International vs. area? The disciplinary-politics of knowledge-exchange between IR and Area Studies

IF 2.2 1区社会学 Q1 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

International Theory Pub Date : 2020-08-25 DOI:10.1017/S1752971920000184

S. Aris

{"title":"International vs. area? The disciplinary-politics of knowledge-exchange between IR and Area Studies","authors":"S. Aris","doi":"10.1017/S1752971920000184","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Within the political-economy of the social sciences, Area Studies (AS) is supposed to supply contextually-informed knowledge on (non-Western) areas to the other social sciences, in exchange for theory to guide further empirical investigations. Based on this assumption, there are regular calls for greater engagement with AS to counteract the shortcomings of International Relations’ (IR) knowledge-base on many areas, perspectives, and practices of the international. However, there has been little work empirically detailing knowledge-exchange practices between IR and AS, so it remains an open question if the relationship functions as an exchange of ‘international’ theory-for-‘area’ empirics. This paper provides a macro-sociological analysis of the practices of IR–AS knowledge-exchange. By focusing on citation practice, it moves beyond accounts that treat the two disciplines as ‘black boxes’, to trace which parts of the ‘dividing discipline’ of IR are active in exchanging knowledge with which ‘area’ scholarships. Hence, it asks: Are there ‘area’ blindspots in IR's knowledge-production? And, what type of IR theory is exported to AS? This analysis informs an assessment of whether AS represents a significant resource for IR in its efforts to, one, better inform its knowledge-production about ‘other’ areas of the international, and two, assert its disciplinary-relevance within the academy.","PeriodicalId":46771,"journal":{"name":"International Theory","volume":"13 1","pages":"451 - 482"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2000,"publicationDate":"2020-08-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/S1752971920000184","citationCount":"3","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"International Theory","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1752971920000184","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS","Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 3

Abstract

Abstract Within the political-economy of the social sciences, Area Studies (AS) is supposed to supply contextually-informed knowledge on (non-Western) areas to the other social sciences, in exchange for theory to guide further empirical investigations. Based on this assumption, there are regular calls for greater engagement with AS to counteract the shortcomings of International Relations’ (IR) knowledge-base on many areas, perspectives, and practices of the international. However, there has been little work empirically detailing knowledge-exchange practices between IR and AS, so it remains an open question if the relationship functions as an exchange of ‘international’ theory-for-‘area’ empirics. This paper provides a macro-sociological analysis of the practices of IR–AS knowledge-exchange. By focusing on citation practice, it moves beyond accounts that treat the two disciplines as ‘black boxes’, to trace which parts of the ‘dividing discipline’ of IR are active in exchanging knowledge with which ‘area’ scholarships. Hence, it asks: Are there ‘area’ blindspots in IR's knowledge-production? And, what type of IR theory is exported to AS? This analysis informs an assessment of whether AS represents a significant resource for IR in its efforts to, one, better inform its knowledge-production about ‘other’ areas of the international, and two, assert its disciplinary-relevance within the academy.

查看原文本刊更多论文

国际与地区？情报学与区域学知识交流的学科政治

摘要在社会科学的政治经济学中，区域研究（AS）应该向其他社会科学提供关于（非西方）区域的背景知识，以换取指导进一步实证研究的理论。基于这一假设，经常有人呼吁加强与AS的接触，以弥补国际关系（IR）知识库在许多领域、观点和国际惯例方面的不足。然而，很少有工作从经验上详细说明IR和AS之间的知识交换实践，因此，这种关系是否能作为“国际”理论与“区域”经验的交换，仍然是一个悬而未决的问题。本文对IR–AS知识交流的实践进行了宏观社会学分析。通过关注引文实践，它超越了将这两个学科视为“黑匣子”的说法，追踪了IR“分裂学科”的哪些部分积极与哪个“领域”奖学金交换知识。因此，它问道：在IR的知识生产中是否存在“区域”盲点？什么类型的IR理论被导出到AS？这一分析为评估AS是否是IR的重要资源提供了依据，一是更好地为其国际“其他”领域的知识生产提供信息，二是维护其在学院内的学科相关性。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

求助全文

约1分钟内获得全文求助全文

来源期刊

International Theory Multiple-

CiteScore

6.60

自引率

0.00%

发文量

期刊介绍： Editorial board International Theory (IT) is a peer reviewed journal which promotes theoretical scholarship about the positive, legal, and normative aspects of world politics respectively. IT is open to theory of absolutely all varieties and from all disciplines, provided it addresses problems of politics, broadly defined and pertains to the international. IT welcomes scholarship that uses evidence from the real world to advance theoretical arguments. However, IT is intended as a forum where scholars can develop theoretical arguments in depth without an expectation of extensive empirical analysis. IT’s over-arching goal is to promote communication and engagement across theoretical and disciplinary traditions. IT puts a premium on contributors’ ability to reach as broad an audience as possible, both in the questions they engage and in their accessibility to other approaches. This might be done by addressing problems that can only be understood by combining multiple disciplinary discourses, like institutional design, or practical ethics; or by addressing phenomena that have broad ramifications, like civilizing processes in world politics, or the evolution of environmental norms. IT is also open to work that remains within one scholarly tradition, although in that case authors must make clear the horizon of their arguments in relation to other theoretical approaches.