Imaginaries of Connectivity; the Making of Novel Spaces of Governance

This edited book project addresses the problem of how the creation of novel spaces of governance relates to imaginaries of connectivity in time. While connectivity seems almost ubiquitous today, it has been imagined and practiced in various ways and to varying political effects in different historical and geographical contexts. Often the conception of new connectivities also gives birth to new spaces of governance. The political denomination of spaces – whether maritime, continental, social, or virtual – reflects the situatedness of power. Yet, such crafting of new spaces also expresses particular imaginaries and technologies of connectivity that make governance possible. Whereas the study of international relations has traditionally focused on the role of agency and structure in power relations, the affects, beliefs, attitudes, and practices that intervene in how groups of people connect in given times have not attracted much scholarly attention. This edited volume brings such imaginaries of connectivity to the fore in order to explore the three interrelated problems of connectivity, novelty and spatiality.

The volume was published by h Rowman and Littlefield in 2020.

Reviews:

Although new technologies have created an increasingly interconnected world, institutionalized academic disciplines, functioning within their traditional cartographic imaginaries, have had a trained incapacity to theorize the new dynamic spatiality constituting the contemporary global world. Manifesting a creative indisciplinarity, the collection of diverse well composed chapters in Imaginaries of Connectivity is an important intervention that alerts us to a world that has been under theorized.

Michael J. Shapiro, University of Hawai'i, Manoa


Unpacking the meaning of connectivity across a variety of historical contexts, Imaginaries of Connectivity illustrates the extent to which each set of connections is premised on its own distinctive worldview and its material preconditions, as well as how such imaginaries have shaped new objects of governance across space. As such, this volume offers fresh and exciting perspectives on a range of phenomena hitherto neglected by students of international relations and globalization theory.

Jens Bartelson, Professor of Political Science, Lund University


What a marvelous collection! Working within a new and original approach to ontopolitical connectivity, these essays cast a raking light across a set of fascinating case studies ranging from the impact of the discovery of new constellations on the cosmographic imaginaries of early modern Europeans, to the unfolding connectivities between facial recognition technologies and borders in contemporary globalization imaginaries. Highly recommended.

Larry George, Professor of Political Science, California State University