Skip to main content

Sensing Absence: How to See What Isn’t There in the Study of Science and Security

  • Chapter
  • 1933 Accesses

Abstract

What is not of concern in social and political life is the ever-shifting shadow to what is of concern.1 At any one time only certain topics will garner the limelight in public discussions. Yet, what remains off the agenda can be judged to be equally, if not more, important than what is so. This is perhaps most obviously evident in the manner priorities change over time and across locations. Swine flu, human trafficking, animal experimentation, HIV/AIDS, and Ebola outbreaks are just some instances of topics that have waxed and waned as matters of apprehension.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Notes

  1. See, for instance, Francis, L.P., Battin, M.P., Jacobson, J.A., Smith, C.B., and Botkin, J. 2005. “How infectious diseases got left out—And what this omission might have meant for bioethics,” Bioethics 19(4): 307–322.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Cooper, R. and Law, J. 1995. “Organization: Distal and proximal views,” in S.B. Bacharach, P. Gagliardi, and B. Mundell (eds). Research in the Sociology of Organizations: Studies of Organizations in the European Tradition. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.

    Google Scholar 

  3. Although there have been those that have crossed over this divide, for instance, Wright, S. (ed.). 2001. Biological Warfare and Disarmament. London: Rowman & Littlefield; and

    Google Scholar 

  4. Green, S. 2005. “E3LSI research: An essential element of biodefense,” Biosecurity and Bioterrorism 3(2): 128–137.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Lock, Margaret. 2001. Twice Dead. London: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  6. Kosko, Bart. 1993. Fuzzy Thinking. London: Flamingo.

    Google Scholar 

  7. Close, Frank. 2009. Emptiness. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 26.

    Google Scholar 

  8. Schillmeier, M. 2009. “Actor-networks of dementia,” in Ders and J. Latimer (ed.) Un/knowing Bodies. Oxford: Blackwell: 149.

    Google Scholar 

  9. See Pluot, S. 2009. “Include me out,” in John Armieder, Matthieu Copeland, Laurant Le Bon, Gustav Metzger, Mai-Thu Perret, Clive Phillpot, and Philippe Pirotte (eds) Voids: A Retrospective. Zurich: JPR | Ringier: 264–276.

    Google Scholar 

  10. Paglen, T. 2010. “Goatsucker: Toward a spatial theory of state secrecy,” Environment and Planning D 28: 759–771 and

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Komaromy, Carol. 2010. “Dying spaces and dying places,” in Jenny Hockey, Carol Komaromy, and Kate Woodthorpe (eds) The Matter of Death: Space, Place and Materiality. Houndmills: Palgrave.

    Google Scholar 

  12. Sontag, S. 1977. On Photography. London: Penguin Books: 15. See also

    Google Scholar 

  13. Barthes, R. 1982. Camera Lucida. London: Jonathan Cape.

    Google Scholar 

  14. Noë, Alva. 2012. Varieties of Presence. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press: Chapter 5. In a similar vein, entering an abandoned house can evoke a sense who was there before.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  15. Leader, Darian. 2002. Stealing the Mona Lisa. New York: Counterpoint.

    Google Scholar 

  16. Franke, W. 2007. On What cannot be Said Volume 1. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.

    Google Scholar 

  17. For instance, see Law, John. 2002. “On hidden heterogeneities: Complexity, formalism and advanced aircraft design,” in John Law and Annemarie Mol (eds). Complexities. London: Duke University Press: 116–141.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  18. See Hetherington, Kevin. 2004. “Secondhandedness: Consumption, disposal, and absent presence,” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 22: 157–173.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. For an examination of the ascetics of redaction, see Office of Experiments. 2013. “On being overt secrecy and covert culture,” in Elizabeth Fisher and Rebecca Fortnum (eds). On Not Knowing. London: Kettle’s Yard.

    Google Scholar 

  20. Phillips, I. 2012. “Hearing and hallucinating silence,” in F. Macpherson and D. Platchias (eds). Hallucination. Boston: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  21. Wooffitt, Robin and Holt, Nicola. 2011. Looking In and Speaking Out. Exeter: Imprint Academic: 65–67.

    Google Scholar 

  22. See Rappert, B. 2012. How to Look Good in a War. London: Pluto: Chapter 1.

    Google Scholar 

  23. Coopmans, Catelijne. 2013. “Visual analytics as artful revelation,” in C. Coopmans, J. Vertesi, M.E. Lynch, and S. Woolgar (eds). Representation in Scientific Practice Revisited. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  24. Meyer, M. 2012. “Placing and tracing absence,” Journal of Material Culture 17(1): 103–110.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Wooffitt and Holt. 2011. Looking In and Speaking Out.

    Google Scholar 

  26. Kasulis, T. P. 1981. Zen Action/Zen Person. Honolulu, HA: University of Hawaii Press and

    Google Scholar 

  27. Walsh, T. 1998. The Dark Matter of Words. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  28. Ginzburg, C. 1980. The Cheese and the Worms. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press: 128.

