Introduction

The relational turn in IR has come about in search for relational ontology. In what follows, I will suggest that what IR needs equally urgently is relational epistemology. Chih-yu Shih’s essay in this volume is a most welcome intervention in this direction. The author argues that Chinese IR, including Chinese relational IR, suffers from a problem of substantialism. This is because Chinese IR, while celebrating its own relational ontology, at the same time fails to consider let alone prepare for relating to others’ different ways of being relational—ways that are 'differently different' (Bilgin, 2008). Shih proposes to address this shortcoming by learning through translation. The author writes: “learning requires not only cultural translation but also critical translation, meaning emancipation from self-centrism to enable understanding of the self from the perspective of a different relationality in its own terms, hence self-transformation”. I read Shih’s intervention as an invitation to pay attention to relationality in not only ontological but also epistemological terms. In the remainder of this essay, I will first locate Chih-yu Shih’s essay in the literature on relationality in IR and then point to the avenues that is likely to open up if we care about relational epistemology alongside relational ontology.

What is relationality in International Relations?

For a field of study that has the word ‘relations’ in its name, this question does not have a straightforward answer. This should not come as a surprise, perhaps. The academic field of International Relations (IR) was previously found to be not-so-international (Waever 1998). This is because the body of knowledge that has been produced thus far is reflective of how one part of the world understands the world to the neglect of others. Given that the field of International Relations is not-so-international, it is entirely possible that it is also less-than-relational. Indeed, this is the point of criticism raised by those who have brought about the so-called ‘relational turn’ in IR.

The ‘relational turn’ in IR is not easy to pin down. Scholars hailing from different philosophical traditions claim ownership of relational research (Nordin et al. 2019; Kavalski 2023). Notwithstanding their differences, what seems to characterise those call for a relational IR is what they oppose: substantialism and/or atomistic individualism. I use and/or as conjunction here, because while  substantialism and atomistic individualism are  related, they do not animate all relational IR research agendas—not necessarily at the same time.

Atomistic individualism refers to how we understand the ways units relate to each other. Scholars who contest atomistic individualism study relations between units instead. While doing so, they may nevertheless understand those units as autochtonously developed. This limitation has characterised Huntington’s critics, for instance. While they critiqued Huntington for failing to appreciate how civilisations relate to each other, they betrayed a less-than-relational understanding of how civilisations have come about (Bilgin 2012).

Substantialism refers to how we understand units to have come about. Scholars who contest substantialism focus on how entities (units or structures) do not exist prior to relations. It is entirely possible for scholars to reject substantialism in their understanding of the past but nevertheless retain a degree of substantialism when studying the present. This limitation was evident in the 1990s’ debates on the Yugoslav dissolution wars. At the time, assumptions of atomistic individualism and presumptions of autochthonous development marred IR’s understanding of the Yugoslav dissolution wars. In response, the critics insisted on studying the relational past of the relevant actors in general and the Bosnians in particular. In doing so, however, they oftentimes understood those relations as belonging to the past only, and not relevant when making sense of the present (McSweeney 1996; cf. Waever et al. 1993).

Those scholars who contest both atomistic individualism and substantialism—past and present—are few and far between. Most prominent in this body of relational IR research is the emphasis on a “relational self” toward informing an “ethic of care” (Jabri quoted in Kavalski 2023)—a body of research that was also informed by the aforementioned historical context (also see, Campbell 1994). There is also the historical materialist tradition IR, which has privileged class relations as constitutive of both units and structures in world politics (Bieler and Morton 2001).

What is even more rare is scholarship that exhibits interest in not only relational ontology (as above) but also relational epistemology. In a forthcoming study entitled Thinking Globally About World Politics: Beyond Global IR, Karen Smith and I locate different strands of relational research (including the body of research that calls itself ‘relational IR’) on what we call a “continuum of connectedness” in the way they understand the production of ideas and knowledge about how the world works. That is to say, we pay attention to relationality not only in ontological but also epistemological terms. We submit that even those bodies of scholarship that focus on relationality (as with post-structuralism and feminism on self/other relations, and historical materialism on material give-and-take) are not always aware of world peoples' connectedness in terms of the production of ideas and knowledge about how the world works (also see, Bilgin 2021a). In our continuum of connectedness, ‘relational IR’ ends up towards the far end of the continuum. That is to say, while we appreciate the emphasis on studying relations, we nevertheless find it wanting insofar as the calls for adopting relational ontology “presume fundamental ontological differences between ‘Europe’ and the rest of the world”, thereby reifying difference (Bilgin and Smith, 2024).

