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ID: 087321

From process to politics / Guillaume, Xavier

Guillaume, Xavier	Journal Article
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2009.

Summary/Abstract

Many international relations (IR) theories examining the identity/alterity nexus share a dichotomized vision of the social and political reality sustaining their approach to "identity" by dividing the latter into either its "corporate" or its "social" dimension. This dichotomized conception of the social and political falls into what Norbert Elias termed "process-reduction," a fallacy leading to an isolation and essentialization of certain aspects of processes and bracketing the inherent eventness of the "international." This paper will theoretically identify the shortcomings of this dichotomized vision and then provide an empirical narration of what a non-dichotomized conception can look like and consider how it provides us with a more acute rendering of the social and political dimensions of collective political identity formation and politics of representation. To do so, a dialogical understanding of the variety of constellations of collective political identities that have informed questions regarding multiculturalism ranging from the Tokugawa (1603-1867) to the Taish? (1912-1926) eras in Japan will be developed.

Key Words

International Relations - Case Studies ; Process - Politics ; Essentialization ; Social Dimension ; Dichotomized

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ID: 108235

Pierre Bourdieu and international relations: power of practices, practices of power / Bigo, Didier

Bigo, Didier	Journal Article
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Publication

2011.

Summary/Abstract

This article demonstrates how the work of Pierre Bourdieu offers a productive way to practice research in international relations. It especially explores the alternatives opened by Bourdieu in terms of a logic of practice and practical sense that refuses an opposition between general theory and empirical research. Bourdieu's preference for a relational approach, which destabilizes the different versions of the opposition between structure and agency, avoids some of the traps commonly found in political science in general and theorizations of international relations in particular: essentialization and ahistoricism; a false dualism between constructivism and empirical research; and an absolute opposition between the collective and the individual. The "thinking tools" of field and habitus, which are both collective and individualized, are examined in order to see how they resist such traps. The article also engages with the question of whether the international itself challenges some of Bourdieu's assumptions, especially when some authors identify a global field of power while others deny that such a field of power could be different from a system of different national fields of power. In this context, the analysis of transversal fields of power must be untied from state centrism in order to discuss the social transformations of power relations in ways that do not oppose a global/international level to a series of national and subnational levels.

Key Words

Constructivism ; International Relations - Case Studies ; Empirical Research ; Essentialization ; Pierre Bourdieu ; Power of Practices ;
Practices of Power ; Ahistoricism

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