For an Assemblage-Based Conception of Climate Change

Authors

  • Matthew Blair University of Ottawa

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18192/politika.8324

Keywords:

Climate change, Assemblage Theory, International Relations

Abstract

This paper argues that dominant international relations (IR) paradigms, tending to pit broad dichotomous categories of actants against one another (i.e., states and non-states and humans and non-humans) are inappropriate for the analysis of climate change as an IR phenomenon. instead, it proposes an ontology of climate change derived from assemblage theory as laid out by bennett (2005). after a brief introduction and definition of terms, the paper demonstrates the inadequacies of the dominant IR approaches for analyzing climate change, followed by a demonstration of the pertinence of assemblage theory as an alternative approach. It ultimately finds that assemblage theory is a valuable approach that could complement or potentially replace further elements of IR scholarship.

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Published

2025-05-01