Making Things International 2

Catalysts and Reactions

2016

Mark B. Salter, Editor

Comprehending the political impacts of globalization requires new tools and new ways of thinking

Making Things International 2 offers provocative interventions into debates about causality, connection, and politics through the notion of assemblage. Specific subjects include fighter jets, smartphones, tents, HTTP cookies, representations of North Korea, and histories of the diplomatic cable, the orange prison jumpsuit, and container shipping.

Surprising, informing, disturbing and ultimately note- worthy in its culmination of geographically relevant material.

Progress in Human Geography

Drawing widely from contemporary social and critical thought, Making Things International 2 offers provocative interventions into debates about causality, connection, and politics through the notion of assemblage. Political assemblages, especially those that cross national borders, can be catalyzed by a host of surprising sparks. Present-day global systems are complex and interdependent, but the worn tools of traditional international relations theory are unsuited to the task of understanding how objects, ideas, and people come together to create, dispute, solve, or perhaps cause these political configurations. Contributors to this volume bring to their work a new sensitivity toward issues of power, authority, control, and sovereignty.

The companion volume, Making Things International 1: Circuits and Motion, used things, stuff, and objects in motion to capture the material dynamics of global politics and to demonstrate the importance of the material. This volume builds on that conversation by examining objects that incite political assemblages. Specific subjects include fighter jets, smartphones, tents, HTTP cookies, representations of North Korea, and histories of the diplomatic cable, the orange prison jumpsuit, and container shipping.

Contributors: Rune Saugmann Andersen, U of Helsinki; Josef Teboho Ansorge; Claudia Aradau, King’s College London; Helen Arfvidsson; Alexander D. Barder, Florida International U; Tarak Barkawi, London School of Economics; Peter Chambers; Shine Choi, Seoul National U; Sagi Cohen; Thomas N. Cooke; Anna Feigenbaum, Bournemouth U; Andreas Folkers, Goethe–U Frankfurt; Fabian Frenzel, U of Leicester; Kyle Grayson, Newcastle U; Nicky Gregson, Durham U; David Grondin, U of Ottawa; Xavier Guillaume, U of Edinburgh; Emily Lindsay Jackson, Acadia U; Miguel de Larrinaga, U of Ottawa; Debbie Lisle, Queen’s U Belfast; Mary Manjikian, Regent U; Nadine Marquardt, Goethe–U Frankfurt; Patrick McCurdy, U of Ottawa; Adam Sandor; Nisha Shah, U of Ottawa; Julian Stenmanns, Goethe–U Frankfurt; Casper Sylvest, U of Southern Denmark; Rens van Munster, Danish Institute for International Studies; Elspeth Van Veeren, U of Bristol; Srdjan Vucetic, U of Ottawa; Juha A. Vuori, U of Turku; Tobias Wille.

Mark B. Salter is professor of political studies at the University of Ottawa. He is the author of Rights of Passage: The Passport in International Relations and Barbarians and Civilization in International Relations and the editor of Research Methods in Critical Security Studies (with Can E. Mutlu), Mapping Transatlantic Security Relations, and Politics at the Airport (Minnesota, 2008). In 2014 he was awarded the Canadian Political Science Association Prize for Teaching Excellence.

Surprising, informing, disturbing and ultimately note- worthy in its culmination of geographically relevant material.

Progress in Human Geography

Contents
Introduction: Making Assemblages International
Mark B. Salter
Part I. Territorialization
The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter
Srdjan Vucetic
Military Manuals
Josef Teboho Ansorge and Tarak Barkawi
Barbed Wire
Alexander D. Barder
Protest Camps
Anna Feigenbaum, Fabian Frenzel, and Patrick McCurdy
Tent
Andreas Folkers and Nadine Marquardt
Benches
Emily Lindsay Jackson
Secrets
David Grondin and Nisha Shah
Grey
Shine Choi
Orange Prison Jumpsuit
Elspeth Van Veeren
Flags
Rune Saugmann Andersen, Xavier Guillaume, and Juha A. Vuori
Container Scanning Unit
Julian Stenmanns
Diplomatic Cable
Tobias Wille
Part II. Deterritorialization
The Yellow Car
Debbie Lisle
Smartphone
Peter Chambers
Hotlines and International Crisis
Claudia Aradau
Cookies
Thomas N. Cooke
The Atom
Casper Sylvest and Rens van Munster
Asbestos
Nicky Gregson
Dirt
Mary Manjikian
Shit
Sagi Cohen
Burning Cars
Helen Arfvidsson
Tear Gas
Miguel de Larrinaga
Drones
Kyle Grayson
4 x 4s
Adam Sandor
Acknowledgments
Contributors