This book engages with the work of Iver B. Neumann, demonstrating the past, present, and future importance of his work as a central IR scholar who set a path for younger researchers to make sense of international relations beyond traditional bounds.
By closely examining his work, some of the leading contemporary political scientists reflect on the eclecticism that embodies Neumann’s theorisation. Expert contributors engage in a critical review of his work on identity, practice theory, discourse, knowledge production, mentoring, and methodology, looking beyond the person to say something about the state of the field and the craft of research altogether. These reflections engage in critical assessment of the state of International Relations as a discipline, taking stock of theoretical and methodological challenges that scholars face, and reviewing the changes and continuities in knowledge production within social sciences.
This book would be of interest to students, researchers, and educators working on themes of diplomacy, anthropology, popular culture, identity, foreign policy, and knowledge production and introducing them to the state of the discipline, key texts, and key developments over the past 30 years.
List of Contributors Introduction: Of nomadism, diplomacy and the duty of not becoming a one-trick pony Halvard Leira, Alireza Shams Lahijani & Einar Wigen Of Selves and Others Jens Bartelson Folk theories of International Relations (or IR folks and their theories) Rebecca Adler-Nissen The Neumannian Methodology Morten Skumsrud Andersen, Kristin Haugevik & Jon Harald Sande Lie Iver Neumann, the feminist Ann Towns Critical Trade-offs in the Study of Difference and Otherness Bahar Rumelili The unlikely poststructuralist Thomas Hylland Eriksen “Kira at Bashi” Dan Nexon & Patrick T Jackson The attentive observer: Reading Identity on and from Russia Anatoly Reshetnikov Theorist and Provocateur: The Young Iver Neumann Benjamin de Carvalho, Karsten Friis, Nina Græger Wager upon wager Vincent Pouliot and Ole Jacob Sending Response Iver B Neumann Index
Halvard Leira is Research Director and Research Professor at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI). He has published extensively in English and Norwegian on international political thought, historiography, foreign policy, and diplomacy. Alireza Shams Lahijani is a Marie-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Oslo, where he is researching the conceptual history of international order. His research revolves around the history of modern international society, focusing on themes of diplomacy, identity, and temporality. Einar Wigen is Professor of Turkish Studies at the University of Oslo, where he works on political legitimacy and imperial legacies in Turkey, the Ottoman Empire, and the wider Turkic world.
