Books by Zeynep Gulsah Capan
The Oxford Handbook of History and International Relations, 2023
The book presents a possible way of reading and rewriting the Eurocentrism of International Relat... more The book presents a possible way of reading and rewriting the Eurocentrism of International Relations. The method proposed to rewrite histories of the manifestations and criticisms of Eurocentrism is through 'connected histories'. The first section of the book focuses on manifestations of Eurocentrism in and through disciplinary formations and geopolitical contexts. This section explores the 'field of IR' as a problematic unit that already assumes a coloniality of power. It questions the existence of 'fields of study' and the borders between them by examining the permeability between history and IR, and highlighting how Eurocentric assumptions about world politics are reproduced in the different 'fields'. The second section of the book focuses on criticisms of Eurocentrism in and through disciplines and geopolitical contexts. This section explores the different ways in which theoretical strategies criticizing Eurocentrism were formulated in conversation with each other across disciplines and geopolitical contexts.
Papers by Zeynep Gulsah Capan
Contexto Internacional, Dec 1, 2017
This article focuses on the way in which Eurocentric conceptualisations of the 'international' ar... more This article focuses on the way in which Eurocentric conceptualisations of the 'international' are reproduced in different geopolitical contexts. Even though the Eurocentrism of International Relations has received growing attention, it has predominantly been concerned with unearthing the Eurocentrism of the 'centre' , overlooking its varied manifestations in other geopolitical contexts. The article seeks to contribute to discussions about Eurocentrism by examining how different conceptualisations of the international are at work at a particular moment, and how these conceptualisations continue to reproduce Eurocentrism. It will focus on the way in which Eurocentric designations of spatial and temporal hierarchies were reproduced in the context of Turkey through a reading of how the 'Gezi Park protests' of 2013 and 'Turkey' itself were written into the story of the international.
Review of International Studies
The social sciences and humanities in general and International Relations (IR) specifically are o... more The social sciences and humanities in general and International Relations (IR) specifically are organised around what has been called ‘analytic bifurcation’. Analytic bifurcations artificially structure and divide analytic spaces into, for example, Europe/non-Europe, inside/outside, state/empire, and metropole/colony. Recently, these bifurcations have been problematised within IR and adjacent fields. Our article contributes to and extends these discussions by foregrounding two interrelated aspects that have not received sufficient attention: first, connections between colonies rather than between metropole and colony and, second, the construction and reproduction of the bifurcation of Europe/non-Europe. We explore how technologies of power, in our case mapping and the use of ‘blank spaces’, were used to create imaginaries of colonisable land. To do so, we trace two episodes from nineteenth-century German colonial discourse. The first episode analyses imaginaries of exploration in th...
The thesis aims to underline the Eurocentrism of the field of international relations and the way... more The thesis aims to underline the Eurocentrism of the field of international relations and the way in which the conceptualizations and writings of history contribute to the reproduction of specific narratives of international relations. The thesis argues that the ‘decentering’ of the field should not only focus on questioning the narratives produced in the center but also focus on the reproduction of Eurocentrism in the ‘periphery’. The thesis through the example of the ‘Cold War’ discusses the way in which the ‘Cold War’ has been written and the presuppositions about international relations that has been produced and reproduced in the center and in the periphery.
Review of International Studies
The social sciences and humanities in general and International Relations (IR) specifically are o... more The social sciences and humanities in general and International Relations (IR) specifically are organised around what has been called 'analytic bifurcation'. Analytic bifurcations artificially structure and divide analytic spaces into, for example, Europe/non-Europe, inside/outside, state/empire, and metropole/colony. Recently, these bifurcations have been problematised within IR and adjacent fields. Our article contributes to and extends these discussions by foregrounding two interrelated aspects that have not received sufficient attention: first, connections between colonies rather than between metropole and colony and, second, the construction and reproduction of the bifurcation of Europe/non-Europe. We explore how technologies of power, in our case mapping and the use of 'blank spaces' , were used to create imaginaries of colonisable land. To do so, we trace two episodes from nineteenth-century German colonial discourse. The first episode analyses imaginaries of exploration in the Humboldtian tradition and how these imaginaries depict spaces outside of Europe, namely in Africa, as blank spaces. The second episode reconstructs the cartographic work of Paul Langhans, who focused on mapping 'Germandom' (Deutschtum) in Central and Eastern Europe. Juxtaposing these two episodes shows the interconnectedness between these spaces (Africa and the European East) and how techniques such as blank spaces were applied to create colonisable land.
