Description
The basic foundations of International Relations (IR) and Peace and Conflict Studies (PACS) were broadly conceived in the Northern Hemisphere. The theoretical and conceptual frameworks devised to explain the realities of the North have been conveniently appropriated to study conflicts in the Global South, namely Africa, Latin America, South Asia or South-East Asia. The result has been an explanatory deficit; the quest to understand and explain the conflictual realities of the Global South, the subtle distinctions which would have required indigenised conceptions, theorisation and methods, have been squeezed-into the context specific conceptions of the North. This necessitates the need to explore critical method(ologies) like participatory action research (PAR) more strongly rooted in the epistemes and ground-realities of the Global South to deal with the hierarchies in PACS and IR. This paper is a starting conversation to identify how IR and PACS can use PAR, as a methodology from the Global South to examine, understand and undo (post) colonial hierarchies while contributing to de/post-colonial praxis. Through empirical insights from PAR projects in India, the paper advocates for critical global perspectives to decolonize dominant conceptions of the ‘global’, the ‘international’, ‘peace’ and ‘conflict’ that have privileged specific forms of knowledge (re) production while also bringing in cross racial/ethnic solidarities against dominant ways of thinking, knowing, doing and being.
