scholarly journals Doing Academia Differently: Loosening the Boundaries of Our Disciplining Writing Practices

2021 ◽  
pp. 030582982110319
Author(s):  
Marie Beauchamps
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Direct Relationship ◽  
Writing Practices ◽  
Knowing That ◽  
Critical Pedagogies ◽  
Feminist Epistemologies

In this article, I explore questions of pedagogy and knowledge-writing practices in their relation to knowledge production. Starting from the observation that different styles of writing are present in our work, but many of them are systematically pushed back and mis-read as non-academic, the article brings to the fore a discussion on the direct relationship between practices of knowledge-writing and those modes of knowing that escape the linear and propositional academic style while still being part of how knowledge comes into being. Following a tradition of intersectional feminist epistemologies, I engage with questions of epistemologies and critical pedagogies, speaking to and with several generations of scholars who address and work with questions of diversity and knowledge production that are seminal within International Relations (IR), yet underexplored from the perspective of knowledge-writing practices.

scholarly journals Grand Challenges, Feminist Answers

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 263178772110203
Author(s):  
Yvonne Benschop
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Ways Of Knowing ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Value Systems ◽  
Situated Knowledge ◽  
Feminist Ethics ◽  
Organization Studies ◽  
Grand Challenges ◽  
Knowing That ◽  
Feminist Organization

Feminist organization theories develop knowledge about how organizations and processes of organizing shape and are shaped by gender, in intersection with race, class and other forms of social inequality. The politics of knowledge within management and organization studies tend to marginalize and silence feminist theorizing on organizations, and so the field misses out on the interdisciplinary, sophisticated conceptualizations and reflexive modes of situated knowledge production provided by feminist work. To highlight the contributions of feminist organization theories, I discuss the feminist answers to three of the grand challenges that contemporary organizations face: inequality, technology and climate change. These answers entail a systematic critique of dominant capitalist and patriarchal forms of organizing that perpetuate complex intersectional inequalities. Importantly, feminist theorizing goes beyond mere critique, offering alternative value systems and unorthodox approaches to organizational change, and providing the radically different ways of knowing that are necessary to tackle the grand challenges. The paper develops an aspirational ideal by sketching the contours of how we can organize for intersectional equality, develop emancipatory technologies and enact a feminist ethics of care for the human and the natural world.

Conceptus interruptus: Forestalling sureties about violence and feminism

2020 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 325-336 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Sisson Runyan
Keyword(s):  
Critical Thinking ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Cutting Edge ◽  
Critical Thought ◽  
Knowing That ◽  
Feminist Thought ◽  
Over Time

AbstractForestalling sureties about what constitutes violence and feminism and the relationships between violence and feminism have been significant themes in the work of feminist International Relations theorist Marysia Zalewski. I follow how Zalewski, through her work and work with others including myself, interrupts well-trodden ‘trails’ of violence and feminism to open up thinking about both. I consider how her provocative work on violence and particularly feminist violence prefigures and advances cutting-edge critical thought on violence as represented in the ‘Histories of Violence’ project. What I call her ‘palimpsestic’ or multilayered and intertextual approach to violence reveals it as not only destructive, but also productive in terms of breaking with deadening conventions. I also consider her conceptualisation of feminist violence as both epistemic and militant over time in relation to some contemporary feminist insurgencies, the kinds of insurgencies that serve as her muses for breaking out of forms of ‘secured’ feminism and opening space for unbounded feminist thought. Consistent with her insistence that theory (and writing) should provide uncomfortable openings, not comforting foreclosures, I end not with a conclusion about her work, but rather echo her call to resist the kind of ‘knowing’ that suffocates critical thinking and (re)generative feminist thought.

scholarly journals Imperial dialectics and epistemic mapping: From decolonisation to anti-Eurocentric IR

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 419-442 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Murray
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Frantz Fanon ◽  
Power Structures ◽  
Du Bois ◽  
Social Inquiry ◽  
Cultural Foundations ◽  
The World ◽  
Human Capability

