Description
Global norms in academia are often defined, following Finnemore and Sikkink (1998), as internationally ´shared ideas, expectations and beliefs about appropriate behaviour what gives the world structure, order and stability’. In such aspirational interpretation, Western epistemological origins of the universal (as opposed to particularity, which is associated with non-West) go unquestioned. The global norms literature includes little empirical engagement with non-Western perspectives on power relations, historical circumstances and social relations that constitute both the “international” and “norms” (Acharya 2014, Dunford 2017). The monopoly over deciding what is international and global tends to go unquestioned as we fail to scrutinise the origins and availability of “normative capital” for different international actors in our analysis (Jabri 2017). Teleological imaginaries and logics of progress, development and modernity, while contested, continue to inform analysis. The epistemological limitations of IR and IS language and concepts, embedded in Western logic and political thought, hinder fruitful listening and interrogation of the voices from the geo-political South. At the same time, “Southern” scholars are silenced because their arguments are not being “indigenous”, “authentic” or “radical” enough to set them apart from their “Northern” peers (see Fonseca 2019). Consequently, in addition to epistemological reflection, there is a practical need to develop methodological and theoretical toolboxes to equip scholars for decolonising their research design.
This paper suggests that “decolonising strategies” are crucial for critical and forward thinking international studies research. In particular, I will consider the potential of thinking in terms of dialogue and multiple subject positions in global norms research. Following Schatz (2009), the paper explores the extent to which political ethnography can : 1) flesh out and question generalisations and meanings introduced by other research traditions 2) increase empirical soundness that contributes to theoretical vibrancy 3) boost epistemological innovation 4) rethink normative grounding to the study of politics (Schatz 2009: 10-11). As political ethnography allows for multi-method research design and expands the concept of immersion to reach beyond participant observation, it offers strategies to capture the entangled subject positions that constellate “global” and “international” politics. Furthermore, it is the ethnographic approach, the urge to step into our interlocutors shoes, and take a glance at the world through their eyes, that will provide rich and meaningful perspectives from the political subaltern as much as the elites.
Notwithstanding the need to engage with “indigenous knowledge” as well as to pursue methodological and theoretical innovation, I maintain that abandoning well established fields of research is unrealistic and will not necessarily take us closer to multi-faceted knowledge acquisition. In this paper I will zoom in on the research on global norms to suggest that political ethnography could provide a lens and a toolkit, which when used with intention, may facilitate new and inclusive modes of researching global governance and its discontents.
