ABSTRACT

This chapter offers an overview of different theories and authors that challenge mainstream and positivist social sciences by acknowledging and actively engaging with the political dimension of knowledge production and, by extension, of academia. Through this exploration—which, among others, includes Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Gramsci, Foucault, the Frankfurt School, postcolonial studies, queer theory, and neo/post-Marxism—I craft my own theoretical vocabulary to analyze the politics of political science (PPS). I introduce the category of complex relationality, which builds from these critical theories and attempts to capture the multilayeredness of the power-knowledge relationship. The methodological strategy followed by the book is also presented in detail.