Thinking IR Differently--Security and the International

Before I get into the contributions in sections A and E, I'd like to add a bit to Willow's discussion of the introduction and the framework of the book. The introduction's discussion of the feedback on the previous volume, in which Inanna Hamati-Ataya cautions them not to limit the considered contributions non-Western scholars to a local or particular knowledge, and to see them as current or potential contributors to more universal or cross-cutting knowledge creation projects, seems relevant to Willow's question about how our biases and knowledge of the author's identity inhibit our ability to see the full value of works by people outside the core. It also reminded me of an earlier discussion, on how, even within SIS, the contributions of international students are valued when they provide "local expertise" or look at their home state or region through the lenses of IR, but are seen as puzzling or misdirected if they are focused on puzzles outside the student's home country or not immediately, obviously related to their experiences as a non-Westerner--to revisit the example we used in class, when Patrick speaks about his interest in land grabs, he is taken seriously, but if he said his research interest was in Chinese diplomacy, he would be regarded with a confusion that would not apply to a Western scholar with the same interest. Scholars from outside the West are limited in the topics on which they can expect to be heard, yet those same legitimating topics position scholars as second class or not doing "big" problems--writing chamber music because that's what they can get performed, and then being judged as inferior composers because they're not writing for orchestras, even though such works would never be staged if they were written. My own question about the introduction focuses on the way the editors position the project of the case study chapters--first, to ask "what does thinking on key IR concepts and categories look like in different parts of the world?" then to ask why thinking is that way in that place and to consider the implications. I hope we can discuss, broadly, the value of this as a project--what benefit do we derive from considering these variations in understanding and articulation of the IR concepts that are utilized across the core and periphery? Section A: Security The discussion I'd like to highlight here is from Tickner and Herz' chapter on Latin America and the lack of reflection/localization/contestation of security concepts, the centrality of the state system, and theories imported from the core. In the introduction, the editors note that this challenge is not unique to Latin America, but is a broader issue in scholarship outside the West (and, I think, within it as well). Given the local and geopolitical explanations offered by the authors for the lack of theoretical exploration, how do we understand the possibilities for such reflection and contestation to be expanded in the future? Section E: The "International" How might we leverage alternative understandings of what constitutes the "international"? I suppose my question here is similar to that for the broader project--how does, or should, our scholarship change as a result of destabilizing the concept of the international and acknowledging the variation that exists in understanding what constitutes the international? To return to Hamati-Ataya's critique, how do we go beyond seeing these understandings as mere descriptive data, perhaps useful in feeeding into the construction of universal theory or explaining puzzles about the non-West, and instead incorporate these insights into our larger understanding of the world and how we relate to it?