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1. Toward processual identity : identity/alterity and IR theory -- 2. A dialogical approach to the international -- 3. From orthodoxy to normalcy : narrative matrices in modern Japan -- 4. Between homogeneity and heterogeneity : the question of multiculturalism in modern Japan -- 5. Conclusion : unveiling the international.

Historical periods are a central part of how the field of international relations (IR) defines the subject of its analysis but also how it regards itself as a field of analysis. On the one hand, historical periods represent the temporal unfolding of specific (spatial) logics of interactions among various and differentiated political units in a space that come to define what the international is. On the other hand, historical periods are not simply a referential point the boundaries of which are set outside the writing of history. Quite the contrary, historical periods are constructed and as such offer a window into the practice of that writing in IR. The aim of this chapter therefore is to set some of the parameters to conceptualise and discuss the processes of periodisation by first seeing how historical periods, beyond their historical accuracies and robustness, should be seen as heuristic devices dependant on a scholar's working hypothesis. The chapter then reflects on why Historical IR tends to largely consider 'remarkable' periods – such as economic or systemic ruptures, or the (Western European) state. Finally, some of the challenges and invitations that could be further explored by Historical IR are discussed.

This contribution offers the first steps in a novel conceptualization of how international relations and security studies can provide an analytics of silence. Starting with an analysis of a paradigmatic use of silence in the field, Lene Hansen's 'Little Mermaid', the contribution shows the limitations and issues with an analytics that concentrates on the meaning behind silences. Silence as meaning is problematic because analytically what is offered solely is the overinvestment of the analyst's 'horizon of expectation' upon a sign that is not generally meant to be one. Mobilizing a feminist reading of pornography as speech act, the contribution shows how silence may also be performative, in the sense that it does something to a specific logocentric order at the heart of our analysis of the international or security. The contribution finally offers a possible way of thinking about silence as doing rather than meaning and shows how this can be a possible analytical path to invert our analytics of the international and security from the perspective of the state/the powerful to that of the subaltern.

This contribution offers the first steps in a novel conceptualization of how international relations and security studies can provide an analytics of silence. Starting with an analysis of a paradigmatic use of silence in the field, Lene Hansen's 'Little Mermaid', the contribution shows the limitations and issues with an analytics that concentrates on the meaning behind silences. Silence as meaning is problematic because analytically what is offered solely is the overinvestment of the analyst's 'horizon of expectation' upon a sign that is not generally meant to be one. Mobilizing a feminist reading of pornography as speech act, the contribution shows how silence may also be performative, in the sense that it does something to a specific logocentric order at the heart of our analysis of the international or security. The contribution finally offers a possible way of thinking about silence as doing rather than meaning and shows how this can be a possible analytical path to invert our analytics of the international and security from the perspective of the state/the powerful to that of the subaltern.

Tratando específicamente de no caer ni en el eclecticismo ni en la redundancia, este artículo tiene por objetivo desarrollar una perspectiva dialógica de las Relaciones Internacionales en el ámbito metateórico del constructivismo. La idea de dialogismo sostiene que el mundo social se construye por medio del entrelazamiento de discursos entre varios interlocutores que se responden los unos a los otros. Del mismo modo, proporciona una herramienta interpretativa, el enfoque hermenéutico, que permite concebir la identidad de los interlocutores como un factor en las RRII por medio de la diferenciación entre su expresividad, la contextualidad y la relacionabilidad. El presente artículo, que aborda más detenidamente los conceptos de la identidad y la formación de la identidad en la disciplina de las RRII, comprende la identidad nacional como un aspecto que se refleja en un factor concreto de la política exterior: la política de alteridad. Basando mi enfoque en las obras del intelectual ruso Mijaíl Mijáilovich Bajtín, en la primera parte del artículo defino cómo hemos de entender el dialogismo y su noción constitutiva de la exterioridad. La segunda parte está dedicada a la integración de facto del concepto del dialogismo en la disciplina de las RRII. Un ejemplo tomado de la política interior y exterior japonesa anterior a la Segunda Guerra Mundial nos facilita además la comprensión del argumento teórico sobre la relación entre lo nacional y lo internacional en una política de alteridad ; Trying specifically not to fall into either eclecticism or redundancy, this paper is an attempt to develop a dialogical understanding of international relations within the meta-theoretical field of constructivism. Dialogism holds that the social world is constructed through an interweaving of mutually-responsive discourses between several agents. Further, it provides an interpretative tool, the hermeneutical locus, to understand agents' identities as a factor in international relations by discerning their expressivity, contextuality and relationality. Dealing more closely with the questions of identity and identity formation within the discipline of International Relations, the paper further regards national identity as a factor which is expressed in a particular aspect of foreign policy: the politics of alterity. Grounding my approach in the works of the Russian intellectual Mikhail Mikhailovitch Bakhtin, in the first part of the paper I define what is to be understood by dialogism and its constitutive notion of transgredience. The second part is dedicated to the actual integration of dialogism within the discipline of International Relations. An example drawn from Japanese domestic and foreign policy prior to the Second World War further facilitates the comprehension of the theoretical argument concerning the link between the national and the international in a politics of alterity

