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International Relations ch11
International Relations ch11
Learning outcomes
After this lecture you should be able to: Know the context of the emergence of postructuralism Understand what poststructuralism is and how it differs from other IR theories Explain the relevance of key poststructural thinkers such as Michel Foucault Be able to apply poststructuralism to real world examples using texts and images
Theory as Knowledge
Every understanding of international politics depends upon abstraction, representation and interpretation That is because the world does not present itself to us in the form of ready-made categories, theories, observations or statements This does not mean, however, that anyone can simply make things up and have the products of their imagination count as legitimate knowledge Those interpretations which dominate are one among many different possibilities: how they come to dominate is a question that leads us to interrogate the relationship between knowledge and power
Intervention in IR
Poststructuralism is a critical attitude rather than a paradigm Poststructuralisms entry into IR came in the 1980s through the work of Ashley, Der Derian, Shapiro and Walker. Much of this early writing took on the dominance of realism. For realism, the state marked the border between inside/outside, sovereignty/anarchy, us/them, duty/indifference Poststructuralism questioned how it came to be seen as natural and inevitable to privilege state-centric accounts of world politics Later work has engaged more directly with political events and representations of those events
IRs anxiety
1. PS is not interested in studying the real world 2. PS ignores key actors such as states 3. PS believe that there is no reality outside the text 4. PS is disinterested in moral judgements
Daily Mirror 21 May 2002 cover image Africas Dying Again. Copyright Mirrorpix.
1. Critical approach to