ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests international relations (IR) practice theory must contend with the fundamental insecurity of meaning and subjectivity. Time is rarely used as a framework for analyzing world politics. Yet as the contributors to this chapter attest, temporality is a lens through which to critically interrogate the present. The recent work in the practice turn' in IR theory raises questions about the role of practices in global politics. Practice theory focuses on the ground-level practices and background knowledge comprising much of everyday international politics. The past decade has seen a flurry of work constituting what has been termed a practice turn in IR theory, following such a turn in social theory more generally. The production through practices of seemingly stable meanings and subjects is successful only in so far as it effaces its own traces' through the movements of retroactive temporality.
