Political Invisibility: Structural Realism and The Kahnawà:ke Mohawk Nation
Bibliographic record
Abstract
This research critically examined the intersection of structural realism, normativity, and political invisibility, with a particular focus on its implications for peripheral actors in international relations (IR), exemplified by the Kahnawà:ke Mohawk Nation. Based on the assumption that structural realism governs Western foreign policy, the research investigated the possibility of political invisibility not as an indication of weakness but as a strategic method for political liberation. Through a theoretical analysis that contrasted the normative assumptions of structural realism with critical theory, a qualitative methodology, integrating a critical literature review and a case study analysis were employed in the research in order to dissect the dynamics of political invisibility and its potential as an emancipatory force. The results indicated that political invisibility, when utilised effectively, can function as a subversive instrument enabling marginalised actors such as the Kahnawà:ke Mohawk Nation to maneuver through and capitalise on the normative oversights of structural realism. This subversion challenges conventional IR perspectives by demonstrating how marginalised groups can assert agency and sovereignty despite systemic exclusion from central dialogues and decision-making processes. The scientific novelty of this study lay in its focused critique of structural realism through the lens of political invisibility and the politics of refusal, offering a unique perspective on the agency of peripheral actors in IR. Its practical significance emerges from the potential applications of these insights in fostering a more inclusive and equitable global political discourse, emphasising the strategic potential of invisibility for political mobilisation and emancipation. By positioning political invisibility as a catalyst for emancipatory politics, this research contributed to a broader discourse on power dynamics within IR, challenging established norms and suggesting a paradigm shift towards recognising and leveraging the political agency of marginalised actors.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.004 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.003 | 0.028 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; both teacher heads agree on what is shown here.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".