    Google Scholar 

  29. Despite notable exceptions, including Bille, Mikkel, Frida Hastrup, and Tim Flohr Sorensen, (eds). 2012. An Anthropology of Absence: Materializations of Transcendence and Loss. New York: Springer and

    Google Scholar 

  30. Law, John. 2002. “On hidden heterogeneities”: 116–141.

    Google Scholar 

  31. Frickel, S. 2014. “Absences,” Social Epistemology 28(1): 86–95.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  32. Suryanarayanan, Sainath, and Daniel Lee Kleinman. 2013. “Be(e)coming experts: The controversy over insecticides in the honey bee colony collapse disorder,” Social Studies of Science 43(2): 215–240.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  33. Wæver, O. 1995. “Securitization and desecuritization,” in D. L. Ronnie (ed). On Security. New York: Columbia University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  34. Just as new topics come into the fore over time, others recede in the background. Today, some have argued that the relation between genetics, race, and intelligence has become a kind of “forbidden knowledge” among (American) sociologists due to its political potency; see Kempner, J., Merz, J.F., and Bosk, C.L. 2011. “Forbidden knowledge: Public controversy and the production of nonknowledge,” Sociological Forum 26(3): 475–500.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  35. Brekhus, Wayne. 1998. “A sociology of the unmarked: Redirecting our focus,” Sociological Theory 16: 34–51.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  36. Proctor, R. 2008. “Agnotology: A missing term,” in R. Proctor and L. Schiebinger (eds). Agnotology. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  37. For an example of one attempt to set out an epistemology of ignorance, see Mills, Charles. 1997. The Racial Contract. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. For explicit analysis of ignorance with regard to science, see the Special Issue of Science Communication Volume 15 Number 2.

    Google Scholar 

  38. Croissant, J. 2014. “Agnotology: Ignorance and absence, or towards a sociology of things that aren’t there,” Social Epistemology 28(1): 4–25.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  39. For example, Dilley, R. 2010. “Reflections on knowledge practices and the problem of ignorance,” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 16: S176–S192 and

    Article  Google Scholar 

  40. Chua, L. 2009. “To know or not to know? Practices of knowledge and ignorance among Bidayuhs in an ‘impurely’ Christian world,” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 15: 332–348. Although in contrast see

    Article  Google Scholar 

  41. Mair, Jonathan, Kelly, Ann, and Casey High. 2012. “Making ignorance an ethnographic object,” in Casey High, A. Kelly, and J. Mair (eds). The Anthropology of Ignorance. New York: Palgrave: 1–32.

    Google Scholar 

  42. As well, attempts to counter a perceived absence of social analysis of ignorance through greater social research analysis can hazard the very production of ignorance by academics if the actions of social actors are attributed with too much coherence and intentionality. See Rappert, B. 2012. “States of ignorance: The unmaking and remaking of death tolls,” Economy and Society 41(1): 42–63.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  43. Some of the language about absences in social research hazards forwarding nonentities as objects for study, as in Fowles’s suggestion that “Absences push back and resist. They prompt us into action. And like present things, absences also have their distinctive affordances and material consequences.” Fowles, S. 2010. “People without things,” in M. Bille et al. (eds) An Anthropology of Absence: Materializations of Transcendence and Loss. Berlin: Springer: 24, quoted from Meyer. 2012. “Placing and tracing absence”.

    Google Scholar 

  44. Rappert, B. 2013. “Present absences: Hauntings and whirlwinds in -graphy,” Social Epistemology 28(1): 41–55.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  45. For instance, see Lebow, R.N. (2010) Forbidden Fruit: Counterfactuals and International Relations. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press; and

    Book  Google Scholar 

  46. Dimitrov, R., Sprinz, D., DiGusto, G., and A. Kelle (2007) “International nonregimes: A research agenda” International Studies Review 9: 230–258.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  47. Mazzei, L.A. 2003. “Inhabited silences: In pursuit of a muffled subtext,” Qualitative Inquiry 9: 355–368.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  48. See, for example, Fricker, M. 2007. Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing. Oxford: Oxford University Press;

    Book  Google Scholar 

  49. Ginzburg. 1980. The Cheese and the Worms; Mazzei. “Inhabited silences” and Franke. 2007. On What Cannot be Said.

    Google Scholar 

  50. See, for instance, Gusfield, J. 1981. The Culture of Public Problems: Drinking-Driving and the Symbolic Order. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press; Dimitrov, Sprinz, DiGusto, and Kelle. 2007. “International nonregimes”; and

    Google Scholar 

  51. Eliasoph, N. 1998. Avoiding Politics. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  52. Cunningham-Burely, S. and Kerr, A. 1999. “Defining the ‘social’,” Sociology of Health & Illness 21(5): 647–668.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  53. As argued by Bacchi, C. L. 1999. Women, Policy and Politics. London: Sage

    Google Scholar 

  54. Rayner, S. 2012. “Uncomfortable knowledge,” Economy and Society 41(1): 107–125.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  55. Benford, R.D. and Snow, D.A. 2000. “Framing processes and social movements,” Annual Review of Sociology 26: 11–39 and

