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What do we study when we study International Relations (IR)? This book interrogates the meanings of the established ontology and subjectivity embedded in the discourse of "Western" and "non-Western" IR. We are predisposed to see a nation-state as a unified entity, everlasting and moving towards a particular end. This leads us to say, for example, "Japan is threatened by the possible Chinese attack' without questioning what "Japan" and "China" mean in this context. This book tries to locate and unearth the consistent structure and system of the world, with a particular focus on subjectivity and temporality in IR that captures the way in which we conceive and misconceive the world.
The contributors reveal the extent to which contemporary IR discourses are a part of the culture of linear progress and pre-given autonomous sovereign individuals. Our targets of inquiry therefore inevitably include not only "Western" IR, but "non-Western" discourses as well. The contributors focus on the fluid identities of contemporary world affairs with special attention to temporality, and strive to develop a new approach to understanding the contemporary world and the meanings of world affairs.
List of contents
Preface
Introduction (Kosuke Shimizu)
1) What is Missing in the Ongoing Debate over Non-Western IR Theory Building? (Yong-Soo EUN)
2) Appealing to Humane Capitalism as the International Relations of Economics: Comparing Early and Late Globalizing Asia via Tomé Pires’ Suma Oriental (1515) and Mahathirist Thought (1970-2008) (Alan Chong)
3) Indigenization of International Relation Theories in Korea and China: Tails of Two Essentialisms (Jungmin Seo and Hwanbi Lee)
4) Kōanizing IR: Flipping the Logic of Epistemic Violence (L.H.M. Ling)
5) International Relations Concerning Post-Hybridity Dangers and Potentials in Non-Synthetic Cycles (Chih-yu Shih and Josuke Ikeda)
6) Identity, Time, and Language: Nishida Kitaro’s Philosophy and Politics in Non-Western Discourse (Kosuke Shimizu)
7) On the Necessary and Disavowed Subject of History in Postwar "Japan" (Hitomi Koyama)
8) Pacific for Whom: The Ocean in Japan (Atsuko Watanabe)
Index
About the author
Kosuke Shimizu is a professor of the Department of Global Studies and director of Afrasian Research Centre at Ryukoku University, Kyoto, Japan.
Summary
This book interrogates the meanings of the established ontology and subjectivity embedded in the discourse of ‘Western’ and ‘non-Western’ IR. The contributors reveal the extent to which contemporary IR discourses are a part of the culture of linear progress and pre-given autonomous sovereign individuals.
