Chapters by Filipe dos Reis
The introduction to the volume situates the politics of translation in the theoretical and method... more The introduction to the volume situates the politics of translation in the theoretical and methodological landscape of International Relations (IR). It provides an outline of the conceptual framework deployed throughout the book and concludes with a road map to the volume. The chapter argues for an approach to translation as transformation, in contrast to approaches that emphasise an uncontested transfer or transplantation. This framework reconstructs the politics of translation. Translation makes international relations. The politics of translation is located in struggles for meaning, in rendering encounters and interactions tangible and legible. For instance, in processes of translation some actors are given voice and others silenced, and hierarchies are established and dismantled. The introductory chapter points to the relevance of translation as transformation for IR scholarship and in furthering theorization and empirical work.
Contingency in International Law, 2021
This chapter reconstructs how contingency is situated in international legal histories. In partic... more This chapter reconstructs how contingency is situated in international legal histories. In particular, it focuses on how contingency relates to narratives of international law’s origin and progress. It explores, first, how traditional and recent international legal histories locate the origin of international law. Different authors—advancing different projects—situate international law within a range of different origins. In the end, the origin of international law is contingent. Moreover, it is possible for some authors, particularly those problematising international law’s Eurocentric origin, to conceptualise the link of contingency and origin not only as the contingency of origin but also in the form of a contingency as origin of international law, as international law originates from the confrontations, translations, encounters, and struggles of various actors. The chapter analyses, second, arguments about progress in international legal histories and argues that these arguments are tied to different conceptualisations of the observer, i.e. the international legal historian. Here, more traditional international legal histories often rely on an understanding of a non-contingent observer, who seeks to create an international legal order that is able to tame the contingencies of the international sphere. However, such narratives of international law’s linear progress have come under scrutiny recently as several interventions started to direct our attention to the multiple perspectives and multilinear trajectories in the making of the current international legal order or invite us to conceptualise the history of international law as a sequence of contingent disruptive events. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of what it could mean to open international legal histories for different conceptualisations of origin and to give up the idea of a non-contingent observer inscribed in progressive narratives.
English title: We have never been global. Latour, International Relations and the (Geo)Politics o... more English title: We have never been global. Latour, International Relations and the (Geo)Politics of Diplomacy
Chapter Drafts by Filipe dos Reis
Published in Lobo-Guerrero, L., Lo Presti, L., Dos Reis, F., Mapping, Connectivity and the Making of European Empire, 2021
Maps have been assumed by many, at different times, as authoritative and valid sources from which... more Maps have been assumed by many, at different times, as authoritative and valid sources from which historical facts can be ascertained, which are in turn used to legitimate nationalist, economic, and legalistic narratives of all kinds. Moreover, maps have been used as devices for the representation and dissemination of spatial ideas, as objective and incontestable facts. Cartography has been used to legitimise rights of property over land (e.g. cadastral maps and plans), to debate jurisdictional and territorial boundaries (e.g. Weissberg 1963), and to validate claims to discovery and sovereignty (c.f. MacMillan 2003), to name but some. However arguable those ideas are, as they will be discussed below, they represent a particular way of understanding maps and cartography and relate strongly with established orders, power relations, and forms of governance. Such form of representation assumes a highly debatable stable correspondence between the depicted and the real. Multiple elements play a role in de-legitimising the map as an authoritative image, many of which are explored in this volume through particular cases of how mapping contributed to the creation of imaginaries of empire.
Ever since constructivism emerged as a distinct approach in the field of International Relations,... more Ever since constructivism emerged as a distinct approach in the field of International Relations, it referred to international law extensively to challenge the positivist foundations of the discipline. The rationale for this move can be found in the historical context of IR"s institutionalization in the US. Especially during the Cold War and the dominance of power politics, IR treated International Law (as every legal order) as its very "other" that one is not allowed to take too seriously in order to not fall into the trap of utopian politics. IR only "rediscovered" IL in the late 1980s when the Cold War was about to come to an end. It is also at this time that constructivism emerged in various forms and guises. This chapter discusses the constructivist approach in international legal theory (ILT) by pointing to the different constructivist understandings of the "politics" of international law: while moderate versions of constructivism associate the politics of international law with "compliance", radical constructivist approaches understands the politics as emanating from the construction of social spaces and temporalities. The politics of international law is linked to international law"s disciplinary structures, argumentative styles and practices.
