Chatting about radical relationalism

Abstract

This collective discussion piece explores the potential of radical relationalism as a critical tool for addressing world politics. Drawing from relational sociology, decolonial theory and international relations scholarship, the authors engage in a dialogical, cross-continental conversation on WhatsApp to examine how power, ethics and knowledge are constituted through relations. They critique the substantialist and universalist underpinnings of dominant Western epistemologies and call for a turn towards relational ontologies that foreground interdependence, co-constitution and entanglement. The conversation walks us through the biographical engagement of the authors with relationalism, the need to emphasise the ethico-political dimensions of relational thinking, methodological musings and radical relationalism’s potential for decolonising academia. In their conversation, the authors argue for a methodology that centres marginalised voices, resists epistemic extraction and embraces plurality and complexity. They hope to offer a radically relational approach to knowledge production that aims to support co-struggles for more just, decolonial and loving worlds.