Here Be Dragons! Of Myths and Mythographers

Apparently, we are out on some kind of Indiana Jones mission. Discovering myths, putting them in jars, and displaying them in a sort of IR history museum might sound like a highly scientific task, yet it is one that sepa­rates us as researchers from the subject of our research.

The ‘reflexive turn’ (Neufeld 1991), as one of the many turns in IR the­orising, has proven helpful in this regard as it brings some considerations to the front which are commonplace in social anthropology or sociology but have only in the past two decades started their career within IR. Yosef Lapid’s criticism of IR as one of the least self-reflexivist disciplines of the social sciences (1989, 249-50) has resulted in remarkable repercussions on IR debates, first in a mostly meta-theoretical or theoretical reason- ing—that is, with respect to Critical Theory, constructivism, or feminist IR approaches—, but increasingly also with regard to the empirical field and methodological considerations (Hamati-Ataya 2013).

part of this turn is a different understanding of knowledge produc­tion in the field of IR which seeks to rediscover the subjectivity of the researcher and let him/her be present in his/her writing. Building on ‘standpoint analysis’ (for example, in terms of positioning the self with respect to race/class/gender and other privileging or marginalising cate­gories) and ‘situated knowledge’, this also calls for other forms of writing. Narrative approaches play a central role in this regard, as they allow giv­ing voice to the passions, desires, and stories that drive most researchers’ ambitions (Doty 2004; Dauphinee 2013).

In the wasteland that is conventional IR, stories of any sort might appear, at first glance, to offer a welcome respite. But there is also, as some of our fellow disciplines can attest to, a politics of story telling: whose stories do we get to hear all the time; whose stories are generally inaudible; how do stories make us over; whose mansions do stories furnish with humanity in every remote room and whose huts do they deprive of life and dignity (Muppidi 2013).

For a mythographical research agenda, too, narrative approaches can offer valuable strategies for discovering and displaying IR myths, as they shed light on the plurality of stories that accompany IR (cf. also Goetze, Chap. 5).

This can help to carve out how we as researchers follow certain nor­mativities of our academic discipline, how we contribute to myth pro­duction through research and writing, and which perceptions, fears, or desires drive such processes. Yet narrative approaches require an enormous rigor and self-discipline in order to live up to their proclaimed ideals and to be more than a mere expression of self-indulgence. Doing so, auto­ethnography can serve as a particularly worthwhile approximation to the relationship between a researcher’s subjectivity, the empirical field, and the myths that grow in between. Indeed, auto-ethnography has increas­ingly become popular as a research method that ‘seeks to describe and systematically analyze (graphy) personal experience (auto) in order to understand cultural experience (ethno) (Ellis et al.

In general, auto-ethnography involves a reflection of past experiences with the resear cher/field relationship, a focus on significant moments along research processes (Ellis et al. speak of ‘epiphanies’, that is, cathartic moments which represent extremely intense situations occurring along a research process), and a focus on the values and beliefs held by the scien­tific community. Preferably, such experiences should also be reconnected with others in the field so as to allow forms of intersubjective reflection that go beyond a highly individualised ‘first-person’ account of doing research. Ellis et al. (2011) distinguish between a number of specific accounts, such as indigenous/native ethnography focusing on (post-) colonial power rela­tions within research, reflexive ethnographies that consider the transforma­tions of the researcher/field relationship, or layered accounts that provide transparency along the different stages of research processes.

For the field of IR, Morgan Brigg and Roland Bleiker have outlined ‘how the self can become a more legitimate source of knowledge about International Relations’ (Brigg and Bleiker 2010, 780).

Considering our envisioned research agenda, this calls for some more specific reflections on myths, researchers as myth-seekers and/or (re-) producers, and it calls not least for methodological guidelines. A starting point lies in the four-field typology of IR myths, regarding the sources of myths (strategy vs. social construction) as well as their performative effects (ideological delusion vs. necessary fiction), suggested by Berit Bliesemann de Guevara (cf. Table 2.1 in Chap. 2). Relating this typology to auto­ethnographic forms of self-inquiry, the following questions and aspects may guide a mythographer’s journey:

1.

2. Performative dimension: Where and how do these aspects reappear in my writing on IR topics, or in the everyday choices I make as a researcher? How do they pervade forms of academic knowledge production? At which points in a scientific process—for example, in terms of outlining a research design, developing a research method­ology, within my (or my community’s) particular writing culture, or in the dissemination of research results—do I draw on or (re-)pro- duce certain IR myths?

3. Epistemological and academic dimension: To what extent might my motivations, my standpoints, and my role as a researcher contribute to IR myth production in a wider sense? How are the myths, which are part of my research agenda, productive or constitutive? Am I aware of certain IR myths and their performative power? Do I approach them, for instance, as a guidance that reduces complexity, as a short-hand access to theories and the empirical field itself, as an enabling force, or as a veil that prevents more controversial, counterfactual, or even par­adoxical understandings and therefore needs to be unveiled?

4. Reflexive dimension: How could I proceed from this point—that is, how could I achieve a higher level of transparency with respect to the research processes and the forms of myth production of which I am most likely a part? Which methodological choices follow from this? Which forms of academic writing might be suitable for me?

This kind of close encounter with one’s autobiography as a social scientist and IR researcher can shed light on the roles and activities of researchers as mythographers. As a first autobiographical ‘exer­cise’ this could then result in a more conscious and self-reflexive understanding of methodological choices.