Ignacio Farías | Humboldt Universität zu Berlin (original) (raw)

Papers by Ignacio Farías

The 'smart city' is likely one of the most unbearable current policy discourses and frameworks no... more The 'smart city' is likely one of the most unbearable current policy discourses and frameworks not just due to its technological determinism. Hence we are interested in exploring alternative narratives on 'smart cities' by proposing two main 'moves' from conventional perspectives. The first one involves considering a wider range of actors and logics than those usually considered in descriptions of smart cities. This does not just imply paying attention to grassroots organizations and private tech companies that develop data-driven urban services outside the conventional smart city programs run by municipalities, but also taking seriously the various non-digital logics and concerns that articulate or collide with smart city projects. The second move directly derives from the first one, as it proposes to go from a narrow focus on smart governmentality to a broader understanding on the (cosmo)-politics of smart urbanism. We examine these moves in the light of two quite different instances of smart urbanism: a service for urban exploration offered by the tech company Foursquare and a smart city project implemented by the municipality of Munich. Following the political trajectories of these two cases of smart urbanism, we underline the more-than-governmental and more-than digital logics that intervene in the making of 'ordinary' smart cities.

This article discusses the role of parliaments in the production of modern politics and proposes ... more This article discusses the role of parliaments in the production of modern politics and proposes that contemporary political challenges necessitate a new parliamentarian architecture. While Bruno Latour operationalizes the idea of a ‘parliament of things’ in procedural terms, this article explores its possible material expression. To this end, it relies on a sketch design seminar with architecture students at the Technical University of Munich, the proposition of which was to design a political building to put in presence of each other the human and non- human actors involved in a fictional socio-environmental controversy. The results include images and principles that challenge the assumptions of the modern parliamentarian form of doing and understanding politics.

An anthropology of speed is an invitation to think differently about time. As epitomized by Johan... more An anthropology of speed is an invitation to think differently about time. As epitomized by Johannes Fabian's (1983) Time and the Other, anthropology has long engaged with the social, historical, and cosmological construction of time and the thoroughly political production and valuation of present pasts and present futures: memory, tradition, preparedness, utopia, innovation, and so on. Against this backdrop, an anthropology of speed involves exploring time as an intensity shaping the unfolding of relations. Speed invites us to reimagine the social as a vector space, in which different bodies, human and nonhuman, are constituted through the direction, force, drive, and friction of movements and associations (Farías and Hoehne 2016). Rather than concerning itself with time, an anthropology of speed is about timing (see Farías 2010) and various concepts associated with it, such as rhythm, urgency, and acceleration. It is an invitation to study events, not just as instantiations of overarching logics of practice or social structures , but as constitutive of socialities, temporalities, actors, knowledges, and ontologies.

Briassoulis' work is an invitation to think human responses to environmental degradation by means... more Briassoulis' work is an invitation to think human responses to environmental degradation by means of assemblage theory. Introducing an analytical position beyond positivist and constructivist conceptualizations of ecological systems, Briassoulis' article redirects our attention to the situated practices of assembling the heterogeneous actors that shape socio-natural environments. The consequences of such move, however, are not fully followed through. The notion of socio-ecological systems remains unchallenged, as response assemblages (RAs) are imagined to be constituted within such systems. The effectiveness of RAs is assessed in evolutionary terms by focussing on their 'fit', thus positing nature as their ultimate arbiter. By addressing these issues, this article prepares the ground for studying the cosmopolitics of RAs as involving an experimental practice aimed at composing the world.

