Homegrown theorizing: knowledge, scholars, theory

Abstract

In recent years, the discipline of International Relations (IR) has entered another of its turns: the homegrown turn. This new turn focuses on possible contributions to IR theorizing using non-Western knowledge and/or scholarship. This article deconstructs the idea of homegrown theorizing by focusing on its constitutive part, dealing separately with the aspects of knowledge, scholar, and theory, questioning thereby the differing meanings of homegrownness. Such an approach provides an initial framework that accomplishes two things: First, the paper discusses today's core Western IR community and its disciplinary sociology in terms of the main factors engendering present critiques of its scholarship. Second, it then becomes possible to pay attention to peripheral non-Western IR's position at a time of gradual post-Westernization, both world politically and within the discipline. Engaging with the pitfalls of Western IR and elaborating on the reasons not only explains the emergence of IR's homegrown turn, but also provides the basis for understanding how scholars engaging in homegrown theorizing can learn from the (past) mistakes of core scholarship. Dealing with the impact of globalization, Eurocentrism, presentism, and parochialism as the main problem areas of (Western) IR, the article concludes by providing a list of lessons to be taken into account when engaging in homegrown theorizing within the periphery.