Weaving Worlds:Cosmopraxisas Relational Sensibility

Abstract

Relationality has become a popular term for addressing diversity, complexity, interconnectedness, and planetary crisis in many academic fields, including international relations (IR). This article shows that fully embracing relationality calls for a distinct set of tools that are discernable in cosmopraxis, an ontological stance derived from Andean thinking that upholds interdependence and co-becoming, being-feeling-knowing-doing, and both-and logics as key principles of existence. Following a discussion of the “relational turn” in academic debates within and beyond IR, we develop our understanding of deep relationality and explain how cosmopraxis works to awaken the relational sensibilities we deem key to broadening and invigorating the study of worldly affairs. Throughout the article, we make use of stories about weaving, a key metaphor of entanglement and interconnection, but also a concrete practice that embodies the principles of cosmopraxis to illustrate our main arguments.

Resilience in the context ofconflict‐relatedsexual violence and beyond: A “sentient ecology” framework

“…Cudworth and Hobden’s ( 2013 , p. 449) argument that “A posthuman international relations will be attuned to the possibilities of a fuller range of actors and constraints in any given context” is no less pertinent to the study of resilience. Specifically with regard to CRSV, what this article has ultimately demonstrated through its discussion of sentient ecology is that posthumanism means, inter alia, thinking about “the aliveness, agency and co‐participation of ‘things’” (Tickner & Querejazu, 2021 , p. 397) in the experiences of victims−/survivors and their neglected stories of resilience.…”

“…At the same time, however, seas also tell a story of deep and enduring sentient connectivities that persist across time and space (Cooney, 2004 , p. 323; George & Wiebe, 2020 , p. 499). This article specifically demonstrates that sentient connectivities tell a bigger story about resilience, CRSV and the “interconnectedness that characterize[s] our world(s)” (Tickner & Querejazu, 2021 , p. 392).…”

The violence that hangs in the air: Fanon’s sociogenics and spectres of eugenics

“…18. See Tickner and Querejazu (2021) for a recent and excellent analysis of how we can think about how worlds get woven. Like Opondo (2021), they press us to think creatively about diplomatic encounters with difference.…”

Cosmopraxis: Relational methods for a pluriversal IR

“…Ontologically it is more robust than "worldview" because of its cosmic scope, emphasis on the living and doing through a wider range of sensory channels.' 75 The difference between cosmopraxis and cosmoliving is that the former highlights practices, actions, and sensibilities 76 that aim at connecting dimensions, which can take place as everyday actions by every being as illustrated in the next section. One of the most important dynamics in relational cosmologies is that everything is interrelated by dual and complementary forces that make up a 'corresponding world': how it is inside is outside, how it is up is down, how is the 71 As a methodological move, one of the purposes of the 'practice turn' in IR is to bring theory down back to the ground of world politics (Emanuel Adler and Vinvent Pouliot 'International practices', International Theory, 3:1 (2011), pp.…”