What is technical democracy? And why does it matter for urban studies? As an introduction to this... more What is technical democracy? And why does it matter for urban studies? As an introduction to this special feature, we address these questions by reflecting on To Our Friends, the 2014 manifesto of the Invisible Committee. We engage in particular its provocative diagnosis of the current situation: power no longer resides in the modern institutions of representative democracy and the market economy; instead, power has become a matter of logistics, infra- structures and expertise. This diagnosis, we suggest, brings into view the challenge of tech- nical democracy, that is, the democratization of techno-scientific expertise and the instauration of forms of lasting collaboration among experts and laypeople. Urban politics, we claim, increasingly turns around socio-technical controversies and it is in terms of the politics of expertise that we should analyse and engage it. Building on Science and Technol- ogy Studies (STS), we conclude by pointing to four key conceptual dimensions of technical democracy—shared uncertainty, material politics, collective experimentation and fragile democratization—and provide examples taken from the papers included in this special feature.

The notion of hybrid forums has come to embody the promises and dangers of ‘technical democracy’;... more The notion of hybrid forums has come to embody the promises and dangers of ‘technical democracy’; that ethico-political project that, according to Callon, Lascoumes, and Barthe (2009. Acting in an Uncertain World: An Essay on Technical Democracy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press), aims at the democratization of expertise through the sustained collabor- ation among technical experts and issue publics on shared matters of concern. In this paper I study the managerial deployment of hybrid forums as participatory devices after the 2010 earthquake and tsunami in the city of Constitucio ́n, Chile. By carefully describing the genealogy, organization and consequences of said forums, I reflect on three critical ten- sions underlying such collaborative processes. Firstly, taking into account the tension between the notion of hybrid forums as a concept and a device, I describe how these were devised by a Chilean consulting company as a tool for managing controversies. Sec- ondly, dwelling on the tension between emergent and procedural dynamics of collaboration, I show the limitations these forums confronted for incorporating pre-existing controversies about the present and future of Constitucio ́ n. Thirdly, I discuss how what counts as political voice was constrained by and contested in these forums, looking in detail at how local fish- ermen mobilized forms of political claim-making that run against the collaborative project of technical democracy. I conclude by suggesting that the most urgent challenge of hybrid forums is not just to democratically respond to existing uncertainties and matters of concern, but also to actually participate in the manufacturing of uncertainty.

The 2010 earthquake-tsunami in Chile did not just destroy cities and towns. It also revealed how ... more The 2010 earthquake-tsunami in Chile did not just destroy cities and towns. It also revealed how the neoliberal decentralisation of the Chilean state initiated during the Pinochet dictatorship had radically diminished and fragmented territorial planning capacities, representing a major obstacle to the planning and management of the reconstruction process. In the face of this situation, exceptional reconstruction agencies were created, which engaged in the elaboration of master plans, suspending in practice – at least temporarily – existing planning authorities and instruments. These new institutional arrangements were also subject to a number of critiques, sparking moral controversies among different public actors about the contribution of these exceptional governmental agencies to the common good. Drawing on the Chilean example, this article proposes expanding the concept of the state of exception to include cases in which what is reconfigured is not the relationship between the State and the population, but the relationship between the state and its territory, so that exceptional powers can be applied upon a 'bare land' rather than a 'bare life'. To the extent that this different state of exception does not reduce citizens to bodies to be protected and administered, it requires a moral rather than a technical justification.

Geoforum, 2015

ABSTRACT This paper engages in a critical assessment of environmental management as a way of reth... more ABSTRACT This paper engages in a critical assessment of environmental management as a way of rethinking our co-habitation with earthly powers. Focusing on the post-disaster reconstruction of Constitución, a Chilean costal city severely damaged by the 2010 tsunami, we argue that environmental management theory has not fully recognised that, sometimes, we humans confront excessive forces that cannot be not diplomatically managed or assumed as manageable objects that will readily accept our invitation to compose a common world.

