Crime, accidents and (dis)organization: Rhizomic communications on/of a foodscare

Crime, Law and Social Change

Volumn 33, Issue 4, 2000, Pages 281-311

  Lippens, Ronnie ^a   Van Calster, Patrick ^b  

^a KEELE UNIVERSITY   (United Kingdom)

^b FREE UNIVERSITY OF BRUSSELS   (Belgium)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0034347437     PISSN: 09254994     EISSN: 15730751     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1023/A:1008372708260     Document Type: Article

References (56)

1. Taken from his Labyrinths. Selected Stories and Other Writings. New York: New Directions, 1964, page 35. RL wrote the first draft of the essay at hand. PvC infused it with numerous insights and empirical data. The paper at hand is a slightly revised version of a paper presented at the 1999 ASC Conference (Toronto). Thanks go to the participants in our session on "communicating crime" for having given us (supportive) comments. Thanks go also to Geertrui Cazaux for having provided us with newspaper clippings of the Belgian dioxins affair.
2. See, on the BSE affair: Bartlett, D., "Mad Cows and Democratic Governance: BSE and the Construction of a 'Free Market' in the UK", Crime, Law and Social Change 1999, 30: 237-257.
3. See, e.g. also: Lippens, R., "The White March as a Belgian Body without Organs", Crime, Law and Social Change 1998, 29: 49-65.
4. In Attali, J., The Labyrinth in Culture and Society Pathways to Wisdom, (Berkeley: North Atlantic Books, 1999).
5. In, e.g., Guattari, F., Chaosophy, (New York: Semiotext(e), 1995).
6. On meshworks and non-linearity, see: Manuel de Landa, A Thousand Years of Non-linear History, (New York: Zone Books, 1997).
7. See their Rhizome: Introduction, (Paris: Les Editions de Minuit, 1976).
8. "Marshyness"? See Giblett, R., Postmodern Wetlands, (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1996).
9. Reminder: the forms which desires take can be read as crimes, controls, or criminologies.
10. Is one …? Not really.
11. One of us has developed these notions more fully in: Lippens, R., "Into Hybrid Marshlands", International Journal for the Semiotics of Law 1999, 1: 59-89.
12. Just one …? Not really.
13. Reminder: criminologies can be read as organizations in themselves, as crimes and controls.
14. Especially on Niklas Luhmann's general systems theory, as explained in Ecological Communication, (Cambridge: Polity, 1989).
15. The work of Stuart Henry and Dragan Milovanovic comes to mind here. See Henry, S. and D. Milovanovic, Constitutive Criminology, (London: Sage, 1996). Henry's and Milovanovic's work, however, has been inspired by a rich palette of criminologies, such as Giddens' structuration theory, Lacanian psychoanalysis, and poststructuralist discourse theories.
16. See the seminal work by Maturana, H. and F. Varela, Autopoiesis and Cognition, (Boston: Reidel, 1980).
17. Gilles Deleuze's and Felix Guattari's Mille Plateaux notably, (Paris: Les Editions de Minuit, 1980) (English translation by Brian Massumi, London: The Athlone Press, 1988). See also G. Deleuze's summary Negotiations, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995).
18. See, e.g. in Law, J., Organising Modernity, (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994). For a highly nuanced account and meshed intertwinings of Deleuze's post-structuralism and "actor-network theory", see Nigel Thrift's spatial wanderings through "non-representational theories" (i.e. those beyond the word/practice divide) in "Strange country: Meaning, Use and Style in Non-Representational Theories", in N. Thrift, Spatial Formation, (London: Sage, 1996). pp: 1-50.
19. See, e.g. in Law, J., Organising Modernity, (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994). For a highly nuanced account and meshed intertwinings of Deleuze's post-structuralism and "actor-network theory", see Nigel Thrift's spatial wanderings through "non-representational theories" (i.e. those beyond the word/practice divide) in "Strange country: Meaning, Use and Style in Non-Representational Theories", in N. Thrift, Spatial Formation, (London: Sage, 1996). pp: 1-50.
20. It? What, "it"? Not really.
21. Yes, we need reflexivity here. Compare with, e.g. Heinz von Foerster's note on cybernetics and the theory (Maturana and Varela's theory) of autopoietics: "On Cybernetics of Cybernetics and Social Theory", in G. Roth and H. Schwegler (eds.), Self-Organizing System: An Interdisciplinary Approach, (New York: Campus, 1981), pp. 102-105.
