PRAXEOGRAPHY – THE APPROACH TO STUDY OF PRACTICES IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
Keywords:
practice theory, praxeography, background knowledge, research methods, police habitusAbstract
The latest turn in analysing international relations is the so-called practice turn, i.e. direction towards understanding practices as the main unit of analysis. Practice theory enables us to analyse what those who practise international relations do, i.e. not to lose the sight of everyday and routine unfolding of international life. Practices are difficult to approach, and it is even more difficult to access implicit meanings that practitioners have of social situation, their and others’ position in that situation, and what would be the appropriate behaviour in particular social context. In this article, we present the basis of praxeography, the methodological approach to recording and interpreting practices and reconstruction of their situated and historized meanings. The paper briefly presents the epistemological assumptions behind studying practices – abductive, interpretative and reflexive ways of knowing. It also presents possible approaches and methods for collecting and analysing practices illustrated with the insights from the most important works in international relations which apply practice theory. The methodological insights are additionally corroborated by the findings from the case study of the processes of securitisation and de-securitisation of inter-state relations in southeast Europe based on the analysis of Serbian police officers’ practices in interaction with their colleagues from neighbouring countries after the 1990s’ armed conflicts. The research methods used in the case study were participant observation, interviews and narrative analyses of documents.
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