Introduction to the Special Issue: Pluriversal relationality

Abstract

Both relationality and separateness are aspects of our everyday lives. How we engage these phenomena hinges on the particular existential assumptions that we take for granted. Within the discipline of International Relations (IR), both relationality and separateness have informed how global politics is studied and practiced. How states and their relations are conceived has, for instance, varied by the distinct degrees of privilege given to separation and interconnection: from notions of completely autonomous units like billiard balls to always emergent phenomena co-constituted through relations. The plurality of trajectories that inform this Special Issue illustrate how much broader the spectrum of relational engagement can be when we are cognisant of the impact of these existential assumptions on forms of life, knowing, and knowledge production in International Relations. By highlighting a spectrum of relational engagement, we raise important questions about the way the various knowledge frames in IR are acknowledged, legitimised, limited, and reproduced.

Alternative Global Entanglements: ‘Detachment from Knowledge’ and the Limits of Decolonial Emancipation

“…118 This alternative conception of time(space) (pacha), of course, is in stark contrast to the ontological commitment to separation inherent in intellectual practices in which time and space are conceived of as separable and separate dimensions for the sake of knowledge production. 119 In this sense, beyond mere epistemological constraints, the resulting timeless depictions of global politics in IR 120 or the broader constitutive role of time in IR theory itself 121 can therefore be seen as also illustrations of these compromises at the ontological level.…”

From “Critical” Nationalism to “Asia as Method”: Tagore's Quest for a Moral Imaginary’ and Its Implications for Post-Western International Relations

“…En consecuencia, este imaginario se subordinó a las ambiciones imperiales japonesas y contribuyó a legitimarlas. En lugar de considerar que el imaginario defectuoso de Tagore se limita a poner de manifiesto los «puntos muertos» de la teoría postoccidental de las RRII, sostenemos que puede considerarse que desbloquea su «potencial» al plantear a Asia como un «punto de anclaje imaginario» con el que criticar el imaginario westfaliano, y el nacionalismo metodológico, de las RRII Shani, Giorgio (2022) From "Critical" Nationalism to "Asia as Method": Tagore's Quest for a Moral Imaginary' and Its Implications for Post-Western International Relations. Global Studies Quarterly ,…”