Travelling Theories

Abstract

This introductory essay takes recourse to the work of Edward Said on travelling theories and Michel Foucault on discursive formations, to highlight the historicity of all theorising, and the manufacturedness of all theoretical work. Particular attention is paid to experience as embeddedness, the construction of knowledge formations and disciplines, and the effects on knowledge formation of reappropriations and recontextualisations of theories and concepts. The metaphor of travel and of being in transit has been appropriated across diverse discourses and disciplinary domains to signal adaptions and re-applications of theories and concepts from one context to another, from one conceptual domain or discipline to another, and the embedment of theories and concepts in the concrete historical vicissitudes affecting the life of the theorist. This serves to frame the essays collected in this issue by the constellation of issues highlighted with appeal to discursive formations, retooling disciplines, and hosting travelling theories.