Tratando específicamente de no caer ni en el eclecticismo ni en la redundancia, este artículo tiene por objetivo desarrollar una perspectiva dialógica de las Relaciones Internacionales en el ámbito metateórico del constructivismo. La idea de dialogismo sostiene que el mundo social se construye por medio del entrelazamiento de discursos entre varios interlocutores que se responden los unos a los otros. Del mismo modo, proporciona una herramienta interpretativa, el enfoque hermenéutico, que permite concebir la identidad de los interlocutores como un factor en las RRII por medio de la diferenciación entre su expresividad, la contextualidad y la relacionabilidad. El presente artículo, que aborda más detenidamente los conceptos de la identidad y la formación de la identidad en la disciplina de las RRII, comprende la identidad nacional como un aspecto que se refleja en un factor concreto de la política exterior: la política de alteridad. Basando mi enfoque en las obras del intelectual ruso Mijaíl Mijáilovich Bajtín, en la primera parte del artículo defino cómo hemos de entender el dialogismo y su noción constitutiva de la exterioridad. La segunda parte está dedicada a la integración de facto del concepto del dialogismo en la disciplina de las RRII. Un ejemplo tomado de la política interior y exterior japonesa anterior a la Segunda Guerra Mundial nos facilita además la comprensión del argumento teórico sobre la relación entre lo nacional y lo internacional en una política de alteridad.

Trying specifically not to fall into either eclecticism or redundancy, this paper is an attempt to develop a dialogical understanding of international relations within the meta-theoretical field of constructivism. Dialogism holds that the social world is constructed through an interweaving of mutually-responsive discourses between several agents. Further, it provides an interpretative tool, the hermeneutical locus, to understand agents' identities as a factor in international relations by discerning their expressivity, contextuality and relationality. Dealing more closely with the questions of identity and identity formation within the discipline of International Relations, the paper further regards national identity as a factor which is expressed in a particular aspect of foreign policy: the politics of alterity. Grounding my approach in the works of the Russian intellectual Mikhail Mikhailovitch Bakhtin, in the first part of the paper I define what is to be understood by dialogism and its constitutive notion of transgredience. The second part is dedicated to the actual integration of dialogism within the discipline of International Relations. An example drawn from Japanese domestic and foreign policy prior to the Second World War further facilitates the comprehension of the theoretical argument concerning the link between the national and the international in a politics of alterity. ; Tratando específicamente de no caer ni en el eclecticismo ni en la redundancia, este artículo tiene por objetivo desarrollar una perspectiva dialógica de las Relaciones Internacionales en el ámbito metateórico del constructivismo. La idea de dialogismo sostiene que el mundo social se construye por medio del entrelazamiento de discursos entre varios interlocutores que se responden los unos a los otros. Del mismo modo, proporciona una herramienta interpretativa, el enfoque hermenéutico, que permite concebir la identidad de los interlocutores como un factor en las RRII por medio de la diferenciación entre su expresividad, la contextualidad y la relacionabilidad. El presente artículo, que aborda más detenidamente los conceptos de la identidad y la formación de la identidad en la disciplina de las RRII, comprende la identidad nacional como un aspecto que se refleja en un factor concreto de la política exterior: la política de alteridad. Basando mi enfoque en las obras del intelectual ruso Mijaíl Mijáilovich Bajtín, en la primera parte del artículo defino cómo hemos de entender el dialogismo y su noción constitutiva de la exterioridad. La segunda parte está dedicada a la integración de facto del concepto del dialogismo en la disciplina de las RRII. Un ejemplo tomado de la política interior y exterior japonesa anterior a la Segunda Guerra Mundial nos facilita además la comprensión del argumento teórico sobre la relación entre lo nacional y lo internacional en una política de alteridad.

Influenced especially by Tzvetan Todorov's analysis of early modern European travelogues, travel literature has provided a strong heuristic for comprehending the development of modern and contemporary expressions of the international. This heuristic tends to emphasize the overpowering frameworks of the figure of inversion and the mechanism of othering to make sense of the relation between identity and alterity. This article retains the intuition that travel literature can provide for an heuristic of this relation while exploring an alternative way to decenter the European centeredness and modernist core of contemporary theories of international relations (IR) and calling on a non-European and non-modern travelogue to provide for such heuristic. Specifically, it explores some aspects of classical Greece as offering both a similar and a dissimilar experience to alterity by analyzing Herodotus' travel literature and the ways by which he translates difference into the realm of sameness. Calling upon Herodotus' writing shows that narration of difference does not necessarily imply othering and thus opens up new ways to conceptualize identity and alterity.