Cambridge Review of International Affairs
‘The international’ is the background condition that holds together inquiries of international po... more ‘The international’ is the background condition that holds together inquiries of international politics, orders, systems, societies, practices, and so forth. Albeit being usually taken for granted, its foundational function begs the questions of what the international actually is or, instead, what conceptualisations of the international imply, project, and do. Periodic discussions in International Relations (IR) about the international as the subject matter of the field routinely revolve around attempts to fix its definition, to consciously escape it, or to return to a pragmatic approach of using rather than questioning the concept of the international. In bringing the international from the background to the fore, this Special Section investigates explicit and implicit conceptualisations of the international, and their implications. It does so in a variety of ways and areas. The special section focuses on dynamics of reification and reflection, on how the ‘international’ is opposed to the ‘transnational’ or ‘the world’, how it is denied or seemingly superseded, and how it yet retains its conceptual significance.
Uluslararası İlişkiler Dergisi, Aug 13, 2021
As students of International Relations (IR) have increasingly turned to historicizing the interna... more As students of International Relations (IR) have increasingly turned to historicizing the international, historians have opened up their discipline to international, transnational and global circuits and connections.[1] Global History, in particular, has figured in debates within the discipline of history to the extent that observers note a “boom”[2], “trend”[3], and “turn”[4]. It has even been suggested that Global History is the “fastest-growing field within the discipline” of history[5]. As a consequence, global historical literature has proliferated. There are now a vast number of introductions to the field, compendia, bridging exercises to other research areas (running through labels such as “global intellectual history”[6] or “global historical sociology”[7]) and more empirical “global histories of X” (with “X” being nearly any imaginable topic). Study programmes are mushrooming and thematic journals such asThe Journal of World Study and the Journal of Global History [8] have ...
Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 2022
‘The international’ is the background condition that holds together inquiries of international po... more ‘The international’ is the background condition that holds together inquiries of international politics, orders, systems, societies, practices, and so forth. Albeit being usually taken for granted, its foundational function begs the questions of what the international actually is or, instead, what conceptualisations of the international imply, project, and do. Periodic discussions in International Relations (IR) about the international as the subject matter of the field routinely revolve around attempts to fix its definition, to consciously escape it, or to return to a pragmatic approach of using rather than questioning the concept of the international. In bringing the international from the background to the fore, this Special Section investigates explicit and implicit conceptualisations of the international, and their implications. It does so in a variety of ways and areas. The special section focuses on dynamics of reification and reflection, on how the ‘international’ is opposed to the ‘transnational’ or ‘the world’, how it is denied or seemingly superseded, and how it yet retains its conceptual significance.
Cambridge Review of International Affairs
The SAGE Handbook of the History, Philosophy and Sociology of International Relations
This is a co-authored handbook chapter (with Gulsah Capan) on IR theory, the problem of Eurocentr... more This is a co-authored handbook chapter (with Gulsah Capan) on IR theory, the problem of Eurocentrism and the geopolitical hierarchies within knowledge production. For the full text see The Sage Handbook of the History, Philosophy and Sociology of International Relations (2018), edited by Andreas Gofas, Inanna Hamati-Ataya and Nicholas Onuf.
