ABSTRACT
There are few other disciplines that are more open to fundamental criticism, inter-disciplinarity, and input from non-academic sources than is International Relations (IR). Over the years, IR scholars have imported various debates, paradigms, questions, models, methods, and data from other disciplines, practitioners, and professions. This inclusiveness has limits, however, and does not particularly apply to International Relations Theory (IRT) when it comes to incorporating knowledge from non-Western contexts. This, we argue, is one of most important reasons for IRT’s shortcomings as a tool for understanding and explaining the newest and often more problematic parts of contemporary international relations as it cannot be attributed to lack of methodological rigor, a persistent deficiency in reflexivity, apathy toward the human condition outside the West, or a stubborn attachment to pre-defined borders of IR as a discipline. The current volume consists of ten chapters by a select group of scholars, organized into three parts. Considering the level of contestation on the subject, Part I “Homegrown theorizing in perspective” is dedicated to reviewing existing debates about the desirability and viability of non-Western perspectives in IR. The second part of the book, “Theorizing at ‘home’” is composed of four chapters defining the status of IR theorizing in Iran, Japan, China, and South Africa to reveal the challenges and potentials of the local disciplines in these countries and call for specific agendas that built on the indigenous traditions. The third and the final part of the volume “Innovative encounters” brings together three attempts at original homegrown theorizing, which may potentially be applicable to cases other than they emerge from. Each puts forward new concepts and/or novel interactions between existing concepts by looking at international relations in the periphery.