As such, our critique of relational IR overlaps with Shih’s critique of Chinese IR: both a presumption of fundamental ontological difference (which translates into Chinese IR’s celebration of its own relational ontology) and a failure to consider other ways of being relational in the world. Different from us, Shih is also concerned with the policy implications of such a failure. Different from Shih, we emphasise relationality in epistemological terms. That is to say, we consider it essential that studying the ways in which we are connected does not remain focused purely on material usurpation (historical materialism) or self-other relations (feminism, post-structuralism) but also encompasses the production of ideas and knowledge. Brought into an IR discussion, this is about the production of our ideas and knowledge about how the world works, which is best captured by Edward Said’s distinction between ‘origin’ versus ‘beginnings’ of ideas. Whereas looking for the ‘origin’ of ideas assumes a singular source, an exploration of ‘beginnings’ takes as its starting point the eventuality that there exist multiple sources across time and space, and focuses on the study of relations of give-and-take and learning between world’s peoples (Bilgin 2021a; Bilgin and Smith, 2024).

Chinese IR’s failure to relate to other ways of being relational in the world

Shih identifies Chinese IR’s failure to consider other ways of being relational in the world as an irony, but also as counterproductive in strategic terms. It is ironical in that Chinese IR claims to be different but fails to do difference differently (by positing fundamental ontological difference). It is also counterproductive according to Shih, because the author thinks it is a “duty” to not just be different but also to do difference differently. As opposed to, that is, performing difference toward one’s own ends.

Leaving aside the irony, Shih dwells on the ethical and prudential aspects:

Pluriversal exchanges rely on people understanding and appreciating how a relational system other than their own justifies things. In short, how do we find room in our own relational systems to accommodate what is thought to be beneficial either to achieve or avoid in the encountered system. Cultural translation is the indispensable duty of relational IR.

In his discussion on cultural translation, Shih draws from ‘critical translation’, in reference to a distinction Zeynep Gülşah Çapan, Maj Grasten and Filipe Dos Reis (Çapan et al. 2021) have made between different ways of capturing its politics: namely, transplantation, transmission and transformation. Shih expresses a preference for transformation when he writes:

Learning requires not only cultural translation but also critical translation, meaning emancipation from self-centrism to enable understanding of the self from the perspective of a different relationality in its own terms, hence self-transformation.

But then, is it possible to engage in critical translation as envisaged by Shih in the absence of a closer exploration of relational epistemology? That is to say, is it possible to avoid approaching translation as a process that takes place between pre-given cultures which we understand as having evolved autochthonously? If we cannot avoid such an approach, we are likely to end up in the same dead-end route as most of relational IR. That is to say, we either decry atomistic individualism while failing to forego substantialism; or we swore off both atomistic individualism and substantialism while failing to put it into practice in the study of contemporary relations. Speaking directly to Shih’s concern, how can we induce Chinese IR to seek to relate to other ways of being relational if it continues to presume its relationality to be rooted in ontological difference? My point here being that we need to do more ground-work for Shih’s strategy of critical translation to take root. And that ground-work calls for us to care about relational epistemology and not only relational ontology.

Conclusion: why we also need relational epistemology

In Anne Brown’s (Brown 2020: 436) neat formulation, “A relational epistemology approaches knowing as a form of practice with others over time” [emphasis added]. While Brown traces the emergence and evolution of relational epistemology to “Indigenous, Black, Pacific and associated theorists…and their critiques of colonising knowledges”, Louis Botha, Dominic Griffiths and Maria Prozesky (2021) underscore how such knowledges share a relational origin with the knowledge of the colonisers. The critical point being, relational epistemologies have evolved over time, and relationally (not autochtonously, as it is sometimes implied). Indeed, explorations on relational epistemology thus far have focused on the epistemic hierarchies that indigenous knowledge producers find themselves in, and pointed to relational knowledge production as a solution (Mosse 2014; Trownsell 2022). While inviting relational knowledge production is an important step forward, it is important to take care so that such emphasis on present-day relationality is not at the expense of acknowledging and learning from past relationality. That is to say, it is critical that we do set aside both atomistic individualism and substantialism in understanding both the past and the present of knowledge production.

To make sense of relational epistemology, I turn to Gayatri Spivak’s discussion on worlding (Spivak et al. 1996). For Spivak, studying worlding is meant to understand how the colonisers’ narratives worlded the Third World, thereby helping to shape both the coloniser and the colonised. While Spivak underscored the ways in which the worlding of the Third World shaped peoples understandings of themselves as ‘others’ to the First World ‘self’, the author also indicated relational knowledge production.

Relational knowledge production is not isolated to those in a hierarchical relationship as with the coloniser and the colonised, indigenous knowledges and dominant knowledges. Rather, when we think of worlding in both sense of the term (following Spivak), translation entails  transformation. A focus on translation in everyday terms may fail to capture what Edward Said (Said 2000) underscored in his inquiry into ‘travelling theory’: that ideas (and other things) travel all the time, leaving no one untouched. As such, inquiring into the politics of translation requires paying attention to ‘traveling theory’ as the overall process within which translations take place—across time and space, that is (Bilgin 2021b). Failing that, a commitment to translation as self-transformation, as favoured by Shih, may not take root. That is to say, even those who are firmly committed to relational ontology may fail to make much headway without reconsidering their stance on relational epistemology across both time and space.