- All Azimuth: A Journal of Foreign Policy and Peace
- Vol: 7 Issue: 2
- Conceptual Cultivation and Homegrown Theorizing: The Case of/for the Concept of Influence
Conceptual Cultivation and Homegrown Theorizing: The Case of/for the Concept of Influence
Authors : Eyüp Ersoy
Pages : 47-64
Doi:10.20991/allazimuth.334964
View : 5 | Download : 2
Publication Date : 2018-06-13
Article Type : Research
Abstract :The absence of theoretical perspectives in International Relations originating in the worldviews and experiences of human geographies outside the West has elicited persistent calls in the discipline for homegrown theoretical frameworks based on indigenous practices and intellectual sensibilities. Responding to the veritable marginalization of non-Western viewpoints in the discipline belying the plurality of global experiences, a diverse range of studies on homegrown theorizing has ensued. Inasmuch as the initial step in any social theorizing is pertinent to concepts, studies of homegrown theorizing have necessarily engaged conceptual cultivation by drawing on local conceptual resources. Most of these studies, nonetheless, have evinced an analytical proclivity to forge an exclusive and immutable semantic affiliation between concepts and what they signify. Transmuting conceptual indigeneity into conceptional idiosyncrasy, this insular practice of homegrown theorizing can incur manifold degenerative shortcomings. On the other hand, in the lexicon of international relations, influence is a ubiquitous word which is yet to be rigorously conceptualized. By virtue of imparting indigenous properties, a systematic conceptual cultivation of influence is propounded in this study, which arguably transcends the prohibitive semantic inflexibility and associated shortcomings of conceptual exclusivity in homegrown theorizing.Keywords : Conceptual cultivation, homegrown theorizing, influence, power, conceptual exclusivity