What would it mean to construct a post-imperial discipline rather than a ‘post-Western’ one? ‘Post-imperial’ means addressing the ways in which colonial empires divided the world into separate realms of human capability and thought. The binary categories of Western and Eastern, or Western and non-Western, represent one such way of dividing the world according to an imperial imaginary. Rather than merely excluding, these divisions created justifications for local universalisms and power structures. Yet, many anti-Eurocentric scholars now make use of these categories in order to argue for fixed epistemic differences between Western and non-Western populations. Accordingly, I critique the imperial division of the world by drawing on the intellectual trajectories of two thinkers who struggled against empire in the 20th century: WEB Du Bois and Frantz Fanon. Du Bois and Fanon were both aware of how ethnic and cultural foundations for politics could reproduce imperial order, and, therefore, offer potential alternatives to Western/non-Western ontologies. This includes recognising that representations of difference are processual, determined by strategic necessity, and subject to incentives to represent difference within hierarchical institutions. This article builds on recent studies in International Relations and other disciplines to think through the legacies of empire in knowledge production, and to push towards more historical and relational approaches to world political and social inquiry.

Music as an Emancipatory Pedagogical Tool in International Relations Classes in the Global South

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vinícius Tavares de Oliveira ◽  
Mariana Balau Silveira ◽  
Rafael Bittencourt Rodrigues Lopes
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Learning Process ◽  
Global South ◽  
Radical Pedagogy ◽  
Pedagogical Tool ◽  
Epistemic Violence ◽  
Critical Pedagogies

Abstract The purpose of this paper is to present considerations about the use of music as a critical and radical pedagogy in an International Relations class in the Global South. How can music help students understand the processes of marginalization, resistance, and struggle? Can it be understood as a tool to be used in the classroom to transcend traditional and marginalizing pedagogies? The contribution of our proposal derives from the possibility of a symbiosis between the teaching of critical, decolonial, and postcolonial perspectives and the language used to communicate these concepts and ideas to a young audience with different backgrounds. In this sense, we bring perceptions of the engagement with music as a pedagogical tool in an undergraduate course entitled “Decolonizing International Relations: epistemic violence and emancipation in Global South.” By playing songs, not only the learning process became deeper and more meaningful to students, but it also opened margins to a dialogical interaction. We share our experience hoping to contribute to a meaningful debate among scholars, inspiring teachers to engage with decolonial/critical pedagogies.

scholarly journals Realist avenues to global International Relations

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 1203-1229
Author(s):  
Michiel Foulon ◽  
Gustav Meibauer
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
International Affairs ◽  
Neoclassical Realism ◽  
State Behavior ◽  
Global Perspectives ◽  
Research Designs ◽  
Creative Research ◽  
Global Understanding ◽  
Scholarly Collaboration

Realism has long been criticized by global IR, but the former can contribute to the latter and thereby improve explanations of international relations. Global IR criticizes that realism supposedly applies universally, sidelines non-Western perspectives, and misunderstands much of foreign policy, grand strategy, and international affairs. Reviewing global IR’s case against realism, however, exposes avenues for realism to complement global IR. Realism can contribute to a more global understanding of international relations through its most recent variant: neoclassical realism (NCR). This newest realism allows for contextualization and historicization of drivers of state behavior. It can embrace and has already been engaging global questions and cases; global thought and concepts; and global perspectives and scholarship. Mapping 149 NCR publications produced by 96 scholars reveals a slow shift in knowledge production away from North America toward Europe and to a lesser extent Asia and Africa. Creative research designs and scholarly collaboration can put realism in fruitful conversation with global IR. This has implications for theory building and inclusive knowledge production in realism, global IR, and the wider discipline. Only when we discover new avenues for realists to travel can they contribute to a more global IR. In turn, when global IR scholars engage realism, they may be better able to address the Western versus non-Western dichotomies they challenge.

