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This is a book on methods, how scholars embody them and how working within, from or against Constructivism has shaped that use and embodiment.
A vibrant cross-section of contributors write of interdisciplinary encounters, first interactions with the 'discipline' of International Relations, discuss engagements in different techniques and tactics, and of pursuing different methods ranging from ethnographic to computer simulations, from sociology to philosophy and history. Presenting a range of voices, many constructivist, some outside and even critical of Constructivism, the volume shows methods as useful tools for approaching research and political positions in International Relations, while also containing contingent, inexact, unexpected, and even surprising qualities for opening further research. It gives a rich account of how the discipline was transformed in the 1990s and early 2000s, and how this shaped careers, positions and interactions.
It will be of interest to both students and scholars of methods and theory in International Relations and global politics.
List of contents
Introduction Part I: Interpreting Constructivism 1. Third Generation Constructivism: Between Tactics and Strategy 2. A Tactical Guide to Conceptual Analysis 3. Social Constructivism and Actor-Network Theory: Bridging the Divide 4. Tactics of a Constructivist Pedagogy Part II: Discourse, Interpretation and Methods 5. Narrative Analysis as a Tactical Bridge 6. Identities as Tactics: Exposing Relational Foreign Policy as Story 7. Constructivism, Computational Social-Relational Methods, and Multiple Correspondence Analysis Part III: Constructivism and the Interpretive Methods of the Self 8. When Home is Part of the Field: Experiencing Uncanniness of Home in Field Conversations 9. A Reflexivity that Works for Us: Ethics Beyond Norms 10. Feminist Curiosity as Method: On (Limits to) Tactical Uses of Constructivism 11. Researching within the Instability of Meaning: Decolonial Voices and Practices 12. Constructing a Scholar on the Road Less Travelled 13. Tactics All The Way Down: The Politics of Exteriority in Constructivism Part IV: Construction and the Interpretation of History and Texts 14. How To Do (Differing) Things With Words: World-Making and (or) Meaning-Making 15. Stubbornly Stumbling into Making History: Constructivism and Historical International Relations
About the author
Brent J. Steele is Francis D. Wormuth Presidential Chair and Professor of Political Science at the University of Utah, USA.
Harry D. Gould is Associate Professor of International Relations at Florida International University, USA.
Oliver Kessler is Associate Professor at the University of Erfurt, Germany.
Summary
This is a book on methods, how scholars embody them and how working within, from or against constructivism has shaped that use and embodiment.
