Taking practices seriously. Exploring the consequences of the practice turn for IR and security studies from Bourdieu to Latour

Abstract

IR and Security Studies have seen in recent years dozens of “turns” come and go. Yet, surprisingly one of the main turns or shifts in perspective in sociology has not received much attention neither in IR nor Security Studies: the turn to practices. Sociological work in the frame of the practice turn is promising for IR and Security Studies, also, as it offers novel ways to cope with IR recurrent problems such as the agency-structure problem, the nature-culture divide and the problem of collective action. Moreover this perspective presents a way to mild the gap between theory and policy by attempting to provide reflections on praxis and thus providing practical knowledge. While the work of Anthony Giddens and Pierre Bourdieu is already on the way to the centres of disciplinary debates, Giddens and Bourdieus work is only the tip of the practice theory iceberg, and both works have seldom been read in IR as explicit contributions to a re-emphasis on practices. The papers of this panel take Iver Neumanns claim that practice has to be returned to the study of discourse in IR as starting point and explore the contributions of different practice theories for IR, such as those provided by Bourdieu, Theodore Schatzki and Bruno Latour. All three papers take as object of study different facets of contemporary security policy. With a common perspective on security and the reliance on different practice theoretical concepts, the debate among the participants of the panel will provide the opportunity to elaborate the commonalities and differences between practice-centred approaches of studying IR and security and will present a first step forward to a first assessment of the value of practice theory for the study of international relations phenomena.

Title	Details
Expertise as Ritual on the Sites of Security: A Reflexive Practice?	View Paper Details
Practices of security in the light of 9-11: from an US-identity crisis to a “crusade of freedom”	View Paper Details
“Other” in the Politics of Regional Integration	View Paper Details