Relations, Human and Non-human

This chapter argues for an extension of how we think relationally via relational cosmology. It places relational cosmology in a conversation with varied relational perspectives in critical social theory and argues that specific kinds of extensions and dialogues emerge from this perspective. In particular, a conversation on how to think relationality without fixing its meaning is advanced. This chapter also discusses in detail how to extend beyond discussion of ‘human’ relationalities towards comprehending the wider ‘mesh’ of relations that matter but are hard to capture for situated knowers in the social sciences and IR. This key chapter seeks to provide the basis for a translation between relational cosmology, critical social theory, critical humanism and International Relations theory.

Stretching Situated Knowledge

This chapter, first of three to develop relational cosmology in conversation with critical social theory and IR theory, argues that at the heart of relational cosmology lies a commitment to situated knowledge. This perspective on knowledge production is similar in some regards to standpoint epistemology but also diverges from it in key respects. The chapter argues that IR scholarship can benefit from close engagement with relational cosmology suggestions as to how our knowledge is limited and how we might need to ‘deal with it’, especially in the social sciences, where there is a tendency to glorify the role of the human in knowing the human.

Ethics, in Relations?

This chapter argues that the implications of relational cosmology reach beyond reorienting our ontological and epistemological perspectives in IR. From them emerge also different, and rather difficult, set of conversations with those IR scholars concerned with normative or ethical theorizing or decision-making in IR. The relational perspective does not easily conform to classical orientations of ethical thinking in the field as it avoids commitment to general rules and moral norms. Yet, with the help of Karen Barad and Florence Chiew it is argued in this chapter that there is a distinct ‘ethical’ impetus, involving responsibility in intra-actions, inbuilt in the kind of orientation suggested by relational cosmology as it is developed here. From this perspective we are concerned to widen our concerns to ‘beyond the human’ but also to reflect on the limits of ‘ethics’ itself.

Scientific Cosmologies

This chapter introduces a number of perspectives on cosmology from within debates in scientific cosmology. It aims to show that while there are important differences between perspectives in the scientific study of the cosmos, there have also been important developments in how the cosmos has been understood and engaged with. New discoveries about the nature and structure of the cosmos have precipitated not only new facts and tools to probe the universe but have also generated new philosophical attempts to conceptualize the significance of these discoveries for our understanding of the cosmos and our role in it. It is these debates in scientific cosmology that relational cosmology, examined in the chapter that follows, emerges from.

Conclusion

This chapter summarizes the aims and conclusions of the work. In addition, this concluding chapter sets out five ‘light’ challenges, and related propositions, for development of IR theory, propositions reflective of the sensibility relational cosmology, as translated here via critical humanism, might direct us to adopt. Many challenges remain, but we should not feel weighed down by them but explore new ways of thinking, being, and becoming as we ‘loosen’ ourselves into the ‘mesh’ and the complex negotiations of human and non-human relations residing there requires. IR of the future will likely be more open, more interdisciplinary, and hopefully more cosmologically aware, and it has the opportunity to develop new ways of thinking and doing co-existence and politics.

Reorienting to the International, the Global and the Planetary

This chapter extends the arguments developed in the previous chapters into a conversation with recent International Relations scholarship. First, the chapter argues against the notions of the international and the global as key conceptual tropes in the field, suggesting that there are important reasons to develop the notion of planetarity for the field. Through it we perceive aspects of political life and negotiation with relationalities which we do not via classical IR notions. However, the chapter also critically interrogates existing attempts to develop planet politics and planetarity, suggesting some ways forward. The chapter then explores the meaning of democracy and politics in a planetary politics setting, exploring an example around fisheries.

Cosmology

This chapter introduces the study of cosmology—in the social and the natural sciences. We see that the study of the cosmos has deep and interesting origins but also that how we study the cosmos is no simple matter analytically, for how we think about the cosmos is also directly implicated in how we think about our own role in the universe. This chapter argues that we should think social and natural science approaches to cosmology ‘together’ rather than apart from each other. This it is suggested is necessary both to avoid an uncritical approach to scientific cosmology on the one hand and to avoid equating the cosmos to our beliefs about it.

Introduction

This chapter introduces the challenge of rethinking international relations and the field of International Relations as it embarks on its ‘second century’ of scholarship. It considers the varied criticisms of the field, in particular its inability to deal with questions of environmental degradation and planetary co-existence. In this context the chapter introduces why we should be interested in cosmology and relational cosmology in particular as we tackle these challenges. The chapter also introduces puzzles, and doubts, which may concern the reader as they start their engagement with cosmology as well as existing literatures tackling relevant puzzle-fields, such as literatures on new materialism, relationality, and new ways of thinking IR.

Relational Cosmology

This chapter explicates the relational cosmology perspective, specifying its core conceptual and philosophical commitments. The chapter argues that relational cosmology proposes an important set of moves around relational nature of being, the processual nature of ‘things’ and around the inevitably situated nature of knowledge in a relational cosmos. It re-reads the role and significance of laws and maths asking us to think on cosmology as a historical science. Relational cosmology challenges how we think, conceptually, about scientific discoveries and about ourselves as knowers in a processual relational universe. At the same time this perspective also asks us to think on the social sciences and their methods, as well as about the interaction of cosmological and social and political thought.