About

Radical relationism is a non-mainstream perspective on knowledge production that promotes social justice and has decolonizing potential. The etymological source of “radical” refers to forming the root and the ISRR looks at relations as the root of all reality for human beings. This means each human actor is themselves a “figuration” (Powell, 2013), a cluster of dynamic relations with other human and non-human actors, at the same time as they are embedded in and dependent on their natural environment qua embodied organisms (Sánchez-Flores, 2020). Applying this perspective to knowledge production considers that human actors and their attributes constitute each other through their exchanges with each other and their social/political and natural environment. 

In Knowing and the Known (1989), Dewey defines the notion of trans-action (vs. self-action and interaction) and discusses the probabilistic and relational elements of quantum physics as providing a more accurate model for knowledge than the determinism of Newtonian physics and the European enlightenment (Sánchez-Flores, 2020). Leroy LittleBear (2012) has proposed parallels between Blackfoot Indigenous ways of knowing and insight from the quantum way of seeing the world (see also Cajete, 2020). This approach sees relations as the source of what people are, both as social and political beings and as organisms who depend on nature to survive and thrive (what we define—or construct—as “nature”); simultaneously, people creatively produce themselves and these relations. Radical relationism sees humans as living organisms, and because of this, it is a non-anthropocentric framework. Additionally, this perspective embraces an ethical commitment to humility in knowledge production and discovery and rejects universalistic approaches to knowledge as colonial. Because of this, it can be seen as congenial with the vast plurality of ways of knowing in the world today and can effectively embrace anti-oppression. ISRR scholars agree that only Indigenous voices can inform us if the approach can be an effective tool towards Indigenizing knowledge production.

Radical relationism considers that human actors and their attributes constitute each other through their exchanges with each other and their environment (social/political and natural). This means human actors are products or epiphenomena of relations and relationships and are always embedded in power relations with other actors, at the same time as they are embedded in and dependent on their natural environment qua embodied organisms. Because of its ontological commitment to making relations the central unit of analysis and its ethical commitment to humility in knowledge production and discovery, radical relationism is a non-anthropocentric framework that is congenial with the vast plurality of ways of knowing in the world today and can effectively embrace anti-oppression.

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The Project

The International School of Radical Relationism (ISRR) is a group of students, scholars and activists located in North America, Europe and Australia, engaged in developing an approach to knowledge production with a commitment to making relations the focus of their attention and the central unit of analysis. The ISRR began work on this project as of the 2023-2024 academic year through online meetings and will continue this work throughout 2024-2025 to produce a statement of this approach to knowledge production.

The history of this project can be traced back to the legacy of François Dépelteau, who worked to develop the deep relational perspective (2013, 2018) and who organized a network of relational scholars internationally and with members of the Canadian Sociological Association (CSA) Relational Sociology Research Cluster (see Selg, 2020b). In the summer of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic made travel impossible and the CSA cancelled its annual conference. Panelists for the relational sociology research cluster decided to get together online and deliver our papers in June 2020. This seminar taught us that we could gather online monthly and a new practice was born: the International Online Seminars of the CSA Relational Sociology research cluster. This international group of relationists have continued meeting online to share their work since then, approximately three times per semester. These exchanges and the work of Christopher Powell (2013) brought the smaller group of radical relationists together in seeking a coherent and multifaceted exploration of the approach. Our work aspires to decolonize knowledge production and support the lives and endeavours of the most vulnerable relational subjects (Buys & Marotta, 2021).

 The overall goal of this project is to foster radical relationism, as the ISRR believes that this perspective that can help overcome the colonial limitations of mainstream approaches to knowledge and science, support decolonization, activism and social justice as well as social justice education, build and mobilize radical relational scholarship, and enhance and broaden the ISRR network.

As mentioned above, radical relationism embraces an ontological commitment to 1) assign conceptual primacy to relations (Klasche and Poopuu, 2023) as well as to 2) see relations as constitutive of its elements and constituted by its elements in all of our lived reality—and especially when looking at social/political phenomena. This two-pronged ontological commitment gives rise to substantive revision of traditional liberal individuality in the current geopolitical framework where substantialist thinking enables certain assumptions of the liberal political and economic worldview (such as reliance on hyper-individualism at the same time as human life becomes racialized and undervalued in the Global South). Colonial institutions and organizations within which all people live in late capitalism automatically espouse non-relational (substantialist) assumptions that become naturalized and imposed. Despite the narrative about human rights and equity, late capitalist institutions end up being oppressive and fail to consider the lives and aspirations of vulnerable relational subjects who are racialized, gendered, sexualized and have diverse abilities. Eurocentric thought has marginalized ways of knowing that are necessary for a genuine discussion of global human welfare.

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References

Buys, R., & Marotta, V. (2021). Relational theories of encounters and the relational subject. Journal of Intercultural Studies, 42(1), 99–113. https://doi.org/10.1080/07256868.2020.1864968

Cajete, G. (2020). On science, culture, and curriculum: Enhancing Native American participation in science-related Fields. Tribal College Journal of American Indian Higher Education, 31(3), 40–44. https://tribalcollegejournal.org/on-science-culture-and-curriculum-enhancing-native-american-participation-in-science-related-fields/print/

Dépelteau, F. (2013). What is the direction of the “relational turn”? In C. Powell & F. Dépelteau (Eds.), Conceptualizing relational sociology (pp. 163–186). Palgrave Macmillan.

Dépelteau, F. (2018). From the concept of ‘trans-action’ to a process-relational sociology. In F. Dépelteau (Ed.), The Palgrave handbook of relational sociology (pp. 499–519). Palgrave Macmillan.

Dewey, J. (1989). Knowing and the known. In J. A. Boydston (Ed.), John Dewey: The later works 1925-1953 (1949th–1952nd ed., Vol. 16). Southern Illinois University Press.

Go, J. (2018). Relational sociology and postcolonial theory: Sketches of a “postcolonial relationism.” In F. Dépelteau (Ed.), The Palgrave handbook of relational sociology (pp. 357–373). Palgrave Macmillan.

Ingersoll, K. A. (2016). Waves of knowing: A seascape epistemology. Duke University Press.

Klasche, B. and Poopuu, B. (2023). What relations matter? International Studies Quarterly, 67(1), 1-9.

LittleBear, L. (2012). Traditional knowledge and humanities: A perspective by a Blackfoot. Journal of Chinese Philosophy, 39(4), 518–527. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6253.2012.01742.x

Meyer, M. A. (2001). Our own liberation: Reflections on Hawaiian epistemology. The Contemporary Pacific, 13(1), 124–148. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23718511

Powell, C. (2013). Radical relationism: A proposal. In C. Powell & F. Dépelteau (Eds.), Conceptualizing relational sociology (pp. 187–208). Palgrave Macmillan.

Selg, P. (2018). Power and relational sociology. In F. Dépelteau (ed.) The Palgrave handbook of relational sociology (pp. 539-557). Palgrave Macmillan.

Selg, P. (2020a). Causation is not everything: On constitution and trans-actional view of social science methodology (pp. 31-53). In C. Morgner (Ed.), John Dewey and the notion of ‘trans-action’: A sociological reply on rethinking relations and social processes. Palgrave. 

Sánchez-Flores, M. J. (2020). Human language as trans-actional autopoiesis. In C. Morgner (Ed.), John Dewey and the Notion of Trans-action: A John Dewey and the notion of “trans-action”: A sociological reply on rethinking relations and social processes (pp. 253–264). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26380-5_9