On a more serious note....
The responses by Wæver & Buzan regarding #SecuritizationTheory being racist & methodologically white remind me a whole lot of how many economists react to calls to decolonize economics. These are not personal attacks, but structural critiques... 🙄
.. And while I get tired of economists using "rigor" as some kind of impregnable shield against these kinds of critiques, it seems like IR has reached a new level of methodological gatekeeping with this "deepfake" terminology 🧐
These debates are clearly much broader than just about #SecuritizationTheory. There are seemingly neutral but deeply Eurocentric categories employed across the social sciences. In Economics we might think of good governance, perfect competition, rational man, efficiency....
I still have to read both sides more carefully, but three things immediately struck me:
1) The hegemonic position is never likely to engage with the substance of such a critique. At its most extreme, it will try to have the critique retracted (as W&B).
2) These kinds of critiques are scrutinized much more than mainstream scholarship, therefore possibly disincentivizing further critique! Also increasing the "burden of proof" on the part of critical scholars. Not really the open and inclusive academia some people imagine.
3) I am somehow still impressed that such a critique got published in a prestigious IR journal and that "top" scholars from the field are even responding. Altho the debate is far, far from ideal, I still think it's much more than we could wish for in Economics. But let's see!
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