This edited collection approaches the 'studio' as a key site for the production of cultural artef... more This edited collection approaches the 'studio' as a key site for the production of cultural artefacts, and in doing so it aims to open up a novel and underdeveloped topic for social and cultural research. As the chapters of this book demonstrate, studios play an essential role in bringing into being all manner of aesthetic, affective and reflexive objects including, but not limited to, artworks, brands, buildings, crafted artefacts, concepts, designed products and services, live action and animated films, information technologies, music, software and video games. Even government policy is being conceived and incubated in 'social' and 'service' design studios, continuing the intervention of design into democratic procedures (e.g. SEE Platform 2013). The list is seemingly endless. Studios, it appears, have become the principle resource for what are, after Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer (1979), commonly known as 'culture industries' where so-called 'creativity' is heralded as the driving factor in the revitalization of contemporary capitalist economies. The premise of this collection, however, is that despite the key role played by the studio in cultural production, its importance has been, and remains, largely overlooked by anthropologists, sociologists, cultural theorists, historians, policy makers and so forth. In short, the studio remains a peculiar and remarkable lacuna in our understanding of how cultural artefacts are brought into the world and how creativity operates as a situated practice.

This article examines actor-network theory’s (ANT) complex relationships with notions of culture.... more This article examines actor-network theory’s (ANT) complex relationships with notions of culture. We start with a discussion of ANT’s fundamental works and show how these question common notions of culture. In the second part, we show how current developments in ANT, which empirically focus on arts, markets, care, and democracy, strongly rely on a pragmatist approach to practices. The third part outlines ANT’s methodological and theoretical contributions for cultural analysis. In sum, as a perspective ANT suggests a reformatting of what cultural analysis might entail.

La noción de cosmopolítica ha adquirido recientemente gran relevancia edición especial está consa... more La noción de cosmopolítica ha adquirido recientemente gran relevancia edición especial está consagrada al trabajo en torno a este concepto tal y

The failure of the Chilean tsunami warning system on the night of 27 February 2010, opens up the ... more The failure of the Chilean tsunami warning system on the night of 27 February 2010, opens up the question of the ontological politics of inquiry processes at the two national centres of recognition and civic protection involved. Focusing on approximately two hours of intense activity and communication, I identify three critical features of how non-human phenomena are enacted by these agencies and show how these features shaped the process of misrecognizing the ongoing tsunami. They involved, first, the problem of information and the tension between local and global assessments; second, the problem of interpretation and the tension between scientific evidence and political intervention; and, third, the problem of conclusions and the tension between certainty and uncertainty. The ensuing public and legal controversy about responsible actors of this fatal failure also offers an opportunity to reflect upon the precautionary principle as a model for action in uncertain situations. I suggest here that the failure of the tsunami warning system reveals the need of associating precaution to a cosmopolitical duty of recognition of non-human entities and forces.

Economy & Society

This paper explores processes of market creation in Chile, firstly, in the 1980s as a market for ... more This paper explores processes of market creation in Chile, firstly, in the 1980s as a market for social housing was initially introduced and, 30 years later, as existing market arrangements were adapted to organize housing reconstruction after the 2010 earthquake. Looking in detail at these two cases, this paper describes a type of relationship between economics and economic processes which deviates significantly from the currently widely discussed performativity of economics. Instead, a process of economic improvisation is identified that involves the composition of market arrangements without a pre-existing economic theory or model of the economic processes at stake. Improvisation, as this paper shows, is a key under-theorized element of neoliberal transformation processes in Chile and elsewhere, and crucial to understanding neoliberal action in critical moments. The paper also proposes distinguishing different modes of economic improvisation and how these become economic models.

in Formationen des Politischen: Anthropologie politischer Felder, hrsg. von Jens Adam und Asta Vonderau

European Journal of Social Theory

This article proposes complementing actor-network theory (ANT) with Niklas Luhmann's communicatio... more This article proposes complementing actor-network theory (ANT) with Niklas Luhmann's communication theory, in order to overcome one of ANT's major shortcomings, namely, the lack of a conceptual repertoire to describe virtual processes such as sensemaking. A highly problematic consequence of ANT's actualism is that it cannot explain the differentiation of economic, legal, scientific, touristic, religious, medical, artistic, political and other qualities of actual entities, assemblages and relationships. By recasting Luhmann's theory of functionally differentiated communication forms and sense-making as dealing with different types of virtual attractors calling for actualizations in concrete assemblages, I propose a symmetrical understanding of societal differentiation processes as based on the co-production of virtual attractors and actual assemblages.

