A Response to the Millennium Forum
| Author | Laura Zanotti |
| DOI | 10.1177/0305829820971682 |
| Published date | 01 September 2020 |
| Date | 01 September 2020 |
| Subject Matter | Book Forum |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0305829820971682
Millennium: Journal of
International Studies
2020, Vol. 49(1) 186 –193
© The Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/0305829820971682
journals.sagepub.com/home/mil
A Response to the Millennium
Forum
Laura Zanotti
Virginia Tech, USA
Abstract
In my response to the contributors to this forum on Ontological Entanglements I take a few steps
down the crossroads they have explored. I reflect on the critiques they moved, on the generative
potential of quantum ontological research they highlighted and sketch possible avenues for
future inquiry. First, I clarify the position of Ontological Entanglements vis a vis feminist and
queer theories. While my work deeply relies on this literature, its scope is different. Quantum
ontological critique explores how science, as a field of truth, shapes political imaginaries,
to include gender. It challenges the prevailing Newtonian substantialism of the discipline of
International Relation, addresses the broader implications of scientific ontological imaginaries
for the political, and proposes an ethos based on non-substantialist ontological and casual
stories. Furthermore, I start exploring the generative potential of the conversations trailblazed
by the contributors to this forum: the intriguing but un-easy dialogue with post-critique; and the
fruitful engagement with temporality studies, affect theory and decolonial thought, in particular
with regard to non-substantialist conceptualizations of time and war, radical entanglement and
the ontogenetic property of practices.
Keywords
quantum international relations, critical theory, international ethics
Writing and publishing a book is like having a child. Parents provide the life experiences
that contribute to making children who they are, but eventually they travel the world on
their own. Similarly, once a book is out in the world, its author has no control on how it
travels, how it is read (if at all), or what debates it triggers. It travels independently from
us, even though we remain forever entangled.
As the Editor of this forum states in the Introduction, quantum social science is a
pluralist community, and so it initiates different kinds of investigations. The contributors
to this issue trailblazed some of the paths that intersect with a quantum
Corresponding author:
Laura Zanotti, Virginia Tech, Major Williams Hall, Room 509 (0130), Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA.
Email: lzanotti@vt.edu
971682MIL0010.1177/0305829820971682Millennium: Journal of International StudiesZanotti
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