Towards an International Political Ergonomics

2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 979-1006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Luke Austin
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Violence Prevention ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Theoretical Basis ◽  
Political Change ◽  
Research Programme ◽  
Social Practices ◽  
World Politics ◽  
The Unconscious ◽  
Practice Turn

This article introduces International Political Ergonomics. International Political Ergonomics is a novel research programme focused on achieving political change through the ergonomic (re)design of world politics. The approach is grounded on a shift across International Relations which recognizes that its epistemic (i.e. knowledge-producing) core is often inadequate to achieve change. Insights from the practice turn and behaviouralist International Relations, as well as from philosophy, sociology and neuroscience, demonstrate that much international behaviour is driven by the ‘unconscious’ or ‘non-reflexive’ re-articulation of repertoires of actions even where the pathologies of this process are known. This implies that knowledge production and dissemination (i.e. to policymakers, global publics) is often unable to effect influence over social practices. What is thus required is a non-epistemic means of producing world political change. International Political Ergonomics is a research programme that takes up this task. It does so by describing how small material interventions into world politics can radically shift individual behaviours by encouraging greater rationality, reflexivity and deliberation. After laying out the theoretical basis for this claim, the article demonstrates it by detailing the application of International Political Ergonomics to violence-prevention efforts. The article concludes by reflecting on the radical implications that International Political Ergonomics has for the vocation of International Relations.

Mi Casa Is Not Su Casa

Meridians ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 278-294
Author(s):  
Vanessa Rosa
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
Puerto Rico ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Growing Up ◽  
Empire Building ◽  
Family Photographs ◽  
Sociopolitical Context ◽  
Feminist Epistemologies ◽  
Reflective Essay

Abstract Drawing on family photographs and documents, as well as archival research, the author reflects on her grandmother’s migration to New York City from Puerto Rico in the mid-1940s and examines her journey and new life in New York in relation to the broader sociopolitical context. The reflective essay considers how housing and homeownership were positioned as key to the promises of the American dream, while also revealing the limits of such ideals as tied to U.S. empire building on and off the island. The author analyzes her grandmother’s role as the president of her public housing tenant organization and her father’s experiences growing up in Harlem to better understand what it means to strategically navigate sites of inclusion and exclusion. This reflection is written in the spirit of testimonio in an effort to honor and extend Latina feminist epistemologies and contribute to scholarship that challenges traditional modes of knowledge production.

scholarly journals Knowledge production, learning, and (meta)cognition in international relations theory: a case study in Brazil

Raído ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (27) ◽  
pp. 419
Author(s):  
Fabiana Esteves Neves ◽  
Ivi Vasconcelos Elias
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
De Se

Este artigo investiga a aprendizagem e a produção de conhecimento teórico na graduação em Relações Internacionais (RI) no Brasil. Consideramos que as dificuldades do estudante para ler/escrever textos acadêmicos se relacionam a questões metacognitivas e escolhas teóricas no âmbito acadêmico. Essa hipótese fundamenta-se tanto no contexto educacional brasileiro, que prioriza conceituações, no lugar do raciocínio analítico, quanto na predominância de abordagens positivistas tradicionais, desconectadas da situação de países em desenvolvimento como o Brasil. A fundamentação teórica compreende princípios da pedagogia crítica e das ciências cognitivas, com foco em quatro ações metatextuais com a escrita: reportar, sumarizar, analisar e teorizar (NEVES, 2015). Para descrever a produção dos estudantes, propôs-se a 35 alunos da disciplina “Teoria das RI I” um roteiro de leitura diagnóstico sobre um capítulo de livro teórico. As respostas para quatro das questões mostram que a falta de pensamento autônomo na disciplina se reflete na compreensão dos alunos, expressa por meio da escrita perfunctória. Consequentemente, nega-se a possibilidade de se tornarem sujeitos ativos na compreensão e transformação da política internacional. Quanto à leitura/escrita, reflexões sobre os aspectos metacognitivos do aprendizado precisam ser incluídas não apenas no ensino da linguagem, mas também nas disciplinas teóricas, especialmente no trato com textos acadêmicos.

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