International Political Sociology (2018) 12, 125–138 Narrative and the Possibilities for Scholarship PAULO R AVECCA Universidad de la República, Uruguay AND E LIZABETH D AUPHINEE York University, Toronto This article explores the recent expansion of narrative approaches in in- ternational relations (IR) and the conceptual and political possibilities it brings about. Instead of suggesting a set of criteria through which we should evaluate narrative texts, we investigate what they are already doing in IR scholarship. We show that the space which narrative writing delin- eates through the encounter between text and reader/reading potenti- ates critique and engages complexity in ways that are often not available in other forms of IR scholarship. Concretely, we examine themes around openness, contradiction, ambiguity, fracture, surprise, and the ungovern- able aspects of social and scholarly life. The discipline of IR has experienced significant diversification in recent years. Scholarship in postcolonial and feminist theory, LGBTQ studies, intersectionality, performance theory and aesthetics, visual culture, critical war studies, and methods has resulted in considerable intellectual pluralism, creating what Christine Sylvester (2013, 609) has called “a field of differences.” Since roughly 2010, the field has also witnessed the expansion of scholarship that is either narrative in form (including what is varyingly termed “autobiography” or “autoethnography”), 1 or that engages in debate around the usefulness of narrative approaches. 2 Our purpose in this arti- cle is to suggest some ways we might think about engaging and critiquing narrative from within its own logics. We proceed from the assumption that narrative IR is already a legitimate field of scholarly inquiry. For this reason, we do not defend the approach here but rather seek to highlight some of the ways we might under- take critical analysis of narrative texts. What do narrative approaches offer to the discipline? What can happen intellectually when we subject these texts to internal examination and critique rather than merely dismissing or idealizing them? We wish to examine the possibilities that narrative methods introduce in IR and the political 1 See, for example, the forum on autoethnography in Review of International Studies (36:3, July 2010); Naeem Inayatullah, Autobiographical International Relations, (London: Routledge, 2011); Oded Löwenheim, Politics of the Trail, (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2012); Elizabeth Dauphinee, Politics of Exile (London: Routledge, 2013); Himadeep Muppidi, The Colonial Signs of International Relations (London: Routledge, 2013) and Politics in Emotion: The Song of Telangana (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016); Sarah Naumes, ‘Is All ‘I’ IR?’, Millennium 43.3, 820-832, 2015; Security Dialogue 44:3, 2013 (special issue on Politics of Exile); Roland Bleiker, Aesthetics and World Politics, (New York: Palgrave, 2009. Other notable pieces in the feminist tradition that either utilize or endorse narrative approaches include Christine Sylvester, War as Experience: Contributions from International Relations and Feminist Analysis, (London: Routledge, 2013); Marysia Zalewski, Feminist International Relations: Exquisite Corpse (London: Routledge, 2013); Annick TR Wibben, Feminist Security Studies: A Narrative Approach, (London: Routledge, 2011); Maria Stern and Maria Eriksson Baaz (2015) ‘Telling Perpetrators’ Stories: A Reflection on Effects and Ethics,’ in Teaching About Rape in War and Genocide. London: Palgrave. 2 See, for example, Hamati-Ataya 2014 and Knafo 2016. Ravecca, Paulo, and Elizabeth Dauphinee. (2018) Narrative and the Possibilities for Scholarship. International Political Sociology, doi: 10.1093/ips/olx029 Corresponding author e-mail: dauphine@yorku.ca © The Author(s) (2018). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Studies Association. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ips/article-abstract/12/2/125/4904050 by University of Pennsylvania Libraries user on 07 May 2020