Modern episteme, methodological nationalism and the politics of transnationalism

Abstract

Methodological nationalism can be understood in the broadest sense possible as any kind of correspondence between society and the unit of the nation-state. This equation can be traced and understood at two levels: firstly, within the socio-historical context of the rise of nationalism and the development of human and social sciences; and secondly, within the cognitive context of the emergence of nationalism and these sciences, or the modern episteme, in other words. By focusing on the latter, the present article aims to indicate that the problem of methodological nationalism can be effectively grasped by exploring the intricate interplay among modernity, the discourse of nationalism, and the emergence of social science, particularly concerning the modern episteme. It becomes apparent that the regime of foundationalist differentiation ingrained within the modern episteme has established the foundation for this correspondence or congruence—a regime that, while constructing determined, regulated, unified and completed categories, such as society and the social/nation-state and the national, simultaneously sets the ground for the exclusion of other non-social/non-national phenomena and events. In this paper, the objective is to demonstrate how, by disclosing the implementation of this regime as well as highlighting the contingent nature and, consequently, the conditions of the possibility of social phenomena in the path of their grounding, alongside prioritizing the indeterminate social configurations and arguing for a post-foundationalist approach and the politics of transnationalism, it becomes possible to overcome the problem of methodological nationalism. This, in turn, sets a basis for taking into account excluded and indeterminate phenomena and actors within a global context.

Ahmad Moftizadeh and the Idea of the Islamic Government: A Discursive Tradition Analysis in the Field of Political Islam

“…The idea of Islam as a discursive tradition, in general, provides a nuanced perspective for analyzing political Islam (Asad 2003;Hurd 2008;Ismail 2003;Mahmood 2005). Political Islam itself constitutes a part of the Islamic discursive tradition, serving as a form of discourse that is constructed within a network of social configurations and various references to Islamic tradition and interpretative frameworks, addressing the challenges of temporal and spatial conditions (for the idea of configuration, see Jong 2022Jong , 2023aJong , 2023b. Similar to the discursive tradition in Islam, where Islamic tradition is invoked and justified in relation to certain issues and debates, and is positioned alongside or against other traditions, drawing on various regimes of references and reasoning and according to certain existing traditions, contemporary Islamists also attempt to reinterpret, highlight, or revive certain aspects of their alleged Islamic tradition and justify their dominant position in the face of public and political issues.…”

Social Theory and Navigating Indeterminacy: A Configurational Analysis of Iranian Youth’s Identity Construction in Contemporary Iran

“…The social sciences, within the context of the cosmopolitanization of the world and the suspension of its perceived determinations, primarily require methods that, while suspending established categories and given foundations, make sense of and analyze phenomena posteriority within historical constellations and at the moments of their actualization. In the post-foundationalist approach, more than anything, the main effort is to suspend the conception of established and complete foundations for the phenomena and categories under study, considering them in terms of incomplete foundations and in a constant process of (un)grounding [24,25,31]. This happens entirely in relation to various possible contingencies in a historical and empirical manner.…”

“…Thus, social configurations are incomplete units with partial and temporary foundations that are examined by sociologists over a period of time. Heterogeneity and indeterminacy are the main features of these configurations, traits that lie both in the conditions of their determination as well as in the lack of clear boundaries and the indeterminate nature of the relations and categories of these configurations [24,25,31,36].…”

“…Given that all categories and relationships are determined a posteriori in relation to configurations, bridging the gap between theory and methodology, which is prominent in sociology, is of primary importance. Hence, from an epistemological standpoint, configurations serve as instruments for understanding themselves or provide fitting tools for their own comprehension [24,25].…”

“…This realm of realities was believed to be universally consistent, stable, and uniform across all contexts, with knowledge of their universal laws representing the quintessential characteristic of scientific knowledge [23]. These ontological and epistemological perspectives were deeply rooted in the modern episteme and, consequently, in imperial and national epistemes, which facilitated the emergence of modern social and human sciences [24]. Within this epistemic ground, a foundation, inclusive of both essence and genesis, was formulated to account for fragmented and segregated social phenomena.…”