이론의 탈영토화: 국제정치이론과 연구의 다양성을 위한 지식사회학적 소고

초록

Since the late 1980s, the discipline of International Relations (IR) has witnessed a theoretical “explosion” and “proliferation”; as a result, IR has now arrived at “a plural, and pluralist, field.” On closer inspection, however, what we find is ‘territorialisation’ accompanied by theoretical fragmentation and disciplinary specialisation. In the intellectual history of IR, theoretical debates and impasses have led not only to increasing cacophony and disagreement, but also to constituting boundaries in a territorial sense among IR theories and scholars. Concerned about growing theoretical boundaries in IR as well as the enduring gulf between the discipline and the wider world, many IR scholars have long attempted to cross boundaries in the name of “eclecticism” or “integrative pluralism.” Certainly, they can make meaningful and important changes to the current territorialised state of IR; yet the likely changes are internal or ‘representational’ transformations, rather than structural or ‘ontological’ changes necessary to reconstitute territories and codes of knowledge/theory production. Furthermore, the existing attempts, especially “eclectic” approaches, tend to reproduce territorial boundaries in their own terms. Obviously, this reterritorialisation increases the fixidity of IR, an already fixed and territorialised discipline. To ensure an open territoriality in IR, what we need is not only boundary-crossing, but more importantly boundary-dissolving. To this end, this article suggests that IR should be emancipated from what Edward Said called “professionalism,” especially in terms of who owns and/or exercises authority over knowledge production. The article offers thought-provoking ideas and examples (“DIY biology,” “Beirut School,” and “vernacular” security) to show how IR can go about this.

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