How does the power of legality impact inter-disciplinary research between International Relations... more How does the power of legality impact inter-disciplinary research between International Relations (IR) and International Law (IL)? This is the question this chapter tries to answer. This implies that this chapter does not provide an empirical discussion of legality or a-legality. Rather it is interested in the reconstruction of how the power of legality changes the boundaries between these two disciplines. On the one hand, it is certainly still true that these two disciplines are ‘so close yet so far away’. They are close as their disciplinary histories are irremediably connected. Yet they are far away as they do not speak the same language. Conversations between them first of all need translations, i.e. not just a mere transposition, of basic concepts and problems.
Call for Papers by Filipe dos Reis
Call for papers for Workshop on 'The Global 1920s', 6th European Workshops in International Studi... more Call for papers for Workshop on 'The Global 1920s', 6th European Workshops in International Studies, Kraków, 26-29 June 2019.
Histories of the 'international' and the development of concepts such as security, capital, sover... more Histories of the 'international' and the development of concepts such as security, capital, sovereignty and civilization have been predominantly concerned with three interlinked stories: the story of the rise of the West, the story of the development of capitalism and the story of the development of modernity. Recently critical perspectives have questioned these macro-narratives and their constitutive chronologies, teleologies and spatial imaginaries, interrupting the linear, progressive and parochial stories upon which the idea(s) of the 'international' is built. This workshop continues and furthers these discussions by reconstructing avowedly global histories of the 'international'. The workshop welcomes papers addressing how to (re)write global histories of the 'international' and, in particular, how to approach the relationship between history, theory and concepts, as well as the relational, multi-perspectival and intertwined quality of global histories. The workshop aims to engage with but are not limited to the following questions related to how to write global histories of the 'international': What political, legal and economic relations and experiences should be uncovered to write a global history of the international system? Where should the spatial sources and points of departure of these relations be located and how should the experiences and sets of ideas they express be understood? In what ways can we reconstruct the-now often neglected-connections and mutual influences between different events, sites, actors and concepts which in aggregate constitute parts of a global history of the 'international'? These questions point to how we can move beyond pre-existing boundaries of knowledges and geopolitical contexts in ascribing meaning to particular concepts and events that are constitutive for general understandings of the history of international relations, and how we can adjudicate between competing claims to history.
Histories of the 'international' and the development of concepts such as security, capital, sover... more Histories of the 'international' and the development of concepts such as security, capital, sovereignty and civilization have been predominantly concerned with three interlinked stories: the story of the rise of the West, the story of the development of capitalism and the story of the development of modernity. Recently critical perspectives have questioned these macronarratives and their constitutive chronologies, teleologies and spatial imaginaries, interrupting the linear, progressive and parochial stories upon which the idea(s) of the 'international' is built. This section aims at furthering these discussions by reconstructing avowedly global intellectual histories of and narratives on the 'international'. To this end, panels in this section address the question of how to write global intellectual histories of the 'international'. The contributions to this section will address -but are not limited to -the following questions. What political, legal and economic relations and experiences can or should be uncovered to write a global history of the 'international'? Where should the spatial sources and points of departure of these relations be located and how should the experiences and sets of ideas they express be understood? In what ways can we reconstruct the -now often neglected -connections and mutual influences between different events, sites, actors and concepts which in aggregate constitute parts of a global history of the 'international'? There has been a recent turn to history in the disciplines of International Relations, International Law, and International Political Economy. This section seeks to further these discussions in broadening and rethinking the social and epistemic terrains of intellectual histories of the 'international'.
