Re-assembling the cyborg:an exploration of the analytical and emancipatory potentials of cyborg diseases

Our existence is increasingly entangled with modern technology. As technologies evolve, our human-technology cyborgs are stuck in a cycle of reterritorialization and coding. The ailments of the technology and those of the human were our concern however; we ignored the diseases of cyborgs as a fluid ontology. In this paper, we aim to develop a pathological analysis of cyborgs. We conceptualise the diseases of cyborg as lines of flights that create windows of opportunity for de-stratifying and reterritorializing cyborg configurations. To do this, we use the case of “Maladox”, a speculative design work by one of the authors, investigating our entanglements with modern technology through a conceptual development of cyborg diseases. First, we discuss the role that the idea of sickness played in framing of human-technology interactions. Our focus is on how technology codifies our bodies (Svenaeus, 2013) and our ideas of self. We then extend Haravay’s notion of cyborgs and reflect on its ailments from a Deleuzian perspective. We apply the notion of body-without organs to analyse “Maladox” and further develop the notion of cyborg diseases. Finally, we expand on the critical/emancipatory potential of cyborg diseases as short-lived moments when a new cyborg ethics and reconfigurations can come about

Re-assembling the cyborg:an exploration of the analytical and emancipatory potentials of cyborg diseases

Our existence is increasingly entangled with modern technology. As technologies evolve, our human-technology cyborgs are stuck in a cycle of reterritorialization and coding. The ailments of the technology and those of the human were our concern however; we ignored the diseases of cyborgs as a fluid ontology. In this paper, we aim to develop a pathological analysis of cyborgs. We conceptualise the diseases of cyborg as lines of flights that create windows of opportunity for de-stratifying and reterritorializing cyborg configurations. To do this, we use the case of “Maladox”, a speculative design work by one of the authors, investigating our entanglements with modern technology through a conceptual development of cyborg diseases. First, we discuss the role that the idea of sickness played in framing of human-technology interactions. Our focus is on how technology codifies our bodies (Svenaeus, 2013) and our ideas of self. We then extend Haravay’s notion of cyborgs and reflect on its ailments from a Deleuzian perspective. We apply the notion of body-without organs to analyse “Maladox” and further develop the notion of cyborg diseases. Finally, we expand on the critical/emancipatory potential of cyborg diseases as short-lived moments when a new cyborg ethics and reconfigurations can come about

Performance measurement in global governance:Ranking and the politics of variability

The past thirty years have witnessed the spread of rankings, ratings and league tables as governance technologies which aim to regulate the provision of public goods by means of market pressures. This paper examines the process of company analysis underlying the production of a ranking known as the Access to Medicine Index. We conceptualize the Index as a “regulatory ranking” with the explicit mission of addressing a perceived regulatory gap and market failure: the lack of access to medicine in the Global South. The Index, which ranks the world's largest pharmaceutical companies with regards to their access to medicine policies and practices, aspires to help address the problem of access to medicine through stakeholder consultation, transparency and competition. This study unbundles the epistemic work underlying the performance measurement process leading to the creation of the Index. We trace how the goal of stakeholder consensus, the need to project objectivity and the aspiration to govern through competition shape analysts' epistemic work. We discuss how through notions such as “the good distribution” and “aspirational indicators”, performance measurement and ranking become entangled in a “politics of variability” whereby company data need to be variably interpreted in order to optimise the possibilities of intervening in companies through competitive pressures, while at the same time complying with the imperatives to remain in the space of perceived stakeholder consensus and to provide a faithful representation of companies performance to inform public debates. We reflect on the challenges posed by these analysis processes for the regulatory aspirations of the ranking.</p

From God to Markets. An Analysis of the Meaning Work of Boundary Actors During the 'Mainstreaming' of Socially Responsible Investment

