Mater and matter: a prelimary cartography of material feminisms

Recientemente, ha habido un nuevo interés en la materia y la materialidad en la investigación feminista. El artículo sitúa a los feminismos materiales contemporáneos en relación con tradiciones más antiguas en las cuales se han establecido aproximaciones entre el feminismo y el materialismo. Aborda cuatro rasgos distintivos que considero como importantes mejoras teóricas y perspectivas políticas prometedoras de los feminismos materiales: (1) un mayor compromiso con la ciencia; (2) la apreciación de la agencia material; (3) el surgimiento de una perspectiva posthumanista; Y (4) una reevaluación y revisión de la ética. El artículo proporciona una cartografía provisional o cartografía preliminar de esta reorientación teórica y empírica, a la vez que apunta a algunos problemas teóricos y posibles inconvenientes en los actuales debates feministas y académicos.Recently, there has been a new interest in matter and materiality in feminist scholarship. The article situates contemporary material feminisms in relation to older traditions of feminist engagements with materialism. It discusses four distinctive features that I take to be important theoretical improvements and promising political prospects of material feminisms: (1) a stronger engagement with science; (2) the appreciation of material agency; (3) the emergence of a posthumanist perspective; and (4) a reevaluation and revision of ethics. The article provides a provisional mapping or preliminary cartography of this theoretical and empirical re-orientation, while pointing to some theoretical problems and possible drawbacks in current feminist debates and scholarship

Krioprezerwacja teraźniejszości? Kryzys klimatyczny i powstanie polityki zawieszenia

Scholars analyzing contemporary technologies of freezing have recently argued that “cryopolitics” represents an important extension of the classical concept of biopolitics as it operates by the principle to “make live and not let die” (Friedrich 2017; Radin and Kowal 2017). It extends temporal horizons by suspending metabolic processes and establishing a “state of a potentially reversible death” (Neumann 2006). This article advances this theoretical proposition further by exploring the dimensions of a “politics of suspension” in the light of the climate crisis. It discusses the infrastructural role of cryopreservation and cryobanking technologies in addressing biodiversity loss and the vital challenges of the Anthropocene. These technologies promise to keep future options open by reversing past extinctions in order to address the existential threats of the present. Following this imagination, de-extinction scientists and biologists dream of restoring ancient ecosystems and resurrecting extinct species as a way of responding to the climate crisis. However, this politics of suspension might also contribute to tendencies to preserve the status quo by putting on hold the political and social transformations needed to effectively respond to the climate crisis

“A Zone of Indistinction” – A Critique of Giorgio Agamben’s Con-cept of Biopolitics

This article reconstructs Giorgio Agamben’s concept of biopolitics and discusses his claim that the camp is the “matrix of modernity”. While this thesis is more plausible than many of his critics do admit, his work is still characterised by diverse theoretical problems. My critique will concentrate on the legalistic concept of biopolitics that Agamben endorses and on his formalistic idea of the state. This reading of Agamben leads to a surprising result. By focussing on the repressive dimensions of the state and the sovereign border between life and death, Agamben’s work remains committed to exactly that juridical perspective that he so vividly criticizes

Constraints and potential of livestock insurance schemes: a case study from Vietnam

Livelihood systems of poor rural households are often so fragile that a small misfortune can destabilize households for years. Strategies for coping with risk include informal mutual aid agreements and/or formal microinsurance schemes. In developing countries, insurance markets are usually underdeveloped.Nevertheless, if the development path is supported by strong structures and institutions, anonymous markets will, over time, replace informal insurance networks as they are more efficient. In Vietnam, livestock is an important household income source and has additional non-economic functions in the households. For a long time, rural financial institutions in Vietnam financed only a small array of agricultural investments, but these frequently included livestock purchase. The absence of off-farm investment possibilities further promotes investment in livestock production. Failure of an investment, especially when loan-funded, can leave a household in an extremely vulnerable position. Livestock death is considered to be a major factor contributing to poverty. Farmers using credit to purchase livestock face two risks at once: (1) loss of the livestock due tovdisease and subsequently (2) failure of investment. Farmers would like to reduce the uncertainty, but a broad-based livestock insurance scheme does not exist in Vietnam. There are only a few formal and semi-formal schemes with very limited outreach. Thus, access to formal insurance is almost non-existent, and farm households have to rely mainly on informal mutual aid schemes within their social networks to reduce their risks. The objective of this paper is to contribute to the discussion on the general feasibility of a livestock insurance scheme in Vietnam. In this context, the demand for and supply of livestock insurance schemes is discussed. Quantitative (N=322) and qualitative data collection took place between 2001 and 2004. The quantitative data comprise cross-sectional household-level data from three different districts in Northern Vietnam. Four different types of insurance providers were selected for analyzing the supply side: 1. Insurance tied to credit within a state-owned company; 2. Insurance tied to credit within a development project; 3. A state-owned insurance company (which collapsed); 4. A private insurance company. By selecting these different insurance providers, the range of livestock insurance types offered in Vietnam was covered. The main result is that provision of sustainable livestock insurance is hampered principally by unreliable data on livestock mortality and by premia that are set politically at a low evel

Die Natur der Soziologie: Versuch einer Positionsbestimmung

"Die Untersuchung gesellschaftlicher Naturverhältnisse fand bislang in der Soziologie wenig Resonanz. Natur wurde regelmäßig als das Andere der Gesellschaft begriffen, sie bildete das Material und die Bedingung der Möglichkeit von Vergesellschaftung, aber nur in Ausnahmefällen waren die äußere Natur und die innere Natur des Menschen Gegenstand soziologischer Reflexion. In dem Vortrag sollen zunächst zwei Hauptformen der soziologischen Auseinandersetzung mit Natur in Erinnerung gerufen werden: naturalistische und sozio-zentrische Analysen. Im Hauptteil wird die These erläutert, dass weder die eine noch die andere Theorievariante für sich genommen eine zufrieden stellende Antwort auf das Problem der Vermittlung von symbolischen und materiellen Dimensionen gesellschaftlicher Naturverhältnisse liefert. Um die Interaktions-Dynamik von Natur und Gesellschaft - die Naturabhängigkeit von Gesellschaft und die gesellschaftliche Formierung von Natur - besser zu erfassen, wird der Verfasser einen 'dritten Weg' zwischen Naturalismus und Sozio-Zentrismus vorschlagen, der auf Einsichten poststrukturalistischer Theoriebildung zurückgreift. Diese Analyseperspektive besteht zum einen im Abschied vom anthropozentrischen Paradigma, das allein Menschen als soziale Akteure begreift; zum anderen zeichnet sie sich durch einen post-essentialistischen Naturbegriff aus, der dem Eigensinn und der Widerständigkeit stofflich-materialer Prozesse Rechnung trägt. Im letzten Teil soll begründet werden, dass diese theoretische Öffnung der Soziologie den konstitutiven Dualismus zwischen Natur- und Sozialwissenschaften durch einen kooperativen Dialog ersetzt, in dem die jeweiligen Forschungsroutinen und die disziplinären Grenzziehungen selbst hinterfragt werden können." (Autorenreferat