What defines sites of artistic processes? What differentiates studio-based creative work from sit... more What defines sites of artistic processes? What differentiates studio-based creative work from site-specific creative work? Based on an ethnographic study of artist Mirja Busch’s travels, three spatial practices are analyzed that constitute both the studio and other working sites: manipulation, accumulation, and enclosure. Nevertheless, significant differences in the temporalities of the creative process can be observed that link work beyond the studio to the practice of hunting.

Geoforum, 2015

Economy & Society

in Formationen des Politischen: Anthropologie politischer Felder, hrsg. von Jens Adam und Asta Vonderau

European Journal of Social Theory

This book takes it as a given that the city is made of multiple partially localized assemblages b... more This book takes it as a given that the city is made of multiple partially localized assemblages built of heterogeneous networks, spaces, and practices. The past century of urban studies has focused on various aspects—space, culture, politics, economy—but these too often address each domain and the city itself as a bounded and cohesive entity. The multiple and overlapping enactments that constitute urban life require a commensurate method of analysis that encompasses the human and non-human aspects of cities—from nature to socio-technical networks, to hybrid collectivities, physical artefacts and historical legacies, and the virtual or imagined city.

This book proposes—and its various chapters offer demonstrations—importing into urban studies a body of theories, concepts, and perspectives developed in the field of science and technology studies (STS) and, more specifically, Actor-Network Theory (ANT). The essays examine artefacts, technical systems, architectures, place and eventful spaces, the persistence of history, imaginary and virtual elements of city life, and the politics and ethical challenges of a mode of analysis that incorporates multiple actors as hybrid chains of causation. The chapters are attentive to the multiple scales of both the object of analysis and the analysis itself. The aim is more ambitious than the mere transfer of a fashionable template. The authors embrace ANT critically, as much as a metaphor as a method of analysis, deploying it to think with, to ask new questions, to find the language to achieve more compelling descriptions of city life and of urban transformations. By greatly extending the chain or network of causation, proliferating heterogeneous agents, non-human as well as human, without limit as to their enrolment in urban assemblages, Actor-Network Theory offers a way of addressing the particular complexity and openness characteristic of cities.

By enabling an escape from the reification of the city so common in social theory, ANT’s notion of hybrid assemblages offers richer framing of the reality of the city—of urban experience—that is responsive to contingency and complexity. Therefore Urban Assemblages is a pertinent book for students, practitioners and scholars as it aims to shift the parameters of urban studies and contribute a meaningful argument for the urban arena which will dominate the coming decades in government policies.

Observando sistemas es una colección de artículos inéditos escritos por investigadores y académic... more Observando sistemas es una colección de artículos inéditos escritos por investigadores y académicos de Brasil, México y Chile. Los trabajos compilados comparten el hecho de aplicar y desarrollar creativamente una de las más ambiciosas e influyentes perspectivas sociológicas desarrolladas en la segunda mitad del siglo XX: la teoría de sistemas sociales de Niklas Luhmann (1927-1998).

El centro de la publicación lo componen diez artículos escritos por investigadores jóvenes que llevan la teoría a lugares inesperados. Sus trabajos abarcan desde nuevos desarrollos teóricos hasta investigaciones que despliegan el potencial de esta teoría como herramienta de observación y comprensión de fenómenos sociales concretos. Además, estos artículos tratan temas diversos, relevantes e inéditos para la sociología sistémica, tales como las paradojas del derecho, el carácter autopoiético de la música contemporánea, la constitución de la gastronomía como ámbito funcionalmente diferenciado, los problemas de inclusión y exclusión en la educación y la pregunta por la cultura como elemento necesario para la comprensión de la sociedad como sistema.

