Styles of Theorizing International Practice

In this chapter, Christian Bueger examines what it implies to consider theorizing as a practice. He argues that the shift to the verb and the valuation of the actual work of theorizing has substantial consequences. Four are highlighted: the need for a reconceptualization of theorizing, which shifts from looking at it in terms of an achievement by an individual scholar to an understanding that sees theory as a collective achievement situated in a distinct milieu and locale; the need to focus on process and actions, rather than the object (‘the theory’); the need to grasp the practical knowledge, various skills, material resources and objects that are assembled in the production of theory; and the need to recognize that there is a multiplicity of styles of theorizing. Against this background, different understandings of ‘theory’ and styles of theorizing come to the fore. Bueger illustrates these with examples he calls ‘mechanism’, ‘meditation’, ‘method’ and ‘experimentation’, each of which is said to ground theorizing differently in practice.