Meaning work is a key category of institutional work, which aims at maintaining or changing of field-level meanings. Mobilizing institutional analysis of field level change processes and the social movement framing literature, this study conceptualizes the types of meaning work that actor at the boundary of a social movement and the incumbent field undertake in the process of “mainstreaming”. Mainstreaming in this paper is defined as a process whereby a social movement succeeds in diffusing its norms, values or practices across the wider incumbent field. During the past few decades, socially responsible investment (SRI) has shifted from being a marginal, religious, mostly US-based movement to an influential international movement, which has succeeded in mobilizing a large number of incumbent investors and financial organizations. Based on a multi-stage qualitative analysis of the SRI field during the past 50 years, this study first establishes the structural changes that define a field undergoing mainstreaming. It then introduces propositions regarding links between these field-level changes and the meaning work that actors at the boundary between a social movement and the incumbent field undertake

la construction du sens : Le rôle des institutions et des acteurs sociaux dans la construction conjointe des systèmes interprétatifs et sémantiques

La présente thèse étudie l'interaction entre structure et agence dans le contexte d'une institutionnalisation sur plusieurs niveaux. Les institutions interagissent de manière complexe sur le terrain et aux niveaux national et transnational. Cette dynamique complexe conditionne tant les interprétations et les convictions générées par les acteurs que leur mobilisation du sens pour mettre en pratique interprétations et convictions en pratique dans le cas d'exigences multiples. Les deux études empiriques l'étudient de manière détaillée.La première porte sur le rôle joué par les institutions nationales dans la réglementation transnationale des fonds souverains ; la seconde, sur le rôle des acteurs et des institutions dans l'évolution des cadres d'interprétation appliqués aux investissements socialement responsables. Ces deux études se basent sur des méthodes de recherche qualitative qui s'appuient sur différentes sources de données, dont l'observation de participants, des entretiens plus de nombreuses sources documentaires et sources secondaires. Ces études ont donné lieu à trois articles de recherche, deux empiriques et un conceptuel. Les deux articles empiriques, Fonds souverains, fonds monétaire international et transparence et Du dieu aux marchés, répondent à des questions théoriques sur le rôle des acteurs et des institutions aux différents niveaux du champ, la société et l’espace transnational dans la constitution interprétative et sémantique. Ces deux articles font référence à d'autres cadres théoriques et les enrichissent en retour, notamment dans les domaines de la transparence, de l'étude interprétative de la comptabilité, de la gouvernance transnationale, des mouvements sociaux et du droit mou. Le troisième article, La responsabilité sociale des entreprises et le « karma du marché », propose un cadre conceptuel pour les mécanismes supposés traduire le comportement social des entreprises en performances financières. Cela introduit différentes caractéristiques relatives à l'entreprise ainsi que des facteurs institutionnels impactant ce lien. La thèse dans son ensemble éclaire la façon dont des institutions en compétition conditionnent le comportement des acteurs et comment ces derniers se mobilisent de manière sélective des cadres et apports sémantiques des institutions.This dissertation explores the interaction between structure and agency in the context of multi-level institutionalization. Institutions interplay in complex ways across the field, national and transnational levels. Those complex dynamics condition both the interpretations and convictions that actors produce and the ways they mobilize meanings in order to “enact” their interpretations and convictions under competing demands. These dynamics are explored in-depth through two empirical studies. The first looks at the role national institutions play in the transnational regulation of sovereign wealth funds. The second examines the role of actors and institutions in evolution of frames used for socially responsible investments.Both the empirical studies utilize qualitative research methods drawing upon multiple sources of data including participant observation, interviews and a wide range of documentary evidence and secondary material. These studies yielded three research papers, two of which are empirical and the third one is conceptual. The two empirical papers named respectively “Sovereign wealth funds, the IMF and transparency” and “From God to markets” attempt to answer theoretical questions around the role of institutions at multiple levels of transnational, national and field, and actors in constitution of interpretations and meanings. In addition, these papers mobilize and contribute to other theoretical frameworks including transparency, interpretive accounting, transnational governance, social movements and soft laws. The third paper named “social responsibility and karma of market”, provides a conceptual framework for all the mechanisms claimed to translate the social behavior of firms to financial performance. It then sets out the firm attributes and institutional factors at multiple levels that mediate this link. Overall, this dissertation attempts to provide a better understanding of how competing institutions at different levels condition the actors’ behavior and how actors selectively mobilize and edit the institutional frames and meanings