Description
The practice turn has shifted focus from discourse to the embodied and relational aspects of politics, while broadening the range of relevant actors in IR. By foregrounding everyday practices, it highlights the roles of those often considered as merely “governed” or “affected”. Studies demonstrate, for instance, how local women's initiatives contribute to peacekeeping efforts, refugees claim their political rights, and children and young people shape debates as norm entrepreneurs. Research on these actors’ engagement often employs participatory methods aimed at collaborative knowledge production. Yet, such participatory research always runs the risk of “methodization” – that is, a reduction of “participation” to mere inclusion rather than enabling co-production of knowledge. The paper argues that praxeological perspectives provide epistemological foundations for deeper reflexivity on the relationality and contextuality of research encounters. Bourdieusian concepts such as habitus and field serve as flexible “thinking tools” for an adaptive and co-productive approach to data generation and analysis. This makes it possible to address the dialogical dimensions of participatory research and generation of knowledge. Given the persistent structural hierarchies and colonialities in research constellations, praxeological perspectives offer the opportunity to view participatory research with “everyday actors” not only as a process of inclusion, but as dialogue.
