Quantum Ambivalence
| Author | Laura Sjoberg |
| Published date | 01 September 2020 |
| Date | 01 September 2020 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0305829820971710 |
| Subject Matter | Book Forum |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0305829820971710
Millennium: Journal of
International Studies
2020, Vol. 49(1) 126 –139
© The Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/0305829820971710
journals.sagepub.com/home/mil
1. Barkin, J. Samuel and Laura Sjoberg, eds. 2017. Interpretive Quantification: Methodological
Explorations for Critical and Constructivist IR. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Quantum Ambivalence
Laura Sjoberg
Royal Holloway, University of London, UK and the University
of Florida, USA
Abstract
My reading of quantum IR has always been in ambivalent, uncomfortable agreement, even if I
could not articulate the reason for that ambivalence. This article confronts that ambivalence
through reading Laura Zanotti’s Ontological Entanglements - an interesting and engaging book with
which I largely agree, and read ambivalently. It brings the reader along on my reading of Ontological
Entanglements, engaging my ambivalence and explicitly relating the some of the book’s key claims
to feminist work on ontology and epistemology. It continues to explore the potential pitfalls with
quantum approaches to IR through their manifestations in Ontological Entanglements. The article
concludes by engaging Ontological Entanglements from the complex position of simultaneously
being impressed with the work and opposed to its promulgation.
Keywords
quantum international relations, critical theory, international ethics
I have been an avid reader of work in quantum International Relations (IR), but not a
participant in the research programme (at least as yet). My attentive reading stems from
a combination of an underlying side interest in physics and math1 and a sense that many
of Quantum IR’s claims about uncertainty, entanglement, multiplicity, and superposition
resonate with my existing views about how the world works. Yet my reading of quantum
IR has always been in ambivalent, uncomfortable agreement, even if I could not articu-
late the reason for that ambivalence. I had much the same experience reading Laura
Zanotti’s Ontological Entanglements – it is interesting, engaging, impressively readable
Corresponding author:
Laura Sjoberg, School of Law and Social Science, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham Hill TW20
0EX, Surrey, UK.
Email: laura.sjoberg@rhul.ac.uk
971710MIL0010.1177/0305829820971710Millennium: Journal of International StudiesSjoberg
research-article2020
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