ABSTRACT
Lauren Wilcox aptly identifies the body as the constituent outside to International Relations (IR), in that it is not explicitly theorized yet it at the same time functions to define the parameters of the discipline in the sense that excluding the body from our theorizations maintains the status quo operations of IR. This chapter demonstrates that we can bring the body back in without reducing it to an effect of discourse or making it a neutral biological fact. It argues that one strategy for doing so is autoethnography. The chapter seeks to encourage scholars to reflect on their own embodied experiences to generate knowledge about world politics. It offers up some brief examples of such an orientation using the example of mourning practices. The chapter argues that such an approach can also generate new insights about the ethics of mourning. It offers up a methodological inclination to studying affective orientations toward the human body in global politics.
