utilização da testosterona para a materialização de corpos de sujeitos inscritos nas masculinidades, entendendo-se o uso de
substâncias para produção de si, baseada em aprimoramentos que integram uma rede onde se articulam diferentes campos – tais como médico/jurídico/mercadológico –, como sendo uma característica das sociedades contemporâneas.

The question of when and how international orders change remains a pertinent issue of International Relations theory. This article develops the model of pragmatic ordering to conceptualise change. The model of pragmatic ordering synthesises recent theoretical arguments for a focus on ordering advanced in-practice theory, pragmatist philosophy, and related approaches. It also integrates evidence from recent global governance research. We propose a five-stage model. According to the model, once a new problem emerges (problematisation), informality allows for experimenting with new practices and developing new knowledge (informalisation and experimentation). Once these experimental practices become codified, and survive contestation, they increasingly settle (codification) and are spread through learning and translation processes (consolidation). We draw on the rise of the maritime security agenda as a paradigmatic case and examine developments in the Western Indian Ocean region to illustrate each of these stages. The article draws attention to the substantial reorganisation of maritime space occurring over the past decade and offers an innovative approach for the study of orders and change.

Most of the stuff that today’s political scientists are interested in is not bounded by a ‘field’. By abandoning the concept of field, several genuine methodological problems of interpretive political analysis come to the fore and it is these that require close consideration. I start with a discussion of what is problematic about the concept of field and the epistemic practice of field work. I argue that once we abandon the concept of field, a range of problems seem less important - such as the problem of 'access', while others come to the fore. We need to pay particular attention to the practical problems of multiplicity, temporality,
access, and proximity. My core intention is to contribute to conceptual awareness in the dialogue of anthropology and political science, and the need to focus on concrete and practical problems of research practice.

While theories of practice have significantly advanced our understanding of 'practice', less attention has been given to the concept of 'theory'. This chapter investigates what it implies to consider theorizing as a practice. The shift to the verb and the valuation of the actual 'work' required to produce theory has substantial consequences: it implies to de-center from the individual mind and understand theory as a collective achievement situated in a distinct milieu and locale; to focus on process and actions, rather than the object ('the theory'); to grasp the practical knowledge, various skills, material resources and objects that are assembled in the production of theory, and to recognize the multiplicity of styles of theorizing. I show what different understandings of 'theory' come to the fore, and then argue that thinking about practice has led to various new, innovative styles of theorizing. I draw on a number of recent practice studies to outline four of such styles: 'mechanism', 'meditation', 'method' and 'experimentation'. Each of these grounds theorizing differently in practice. The chapter provides a much-needed primer for thinking how we can theorize with practices and how recent international practice work provides new points of orientation.

This dissertation presents the account of a qualitative research project about the media practices of vernacular creativity of digital media users in contemporary Mainland China. The research project is based on a review of two decades of multidisciplinary research about the Internet in China, and positions its research questions at the intersection of three disciplinary domains: area studies, media anthropology, and Internet studies. The investigation has been conducted drawing on an ample methodological toolbox of established and experimental qualitative research strategies, including ethnographic participation, digital methods, and curatorial data collection. The principal topics discussed in this dissertation include the everyday experience of networked communication devices in different Chinese cities, the adoption and articulation of digital media platforms by Chinese Internet users, and the practices of linguistic and cultural creativity emerging from the use of these technologies. The main findings of this research project suggest that the Internet is experienced by Chinese users as a complex ensemble of devices, platforms, services, practices and possibilities of access; that the usage of digital media platforms in Mainland China is articulated through personal engagements with these complex media ecologies; and that user-generated content produced and consumed by a large majority of Chinese digital media users is creatively interpreted and negotiated across individual repertoires of semiotic resources. The conclusion of this dissertation theorizes the trivial aspects of everyday communication on digital media as media practices of vernacular creativity, and argues for the need of more ethnographically situated research on the topic in different local contexts.

