From 8–9 October 2015 I attended a workshop in Duisburg titled “Translations in World Politics”. The workshop brought together a crowd from IR, policy studies, and Science and Technology Studies to re-think how the concept of translation can made fruitful for the study of politics. The papers presented the different ways of using the concept. Some used it to refer to linguistic translation, while other drew on the extensive meaning as shifting situations and inscriptions. In the workshop I presented a first draft of my paper in which I theorize the High Risk Area controversy in the Contact Group on Piracy off the Coast of Somalia. Starting out from assemblage theory and an understanding of translation as territorialization and de-territorialization, I argued that the best practice manual (BMP4) and the map of the High Risk Area present inscriptions of the entire counter-piracy assemblage.
Category Archives: Events and Presentations
Maritime Security Section @ EISA
Maritime Security Studies is a thriving field of research that not only addresses pressing political issues, but entails a fascinating set of scholarly questions, concerning territory, knowledge, sovereignty and international cooperation. Drawing on the success of earlier meetings (workshops in Cardiff and Geneva, and a section at the 2014 WISC conference in Frankfurt), maritime security scholars from across Europe met in the frame of the 9th Pan-European Conference on International Relations organized by the European International Studies Association. In six panels and one roundtable we discussed from the 23. to 26.9 the rise of maritime security strategies, challenges within distinct regions, and maritime threats such as illegal migration, piracy and boundary disputes. At the roundtable we discussed the need for maritime security studies to go into two directions: To theorize more, but to recognize that good theory is always anchored in practical problems and practice. We were particularly delighted to welcome Michel Soula from NATO headquarters for the section. A full overview of the program is available here.
Understanding the African Standby Forces
What is the state and future of the African Standby Forces (ASF)? And what should be the main purpose of the forces, peacekeeping, rapid crisis responses, or addressing the broader range of security risks? This was the core theme of the 4th international conference on strategic theory held in Stellenbosch from 16th to 18th September. The event was organized by Stellenbosch University in conjunction with the Royal Danish Defence College and broad together academics, analysts, diplomats and military representatives to discuss the ASF. It quickly emerged that there are quite different viewpoint on the ASF, in particular whether it should be seen as success or failure. From a military viewpoint, the way that the ASF could potentially respond to contemporary crisis situations remains limited. Yet, on the positive side, a substantial number of troops have been trained, and forces have gained much experience in collaboration. In my own contribution to the conference, I asked for the role that the ASF can play in maritime security. I argued for the importance of mainstreaming maritime security and that the issue domain should be part of the discussion of the ASF. The ASF could be a major institutional structure for strengthening maritime security collaboration, in particular for joint law enforcement operations or maritime domain awareness. Further Information and the full conference agenda is available here.
APSA Meeting in San Francisco
From the 2nd to the 6th of September I will be attending the annual conference of the American Political Science Association in San Francisco. I will be a participant on two panels. I will be discussing fieldwork methods in the frame of “The Methods Cafe” (Thu, September 3, 12:15 to 1:45pm, Nikko, Ballroom II) as well as presenting on a roundtable “Author Meets Critics: “A Theory of Contestation” by Antje Wiener” (Sun, September 6, 8:00 to 9:45am, Parc 55, Fillmore).
Pirates @ PublicUni, Cardiff, Chapter
As part of the 6th PublicUni event, 6th of August, at the Chapter Arts Centre Cardiff, I will discuss my research on pirates. The idea of PublicUni is to present ongoing research short and crisp in an accessible manner (more info here). In my talk I address the question ‘Whatever happened to the Somalia pirates?’ Since Captain Phillips hit the movie theatres two years ago, it has become remarkably quiet about the pirates of Somalia. I hence will explains the rise and fall of piracy. For the other speakers at the event see the program here. A very short summary of the event is available here.
Science Diplomacy Writeshop @ Oxford
The concept of “science diplomacy” has become an increasingly fashionable way of discussing both the role of science and technology within global governance as well as how science itself constitutes a field of diplomacy. At a one and a half day workshop at Exeter College, from 12.-13.7., we are meeting to discuss the concept and how it can be used as a starting point for an innovative agenda. The goal is to identify mechanisms as well as cases representative of the science/diplomacy interaction. The event is part of the new science diplomacy project of the Department of Science, Technology, Engineering and Public Policy (STEaPP) of the University College London.
Summary of 18th CGPCS Plenary
Last week I attended the plenary of the CGPCS at the UN headquarters. I published summaries of the main discussions of the working group meetings and the plenary on the website of the CGPCS. Find them published here. For the first time the plenary has also been recorded and is available on UN web tv (part 1, part 2). During the plenary I gave an update on the Lessons Learned Project and also presented our forthcoming article on the future of the maritime security architecture in the Western Indian Ocean.
BISA conference in London
From the 17th to the 19th I attended the 40th conference of the British International Studies Association. With 700 participants it was the largest BISA conference so far. And with a location right next to Tower Bridge perhaps the one with the nicest view from the conference facilities. At the conference I presented at two roundtables which focused on the state of Security Studies and the rationale of the new European Journal of International Security (find a summary of the roundtables at the EJIS website here). In addition I also participated in a roundtable on Methods and Critique. Overall it was good to see a thriving British IR community in action. The discussion on methods and methodology continues to be one of the major themes the discipline is currently discussing, which is a move into the direction. What kind of social science IR and its many subcommunities wants to be is after all crucial a question of how it wants to combine theory and empirics and what types of empirical experiences enrich the formulation of theory and concepts.
The Anthropology of Internationalized Politics
That Anthropology and International Relations (IR) share a range of common interests is increasingly becoming more obvious. In consequence there is a thriving debate about concepts, methods and empirical observations between both disciplines. A growing number of researchers adopts the ethnographic spectrum of methods to study internationalized politics, ranging from bureucracies such as the police, to development work or international organizations and global governance. On June 10-12th I attended a workshop hosted by the University of Bremen and held at the Hanse Wissenschaftskolleg in Delmenhorst in which a range of forthcoming studies at the intersection of anthropology and IR were discussed. The organizers phrased the rationale for the workshop well, when they argued that “The promise of an anthropology of internationalized politics then is that the enlarged empirical basis and an enlarged theoretical language would allow for new theoretical growth. It would be based on an enlarged empirical experience (Erfahrung) and not just derived from conceptual discussion alone or from theoretical deduction that are then checked against a mass of numerical data. Such a research approach would start out with an enlarged understanding of what empirical data is, and it would try to interpret it with an enlarged theoretical vocabulary.”
The Indian Ocean – One Region or many?
The politics of maritime space is only rarely in the focus of international fora. Conferences devoted to the Indian Ocean region are a rare event, especially in Europe. On June the 9th the German ministry of Foreign Affairs in collaboration with the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung and the Robert Bosch Stiftung, organized a one day conference on the region. The conference was titled “The Indian Ocean: A Maritime Region on the Rise.” The background of the conference was that Germany’s foreign policy currently is in a phase of renewal. After decades of searching for Germany’s place in the world, the foreign office now wants to think foreign policy differently and aims to set new impulses, identify new themes and new spaces to strengthen international cooperation. Part of this innovation agenda, is Germany’s new focus on maritime security, as evidenced in the G7 declaration from earlier this year. Continue reading