Rethinking Emancipation in a Critical IR: Normativity, Cosmology, and Pluriversal Dialogue

Abstract

This article seeks to reconceptualise emancipation in critically theorising International Relations (IR) by developing ‘thin’ and ‘thick’ versions of normativity and applying them as conditions for a pluriversal dialogue between different cosmologies. We start with the premise that ‘critical IR’ is both Eurocentric and a-normative, and argue that a normative engagement with critical discourses both inside and outside the West is necessary to recapture its emancipatory promise. Drawing on the work of Max Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse and Jacques Derrida, we develop ‘thin’ and ‘thick’ versions of normativity. The former, we argue, operates as a critical corrective of thick normative positions, reclaiming their openness to difference, while not making substantive moral or political claims itself. We then apply these version of normativity to examine the possibility of a global pluriversal dialogue between different cosmologies. Cosmologies, we argue, refer to sets of ontological and epistemological claims about the human condition that are inherently normative. ‘Thin’ normativity applied to the ‘thick’ claims of cosmologies prevents the essentialisation and hierarchisation of cosmological difference(s) by revealing and de-constructing the latter’s potentially discriminatory, exclusionary, and violent tendencies. In so doing, it facilitates a global inter-cosmological dialogue which we regard as the objective of a post-western, critical IR.

What is an emancipatory peace?

“…Trying to unravel such a conceptual array and seek a convergence, perhaps, points to a redefined understanding of politics and international relations. Instead of relying on the thin normativity (Behr and Shani, 2021) of past consensus, which often has remained unimplemented (and indeed may have inadvertently provided a platform for multiple counterforces in many contemporary, stalemated and frozen peace processes), the alternative for emancipatory thought is to equate peace with a thicker, more complex, understanding of global sustainability and global justice, rather than domination, victory or trusteeship. This reconfigures the main elements of politics as being an eternal struggle against blockages to justice and sustainability in the unpredictable context of the Anthropocene: the prevalence of blockages suggests a convergence is not possible in practice.…”

“…The concept has been displaced by post-colonial approaches to sovereign autonomy, liberal notions of rights, economic development and liberal governmentality or neoliberal notions of self-help, resilience (Chandler, 2014). In peace and conflict studies, the concept of an emancipatory peace remains only superficially engaged with, often on thin normative grounds (Behr and Shani, 2021; Richmond, 2008). Social forms of legitimacy connected to peace settlements after war have become obscured as a result.…”

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

“…After Japan's defeat in the Second World War, Pan-Asianism was largely discredited, but, as the penultimate section will illustrate, Tagore's legacy can be found 7 A cosmology here refers to sets of normative epistemological and ontological claims about the origins of the cosmos and our place in it. See Blaney and Tickner (2017 , 5) and Behr and Shani (2021) . It is used here in a wider sense to encompass not only "secular" scientific cosmologies (see Allan 2019 andKurki 2020 ), but also "religious" and "cultural" cosmologies (see Shani and Behera 2021 ).…”

“…For a critical genealogy of these respective "national" schools, see Hwang (2021 ), Seo andCho (2021) , andBehera (2007) . 9 See Shani (2008) , Behr and Shani (2021) , and Shani and Behera (2021) . 10 Postcolonial accounts of IR are too numerous to cite here.…”

Maritime Regionalism and ‘Inclusive Development’: Opportunity and Challenges before Bangladesh in Anthropocene

“…This is not to belittle the importance of the subject of small states, especially Small Island Developing States (SIDS), which has received considerable attention of IR scholars 4 but to argue that the focus on 'small' in international relations needs to be broadened and deepened to go beyond a state-centric understanding of 'international' to include communities and their struggles for survival on the margins. Given that a relentless interrogation of power asymmetries and socioeconomic hierarchies is central to the pursuit of emancipation by a more global and critical IR 5 -the importance of addressing the challenges posed by the Anthropocene to the livelihoodhuman security of small-scale communities-precariously placed on the margins of the mainstream-needs due acknowledgement. As rightly pointed out by some scholars 6 irrespective of location on various continents, the Covid 19 pandemic has exposed tropical small-scale fishing communities and their livelihood security to multiple risks.…”