Clinical expectations that trans people will be so filled with self-loathing that sexual interactions will be limited if possible at all fail to take into account the heterogeneous ways trans people experience their own bodies and sexualities. In this essay, I extend recent work in science and technology studies (STS) that attends to material practices by examining the work of narrative and argue for a new paradigm in situating trans sexualities. I analyse trans men's autobiographical stories to show some of the many ways that trans men make sense of themselves (and enact maleness) as sexual subjects. By focusing on how sex-gender is enacted and hangs together in narrative-practices, we can more fully understand and appreciate the realities of trans lives and the inadequacies of clinical diagnosis.

Keywords: Autobiography, female to male, praxiography, STS, transgender

The term ‘martial arts’ involve a myriad of styles and systems from all corners of the world, many of which remain largely unregulated. They are composed of various practices that can include bag and pad work, body conditioning, forms, groundwork, meditation, sparring, stretching, tumbling and even weapons training. Such practices have the potential to help people become fitter, defend themselves, feel more relaxed and develop specific personal and cultural values – all signs of an integral sense of health of physical, mental and social wellbeing. This can be seen as the ‘light’ side of martial arts. On the other hand, many practices are outdated, risky and misguided for many learners in today’s society – with drills and exercises that are not compatible with a sustainable, healthy lifestyle. This could be regarded as the ‘dark’ side of martial arts that works together with the ‘light’ side to show that that they are neither a panacea for social ills nor a blight on society. The aim of this paper is to point the way towards a critical health pedagogy in physical culture by using the example of the martial arts. The core message is that a critical pedagogy should adopt a balanced viewpoint in order to examine both the seemingly healthy practices and the potentially unhealthy, even dangerous, practices in a given physical culture by considering their internal diversity and cross-institutional variance according to teachers/coaches and associations. From this foundation, researchers could begin to research learning and teaching from a critical pedagogical standpoint.

Keywords: health; wellbeing; injury; critical pedagogy; martial arts and combat sports.

The paper tries to answer the question, whether local, non-state actors can perform formal or informal actions to co-opt proposed institutional structure? If they can, in what way they can and in which phase of the peace-building process is it possible? Using practices, i.e. inter-paradigmatic research program within the history of international relations and Richmond’s theoretical framework, we try to show and to point out to the academic community the existence of the advocating independence practices, and therefore statehood, of non-state actors (ethnic groups) by other non-state actors. Kosovo in the period from 1999 to 2008 is the case study; to be precise, advocacy of the independence of the Albanian community and their Provisional Institutions of Self-Government, in relation to Belgrade, with the help from individual actions of prominent figures – Søren Jessen-Petersen, Kai Eide, Martti Ahtisaari and Carne Ross. We argue that research projects of practices that advocate independence, as a way of co-opting imposed institutional structures within the theoretical framework of local-liberal hybridity, were not represented enough within academia as well as within the proposed framework of inter-paradigmatic research program, with emphasis on the action of local non-state actors.

Practice sociology seeks to overcome the ingrained academic division of labour between blind empirical research without theory and 'scholastic' theory that immunises itself against being empirically questioned. To meet such demands, this chapter proposes a procedure of praxeologising, which combines empirical perspectives and theoretical tools within stimulating epistemic arrangements. This procedure closely ties in with praxeological epistemology, which subsequently is exemplified using three steps. First, by referring to Bourdieu's praxeology, this study reflects on the differences between the practices of theorising and the logic of practice within the fields of activities to be studied and theorised. Second, it is illustrated how the procedure of praxeologising can employ a heuristics of game playing to focus on the tacit, bodily dimensions of social events and participants' shared feel and sense of the game. Third, it is pointed out that to master the overtly public nature of social practices, praxeology particularly should work out applicative procedures and methods derived from observation.

Abstract
Title: Origins of jargon. Reconstruction of the meaning of the verb schiessen within late-medieval German fencing technolect.
The paper presents a method for reconstruction of semantic content of terms referring to somatic skills preserved in historical records (i.e. notations of motion). It addresses theoretical aspects of the methodology based on concepts developed within the so-called ‘material turn’ in the historiography of the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries, as well as more recent neo-materialist research perspectives, such as embodied research. The method is illustrated
through a case study combining text-based and embodied (performative) modes of inquiry to investigate the term schiessen from a late-medieval fencing treatise HS3227a thus revealing the ways in which colloquial language and somatic knowledge were metaphorised in the source to produce technolect.