Routledge Handbook of Historical International Relations, 2021
Marmara Üniversitesi Avrupa Topluluğu Enstitüsü Avrupa Araştırmaları Dergisi, 2015
Batı'nın yükselişi" anlatısı içinde yer alan hem Avrupa hikâyesi hem de Avrupa Birliği'nin hikâye... more Batı'nın yükselişi" anlatısı içinde yer alan hem Avrupa hikâyesi hem de Avrupa Birliği'nin hikâyesi ile onun birleşme "yolu", "Avrupa'nın hikayesi"nin yorumlarıdır. Bu makale, "Avrupa'nın hikayesi"ni sorunsallaştıran tartışmalara, farklı "Avrupa"yı birleştirme projelerine ve Osmanlı İmparatorluğu'nun/Türkiye'nin bu projeler içinde nasıl konumlandırıldığına odaklanarak katkı sunmayı amaçlamaktadır. Makale Avrupa birleşmesinin tarihine ve farklı zamanlarda Avrupa'yı birleştirmeye yönelik farklı projelerin nasıl var olduğuna yoğunlaşarak bu lineer tarihin anlatılarını bozmaya çalışmaktadır. Makalenin ilk bölümü, çoklu "Avrupalar" olduğunun altını çizerek Avrupa'ya atfedilmiş farklı etimolojik ve mitolojik anlamları tartışmaktadır. Takip eden bölümler "Avrupa"yı birleştirmeye yönelik farklı projeleri ve Osmanlı İmparatorluğu'nun/Türkiye'nin bu projelerde nasıl yer aldığını incelemektir. Burada amaç, Avrupa ile ilgili tarihine odaklanıp, farklı zamanlarda "Avrupa'yı" birleştirmeye yönelik nasıl farklı projeler olduğunu göstererek Avrupa bütünleşmesinin lineer tarih anlatısını bozuma uğratmaktır. Makale, Osmanlı İmparatorluğu/Türkiye'yi dâhil etme ve dışlama durumları aracılığıyla tartışılan Avrupa'nın sınırlarının farklı kavramsallaştırmalarına sahip olan bu farklı projelerin de altını çizmektedir.
Against International Relations Norms, 2017
, a Turkish group called Barış için Akademisyenler (Academics for Peace) released a public petiti... more , a Turkish group called Barış için Akademisyenler (Academics for Peace) released a public petition signed by 1,128 Turkish and 346 foreign academics, protesting the Turkish state's conduct in Southeastern Turkey since the breakdown of the Kurdish peace process in the summer of 2015. The petition stated that: the Turkish state has effectively condemned its citizens in Sur, Silvan, Nusaybin, Cizre, Silopi, and many other towns and neighbourhoods in the Kurdish provinces to hunger through its use of curfews that were ongoing for weeks. .. It has attacked these settlements with heavy weapons and equipment that would only be mobilised in wartime. As a result, the right to life, liberty, and security, and in particular the prohibition of torture and illtreatment protected by the constitution and international conventions have been violated. 1
International Studies Review, 2020
How to write non-Eurocentric histories has long been a concern in the humanities and the social s... more How to write non-Eurocentric histories has long been a concern in the humanities and the social sciences. Attempts at writing non-Eurocentric histories of the international have been trapped in an absence/presence dichotomy and made making present what was absented from the story of the international their main focal point. The article aims to contribute to these discussions through pointing to the limitations of existing approaches that focus on revealing entanglements and offering an alternative framework for writing “connected histories of the international.” The article will proceed in four sections. The first section will provide a definition of Eurocentrism and elaborate on the way in which writing “connected histories” was offered as a solution. The second section will discuss how Eurocentric narratives have been critiqued within history and International Relations through “entangled narratives.” The third section will introduce the notion of “abyssal lines” and underline how...
Review of International Studies, 2017
The article discusses the manner in which the story of the international system and the relations... more The article discusses the manner in which the story of the international system and the relationship between violence and civilisation that Andrew Linklater tells inViolence and Civilization in the Western States-Systemsremains on the visible side of the absyssal line. Absyssal thinking refers to the distinctions created between visible and invisible realms and it is Eurocentrism as a system of knowledge that sustains and reproduces this abyssal line. The article will focus on two instances of reproducing this abyssal line. The first will be with respect to the way in which histories of Europe and colonialism are detached from each other. The second will be on where political and moral ‘progress’ is being located within the development of the ‘global civilizing process’.
Third World Quarterly, 2016
Abstract How do we ‘decolonise’ the field of International Relations? The aim to decolonise has b... more Abstract How do we ‘decolonise’ the field of International Relations? The aim to decolonise has become a widely discussed and mentioned subject across the social sciences and humanities. The article aims to discuss what 'decolonisation' might mean in the context of the field of International Relations.
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Books by Zeynep Gulsah Capan
Papers by Zeynep Gulsah Capan
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