Collective Discussion: Fracturing Politics (Or, How to Avoid the Tacit Reproduction of Modern/Colonial Ontologies in Critical Thought)

Abstract

This article engages in an experiment that aims to push critical/post-structuralist thought beyond its comfort zone. Despite its commitment to critiquing modern, liberal ontologies, the article claims that these same ontologies are often tacitly reproduced, resulting in a failure to grasp contemporary structures and histories of violence and domination. The article brings into conversation five selected critical scholars from a range of theoretical approaches and disciplines who explore the potential of the notion of 'fracture' for that purpose. The conversation revolves around political struggles at various sites -migrant struggles in Europe, decolonial struggles in Mexico, workers and peasant struggles in Colombia -in order to pintpoint how these struggles 'fracture' or 'crack' modern political frames in ways that neither reproduce them, nor lead to mere moments of disruption in otherwise smoothly functioning governmental regimes. Nor does such 'fracturing' entail the constructing of a 'complete' or 'coherent' vision of a politics to come. Instead, we detail the incoherent, tentative and multiple character of frames and practices of thought in struggle that nevertheless produce an (albeit open and contested) 'whole'.

Racism! What do you mean? From Howell and Richter-Montpetit’s underestimation of the problem, towards situating security through struggle

“…Yet, as Rosenow and I put it in a subsequent collective discussion,the object of analysis still tends to be circumscribed by the assumed universality of traditional modern tropes such as survival, threat, and distinctions between friends and enemies. Modern ontologies of what political reality is ‘about’ continue to shape what kind of practices catch the attention of the critical scholar (see Ansems de Vries et al, 2017: 91).…”

“…The problem, then, cannot be reduced to a failure to grasp the centrality of structural racism to the security practices under examination. This is part of how the problem manifests itself, but it is secondary to the more general problem of what I and others have called the ‘tacit reproduction of modern/colonial ontologies in critical thought’ (Ansems de Vries et al, 2017).…”

(Im)moral Borders in Practice

“…Relatedly, whilst awareness of our privileged positions is crucial, this should neither stop us from developing collaborative approaches with marginalised people, nor lead us to disregard how we are impacted in the process. This requires an experimental approach of improvisation, revision, fracturing and innovation (Ansems de Vries et al 2017;cf Aradau et al 2015).…”

International/Global Political Sociology

“…Moreover, in spite of prominent critiques of Eurocentrism voiced from within IPS (Bilgin, 2009;Ansems de Vries, Coleman, Rosenow, Tazzioli, & Vázquez, 2017;Grovogui, 2009;Moshirzadeh, 2009;Rojas, 2016;Seth, 2009Seth, , 2013Thakur, 2015), much of IPS, like sociology (Alatas & Sinha, 2017;Bhambra, 2007aBhambra, , 2007bBhambra, , 2016Bhambra & de Sousa Santos, 2017;Go, 2016), retains a focus on "the West," both in terms of cases studied and thinkers drawn on.…”