Caitlin Hamilton - The Everyday Artefacts of World Politics

The Everyday Artefacts of World Politics

This book examines the everyday artefacts of world politics: the things that everyday people make that tell stories about how the world works.

The author argues that people engage in a unique form of multimodal storytelling about the world, their place in the world, and the world they want to live in through the artefacts that they make. Introducing a novel approach to artefact analysis, the book explores textiles, jewellery, and pottery, and urges scholars of global politics to take these artefacts seriously.

Based on original research, this book is inherently interdisciplinary, drawing on concepts and approaches from across the humanities and social sciences, including archaeology, history, sociology, world politics, anthropology, and material studies. It will therefore be of interest to a wide range of readers.

Caitlin Hamilton is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Gender, Justice and Security at the University of Sydney, Australia. She is also the Managing Editor of the Australian Journal of International Affairs . Previous publications include Civil Society, Care Labour, and the Women, Peace and Security Agenda (2021, with Anuradha Mundkur and Laura J. Shepherd), Understanding Popular Culture and World Politics in the Digital Age (2016, co-edited with Laura J. Shepherd), and Popular Culture and World Politics: Theories, Methods, Pedagogies (2015, co-edited with Federica Caso).

Developing empirical, theoretical, and methodological innovations, this book is a rare thing: a scholarly work you will actually enjoy reading. Beautifully written and engaging throughout, the book moves us beyond the exceptional and fosters a renewed sense of wonder with which to interrogate the artefacts of world politics, be they ceramics, textiles, jewellery, teaspoons, or something else. This book will be welcome reading for students and scholars of world politics, especially those who have previously been told that what they are interested in isnt really IR.

Jack Holland , University of Leeds, UK

In this masterful book, Caitlin Hamilton both reminds us that the everyday lives of people are central to global politics and gives us a new way to study these everyday lives through material artefacts. Her methodological work gives the study of International Relations and other fields new tools to think across different levels of analysis and her case studies, from embroidery documenting state atrocities to pieces from the fine art world, push the reader to rethink where and how global politics occur.

Katie Brennan , University of Queensland, Australia

The everyday is often seen as mundane and of little relevance to the study of International Relations. Not so, argues Caitlin Hamilton, who convincingly demonstrates how a focus on artefacts textiles, jewellery, and ceramics can help us see world politics in a new light. In this insightful new book, the stories that make up our political identities come alive and so does the human cost of conflict and violence.

Roland Bleiker , University of Queensland, Australia

The Everyday Artefacts of World Politics boldly confronts the orthodoxy of what we understand to be world politics and encourages us to rethink how we see the world around us. In her effervescent style, Caitlin Hamilton brilliantly examines how the everyday artefacts of our lives have political significance. From embroidered textiles, to the clay that makes our coffee cups, via bracelets made out of bombs, The Everyday Artefacts of World Politics is an innovative tour de force that draws together an interdisciplinary menagerie of insights to push the study of popular culture and world politics in an exciting new direction.

Rhys Crilley , University of Glasgow, UK

The Everyday Artefacts of World Politics

Caitlin Hamilton

First published 2022

by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

and by Routledge

605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2022 Caitlin Hamilton

The right of Caitlin Hamilton to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

A catalog record has been requested for this book

ISBN: 978-0-367-64143-6 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-367-64145-0 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-1-003-12234-0 (ebk)

DOI: 10.4324/9781003122340

Typeset in Times New Roman

by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India

This is not the research that I originally set out to do. I had great ambitions of being a Serious Scholar who studied Serious Scholarly Things and not just any old Serious Scholarly Things, but the Most Serious of All Serious Scholarly Things: nuclear weapons. I planned to maintain an objective distance from my research, adopt an appropriately scholarly tone, and establish myself as an upstanding member of the discipline of International Relations who demonstrably appreciated the gravity of the subject matter.

But it didnt go to plan. When I first started this research, I was a relative newcomer to the discipline, and somewhat naive to the disciplinary structures and strictures. But what I quickly learned was that looking at the representations of nuclear weapons in pop culture freaked people out. In feedback on one paper, a colleague asked: Is this really relevant to IR? Or better in anthropology or history? After a conference presentation, the chair of my panel, a senior professor, pulled me aside after the room had cleared and offered some unsolicited paternal advice that my research into popular culture would be better pursued as a side project. Despite being unfamiliar with the then-growing body of literature in the area, he indicated in no uncertain terms that I would jeopardise my PhD and my future career were I to pursue my line of research. Overwhelmingly, however, the disciplining was much more subtle; when introduced to some prominent academic or other in mainstream IR, they would politely enquire about my research. Usually, a predictable choreography would follow: a slight lean forward of surprise, a word or two by way of platitude, and a swift moving on to another member of the conversational party.