On the first: We have been going back and forth about whether “problematization” refers just the breakdown of an existing way of understanding, thinking, acting, or includes the idea of a new (or many new) ways of understanding, thinking, acting that constitute a situation as problematic in a new way. I tend toward agreement with the notion that it includes both elements. Thus, a “problematization” includes new “styles of reasoning” and forms of sanctioned expertise that can constitute a problem as a problem. But I think there may be some details on this question on which we do not have unanimity.

On the second, I think that this is the issue we have been identifying as the “significance” question — How is it that the anthropologist of the contemporary knows that a certain set of expert practices, and responses to new problems is interesting, and worth investigating? It seems to me an empirical question about whether they are “self-conscious” as Colin says. I see this as less a “theoretical” problem and more a practical problem: How does one identify significance? When is a problematization worth studying? We have written some on these issues, but always agree that more reflection would be a good idea….

My question concerns this claim, which I’m not sure does adequate service to the genealogy traced in the rest of the paper: “technological and political developments rendered prior security frameworks inadequate, and forced experts to invent new ways of identifying and intervening in security threats” (p.2).

The claim seems to be that ‘something happened’ and this ‘something’ simply forced people to develop expertise around new topics. But what is the ‘something’ and where did it come from? Did these tech/pol developments force experts to respond to ‘vital security’ matters? Or did the experts seal their status as experts by, at least in part. formulating vital security as a problem? This doesn’t mean that the problem is simply constructed but neither is it simply real. For what I can gather you want to articulate a view somewhere between constructed and real or rather a view that encompasses both of these.

The experts help shape the problems which then in turn further propel the experts. Problems and their solutions are reciprocal, such that you simply cannot have one without the other. Fields or problematization are thus practices which are, we might say, real constructions or constructed realities. Is that fair? Is there a better way to put it given your aims here?

I want to note of course that this isn’t a mistake that plagues the whole paper, though I would say there is a recurring ambiguity about this point. Only a page later on page 3 the paper is much clearer that ‘problems’ do not simply come onto the scene to force the hands of the experts. Still, I think that the point is worth clarifying on page 2. I think it’s worth clarifying, mostly, because the approach the paper adopts is more subtle than the misleading formulation on page 2 would suggest. But, then again, maybe I’ve misunderstood the aims of the paper?

I’d also like to a pose a question which may or may not be well put: A further important question for me concerns the work of the genealogist or anthropologist or whoever in providing a sufficient specification of ‘the field of problematization’ (i.e., ‘the problem/expert hybrid’). The expert and the problem might produce one another, but is it also fair to say that this hybrid doesn’t itself become problematized until the fieldworker of whatever type (historian, anthropologist, cultural critic) comes along and is able to specify it in a way that gives it a definitive shape? Or is that attributing too much to the role of the fieldworker? Are these problem/expert hybrids sufficiently articulate and self-conscious before fieldworkers/critics come along to give them definite shape vis-a-vis the other intellectual terrain with which these problematizations interact? Any thoughts that anyone may be willing to risk here would be very welcome because I’m currently very unclear on this question (and I’m also not clear that I need to be so unclear about it because maybe I’m over-theorizing the point).