3. Argument Anatomy: Excluding the Introduction, list out/ identify the key movements of the argument, till conclusion. Each one a few sentences. (If a Book, list out what each chapter/section contributed)

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Parikshith Shas...
May 14, 2019
In response to:
Most of the paper goes into questioning the supposed condition of lawlessness, located within the post-colonies. Using a plethora of case studies a link is drawn between an increased tread in privatized economic opportunity on a global level and a simultaneous diffusing centralized governance. The post -colonies are primed sites for such conditions resulting in a socio-cultural system of economic exploitation micro and micro level. 
However, such an argument stands on relations of law, as well as post-coloniality to these neoliberally engineered socio-cultural systems of economic exploitation. The Comaroffs do so in separate dedicated to both. In a section titled "Fetishism of the Law", they cite multiple cases to show hoe legal infrastructure exists admits complex socio-political trends and the intentions and interactions of actors. Suspended amidst such dynamic factors the legal framework is not an insulated system of judicial value, but just framework where the same culture of economic opportunity can infiltrate and change. Moreover, the economic trend has much to gain from the tool of law. A subtle point made here is that legal precedence is a result of legal procedure, thus manipulation or semiotic mimicking of said procedure would serve as a legal condition. The decentralized framework creates many such conditions for manipulation and mimicry.
As for the second leg of the argument, the post-colonial relation to economic exploitation on a culturally systemic scale is given a pass. Rather a negative argument is made, where such systemic exploitation is mapped in the developed global north. It is shown that systemic exploitation is only better covered up by judicially centralized nations but they fall prey to the same conditions of corrupt exploitation. Moreover, just as in the post-colonial cases illegal activities taken the form of heterogeneous organized systems, where the type of activity committed is commodified based on the market of exploitive needs. Indeed in centralized government, the state itself is the major site of "lawless" activity.          
Parikshith Shas...
May 14, 2019
In response to:
The first two chapters deal with an array of political theory. Besides being where the concepts of political society and civil society are introduced, it key argumentative method expounded here is showing the dislocation of theory and history. This dislocation can also be read like a western trait, as political thinking made in the global south, especially in the case of newly formed independent nation-state India, the incorporation of population groups was written into the state constitution. What must be marked here, is that Chatterjee shows that this incorporation with the date mainframe at the outset does not resolve the differences between the citizen's category and the population's category. This means that make real two types of communities within the logics working state. These working are governmental processes. The combination of the three ideas here,  the realness of history over theoretical trend, the realness of systemically created communicates (civil and political), and the realness of governmentality as an aspect of, but different from the democratic procedure are ruminated upon in the third and final chapter. It is taken forward by how state policies and procedures, such electoral practices invoke and mobilize populations. Chatterjee here drawing attention to how such moves are contradictory to the claims and principles of the nation-state, yet its own propagation requires it to uses such moves. In legitimatizing the presence of such a move within statecraft, Chatterjee goes on to legitimize it at the level of national subjects. He takes the examples of the of  "People’s Welfare Association" whose formational aim is to legitimize a particular squatter settlement, which inherently an illegal communal category. Chatterjee shows that the claims made by the association are in keeping with the governmental notions of populations, using large swaths of marginal categories to identify themselves (refugees, landless people, day laborers, homestead). However, they use unify these populational categories in claiming to be of a singular community, one family.  Populations lack moral status, they are made of subjects whose only deification is the subjecting to a particular category, none of the conditions of populations create a claim to citizenship. However, communities do, as they are moral categories and inherently treat their subjects as value-laden entities claiming district positions. Thus communities have the conditions for citizenship, and here a population is claiming the legal status of a community, through the legitimate avenues of governmental avenues. Chatterjee in the third chapter shows how political society is a means of acknowledging and working with both top-down and bottom-up processes of population mobilization.
The second part of the book takes this argued category and applies it to the situation of globalized mobilization. From terrorist acts, global economic trends, issues of democratic universal values such as secularism, and material development plans, each chapter how's how neoliberal politics though expounding the notions of citizenship consistently mobilizes the category of populations. The key argumentative category in these chapters is the nation. At the level of global trends, nations become both the site of creating populations as well as the device. National history, economic position all becoming tactics in creating and sustaining populations. At the same time creations of such times automatically create communities of the same, sharing the very same tactics that were used in their creation. Chatterjee uses Political Societies to trace the national creation of population and the forming of communities by the same.
What must be emphasized is the book argues for the legitimacy and potential of Political Societies, because of the opposing legitimate status and limitations of civil society. The avenue inhabiting the optimal position within the nation-state, that of citizenship, is unequal in its real condition. Such inequality extends further by maintaining the civil tactics of statecraft and ignoring governmental processes of the same.
Parikshith Shas...
May 14, 2019
In response to:
The first chapter establishes the claim to authority and the incorporation of choice in its nature of power. The second chapter adds the aspect of information mobility to the fold.
 The third is builds an in-depth analysis of differentiation through a multitude of cases. It is here that Busch lists out the different types of standards. They are  Olympic standards, filters, ranks, and divisions. Each one's treatment of their respective variables clutters creates different arrangements, systems, and qualities. Through the classification into types, Busch is able to show just how versatile the operation and function of standards really are. Moreover, each type is used in particular settings for particular functions, thus creating correspondingly particular forms of choice, value, and enactments. It is through this chapter that Busch laid the ground for his larger target, ethics in the neoliberal landscape.
The fourth chapter sees him move towards the larger standard systems in a neoliberal setting, emphasizing evaluation as the key aspect that is practiced, taught and expected. From systems of evaluation Busch moves to systems of value in the next chapter, dealing with ethics and justice. This bears the weight of all the technical aspects of standards that Busch has hitherto revealed. As complex dynamic technical objects of systemizing, their presence within areas of social value is anything but straight forward. In fact, Busch using Latour treatment of technology and society deduces that standards are social values made into technologies. And thus, differing notions of social value can be made durable simultaneously through the manufacturing of respective standards. The issue of contentions hence stems from durability rather than interpretive disagreement, for the common ground of evaluation is split into two different technologies that can exist operate and expound the same social value separately.
Taking on from this heterogeneity of standard systems in social spaces Busch final chapter incorporates the democratic state exists on economic principles. Here differentiation returns as an aspect of the economic state where such standards are used to incorporate or rather govern objects and people. Here Busch shows how frameworks of cost befit and risk assessments are untimely the technologized social values of the state. Moreover, there is more and more stock being put into such technologizing of social value, as such governance is optimized and suitable within a democratic framework.
Busch warns against such overemphasis on standards as allowing less and less for society as a real interactive process, making it more and more a technical performance. In this Busch suggests standards for standards that optimize fairness, equity, and effectiveness as key evaluative functions.
Parikshith Shas...
May 14, 2019
In response to:

