The humanistic moment in International Studies: Reflections on Machiavelli and Las Casas

Abstract

As a student of international relations, most of my ostensibly successful voyages of scientific discovery have ended up at the edges of a misnamed continent. Sailing under the non-national flag of “the pursuit of truth,” I have come to see many of our concerns, theoretical models and methodological ways of defining research problems as parochial, scientistic, or even ethnocentric – crudely fashioned guides or tools for attempted “conquests” of already occupied and cultivated lands rather than the more innocent sounding “discovery and exploration” of a “New World.”