Displacing Methodological Nationalism in the AnthropoceneGrounded Normative Theory and the Voices of the Displaced

Normative political theory and empirical political science often operate on divergent methodological foundations, limiting the possibility of meaningful dialogue between them. This paper intervenes directly in that divide by showing how the conceptual premises that structure empirical inquiry also shape the normative horizons of political theory. It argues that methodological nationalism (MN) exemplifies this problem: far from a neutral orientation, MN functions as an epistemic border regime that naturalises the nation-state as the locus of moral concern and determines who can appear as a subject of justice. In both empirical research on migration and normative theorising about rights, MN constrains what questions can be asked, what evidence is admissible, and what forms of injustice are rendered visible. The climate-displaced person—misframed, classified, and often rendered rightless—makes these methodological distortions particularly stark. To address this epistemic constraint, the paper develops epistemic de-bordering as a methodological paradigm that reconfigures the relationship between empirical and normative inquiry. Epistemic de-bordering unites method as critique—diagnosing how MN structures political knowledge—with method as voice, operationalised through Grounded Normative Theory (GNT). Through its commitments to recursivity, comprehensiveness, epistemic inclusion, and accountability, GNT provides a structured yet flexible method for integrating empirical insights into normative theorising without subsuming one into the other. Normative claims become provisional, open to revision, and answerable to lived experiences of injustice. A three-step research design demonstrates this integration: (1) constructing a provisional climate-rights framework grounded in redistribution, recognition, representation, and reparation; (2) co-theorising through semi-structured, dialogical interviews with climate-displaced persons along the Sahel–EU corridor; and (3) recursively reconstructing climate-rights claims based on plural empirical vocabularies, tensions, and struggles. This process shows how empirical research expands normative imagination, reveals conceptual exclusions, and generates more rigorous and accountable normative arguments. By treating methodology as a site of political struggle and epistemic transformation, the paper offers a concrete model for bridging empirical and normative research. It demonstrates that greater methodological integration not only enhances theoretical rigour but is essential for producing a political theory capable of addressing transboundary injustices in the Anthropocene.