    Article  Google Scholar 

  56. Gamson, W. and Modigliania, A. 1989. “Media discourse and public opinion on nuclear power,” American Journal of Sociology 95(1): 1–37.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  57. For a further discussion of related points see Woolgar, S. and Pawluch, D. 1985. “Onotological gerrymandering,” Social Problems 32(3): 214–227.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  58. Chambliss, D. 1996. Beyond Caring: Hospitals, Nurses and the Social Organization of Ethics. London: University of Chicago Press. See as well

    Google Scholar 

  59. Morris, N. and Balmer, B. 2006. “Volunteer human subjects’ understandings of their participation in a biomedical research experiment,” Social Science & Medicine 62(4): 998–1008.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  60. Bacrach, Peter and Morton Baratz. 1962. “Two faces of power,” American Political Science Review 57: 632–642.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  61. Lukes, Steven. 1974. Power: A Radical View. London: Macmillan.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  62. See Balmer, Brian (2012) Secrecy and Science: A Historical Sociology of Biological and Chemical Warfare. Farnham: Ashgate on scientific advisors as “socially legitimated doubters.”

    Google Scholar 

  63. Dimitrov, R. 2006. Science and International Environmental Policy. London: Rowman and Littlefield.

    Google Scholar 

  64. For a discussion of such issues, see Social Problems 39(1): 35–39 and Gordon, A. 1993 “Twenty-two theses on social constructionism,” in J. Holstein and G. Miller (eds). Reconsidering Social Constructionism. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.

    Google Scholar 

  65. Latour, Bruno. 2004. “Why has critique run out of steam? From matters of facts to matters of concern,” Critical Inquiry 30 (Winter): 225–248.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  66. Lynch, Michael. 2013. “Ontography: Investigating the production of things, deflating ontology,” Social Studies of Science 43(3): 444–462.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  67. Puig de la Bellacasa, Maria 2011. “Matters of care in technoscience: Assembling neglected things,” Social Studies of Science 41(1): 85–106.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  68. On this point see Silverman, C. 2012. Understanding Autism. Oxford: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  69. Bacchi. 1999. Women, Policy and Politics.

    Google Scholar 

  70. Law, J. and Marianne Lien. 2012. “Slippery: Field notes in empirical ontology,” Social Studies of Science 43(3): 363–378: 364.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  71. See as well Vertesi, J. 2014. “Drawing as,” in C. Coopmans, J. Vertesi, M.E. Lynch, and S. Woolgar (eds). Representation in Scientifi c Practice Revisited. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  72. As examples of alternative ontological politics, see Papadopoulos, D. 2014. “The politics of matter,” Social Epistemology 28(1): 70–85 and

    Article  Google Scholar 

  73. Puig de la Bellacasa, Maria. 2014. “Encountering bioinfrastructure: Ecological struggles and the sciences of soil,” Social Epistemology 28(1): 26–40.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  74. The notion that classical neoliberal economics cultivates habits of thinking that systematically miss out on major facets of the economy—such as private debt and money—is one that has been made with renewed vigor since 2008 financial crises. See Keen, S. 2011. Debunking Economics: The Naked Emperor Dethroned? London: Zed. For another account of institutionalized blindness, see

    Google Scholar 

  75. Das, Satyajit. 2006. Traders, Guns & Money. Harlow: Pearson Education Limited.

    Google Scholar 

  76. See Bull, M. 1999. Seeing Things Hidden. London: Verso and

    Google Scholar 

  77. Howes, D. 1991. “Introduction,” in D. Howes (ed.). The Varieties of Sensory Experience: A Sourcebook in the Anthropology of the Senses. Toronto: University of Toronto Press: 3–21.

    Google Scholar 

  78. For instance, as pursued by Haraway in her efforts to reclaim the vision as an embodied type of knowing rather than a type of knowing that sees everything from nowhere. Haraway, Donna. 1988. “Situated knowledges: The science question in feminism and the privilege of partial,” Feminist Studies 14(3): 575–599.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  79. See Walsh. 1998. The Dark Matter of Words: 3–4.

    Google Scholar 

  80. As taken up by Noë, Alva. 2012. Varieties of Presence.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  81. On these last two points, perceptual presences are discussed in-depth in Noë, Alva. 2012. Varieties of Presence.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  82. A metaphor for information pursued in Tsoukas, Haridimos. 1997. “The tyranny of light,” Futures 29(9): 827–843.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  83. For an analysis of object metaphors for absence and presence, see Law, John, and Annemarie Mol. 2001. “Situating technoscience: an inquiry into spatiality’s,” Environment and Planning D 19: 609–621.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Authors

Copyright information

© 2015 Brian Rappert

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Rappert, B. (2015). Sensing Absence: How to See What Isn’t There in the Study of Science and Security. In: Sensing Absence: How to See What Isn’t There in the Study of Science and Security. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-59261-3_1

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics