From Objects of Expertise to Objects of Experience: The Iterative Picturing of Contagion

Abstract The emerging field of Object-IR focusses on de-blackboxing objects of governance and expertise as manufactured political concerns for international politics, assembled by science, politics, and experts. This article offers a critical intervention into such scholarship. We argue for paying close attention to the irritating and at times contradictory surfaces of political objects. This is because it is precisely this surface that is experienced by broader audiences confronted with an object of international politics. There is value, we claim, in analyzing the experience of an object’s surface, as it is here where the political power of an object resides. Bringing theories of aesthetics into conversation with Object-IR, we introduce the methodological practice of iterative picturing for staying on the surface of objects. We demonstrate iterative picturing by examining epidemiological, clinical, and personal views of contagion. Iterating through different visual manifestations of a single object helps to maintain the affective character of an object and shows the interconnections of expertise and experience. Approaching contagion not only as an object of governance and expertise but as an aesthetic object, we add to Object-IR an understanding of how objects translate into matters of concern beyond expertise, shaping and entering multifaceted experiences.