Reality-congruence, emancipatory politics and situated knowledge in International Relations: a process sociological perspective
| DOI | 10.1177/0047117819879473 |
| Published date | 01 June 2020 |
| Date | 01 June 2020 |
| Author | André Saramago |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0047117819879473
International Relations
2020, Vol. 34(2) 204 –224
© The Author(s) 2019
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DOI: 10.1177/0047117819879473
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Reality-congruence,
emancipatory politics and
situated knowledge in
International Relations:
a process sociological
perspective
André Saramago
University of Coimbra
Abstract
Recent discussions of the epistemological and political implications of the situatedness of
knowledge in International Relations (IR) have raised important questions regarding the future
development of the discipline. They pose the challenge of understanding under what conditions
human beings develop more or less reality-congruent knowledge about world politics and what
are the implications of such knowledge for emancipatory political activity. This article argues that
process sociology should be understood as a relevant complement to these discussions. Assuming
a fundamentally ‘realist’ orientation, process sociology provides a sociologically informed analysis
of the material, ideational and emotional forces shaping the development of knowledge. As such,
it can help those concerned with the implications of the situatedness of knowledge in IR reinforce
their capacity to both understand the social conditions under which it is possible to develop
more detached and reality-congruent knowledge about the world and better identify and explain
the historically emergent values that should orientate the emancipatory transformation of world
politics.
Keywords
involvement and detachment, politics and science, sociology of knowledge, standpoint
epistemology
Corresponding author:
André Saramago, Faculty of Economics, University of Coimbra, Avenida Dias da Silva 165, 3004-512
Coimbra, Portugal.
Email: asaramago@fe.uc.pt
879473IRE0010.1177/0047117819879473International RelationsSaramago
research-article2019
Article
Saramago 205
Introduction
This article offers a process sociological engagement with recent discussions on stand-
point epistemology within International Relations (IR). It uses core concepts from
Norbert Elias’s sociology of knowledge to argue that process sociology offers an impor-
tant complement to epistemological concerns about the always-necessary situatedness of
knowledge processes and its implications to the emancipatory transformation of world
politics.
Concerns about the epistemological and political implications of the situatedness of
knowledge have assumed increasing importance in IR since the Third Debate.1 These have
been at the core of the post-positivist critique of the positivist model of ‘truth as corre-
spondence’ and its understanding of knowledge as a direct representation of an objective
and independent world, entailing a separation between subject and object, and between
facts and values.2 This model is contested by post-positivist approaches that emphasis the
inherent situatedness of all knowledge processes, as all human knowers are necessarily
embedded in a ‘continuous process of historical change’.3 By ignoring this embeddedness,
dominant positivist approaches in IR tend to assume the immutability of world politics and,
as a consequence, they are liable to reproduce, even if unintentionally, the perspectives of
the national, state or class interests that predominately shape, and benefit from, existing
world order.4 Hence, once the situatedness of knowledge is taken into account, the separa-
tion between subject and object, and between facts and values, collapses.5
This critique has been significantly expanded and developed by feminist,6 critical
theoretical,7 critical realist,8 constructivist9 and post-colonial approaches,10 as they
address how the inherent boundedness and situatedness in space, time and society of all
knowers poses fundamental questions regarding the character and reliability of the
knowledge produced as well as regarding its implications for the values that orientate
political activity. Underlying this great variety of post-positivist approaches, there is a
shared concern with reflexivity,11 that is, with the need to reflect on the conditions of
knowledge of situated knowers, so as to attain a ‘perspective on perspectives’,12 one that
makes explicit the ‘underlying conditions for the production of validity and meaning
within IR’.13
The post-positivist recognition of the inherent situatedness of knowledge thus entails
a form of epistemological relativism that raises a significant challenge regarding the
objectivity and validity of knowledge. More radical versions of post-structuralism
attempt to solve this challenge by pointing to the possibility that this epistemological
relativism also implies ontological relativism, arguing that the inescapability of the situ-
ated character of knowledge processes requires an abandonment of the belief in a world
independent of its knowers.14 However, the majority of post-positivist approaches instead
adopt what has been called a form of ‘philosophical realism’.15 One that combines epis-
temological relativism with ontological realism, that is, with the belief in a mind- and
discourse-independent world, about which it is possible to attain approximately objec-
tive knowledge. Hence, while there can be multiple discourses about the world, these do
not invalidate its independent existence, and knowledge should thus be understood as a
never-ending process of approximation to objective reality, meaning that some dis-
courses about the world are more adequate than others.
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