Improvising the international: Theorizing the everyday of intervention from the field
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Improvising the international : Theorizing the everyday of intervention from the field. / Philipsen, Lise.
I: Cooperation and Conflict, Bind 55, Nr. 2, 20.01.2020, s. 151-169.Publikation: Bidrag til tidsskrift › Tidsskriftartikel › Forskning › fagfællebedømt
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Improvising the international
T2 - Theorizing the everyday of intervention from the field
AU - Philipsen, Lise
PY - 2020/1/20
Y1 - 2020/1/20
N2 - In this article, I argue that the introduction of ethnography to International Relations has not taken full advantage of the potential of bringing these two fields together. Using international intervention as an example, I suggest that to bring out this potential we need to be more attentive to the classical virtues of ethnography. This means taking the subjects of our studies much more seriously, as people capable of making sense of and reacting to the structures of power they are embedded in. Here implementers tasked to put international policies into action in relation to a concrete context provide an overlooked source of knowledge. Using their experiences, reflections and ways of dealing with the concrete dilemmas that arise in their daily work enables us to analyse intervention as concrete relations of power that play out, affect and are mitigated by people in the field. Seeing knowledge as in this manner arising from the field provides a deeper knowledge that is necessary if we want to read intervention not only as an exertion of power from the international to the local, but as dynamically reshaped, resisted and made sense of in the field.
AB - In this article, I argue that the introduction of ethnography to International Relations has not taken full advantage of the potential of bringing these two fields together. Using international intervention as an example, I suggest that to bring out this potential we need to be more attentive to the classical virtues of ethnography. This means taking the subjects of our studies much more seriously, as people capable of making sense of and reacting to the structures of power they are embedded in. Here implementers tasked to put international policies into action in relation to a concrete context provide an overlooked source of knowledge. Using their experiences, reflections and ways of dealing with the concrete dilemmas that arise in their daily work enables us to analyse intervention as concrete relations of power that play out, affect and are mitigated by people in the field. Seeing knowledge as in this manner arising from the field provides a deeper knowledge that is necessary if we want to read intervention not only as an exertion of power from the international to the local, but as dynamically reshaped, resisted and made sense of in the field.
KW - Ethnography
KW - everyday IR
KW - improvisation
KW - intervention
KW - implementation
KW - practice turn
KW - performativity
U2 - 10.1177/0010836719896609
DO - 10.1177/0010836719896609
M3 - Journal article
VL - 55
SP - 151
EP - 169
JO - Cooperation and Conflict
JF - Cooperation and Conflict
SN - 0010-8367
IS - 2
ER -
ID: 235466853