Constitutional Ecology of Practices: Bringing Law, Robots and Epigrams into Latourian Cosmopolitics (2023)
This article explores the role of constitutional thought in Latour's work on cosmopolitics. It will study his non-modern proposal in the Politics of Nature (2004) and argue for a constitutional rather than political understanding. To address criticisms of being too metaphysical or unpractical, we will work out the notion of a "constitutional ecology of practices" to highlight how different practices such as politics, science, organization, but also law, all contribute to the design of the stage and processes for composing a common world. Special focus will here be placed on the role of "epigrams": practical models for ordering contributions of different practices or modes in hierarchical relationships. This renders them identifiable, mobilizable, and contestable as cross-cutting models for shaping mutual relations in concrete collaborative settings. The case of the legal regulation of robots will be presented as an example of a cosmopolitical attempt to introduce non-human entities in the common collective. We will here observe the role that epigrams play in framing, ordering and contesting the epistemic contributions of the various practices involved in this innovation ecology. This case will be used to discuss Latour's proposals and to study non-modern constitutionalism in action.
...MoreSimilar Citations
Book
Vertesi, Janet Amelia;
(2015)
Seeing Like a Rover: How Robots, Teams, and Images Craft Knowledge of Mars
Article
Florian Jaton;
Dominique Vinck;
(2023)
Politicizing Algorithms by Other Means: Toward Inquiries for Affective Dissensions
Article
Mario Blaser;
(2018)
Doing and undoing Caribou/Atiku: Diffractive and divergent multiplicities and their cosmopolitical orientations
Article
Alessandro Delfanti;
Bronwyn Frey;
(May 2021)
Humanly Extended Automation or the Future of Work Seen through Amazon Patents
Article
Jessica Lehman;
(February 2018)
From ships to robots: The social relations of sensing the world ocean
Article
Björn Fischer;
Britt Östlund;
Alexander Peine;
(April 2020)
Of robots and humans: Creating user representations in practice
Article
Benjamin Lipp;
(March 2024)
Robot Drama: Investigating Frictions between Vision and Demonstration in Care Robotics
Article
de la Bellacasa, Maria Puig;
(February 2011)
Matters of care in technoscience: Assembling neglected things
Article
Jakob Raffn;
Frederik Lassen;
(2021)
Politics of Nature: The board game
Article
Madeleine Akrich;
(2023)
Actor Network Theory, Bruno Latour, and the CSI
Article
Götz Hoeppe;
(October 2019)
Medium, calculation, play: On digital images in scientific practice
Article
Tresch, John;
(April 2013)
Another turn after ANT: An interview with Bruno Latour (Discussion)
Article
Latour, Bruno;
(April 2013)
Biography of an inquiry: On a book about modes of existence (Discussion)
Article
Matthew Paskins;
(2020)
History of science and its utopian reconstructions
Article
Eve Seguin;
Dominique Vinck;
(2023)
Introduction: Science Is Politics By Other Means Revisited
Article
Noemí Sanz Merino;
(2023)
Latour on Politics: Political Turn in Epistemology or Ontological Turn in Politics?
Article
Bas de Boer;
Hedwig te Molder;
Peter-Paul Verbeek;
(June 2021)
Understanding science-in-the-making by letting scientific instruments speak: From semiotics to postphenomenology
Article
Casper Bruun Jensen;
(2023)
Exercises in Irreduction: Some Latourian Favourites
Article
Sergio Sismondo;
(2022)
In Memoriam: Bruno Latour (22 June 1947 – 9 October 2022)
Article
María Belén Albornoz;
Javier Andrés Jiménez Becerra;
(2023)
How Do Technological Systems Define Who War Victims Are?
Be the first to comment!