Streszczenie
W artykule zaproponowana została metoda rekonstrukcji zawartości semantycznej terminów odnoszących się do umiejętności somatycznych, które zachowane zostały w formie zapisów historycznych (tzw. notacji ruchu). Refleksji poddano teoretyczne aspekty podejścia metodologicznego opartego o koncepcje wypracowane w ramach tzw. „zwrotu materialistycznego” (material turn) w historiografii na przełomie XX i XXI wieku oraz nowszych nurtów neo-materialistycznych, takich jak badania ucieleśnione (embodied research). Metoda została zilustrowana przez studium przypadku, w którym analiza łącząca aspekty lingwistyczne i tekstologiczne oraz somatyczne została przeprowadzona na terminie schiessen pochodzącym z późnośredniowiecznego traktatu szermierczego HS3227a ujawniając zachowane w źródle techniki metaforyzacji języka potocznego i wiedzy na temat ruchu.

This dissertation examines the ways in which the four key assessment techniques used in the Dutch State Reform School for Girls (1905-1975) functioned in processes of identity construction for the pupils. To do so, it looks inside the dossiers of the pupils, in which the paper traces of these assessment techniques – pedagogical-pathological examination, autobiography-writing, Rorschach-testing and psychological examination – were preserved. These sources are studied by means of the praxiographic approach and discourse analysis. Through examining both the practices of the techniques and the rhetoric of the paper traces they left – pupils’ anthropometric examination forms, autobiographies, Rorschach test reports and psychological reports – this dissertation shows that the assessment techniques that were used in the institution did not primarily revolve around their contents, but around their practices. Moreover, this research demonstrates that each assessment technique produced a diff...

The current master thesis examines multiple valuation practisses in and of the Danish Public Sector. I examine two recent cases of valuing cultural heritage museums in configuration with municipal and governmental organizations.

I examine valuation in relation to the concept apparatus – a term coined by Karen Barad – and argue that measurements do not represent measurement-independent states of ’being’. ’Value’ is a constant configuration of the world enacting specific qualities into being. And, therefore, particular valuation practises must continuously be examined, questioned, and situated in order to be accountable.

By applying multiplicity-orientated Actor-Network-Theory (as theoretical apparatus) I argue that valuing is a praxis. Leaning on the concept registers of valuing by Frank Heuts and Annemarie Mol I argue that evaluation and valorising slide into each other in valuation practices. I praxiographically disentangle five registers of valuing that together constitute the multiple object of valuing: ’The Quality Museum’. I analyse how these five registers of ’goodness’ overlap, cohere or are in tension.

The particular valuing practises of cultural heritage museums constitute a multiple crosspressure that leaves particular qualities of ’The Quality Museum’ silent and/or less powerful. I apply the notion of Modes of Ordering by John Law to discuss how two attempts of ordering – enterprise and administration – enact certain qualities better, more legitimate, than others. I articulate a matter of concern formulated by Paul du Gay about the silencing of the ’goodness’ of administration in the continuing quest to ’modernize’ the public sector. I relate that concern to the cases studied in arguing that the ’next generation’ of valuing ’The Quality Museum’ should be of multiple concerns in asking what is good about and what is good for ’The Quality Museum’.

Avian influenza is considered a "global threat" and a biosecurity issue. How did that come to be? How did the avian influenza threat change as the virus spread? This book offers detailed, empirical accounts of avian influenza as the virus - and the knowledge about it - spread beyond Asia from 2005 onwards. It also offers insights into how the concept biosecurity has emerged in relation to recent disease outbreaks. Based on multi-sited fieldwork in Turkey and textual analyses this book contributes to new ways of understanding text and field, the global and the local, and the secure and the insecure as relational rather than opposed or unconnected; as enacted rather than pre-given.