The book is divided into five sections. The introduction, where legibility is introduced and articulated as a concern. The next section had to do with scientific- forestry policy in Germany hammers home the notion of simplification as a key process in modern statecraft and society. This is followed the third section which primely focuses on city planning. Here direction and appearance are added to the process of simplification. Appearance here refers to a semiotic logic where organized arrangement pertaining to aesthetic or ascribed pragmatic logic, somehow ensures superior operation. The thrust of this argument is that the lack of perceivable pattern denotes a failing or dead system. This preference for the arranged leads to the fourth section where the processes of social engineering and production are analyzed through a multitude of land cultivation cases. The engendered notions of progress or direction and preference are shown alongside the difficulties the two apparatus bring. Time and again the cases show the neglecting of knowledge gained sustain the intergenerational practice and the preference for scientific optimization.   In each instance, scientific optimization cause ecological and agricultural calamity only to be rectified through a return to, or incorporation of local practices. The final section characterizes the nature of such rectification knowledge calling it Mētis. What is of note here is that such knowledge is amicable or pro-scientific analysis and method. Moreover, the irrational or unscientific assertion on semiotic appearance giving rise to function rejected for attention to possibility and relation. Mētis undemocratic and unequal in distribution. However, it is far more flexible both in its claim to authority and susceptibility in learning.

