GLOSSARY - Making Sense of Nature - page 290

also underpins the belief that 'human nature' is a substrate upon which the
metaphorical houses of 'culture' and 'society' are built.
External regulation A form of governance in which an organisation
external to a specific institution or epistemic community monitors the
latter's conduct. It contrasts with self-governance.
Genres of communication The different styles conventionally utilised
to convey meaning in any given society. For instance, poetry uses lan-
guage in a way that's distinctly different from that of a scientific research
paper. These diverse uses are linked to perceived differences in aims: poetic
discourse typically seeks to move our hearts and minds, while scientific
discourse typically seeks to impart 'facts' or 'truths', however provisional.
Governance The norms, habits or rule employed by organisations or
communities to manage their own behaviour. Governance need not have
any formal connections to government. It is often quite informal, but can
also be very codified. The professions, such as law and medicine, have a long
history of self-governance.
Government The process whereby elected (or self-appointed) political
leaders and institutions discuss and implement laws, policies and regulations
in the territories over which they have authority. Otherwise independent
national governments can, of course, create and enforce cross-border laws,
policies and regulations.
Governmentality In Michel Foucault's famous definition, governmen-
tality is 'the conduct of people's conduct'. Governmentality is a rather
inelegant term that, in geographer Stephanie Rutherford's apt words, 'makes
some scholars tremble with anticipation and leaves others cold at the
thought of inscrutable text and

high level abstraction' (2007: 291). Fou-
cault was interested in the way subjects get enlisted in the project of their
own rule as part of their (apparent) 'freedom' from the dictates of others.
In this topic, governmentality is used in a broad and loose way. Making
sense of nature looks beyond the actions of governments and other institu-
tions committed to the 'strong' shaping of thought and action. For me,
governmentality usefully describes the way in which sometimes interacting,
sometimes non-interacting, epistemic communities (and their institutions)
aim to 'impose' their different 'rationalities' (i.e. ways of knowing, argu-
ing, representing and communicating) and their knowledge-claims upon the
diverse audiences they conjure into existence. While I accept that certain
communities get a lot of exposure and may exert a strong influence on the
social imaginary, I make no empirical claims as to the degree of influence
in any given case. Foucault, at many points in his career, was interested in
epistemic communities and their institutions (though he didn't use the for-
mer term) that are explicitly focussed on the 'the conduct of conduct' (like
prisons and the legal profession). In effect, my tack is to utilise the idea in

...