A toy camera illuminating blue light, courtesy Garrette/flickr
This article was originally published by E-International Relations on 25 January 2016.
A couple of years ago I invited a group of scholars (including several of the authors in this E-IR series) to get together and share their views on something called 'posthuman security'. While we all had different disciplinary backgrounds, expertise, questions and commitments, we shared the intuition that international security is not solely a matter of securing human lives and bodies. Instead, we contended that diverse beings other than humans are implicated in the conditions of (in)security. With this in mind, we wanted to think collectively about what the notion of 'security' means in worlds intersected and co-constituted by various kinds of beings: humans, other organisms, machines, elemental forces, diverse materials – and hybrids of all of the above. In turn, we wanted to think about what the 'posthuman' means when we bring it into the realm of security. For instance, does embracing a more-than-human or post-human ontology mean giving up on notions of security as stability, sustainability or resilience? On the other hand, does embracing such concepts forces one back into a humanism that reinforces rigid and exclusive understandings of what 'humanity' is, and what is worthy of being security? Over the last two years, we have met to hash out these issues with a widening group of interlocutors in workshops and panels in the UK, Australia, Italy and the US. So what kinds of insight have these discussions inspired?
One remarkable aspect of the discussions was the breadth and range of positions that are identified as 'posthuman' or 'posthumanist'. In her recent E-IR piece, Elke Schwarz notes this diversity, but suggests that posthumanism can be approached largely in terms of transhumanism, hybridity and the cyborg. This is indeed an important current in posthumanist thinking, and one that, as Schwarz suggests, has important implications for traditional security concerns such as the conduct of warfare and the distribution of agency in violence. On the other hand, many contemporary posthumanists are inspired by engagements with the liveliness and quirkiness of matter, and its implications for ontology, agency and causation. They draw on sources such as new materialism (Coole and Frost 2011; Bennett, 2010; Connolly, 2011), and the politics of affect (Massumi 2015; Protevi 2013). Carolin Kaltofen's work draws on these sources to examine the emergence of hybrid posthumans in the worlds o f the virtual and sonic warscapes. Still other participants in our discussion are concerned with how thinking in ecological terms transforms perspectives on what it means to be 'human' – and what it means to be 'secure'. For instance, the work of Erika Cudworth and Stephen Hobden (2014, 2015) examines the implications of animal bodies and subjectivities in warfare. In a similar light,Stefanie Fishel's work on the subjectivity of dolphins and Matt McDonald's new framework for 'ecological security' each call for profound transformations of the perceived subjects of security and their influence in international law and norms (see also Mitchell, 2014b). Meanwhile, other authors are concerned with the agentic role of the 'things' we tend to construe as rigid and lifeless, and in particular their ability to provoke human thought and action, structure violence and create disruption (see Grove 2014). Even this wide variety of approaches only scratches the surface of th e perspectives that are expressed under the rubric of posthumanism or 'posthuman security'. These terms do not refer to a 'theory' or 'framework', but rather to a swarm of resonating, sometimes intersecting and often conflicting lines of thought.
In this context, one of the most prevalent aspects of our discussions on 'posthuman security' is the tension between identifying convergences in these contributions and maintaining the openness of the discourse. To my mind, one of the most promising and radical aspects of these discussions has been their stubborn resistance to resolution. However, the inertia of scholarly debate tends to push such discussions towards the articulation of definitions and particular 'projects' or frameworks. Our struggles with this tension have produced a number of rich debates.
One of the most salient of these is whether or not the 'human' has a place in 'posthuman' security. At a recent roundtable discussion on the subject at the European International Studies Association Convention in Sicily there was significant contention over whether or not the visions of 'posthuman security' presented by various contributors were radical enough. Some of our interlocutors expressed the view that anything short of the total elimination of anthropocentric thinking from IR simply reproduced existing paradigms, and in particular the ontology of liberal capitalism. Others contended that it is impossible – and undesirable – to excise 'humanity' entirely from a discussion of security or politics more generally. I have a great deal of sympathy for the latter perspective. Elsewhere I have advocated the transformation of security thinking around the principle of 'weak anthropocentrism' – a position which acknowledges the embeddedness of humans in com plex worlds co-constituted by diverse beings (Mitchell 2014a). This implies that 'security' cannot be understood as a good or status that accrues to bounded, separated, 'purely human' beings. Instead, concepts of violence and harm must be understood in relation to distinct, irreplaceable worlds and the relations that bind them. It also highlights how existing logics of security function as a set of ethical boundaries that isolate a narrowly-defined category of 'humanity' from the diverse worlds that co-constitute it (Mitchell 2016b) – a practice that actually renders it more vulnerable. From this perspective, it is not possible to entirely escape the constructs, norms and shared experiences that help to define one's life as a human. However, the idea of what it means to be (post)human can be transformed by a deep engagement with alternative ontologies and multiple, co-constituting worlds. This suggests that between the two extremes suggested by our interlocutors – a radical, eliminative posthumanism and a relapse into unreflective humanism – there exists a wide space of relations. It is these (international) relations that our discussions probe. In this sense, our discussions are post-humanist. That is, they situate themselves in a range of critical positions in relation to human ism, particularly the dominant variety that underpins international frameworks such as international norms of humanitarianism (Mitchell 2014b). But they are not anti-human: they embrace the wide variety of ways in which one can be, or become, (post)human. They also embrace the practice of reflecting critically on the category of 'humanity' to reflect on the nature of violence, harm and crisis.
