ABSTRACT
The quest for reflexivity was meant to be a corrective to the power/knowledge nexus in world politics and it was supposed to unveil the complicity of a researcher/scholar in the reproduction of existing power relations. One of the explanations for the unintended consequences of reflexivity: envisioned, lest people forget, as a deeply critical, political intervention into international relations (IR), is that engagements with the micro-politics of the discipline are still so rare. People don't openly confront academic privileges, career expectations, institutional constraints and incentives that dominate educational structures and make IR possible. The academic hierarchies that stifle a more reflexive graduate education are not as prevalent in the humanities and social sciences as they are in disciplines where a student's funding is often tied to grants, labs, or a faculty member's prestige. Yet the shifting economic bases of contemporary academic authority are nevertheless becoming obstacles for young scholars.
