Title: Politicizing connectivity: beyond the biopolitics of information technology in international relations
Abstract: Abstract The traditional way of politicizing information technology (IT) in international relations is to raise questions concerning access. Rarely is the question posed of what IT does to people, how becoming connected subjectifies peoples, constituting them as a socius distinguished by properties and capacities of connectivity. Thus does this article address the biopolitics of connectivity; the implication of IT in liberal governance; the evolutionary posthumanism that has inspired faith in the governance properties of IT; and, crucially, the war and violence that are legitimated internationally on account of this faith. Following this critique it asks how to constitute an alternative politics of connectivity. How can we rework the concept of connectivity to conceive of alternative political horizons and possibilities? Exploring questions of the quality and intensity of connectivity, at expense of disciplinarily hegemonic ones of equality and quantity, the article engages with the rhizomatic theory of connectivity as advanced by Deleuze and Guattari. Notes 1 Many thanks to Leonie Ansems de Vries, Saara Koikkalainen, Saara Sarma, Tiina Seppålå and Soile Veijola at the University of Lapland for their helpful comments on this article, which I wrote on sabbatical there. Thanks also to Mick Dillon and Jemima Repo for comments and insightful readings of the article while in draft form. 2 The way in which he argued this was far more nuanced and varied than I can go into here. His critique of the biopolitics of liberalism begins with Citation The order of things (1997) and developed successively in Citation Discipline and punish (1991) and Citation The history of sexuality (1990). But it is perhaps now best comprehended in light of the publication of his lectures at the Collège de France, most especially Citation Society must be defended (2003), Security, territory, population (2007) and Birth of biopolitics (2008). 3 I am referring of course to the ‘Hole in the Wall’ research project of Sugata Mitra, which involved doing exactly this and which was the inspiration for the Oscar-winning film Slumdog millionaire. 4 ‘Eradicating disconnectedness is the defining security task of our age, as well as a supreme moral cause in the cases of those who suffer it against their will’ (Barnett Citation2009, 429). 5 ‘Only retain what augments the number of connections’ (Deleuze quoted in Rajchman Citation2000, 4). 6 Love is one of the most under-theorized of Deleuze and Guattari's concepts, in spite of the fact that it is integral to their philosophical lexicon. See especially Deleuze and Guattari (Citation1999), Deleuze (Citation2000) and Guattari (Citation1995). The one essay on the subject is Protevi (Citation2003). 7 On connectivity as a ‘quasi-transcendental’ of life itself see also Dillon and Lobo-Guerrero (Citation2009). 8 A rule set is according to Barnett (Citation2009, 431) ‘a collection of rules that delineates how some activity normally unfolds’. 9 Undoubtedly this takes us onto terrains not dissimilar from Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's (Citation2004) theory of the Multitude. For a full explanation of the differences between Hardt and Negri's and a Deleuzean politics see Reid (Citation2006). 10 As Deleuze argued, no information, no matter what it might have been, would have been sufficient to have defeated Hitler. 11 Not least among which is being labelled insane. The classic literary example that Deleuze often returned to is Shakespeare's Hamlet (see Deleuze Citation1994). 12 References to ‘the people to come’ are scattered throughout Deleuze's work, as well as the co-authored works with Guattari. But see especially Deleuze's (1989, 223) second volume on cinema.
Publication Year: 2009
Publication Date: 2009-12-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
Access and Citation
Cited By Count: 12
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