CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2024
| Author | Convent, Alix |
|---|---|
| Title | The Toxic Sublime: Flowers, Time and and Toxic Matter in International Relations |
| Summary | Time in International Relations has traditionally been understood as a linear process. Some of the most innovative and ‘fluid’ approaches to time in IR are found in research located at the intersection of war, temporality and toxicity. However, these studies seldom escape the context of conflict. As such, this thesis sets out to develop alternative non-linear understandings of time in IR by looking at everyday toxic matter in the fresh-cut flower industry and poses the question ‘How does the temporal relation between floral, human and environmental bodies connected through toxic matter in the floriculture industry recentre the question of time in IR?’ Based on my personal ethnographic research conducted in New York City florist stores and scientific data drawn from studies on the use of pesticide in the flower industry, I develop a transcorporeal toxic timescape which captures the process of the mattering of difference through the materialisation of temporalities in which IR plays a role. Doing so, I found that my research recentres the question of time within IR in several ways. Firstly, it encourages the discipline to broaden its temporal imagination and acknowledge more-than-human non-linear accounts of time. Secondly, it draws attention to the role that IR plays in reproducing colonial legacies by determining which lives and deaths come to matter rendering certain futures (im)possible. And lastly, the consideration of alternative experiences of time opens up a space for a politics of responsibility attentive to the long-term material consequences of actions. |
| Supervisor | Sachseder Julia |
| Department | International Relations MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2024/convent_alix.pdf |
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