Circuits, the everyday and international relations: Connecting the home to the international and transnational
| Author | Roger Mac Ginty |
| Published date | 01 June 2019 |
| Date | 01 June 2019 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0010836719832343 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0010836719832343
Cooperation and Conflict
2019, Vol. 54(2) 234 –253
© The Author(s) 2019
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DOI: 10.1177/0010836719832343
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Circuits, the everyday
and international relations:
Connecting the home to
the international and
transnational
Roger Mac Ginty
Abstract
The primary aim of this article is methodological. It proposes circuitry as an analytical device
– not a mere metaphor – as a way of connecting the everyday and the hyper-local to the
national, international, transnational and all levels in between. Thus, the article is concerned with
international relations’ perennial levels of analysis problem. The study is prompted by empirical
research from the Everyday Peace Indicators project in which research subjects narrated their
own (in)security in terms of the home and the immediate vicinity of the home. The home can
be regarded as a key part of everyday and ontological security for many people, but how do
we connect this to the international and transnational? The article draws on the literature on
engineered and biological circuits in order to propose a novel analytical device with which to
emphasise the connectivity between apparently unconnected levels. A life history is used to
illustrate how the analytical device might be operationalised.
Keywords
Circuits, everyday, home, ontological security, peace
Introduction
A thread running through focus group transcripts from the Everyday Peace Indicators
project was the importance of the home and the immediate vicinity of the home to per-
ceptions of (in)security. This finding resonates with everyday, vernacular and ontological
worldviews. What was very noticeable in the transcripts was how focus group partici-
pants did not make connections between their localised view of (in)security on the one
hand, and international and transnational structures and dynamics on the other. Yet,
Corresponding author:
Roger Mac Ginty, School of Government and International Affairs, Durham University, Durham, UK.
Email: roger.macginty@durham.ac.uk
832343CAC0010.1177/0010836719832343Cooperation and ConflictMac Ginty
research-article2019
Article
Mac Ginty 235
patently localised situations in South Africa, Uganda and Zimbabwe were contained
within, and connected to, much larger dynamics and political economies. This prompts
the question around which this article is organised: how can the home, and by extension
the everyday, be connected to the international and transnational? It is clear that the onto-
logical and direct (in)securities captured by the focus group transcripts cannot be ana-
lysed in isolation. They occur in contexts and political economies that stretch far beyond
the immediate locale of the (in)security. This article proposes a novel analytical approach
to connecting the local and the non-local in international relations (IR): circuitry.
The article contends that circuitry – both biological and engineered – can be utilised
as an analytical device. As will be elaborated later, circuits provide a way of compre-
hending the connections and tensions between the everyday and wider systemic dynam-
ics. IR rarely takes seriously enough the hyper-local – such as the home – and so a major
part of this article is concerned with explicating the significance of the vernacular, eve-
ryday and ontological dimensions in IR.
In many respects this article is concerned with issues of epistemology, and an aware-
ness that interpretations of social phenomena are likely to be shaped by where we sit.
This article argues for a situatedness (Neumann and Neumann, 2015) that is cognisant of
the importance and meanings of the home. This requires a further stretching of tradi-
tional IR perspectives that tend to prioritise levels of analysis far removed from the
routine and intimate spheres of everyday life. As such, this article may be read as a cri-
tique of meta-level IR and its unconcern with the everyday. The key intellectual contri-
bution of the article is the construction of an analytical device capable of capturing the
multi-scalar and dynamic nature of complex social systems. It can be read as encourage-
ment to move beyond the binaries that are much beloved in IR (Srivastava and Sharma,
2014; Tickner, 2013).
In terms of structure, the article begins with a brief note on the Everyday Peace
Indicators project. The project revealed the home, or immediate vicinity of the home, to
be a common and primary referent in discussions of peace and security. In its second
section, the article unpacks three neighbouring concepts that will help us better under-
stand the concept of the home: everyday, vernacular and ontological and their relevance
to IR. Importantly, and moving beyond some IR lenses, this article does not see these
concepts solely in terms of (in)security. Instead, they are primarily epistemologies that
assist us in gaining a more complete understanding of social phenomena. The third sec-
tion discusses the concept of the home. The concept has been much discussed by feminist
scholars of IR, and has gained greater prominence through the literature on ontological
security (Kinnvall, 2004; see also Innes, 2017). The case is made that IR needs to pay
due attention to the home – something that will require methodological and epistemo-
logical innovation as it stretches IR beyond what it was originally designed for. The
fourth section introduces the notion of circuitry as a way of connecting the hyper or very
local (the home) and the international and the transnational. It proposes five ways in
which the notion of circuitry can be useful in helping us understand the connections
between the local and the extra-local. The concluding discussion seeks to operationalise
circuitry as an analytical device. Using a life history, it connects the home(life) of an
individual to wider circuits that operate at multiple levels.
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