El libro incluye además cuatro artículos que plantean reflexiones de carácter más general sobre el desarrollo y estado de la teoría de sistemas hoy, permitiendo situar las tesis propuestas en contextos más generales de discusión. Académicos consagrados al desarrollo de esta teoría en Chile y Latinoamérica han escrito tres de estas contribuciones: Marcelo Arnold-Cathalifaud, Aldo Mascareño, Darío Rodríguez y Javier Torres Nafarrate. Los editores del libro, Ignacio Farías y José Ossandón, añaden a estas reflexiones una cuarta perspectiva que busca destacar la "normalidad" de la teoría desarrollada por Luhmann en el marco del pensamiento social contemporáneo.

Wilkie, a., Farías, i., & sánChez CriaDo, t. (2018). Por una estética especulativa de la descripc... more Wilkie, a., Farías, i., & sánChez CriaDo, t. (2018). Por una estética especulativa de la descripción: Entrevista a Alex Wilkie. Entrevistadores: I. Farías, & T. Sánchez Criado. Diseña, (12), 70-87. Doi: 10.7764/disena.12.70-87

Wilkie, a., Farías, i., & sánChez CriaDo, t. (2018). For a Speculative Aesthetics of Description: Interview with Alex Wilkie. Interviewers: I. Farías, & T. Sánchez Criado. Diseña, (12), 70-87. Doi: 10.7764/disena.12.70-87

En Diciembre de 2005 invitamos a Rob Shields a participar de un simposio internacional de investi... more En Diciembre de 2005 invitamos a Rob Shields a participar de un simposio internacional de investigadores jóvenes sobre 'Construcciones Simbólicas de la Ciudad'en el Centro de Estudios Metropolitanos de Berlín. En este contexto, Shields pronunció dos conferencias en las que exploró las conexiones de su trabajo teórico con los fenómenos de la ciudad y lo urbano. La ponencia “Mitos de Lugar–Imágenes de Lugar”, se concentró sobretodo en precisar los contornos de este par de conceptos a la luz de la pregunta por la ciudad.

"En A New Philosophy of Society (2006), el filósofo mexicano Manuel DeLanda presenta una investig... more "En A New Philosophy of Society (2006), el filósofo mexicano Manuel DeLanda presenta una investigación sobre los fundamentos ontológicos de lo social desde la perspectiva de la ‘teoría de los ensamblajes y la complejidad social’, tal como reza el subtítulo de este libro. En la siguiente entrevista, DeLanda explica los principios y conceptos básicos de esta filosofía
de la sociedad y discute también el tipo de quiebre con algunas sociologías clásicas y contemporáneas que esta empresa supondría. En este diálogo, el lector descubrirá polémicas
en torno a la distinción micro/macro, al esquema parte/todo, a la idea de una ontología plana, al realismo y a lo virtual. Más allá de las respuestas particulares, esta entrevista refleja el renovado interés por la realidad ‘misma’ de lo social que impregna a ciertas sociologías y filosofías sociales contemporáneas."

Through the study of standardized practices (walking tours, bus-tours) and devices (maps, guidebo... more Through the study of standardized practices (walking tours, bus-tours) and devices (maps, guidebooks) for touring cities, this dissertation shows (1) how the city of Berlin is transformed into a virtual object, namely, an urban destination, (2) how such transformation is enabled not simply by tourist movement in space and being away from ‚home‘, but by tourist communication on the city, and (3) how this emergent tourist city is embedded in a multiple and polycontextural urban public sphere, in which it enters into different types of relationship with neighbouring enactments of the city, such as those of city-marketing and collective memory. Subtly informing the whole text there are three aspects to be mentioned: the dissertation proposes a new theory of tourism as a form of communication, not of travel; it integrates Luhmann’s communication theory with actor-network theory; and it is throughout empirical, based on a year-long ethnographic study (2005-2006) of touring practices and devices in contemporary Berlin.