Uses of Iver Neumann

This book engages with the work of Iver B. Neumann, demonstrating the past, present, and future importance of his work as a central IR scholar who set a path for younger researchers to make sense of international relations beyond traditional bounds.

By closely examining his work, some of the leading contemporary political scientists reflect on the eclecticism that embodies Neumann’s theorisation. Expert contributors engage in a critical review of his work on identity, practice theory, discourse, knowledge production, mentoring, and methodology, looking beyond the person to say something about the state of the field and the craft of research altogether. These reflections engage in critical assessment of the state of International Relations as a discipline, taking stock of theoretical and methodological challenges that scholars face, and reviewing the changes and continuities in knowledge production within social sciences.

This book would be of interest to students, researchers, and educators working on themes of diplomacy, anthropology, popular culture, identity, foreign policy, and knowledge production and introducing them to the state of the discipline, key texts, and key developments over the past 30 years.

Halvard Leira is Research Director and Research Professor at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI). He has published extensively in English and Norwegian on international political thought, historiography, foreign policy, and diplomacy.

Alireza Shams Lahijani is a Marie-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Oslo, where he is researching the conceptual history of international order. His research revolves around the history of modern international society, focusing on themes of diplomacy, identity, and temporality.

Einar Wigen is Professor of Turkish Studies at the University of Oslo, where he works on political legitimacy and imperial legacies in Turkey, the Ottoman Empire, and the wider Turkic world.