Abstract
This article conceptualises the variety of approaches taken by International Relations (IR) scholars around the world to dominant forms of knowledge production in IR. In doing so, it advances Global IR debates along two axes: on practices and on spatiality. We argue that binary conceptions are unhelpful and that engagement with knowledge production practices is best captured by a landscape of complexity, requiring a deeper interrogation of positionality, globality and context. Using 26 qualitative interviews with IR academics at institutions in East Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, Eurasia and Africa, we construct a typology comprising seven modes of engagement that capture the conflicted relationships to dominant forms and practices of knowledge production in IR. The typology is intended to highlight the variation, complexity and contextual particularities in global IR knowledge production practices and to enable an interrogation of spatial hierarchies that unsettle conventional geopolitical West/non-West fault-lines.
Highlights
In the British public sphere, the debate over whether and how to address colonial legacies in university research and teaching has become increasingly polarised in recent years
In order to interpret this complexity, we present a typology of seven sets of practices, which are adopted by scholars as they engage with dominant knowledge production practices in International Relations (IR)
We extend these discussions on complexity and context by presenting a framework that distinguishes seven modes of engagement with IR knowledge production practices, which are not tied to pre-existing geopolitical spatialities
Summary
Side are those endeavouring to decolonise their pedagogies – that is, to decentre Westerncentric narratives, theories and epistemologies in syllabi; to dismantle racialised hierarchies in classroom spaces; and to transform the purpose of knowledge from one that upholds existing power structures to one that liberates and emancipates marginalised peoples (Bhambra et al, 2018; Cupples and Grosvoguel, 2019). On the other side are those who believe that such an endeavour is a form of identity politics or ‘woke culture’, and should be abandoned, leaving existing (White, Western-centric) structures of knowledge in place (see Riley, 2021). They are: detachment, whereby negligible engagement occurs; statification, whereby local theoretical concepts and frameworks are co-opted into (ethno-)nationalist narratives and governmental foreign policy agendas; emulation, which reproduces the practices of dominant actors; localisation, whereby dominant theories and frameworks are adapted to fit local contexts; diversification, which advances pluralism through a variety of different views and approaches; mimetic defiance, whereby dominant frameworks are subverted in order to challenge hegemony; and emancipation, which seeks to liberate knowledge production from structures of domination These modes were theorised synergistically via a deductive reading of the literature alongside an inductive analysis of 26 semi-structured interviews that we conducted with IR academics based in universities in East Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, Eurasia and Africa. Murray (2020: 436) argues for a post-imperial, rather than a post-Western, IR, proposing that, ‘instead of promoting ethnification, globalising the discipline could suggest a move towards different categories, which emphasise the different ways human groups intersect’ We extend these discussions on complexity and context by presenting a framework that distinguishes seven modes of engagement with IR knowledge production practices, which are not tied to pre-existing geopolitical spatialities. Our framework seeks to capture this contextual relationship between dominant and subordinate producers of knowledge while broadening knowledge production hierarchies beyond the conventional West/non-West divide
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