Parikshith Shas...
May 14, 2019
In response to:


Experiments and their relation to rationality have been given attention by the protonates of the first approach, this point being mentioned by Knorr Cetina fairly early in the paper. However, this attention she points out suffers from the same dislocation of context and rationality. The logic of the experiments, the perimeters, and measures to ensure the correct outcome, all place the notion of rational conduct on accuracy. That is to carry out the experiment in all its validity was the burden of analysis within the rationality as resource approach. The experiment's connection to the thinking of the field, procedures of the lab, and the examined objects, all in question were not correlated with the same notion of rational choice and conduct as within the experiment itself. Knorr Cetina's paper rectified this disconnect and in that same order. By choosing two differing sciences Korr Cetina tease out differences in how each science 'sees' or makes sense of validity, the situational laboratory arrangements made for deploying said experiments, and how outcome knowledge is constituted and communicated within the field and amidst the researchers. Through the variations between the fields, Knorr Cetina shows just how much the context is filled with rational choices and actions that have direct barring on the nature of the outcome and the knowledge it communicates. Moreover, the variations reveal the uniqueness of reasoning particular to the procedures of the field. Knorr Cetina ends the paper by expounding upon the implications of these two outcomes on the larger fields philosophy and sociology of science. 

Parikshith Shas...
April 22, 2019
In response to:

Sections of the argument:

 LABORATORIES ARE DISTINCT FROM EXPERIMENTS AND ORGANIZATIONS: 

Knorr Cetina reiterates the major 'change' that lab studies bring by differentiating with two preceding areas of study that claim proximity in method and concern. Experiments being the first, Cetina's analysis shows that framing knowledge through it lens is limiting as it draws focus to scientific method and standees, gearing in questions of robustness and history. This takes away from the aspects of knowledge actually created. Lab studies succeed in this regard by shifting focus to conditions rather than standards (while encompassing them). This allows for the tracing of various influences upon knowledge creation which extended outside of the scientific realm, such as political, economic, cultural, etc. As for organization studies, Knorr Cetina argues that a mere organizational analysis is incapable of incorporating the intricate technical and theoretical process within the lab.

. THE LABORATORY AS A THEORETICAL NOTION: THE RECONFIGURATION OF OBJECTS AND SUBJECTS:

In this section, Korr Cetina analysis show's how is a site of ontological reconfiguration. This beginnings at the level of the material objects incorporated relative to the field studied. Knorr Cetina calls the reconfigured material object it's purified version as it is often decoupled from extraneous natural states and processes. Similarly, the 'social order' a term that incorporates the actors within the lab and their social relations amidst themselves and the material processes, is configured in a way to best suite outcomes rather than adhering to authoritative hierarchy and norms. This 'upgrade' as she terms it redefines the occupational understanding of a scientist. Rather than a social designation of authority and role, they are now reconfigured to fit or function as the method they are best trained/experienced, to whatever capacity the lab sees fit.

 CONSTRUCTIONISM AND LABORATORY STUDIES:

Knorr Cetina here talks about the constructivist approach it prominence within and upon the field of sociology. She then relates the discussed notions to the filed of lab studies. Steaming from two strains of thought that mark constructivisum, that seeing reality as constructed by cognitional processes (from learning patterns of mind to language practices)or by human labor, lab studies contributes in three ways. First as a sight that bolsters the notions of the perspective itself. This bolstering is complex, dependent on the material field of investigation. The second way is in being illustrating how empirical analysis is dependent on social infrastructural factors. Third, lab studies exemplify the dynamic work and processes that lead to the production and distribution of knowledge. Finally, lab studies reveal the relation that exists between localized bodies of research knowledge that is often seen to be general or universal. 

HOW ARE FACTS CONSTRUCTED:

This section is perhaps the most in-depth, delving into the product or rather currency of the lab ie. 'facts' and it relates to the processes of constructionism. Divided into seven subsections, the processes of knowledge creation, consumption and communication are analyzed with the backdrop of scientific robustness that is built into varying objects and stages that make up scientific institutions. The tools, literature, standards of conduct and communication are all shown to be operating as heterogeneous processes.                                                         

     

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