Another flashpoint in our discussions concerns the concept of 'security'. In particular, various contributors have asked whether it makes any sense to seek security in radically relational worlds disrupted by global crises such as climate change and mass extinction. Moreover, the emergence of hybrids, cyborgs and transhumans suggests that the entire category of humanity is vulnerable to dissolution – along with the frameworks of law, ethics and global norms it underpins. It is clear from our discussions that security as stasis is not feasible: it simply does not match with the realities of a dynamic, entangled and endangered Earth. At the same time, simply extending existing logics of security 'beyond the human' to penetrate more dimensions of the Earthly threatens to compound regimes of biopolitical control. The recent work of Mark Evans and Julian Reid (2013) illustrates how fear over climate change and mass extinction has fuelled neo-liberal modes of sovereignty based on the production and 'resilience' of bare life. A good example of this can be found in contemporary conservation strategies that convert 'biodiversity' into registers of financial value and monetary instruments (Sullivan 2013) – including 'biodiversity derivatives' (Mandel et al 2010) – as a response to the threat of extinction. Such practices respond to the annihilation of entire worlds and forms of life by attempting scientifically to manage the processes of (bare) life and death. In so doing, they condemn all forms and expressions of life to survival mode.
As this example suggests, there are strong critical reasons to resist existing drives to envelop more and more aspects of the more-than-human within existing security discourses. Our discussions have stressed the need for attention to the double-edged sword of making security 'more-than-human'. However, they have also identified important visions for opening up the meaning of security. For instance, Tony Burke's recent work on ' security cosmopolitanism' offers an ambitious new vision of insecurity as "processes that threaten or cause serious harm to human beings, communities, and ecosystems; harm to their structures of living, dignity, and survival". His work calls for the transformation of understandings of security to become responsive to the nature and dynamics of vibrant, diverse systems – human, organic, material, technological – across time and space. It suggests that the kind of 'security' that might emerge from a serious engagement with posthumanist thought may not resemble anything like traditional and existing paradigms. In this sense, perhaps this line of thought would better be called 'post-human post-security'.
So it is safe to say that most of the contributors to this discussion are not fully comfortable with or committed to either 'posthumanism' or 'security'. Why, then, do we all find ourselves repeatedly drawn to engage with them, juxtapose them and explore their resonances? I think this is largely because their intersection opens up a series of problems, questions and critiques that break from established paradigms and hold the promise of alternative futures. So where are discussions of posthuman security going next?
While I can only speak from my own perspective, I see a number of avenues in which these discourses can continue to break ground. First, discussions of posthumanism and security can engage more robustly with postcolonial theory (an issue around which Cudworth and Hobden's work has broken ground). In particular, there is considerable promise in exploring how highly normative categories of 'humanity' are implicated in the construction of exclusive categories such as species and race. To give just one example, Achille Mbmembe's seminal On the Postcolony (2002) brilliantly articulates how the category of animality has underpinned colonial violence against humans and other animals. More recently, he has called on humans to address the Anthropocene by "see[ing] ourselves clearly, not as an act of secession from the rest of the humanity, but in relation to ourselves and to other selves with whom we share the universe". There is huge scope to identify the shared logic of arbit rary division and hierarchy that underpin regimes of violence against any and all beings that fail to fit within mainstream norms of 'humanity'.
However, 'posthumanist' thought also needs to engage more directly with its unacknowledged debt to Indigenous philosophy and ways of thinking. As my current collaborator Zoe Todd (2014) has pointed out, new materialist and post-humanist modes of thought ignore and often efface the roots of many of their key tenets – profound relationality, multi-species community and an ecological ethic – in Indigenous philosophy and thought. In a related sense, Juanita Sundberg (2014, 38) has recently critiqued 'posthumanist' thought on the basis that it "enacts the world as universe, meaning the ontological assumption of a singular reality or nature, about which different cultures offer distinct interpretations". Instead, more promise lies in the 'multi-naturalist' approach (Viveiros de Castro 2012), which suggests that different ontologies capture and reflect distinct worlds. By engaging more directly with these lines of thought, discussions of posthumanism and security can move towards understanding the relations between these worlds; the diverse meanings of violence, harm and insecurity within them; and the insights gained from adopting non-Western ontologies as a basis for posing these questions. I am exploring this pathway in my current work, which involves re-thinking the ethical dimensions of the global extinction crisis from the basis of diverse Indigenous cosmologies. It involves working with contemporary Indigenous writers, thinkers, artists and activists to theorize the harm of extinction, but also to make sense of its globality, and of human relations to the planet.
