ABSTRACT

This chapter argues that the future of the discipline, or at least of its critical approaches, should be cast in the font of a methodological turn. Building on recent literature, which seeks to highlight the importance of methodology, it states that it is time for critical scholars to move beyond their long infatuation with ontology in order to reflect concretely on the demands that perspectivism places on critical scholarship. For the challenge of critique does not consist in open promises to recognize complexity, but in the sober recognition that doing so forced to make more difficult decisions as to what should be left out. In that respect, the chapter claims that the difficult part is not to open up doors, but rather to decide on which door to close. It also argues that the epistemological critique directed at mainstream approaches should be turned back onto critical approaches and used as a building block for an alternative methodology.