Description
This paper contributes to ongoing discussions on methodological (im)possibilities of scholarship that takes as its starting point the life stories of people usually excluded from IR theorisation. Drawing from ethnographic research on spaces of statebuilding interventions in Serbia, the paper highlights a particular tension between representation and deconstruction that is not widely discussed in conversations surrounding decolonial methodologies. Any attempt to recover subjecthoods lost under the weight of Eurocentric frameworks must be aware of the tensions between standpoint epistemology that valorises ‘one’s terms’ and the critical endeavour of unpacking the constituted nature of those terms. Aware of the impossibilities of any methodological recipe to resolve this issue, the paper suggest a careful rethinking of scale as a way forward: by highlighting how different iterations of scalar thinking shape knowledge production about Southeast Europe, the paper argues that staying attuned to scales of our thinking can help make political and strategic choices in the research process.
