Technē-Logy

: Praxis, Technosphere and Arendt for a Relational IR

Abstract

This project explores how Hannah Arendt’s understanding of technology, politics, and modernity can provide a different perspective on techno-political relations in the Anthropocene. Technology is increasingly debated in International Relations (IR), with discussions focusing in particular on the role of political materiality of technology. This thesis operationalizes Arendt’s concept of vita activa - composed of the activities of labor, work, and action - to broaden the scope of such debates. Using the framework of vita activa, Arendt divides modernity into two periods distinguished by dominant activities: the Cartesian- Newtonian period, characterized by work, and the processual-cybernetic period, characterized by labor. Arguably, these periods represent distinct cosmologies of techno-political relations. The first period is dualistic and mechanical, while the second is relational and organic. Arendt’s work helps us recognize that processual-cybernetic cosmology has surpassed the Cartesian- Newtonian register. However, this thesis problematizes the processual-cybernetic cosmology of techno-politics since it sees relations in terms of extracting information from material substrates, thus perpetuating a colonial-extractivist logic. Using Arendt for a critical reading of Bruno Latour’s thought, I argue that she challenges us to imagine alternatives to processual cosmology without operating within its existing precepts that shape our perceptions of reality and limit abilities to think beyond them. Illustrating the limitations of cybernetics in understanding life, I discuss an example of pattern of life (PoL) analysis in drone warfare. PoL overdetermines the human based on information extraction. However, this move is subverted by the eruption of embodied subjectivity, showing the inextricability of information and embodiment. Drawing on Arendt’s notion of political action (praxis), which I connect to the concept of technē by interpreting The Human Condition, I develop a cosmology of techno-political relations, called technē-logy. Technē-logy undermines the dualist and cybernetic registers by seeing technology and politics as practices constituting relations and life.

Date of Award	2023
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Aberystwyth University
Supervisor	Milja Kurki (Supervisor) & Andrew Davenport (Supervisor)