Preview: http://www.lit-verlag.de/isbn/3-643-90843-8

Within the study of international relations, 'international practice theory' has become a well-established perspective that offers new avenues for the study of world politics. This chapter surveys the practice turn in the discipline of international relations (IR). We argue that IR has not only covered a quite fascinating range of issues and problems by drawing on practice theory, but has also developed its own innovative version of the practice turn: international practice theory (IPT). By taking practices as the core unit of analysis, IR scholars have demonstrated how practice theory offers a distinctive way of studying the world of global politics. With the turn to practice, they move away from prevalent theoretical foci on interest and norms, or frames and discourse. Practice scholars instead study practical activities in world politics and how they renew and reproduce social order. In particular, the everyday practices of actors such as, diplomats, terrorists, environmentalists, pirates, bureaucrats, and financial brokers have become the objects of investigation. The problems and issues, as well as the theoretical and methodo-logical versions of IPT, provide fruitful insights for the broader practice theory debate. Our survey of practice theoretical debates in IR hence seeks to foster the trans-disciplinary debate between IR and other practice-driven research in the humanities and social sciences.

Clinical expectations that trans people will be so filled with self-loathing that sexual interactions will be limited if possible at all fail to take into account the heterogeneous ways trans people experience their own bodies and sexualities. In this essay, I extend recent work in science and technology studies (STS) that attends to material practices by examining the work of narrative and argue for a new paradigm in situating trans sexualities. I analyse trans men's autobiographical stories to show some of the many ways that trans men make sense of themselves (and enact maleness) as sexual subjects. By focusing on how sex-gender is enacted and hangs together in narrative-practices, we can more fully understand and appreciate the realities of trans lives and the inadequacies of clinical diagnosis. Keywords: Autobiography, female to male, praxiography, STS, transgender

"This thesis examines the politics of HIV/AIDS in South Africa under former president Thabo Mbeki. Often characterised as “AIDS denialism”, Mbeki’s controversial position on HIV/AIDS incited conflict with South African civil society, including prominent local AIDS organisation, the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC). This conflict is typically depicted in scholarly and popular accounts as polarised into dissident/orthodox positions. The thesis questions this familiar depiction, applying new theoretical tools to rethink received accounts of HIV in South Africa. I argue that it is possible to see important continuities, rather than only differences in TAC and the government’s views. For example, my analysis reveals that through their pursuit of the “truth” about HIV/AIDS, both TAC and the government constitute the disease as a matter of fact: a stable, immutable object, possessed of intrinsic attributes. The analysis queries this common sense realist enactment of disease, arguing that the “facts” of disease are not given in nature; instead, they are constituted socially and politically and, as such, are emergent, rather than foundational. In making this argument, the thesis draws on science studies and new materialist scholarship, notably Karen Barad’s agential realism and Annemarie Mol’s praxiography. It employs a range of textual sources such as Parliamentary debates, health promotion literature and policy documents to map the political processes and practices that have contributed to making HIV/AIDS in South Africa. Importantly, it traces the role of the TAC-government conflict itself—and the kinds of activity/inactivity it produced—in constituting HIV/AIDS, and thus the epidemic, in specific, sometimes damaging ways.

The thesis also argues that politics helps to constitute people with HIV as various kinds of medicalised subjects, such as victims of HIV, disease vectors and self-regulating health citizens. It thus challenges the commonplace view that a disease pre-exists its subjects (or “targets”) and instead draws attention to the ways in which disease and its subjects are constituted in relation to each other and in relation to political forces. In terms of the latter, the analysis explores the politics of the debate’s reliance on binary oppositions, such as citizen/non-citizen, human/non-human and so on. For example, it demonstrates the ways in the citizen/non-citizen binary allows only some people with HIV to qualify as biological citizens, and denies others full citizenship, rendering them non-citizens or failed citizens. Drawing attention to the co-constitution of the citizen and the human, it argues that attributions of citizenship matter because they shape whether or not people with HIV can access so-called universal human rights, including the right to healthcare.

The ontology of disease proposed in this thesis changes how we see and address it. It enables an examination of the significant role of political and scientific practices in making disease. It also reveals the self-serving or damaging effects of certain enactments of disease. Made visible, these negative material effects are amenable to disruption, allowing a remaking of disease which avoids the harmful assumptions that produce stigma and help to disadvantage or marginalise those living with HIV. The thesis concludes by exploring some of the possibilities for remaking HIV, and speculates on how doing so might change the relational field of the South African HIV epidemic.
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