Narrative time and International Relations

Abstract

Telling a story can explain how an event came about. It can thereby also change how we grasp temporality. In this article, I will discuss Paul Ricœur’s notion of ‘narrative time’ in the context of International Relations. Viewed from this perspective, narratives not only explain, but also mediate two ways of understanding time, phenomenological and cosmological, by weaving experienced time and natural time together. How they do so will be shown considering three tools: calendar, succession of generations, and trace. The calendar and the succession of generations interlink, through narratives, physical and biological elements with experience. This includes the creation of ‘temporal watersheds’ by extraordinary events, periodisations, traditions, and the recasting of preceding academic generations. The trace gestures at the temporal implications of the sources on which IR builds by referring to their time bridging function.

Peace needs constant reproduction: The temporality of the diplomatic system

“…These thought experiments suggest that if peace is not communicated repeatedly, then the countries do not ‘have’ peace. The trace of a past peace (Franz, 2022: 777) is not sufficient, and neither is an endless future ‘of hope and waiting’ (Altan-Olcay, 2022: 387); instead, peace needs to continue being always imminent and reactualized (cf. McIntosh, 2022).…”