Peripheral possibilities: revealing originality and encouraging dialogue through a reconsideration of ‘marginal’ IR scholarship

Turton, Helen; Freire, Lucas G.

doi:10.1057/jird.2014.24

Cited by 16 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…Turton and Freire (2016: 546) have argued that detachment is an explicit form of resistance to dominant knowledge, which consists of ‘a strategy to “go one’s own way,” therefore avoiding engagement and a relationship of subservience with the perceived “colossus”’. However, our interview respondents referred to detachment as a largely subconscious orientation.…”

Section: Detachmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It shares similarities with the notion of ‘mimicking’ (Collins, 2013) in the norm diffusion literature and ‘formal mimicry’ (Ling, 2004) in the postcolonial literature, both of which involve a subordinate actor simply copying the actions of a dominant actor. Turton and Freire (2016: 547) use the term ‘assimilation’ to refer to the ‘full-scale embodiment of the hegemonic discourse’s standards, trends or rather the “way of doing IR” and these then tend to be applied to local” or “new” case studies’. We prefer to use the term emulation in our research as it better captures the idea of locally rearticulating practices observed elsewhere, while ‘assimilation’ suggests a process of absorption into global structures; yet this absorption is not a given, even if one painstakingly emulates dominant discourses and practices.…”

Section: Emulationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Mapping practices and spatiality in IR knowledge production: from detachment to emancipation

Loke¹,

Owen

2021

European Journal of International Relations

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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.

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Section: Detachmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Emulationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mapping practices and spatiality in IR knowledge production: from detachment to emancipation

Loke¹,

Owen

2021

European Journal of International Relations

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“…The key independent variables are the prestige of science and the prestige of economics. 11 The existing literature makes the case that these independent variables continue to be correlated with the dominance of the American Approach (Hoffmann 1977;Crawford and Jarvis 2001;Turton and Freire 2016).…”

Section: Cognitive Framesmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Cognitive Frameworks Shape the American Approach to International Relations and Security Studies

Cheng

Brettle

2019

Journal of Global Security Studies

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Why do American perspectives of international relations (IR) continue to hold sway over an increasingly diverse discipline? What actually constitutes “Americanness” in IR? Who is considered “American” in IR? These are the central questions we explore in this essay. Drawing on cognitive and behavioral insights from social psychology, we argue that there is a distinct “American approach” to international relations and security studies and that this approach is a product of Western cognitive frames. We identify three factors that represent the American approach's hyper-Westernized framing: individualism, equality, and a preference for causal rather than contextual analysis, and a preference for egalitarianism. We argue that these are reinforced by two social identity processes—academic identity and national identity. The consequences of “being American” in IR and security studies suggest not only problems of attention and accuracy, but an inherent failure to appreciate that Western—and particularly, American—ways of seeing and valuing the world are not universal.

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“…The somewhat disappointing results of studies intended to dis/recover alternative non-Western thought has led to a third wave, 'Southern sensibilities', that explores the hybridities and strategic spaces of possibility for peripheral IR. From this latest wave we are learning that peripheral practices such as theory translation and application can play into local power struggles and thus be empowering in the peripheral field, that core theories may travel but never unproblematically or unaltered, that mimicry produces hybrid and thus original work that is 'almost the same but not quite'-all directing our attention to peripheral agency and spaces of possibility rather than passive, hegemonic acceptance (Bilgin 2008(Bilgin , 2016Hamati-Ataya 2012;Tickner and Blaney 2012;Turton and Freire 2014). I use 'Southern Sensibilities' to refer to a sociology of IR that is theoretically attuned to the heterogeneity of peripheral fields, their positionality struggles and vernacularisations of sociological hierarchies and a methodological approach of proximity and engagement with the practice of peripheral IR-in-the-making.…”

Section: Introduction: Three Waves In the Sociology Of International mentioning

confidence: 99%

Southern sensibilities: advancing third wave sociology of international relations in the case of Brazil

Kristensen

2017

J Int Relat Dev

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The sociology of International Relations (IR) around the world has evolved from an initial wave of critiques of its dominant American core towards a second wave of peripheral explorations that found IR to be disappointingly similar around the world. Advancing a more recent wave that stresses Southern sensibilities, hybridity and peripheral agency, this article calls for attention to the heterogeneities, positionality struggles and vernacularisations of sociological hierarchies in periphery IR. Taking Brazil as a case, it analyses peripheral IR as a field occupied by plural and competing positions on the question of how to engage with Northern theories and/or develop indigenous, Southern theories. The article shows how position-taking is structured by a rivalry among different schools of thought with their respective take on the import/indigenisation of IR theory-Brazilianising, Provincialising and Scientising IR-and how the hierarchy among seemingly recognisable debate positions is subverted when they travel to the periphery.

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Peripheral possibilities: revealing originality and encouraging dialogue through a reconsideration of ‘marginal’ IR scholarship

Cited by 16 publications

References 45 publications

Mapping practices and spatiality in IR knowledge production: from detachment to emancipation

Mapping practices and spatiality in IR knowledge production: from detachment to emancipation

How Cognitive Frameworks Shape the American Approach to International Relations and Security Studies

Southern sensibilities: advancing third wave sociology of international relations in the case of Brazil

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