Indeed, another direction which discussions of posthuman security can take is to engage more directly with the planetary, and the specific conditions of (in)security on Earth. This entails thinking about the elemental, geological and cosmological conditions of life on this planet. For instance, the work of geographer Nigel Clark (2011) urges humans to embrace the finite, deeply contingent existence furnished by an Earth that is ultimately indifferent to their existence. He claims that human existence is contingent upon conditions created by previous (largely extinct) life forms and by inhuman forces, both contemporary and temporally distant. From this perspective, existence is a gift given to humans – and to all existent earthlings. Instead of struggling to secure it at all costs, and resenting the finitude that comes along with it, he argues that humans should embrace an ethic of gratitude towards the Earth. This may include welcoming new worlds and beings – for instance tran shumans, hybrids or post-human organisms – that threaten the boundaries of humanity and endanger existing forms of human life. From this perspective, engaging with the post-human may actually involve thinking a world without humans, or a world in which existing modes of human life are no longer possible. That, in turn, requires relinquishing the idea of security as perpetual existence to be ensured at all costs (see Mitchell 2016a). For many theorists of security, this might appear to be a frightening and counter-productive stance. However, along with the renunciation of security-as-we-know it would come with the freedom to celebrate and cherish the 'gift' of existence on a volatile planet. How these insights and ethical vocations might re-shape understandings of security and global ethics cries out for further discussion.
These are a few of the new directions that the discussion of 'posthuman security' can take in its impulse to explore the intersections of humans and the diverse, transforming worlds we help to constitute. The strength of this discourse is that it places both of its key terms – 'posthumanism' and 'security' – in constant question, and stubbornly refuses closure into any particular vision of either. Indeed, although I have outlined some of the currents of this discussion so far, and some future paths it might follow, the conversation remains open to new and different ideas, critiques, interventions and futures. My account of these discourses should not be misconstrued as an 'expert' attempt to define them. Instead, these are the reflections of a participant-observer in an ongoing conversation that, I hope, will continue to create controversy, provoke arguments, frustrate academic expectations, spark collaborations and engender plural visions. Consider this your i nvitation to join us.
References
Bennett, Jane, 2010. Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Connolly, William, 2011. A World of Becoming. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Cudworth, Erika and Stephen Hobden, 2014. "Civilization and the Domination of the Animal" Millennium Journal of International Studies, Vol. 42, No. 3, pp. 746-66.
Cudworth, Erika and Stephen Hobden, 2015. "The Posthuman Way of War" Security Dialogue, Vol. 46, pp. 513-29.
Coole, Diana and Samantha Frost, eds. New Materialisms: Ontology, Agency and Politics. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Connolly, William, 2011. A World of Becoming. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Evans, Mark and Julian Reid, 2014. Resilient Life. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Grove, Jairus Victor, 2014. "Ecology as Critical Security Method" Critical Studies on Security, Vol. 2, No. 3, pp. 366-9.
Mandel, James T., C. Josh Donlan and Jonathan Armstrong, 2010, "A Derivative Approach to Endangered Species Conservation" Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 8 (1): 44-49.
Massumi, Brian, 2015. The Politics of Affect. Cambridge: Polity.
Mbmembe, Achille, 2014. "Decolonizing Knowledge and the Question of the Archive". Online. Available: http://wiser.wits.ac.za/content/achille-mbembe-decolonizing-knowledge-and-question-archive-12054. Accessed 15 January, 2016.
Mitchell, Audra, 2014(a) "Only Human? Towards Worldly Security" Security Dialogue, Vol. 41, No. 1, pp. 1-23.
Mitchell, Audra, 2014 (b). International Intervention in a Secular Age: Re-enchanting Humanity. London: Routledge.
Mitchell, Audra, 2016 (a) "Is IR Going Extinct?" accepted for publication in The European Journal of International Relations, forthcoming, 2016.
Mitchell, Audra, 2016 (b). "Posthuman Security/Ethics" in Anthony Burke and Jonna Nyman, Ethical Security Studies, London: Routledge (forthcoming).
Protevi, John, 2013. Life, War, Earth: Deleuze and the Sciences. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Sundberg, Juanita, 2014. "Decolonizing Posthumanist Geographies" Cultural Geographies, Vol. 21, No. 1, pp. 33-47.
Todd, Zoe, 2014. "An Indigenous Feminist's Take on the Ontological Turn: 'Ontology' is Just Another Word for Colonization". Online. Available: https://zoeandthecity.wordpress.com/2014/10/24/an-indigenous-feminists-take-on-the-ontological-turn-ontology-is-just-another-word-for-colonialism/ . Accessed 15 January 2016.
Viveiros de Castro, Eduardo, 2012. Cosmologial Perspectivism in Amazonia and Elsewhere. Manchester: HAU Network of Ethnographic Theory.
Audra Mitchell is the CIGI Chair in Global Governance and Ethics and Associate Professor at the Balsillie School of International Affairs, Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada. She has published widely in the areas of posthumanist IR, global ethics, large-scale harm, cosmology and violence. Her current research explores the ethics of the global extinction crisis.
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Tags: Ecosystem, International Security, Posthuman, SecuritySource: Posthuman Security: Reflections From an Open-ended Conversation
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