22. Just a reminder: "organization" is a noun and a verb.
23. See his Negotiations, o.c., p. 25 ff.
24. Rod Giblett again.
25. In Attali's The Labyrinth in Culture and Society, o.c., p. XXIV.
26. Again from Giblett, o.c., p. 99.
27. Irigaray, L., Ce Sexe Qui n'en Est pas Un, (Paris: Les Editions de Minuit, 1977).
28. "Nous ne croyons àdes totalités qu'à côté". From: G. Deleuze et F. Guattari, L'Anti-Oedipe, (Paris: Les Editions de Minuit, 1972), p. 50.
29. Which amounts to the same.
30. In their L'Anti-Oedipe, o.c., p. 7.
31. Quote from p. 7 of: G. Deleuze et F. Guattari, L'Anti-Oedipe, o.c.
32. Perrow, C., Normal Accidents, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984).
33. See on this: Williams, P., "The Nature of Drug-Trafficking Networks", Current History 1998: 154-159.
34. Francisco Varela has always been very reluctant to apply the theory of autopoietics to "social" systems. However, H. Maturana has had a more open attitude to this issue. See his notes on "Society and Ethics", in Maturana and Varela, o.c.: pp. XXIV-XXX. See also supra.
35. See: Lash, S. and J. Urry, The End of Organized Capitalism, (Cambridge: Polity, 1987).
36. L. Irigaray, o.c.
37. We will come to that later, when we will discuss the Belgian situation.
38. From: Massumi, B., "Everywhere You Want to Be. Introduction to Fear", http://www.anu.edu.au/HRC/first_and_last/works/feareverywhere.htm
39. See on this G. Deleuze's and F. Guattari's L'Anti-Oedipe, o.c. (see especially pp. 20 ff. and 40 ff.).
40. This reconstruction - a mesh, really - is based on the crimes, controls and criminologies which we read in some locations in the network of networks, such as daily newspapers and governmental statements. More specifically, our sources were the newspapers De Morgen, the Nieuwsblad, and the Volk. Governmental statements were: Belgian Ministry of Public Health, Dioxinecontaminatie (reconstruction of the dioxin contamination), 1999. http://dioxin.fgov.be, and Belgian Ministry of Agriculture, Dioxinecontaminatie (reconstruction of the dioxin contamination), 1999, http://dioxin.fgov.be.
41. The machines do not control themselves, nor their input. In a system where catastrophies are followed by regular indemnification, such is rather unlikely.
42. Punch, M., Dirty Business, (London: Sage, 1996).
43. On such "meetings", see of course: Ruggiero, V. Organized and Corporate Crime in Europe. Offers that Can't be Refused, (Aldershot: Dartmouth, 1996).
44. See also: Lippens, R., Chaohybrids, (Lanham MD: University Press of America, 2000), forthcoming.
45. Costs would include: expensive laboratory analyses, possibly destruction of contaminated fee and foodstuffs, loss of market shares, insurance costs, etc.
46. See again Lippens' "White March …" paper, o.c.
47. Quote from Punch, M., Dirty Business, o.c., p. 5.
48. See Jackal, R., Moral Mazes: The World of Corporate Managers, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988).
49. Compare with Ken Gergen's seminal paper: "Organization Theory in the Postmodern Era", in M. Reed and M. Hughes (eds.), Rethinking Organization, (London: Sage, 1992), pp. 207-226.
50. See de Certeau, M., The Practice of Everyday Life, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988).
51. th. The new government coalition now consists of social-democrats, neo-liberals, and "greens". The old post-war centre power block, the Christian-democrat party, the party linked to the Belgian Farmers' Association (BB), have found themselves on the opposition benches.
52. th of May 1999 onwards, up until the end of June).
53. See on precisely this ever-present and ineradicable possibility in complex/tight systems: Charles Perrow's recent 1999 paper on the Y2K ("millennium bug") problem: "Y2K and the Chip Society", http://azstarnet.com/nuu/Other_DOCS/Charles_Perrow_2.htm
54. But mind again here: "the rhizome has no beginning nor ending" (cf. Deleuze and Guattari).
55. Rodowick, D.N., "The Memory of Resistance", http://www.phreebyrd.com/sisiphys/deleuze/rodowick.html
56. Bernard, A., C. Hermans, F. Broeckaert, G. De Pocrter, A. De Cock and G. Houins, "Food Contamination by PCBs and Dioxins: An Isolated Episode in Belgium is unlikely to have affected Public Health", Nature 1999, 16 September, 401: 231-232.