Book Reviews by Filipe dos Reis
Zeitschrift für Politische Theorie, 2017
Bruno Latours Monographie Die Rechtsfabrik. Eine Ethnographie des Conseil d'État er-schien im fra... more Bruno Latours Monographie Die Rechtsfabrik. Eine Ethnographie des Conseil d'État er-schien im französischen Original bereits 2002 und in der englischen Übersetzung 2010. Für viele Interessierte dürfte die insgesamt überzeugende deutsche Übersetzung von Claudia Brede-Konersmann daher keine ganz neue Entdeckung mehr sein. Rückblickend erweist sich das Buch als ein Schritt Latours in seiner Arbeit an einem breit angelegten philosophischen Projekt, das er in Existenzweisen. Eine Anthropologie der Modernen dar-legt (Latour 2014). Dort entfaltet Latour 15 Ontologien, die seine Diagnose von 1991, wonach wir nie modern gewesen seien (Latour 2008), um eine positive Erzählung der Modernen ergänzt. Die Sammelbände von Marcus Twellmann und Kyle McGee reagieren sowohl auf die Rechtsfabrik wie auch auf die Existenzweisen. Die Diskussion der Exis-tenzweise des Rechts – abgekürzt mit [REC] – basiert vor allem auf Latours ethnographi-scher Untersuchung des Conseil d'État und spielt eine besonders prominente Rolle unter den Existenzweisen, da sie als einzige relativ immun gegen die Umwälzungen des Mo-dernismus geblieben sei (Latour 2014: 490). Die Rechtsfabrik ist der Bericht über fünfzehn Monate Arbeit im Feld, die Latour Mitte der 1990er Jahre über vier Jahre verteilt im Palais Royal, dem Pariser Sitz des Conseil, verbrachte. Typisch für die Akteur-Netzwerk-Theorie (ANT) wird Recht als hyb-rides Ensemble beschrieben, für das ein institutionelles Setting genauso eine Rolle spielt wie die aktenförmige Materie und die beteiligten Menschen. Die spezifische Artikulation des Rechts – mit dem Begriff fasst Latour die Art und Weise, wie verschiedenste Entitä
Books by Filipe dos Reis
by Sahib Singh, Jean d'Aspremont, Richard Collins, Ntina Tzouvala, Onur Ulas Ince, Mohammad Shahabuddin, Robert Knox, Christian Tams, Umut Özsu, Fleur Johns, Oliver Kessler, Filipe dos Reis, Johannes Gerald (Anne) van Mulligen, Janne Nijman, Matthias Goldmann, Vidya Kumar, Geoff Gordon, and Iain Scobbie This is the final table of contents, introduction and all 60 chapter abstracts for the volume "Co... more This is the final table of contents, introduction and all 60 chapter abstracts for the volume "Concepts for International Law: Contributions to Disciplinary Thought."
The introduction, entitled 'The Life of International Law and its Concepts', is a standalone piece that grapples with the relation between legal concepts, life and living in international law. First, we briefly explore the contemporary malaise in international law’s disciplinary life, in and for which this book emerges. We urge a sensibility that sees working on international law’s concepts as opening up a range of possibilities in how we may act, live, know, see and understand within and towards the discipline. Second, we offer an overview into how legal thought has, in its diversity, approached legal concepts. We aim to draw out those sensibilities that remain prevalent in today’s legal writings on concepts, whilst also pointing to the limits, nuances and fractures of these sensibilities. In this regard we offer detailed readings, criticisms and extensions of texts by Jhering, Hohfeld, Ross, Cohen, Kennedy, Koskenniemi, and Marks to name but a few. These readings primarily point to the intricate and intractable difficulties of reconciling concepts with social life. They also point to a series of shifting and entwined aesthetic, ethical and political presuppositions that dominate the various ways in which we approach legal concepts today. In showing the diversity of legal sensibilities towards legal concepts, we hope to not only open up the various possibilities and limits of these sensibilities, but to point towards the intellectual cultural resources at the modern scholar’s disposal. Third, and finally, we offer an introduction to the volume itself. Here we outline how we chose its concepts, the types of concepts contained therein, and how we see the complex relations between different concepts.
