International Relations theory good for something after all?
That’s just a joke, by the way – I love IR, I do! Please don’t fire me.
But anyway, this post by D. Drezner on the Foreign Policy blog really gets down to the nitty-gritty. How would IR theory deal with a zombie invasion? And since I’m an anthropologist I’m forced to ask – could anthropology do better? I’ll add that I’m not apologizing for going off-topic here: considering a socio-political theory of zombies raises valuable questions about life and non-life, and hence is very nature/culturey. Really. So I encourage anyone reading to visit the original article (comments too) and come back here to propose a more anthropological/cultural take on the problem. Anxious potential victims await your guidance.
Anthropologists would definitely have a role in exploring some of the questions raised by some of the IR approaches. Namely, to what extent to zombies have consciousness, are they dead or alive (and therefore subject to international laws), do they have culture(s), what kind (if any) of social customs or norms do they live by, et cetera. Of course anthropologists would be less likely to be funded than those who originally did the study. . .and anthropologists would take so damn long that humanity would surely be defeated by the time any results were produced, let alone published.
Cheers,
Eric
Also consider this exegesis….