Relating to International Relations

Abstract

How things ‘relate’ is, in no small measure, a foundational matter of concern in science and technology studies (STS), especially in the small world that I have come to inhabit, namely, the scholarly community surrounding actor-network theory (ANT). The materialsemiotic approach adopted by actor-network scholars was, in fact, originally developed to trace how ‘associations’ (big and small, human and nonhuman) hold together or are blasted apart. As a member of this camp, the author conceives of scientific communication as an object of disciplinary ‘relating’ (or ‘associating’) and shows evidence of a predatory, less than collaborative style of relating between STS, ANT, and IR in the context of academic gatherings (i.e., conferences, seminars, etc.) and academic writing (i.e., publications produced by scholars and read as part of disciplinary training). The author acknowledges that the import of concepts from one field to another is always messy, but that a less imperialistic tone could be set in IR regarding how it ‘uses’ insights from STS, especially from ANT. Examining the conduct of political science together, for example, would be a more productive, collaborative research site for IR and ANT than the current status quo.