Projects by Filipe dos Reis
Centre for International Relations (Groningen), 2018
Although maps are frequently used in IR to better understand world politics and depict the globe,... more Although maps are frequently used in IR to better understand world politics and depict the globe, they are rarely treated as specific expressions of epistemological practice. The project explores specific imaginaries of the world, namely those in the cartography of Western modern empires. By doing so, it links to the burgeoning literature on the history of international relations and empire (see Bader 2015; Barkawi and Laffey 2002; Bayly 2016; Go 2011; Long and Schmidt 2005; see also for international law: Koskenniemi, Rech, and Jiménez Fonseca 2017).The emphasis on empires serves here as an important corrigendum for IR’s state centrism and Eurocentrism and contributes to demolishing the myth of Westphalia. As valuable as these contributions are, they lack, a comparative lens on empires which would provide them with a perspective to demystify nationalist and culturalist agendas –typical example within IR is that of the British Empire (Edney 2005).
The project aims to broaden this perspective by comparing different cartographic projects and their underlying epistemologies, which were crucial in the making of different European empires. In particular, this workshop employs a connectivity and global histories perspective on empire and the epistemologies of cartography.
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Chapters by Filipe dos Reis
Chapter Drafts by Filipe dos Reis
Call for Papers by Filipe dos Reis
Book Reviews by Filipe dos Reis
Books by Filipe dos Reis
The introduction, entitled 'The Life of International Law and its Concepts', is a standalone piece that grapples with the relation between legal concepts, life and living in international law. First, we briefly explore the contemporary malaise in international law’s disciplinary life, in and for which this book emerges. We urge a sensibility that sees working on international law’s concepts as opening up a range of possibilities in how we may act, live, know, see and understand within and towards the discipline. Second, we offer an overview into how legal thought has, in its diversity, approached legal concepts. We aim to draw out those sensibilities that remain prevalent in today’s legal writings on concepts, whilst also pointing to the limits, nuances and fractures of these sensibilities. In this regard we offer detailed readings, criticisms and extensions of texts by Jhering, Hohfeld, Ross, Cohen, Kennedy, Koskenniemi, and Marks to name but a few. These readings primarily point to the intricate and intractable difficulties of reconciling concepts with social life. They also point to a series of shifting and entwined aesthetic, ethical and political presuppositions that dominate the various ways in which we approach legal concepts today. In showing the diversity of legal sensibilities towards legal concepts, we hope to not only open up the various possibilities and limits of these sensibilities, but to point towards the intellectual cultural resources at the modern scholar’s disposal. Third, and finally, we offer an introduction to the volume itself. Here we outline how we chose its concepts, the types of concepts contained therein, and how we see the complex relations between different concepts.
Projects by Filipe dos Reis
The project aims to broaden this perspective by comparing different cartographic projects and their underlying epistemologies, which were crucial in the making of different European empires. In particular, this workshop employs a connectivity and global histories perspective on empire and the epistemologies of cartography.
The introduction, entitled 'The Life of International Law and its Concepts', is a standalone piece that grapples with the relation between legal concepts, life and living in international law. First, we briefly explore the contemporary malaise in international law’s disciplinary life, in and for which this book emerges. We urge a sensibility that sees working on international law’s concepts as opening up a range of possibilities in how we may act, live, know, see and understand within and towards the discipline. Second, we offer an overview into how legal thought has, in its diversity, approached legal concepts. We aim to draw out those sensibilities that remain prevalent in today’s legal writings on concepts, whilst also pointing to the limits, nuances and fractures of these sensibilities. In this regard we offer detailed readings, criticisms and extensions of texts by Jhering, Hohfeld, Ross, Cohen, Kennedy, Koskenniemi, and Marks to name but a few. These readings primarily point to the intricate and intractable difficulties of reconciling concepts with social life. They also point to a series of shifting and entwined aesthetic, ethical and political presuppositions that dominate the various ways in which we approach legal concepts today. In showing the diversity of legal sensibilities towards legal concepts, we hope to not only open up the various possibilities and limits of these sensibilities, but to point towards the intellectual cultural resources at the modern scholar’s disposal. Third, and finally, we offer an introduction to the volume itself. Here we outline how we chose its concepts, the types of concepts contained therein, and how we see the complex relations between different concepts.
The project aims to broaden this perspective by comparing different cartographic projects and their underlying epistemologies, which were crucial in the making of different European empires. In particular, this workshop employs a connectivity and global histories perspective on empire and the epistemologies of cartography.