Theory Will Not Decolonize: Material Decolonization in IR Knowledge Production – E-International Relations

Decolonial international relations (IR) scholarship has proliferated, yet the colonial nature of knowledge production has persisted. This paradox raises two fundamental questions: how do we understand decolonial theory and what should be expected of it? Epistemological decolonization has taken off in the last three decades (Sen 2023, Lugones 2016, Mignolo 2007, Quijano 2000), though its roots date back over fifty years in non-Western social sciences circles (Ake 1979, wa Thiong’o 1986). Since then, contemporary works have compellingly contended why IR requires decolonial approaches in research (Sharma 2021, Blaney and Tickner 2017, Acharya 2014, Krishna 2012), in the classroom (Sharma 2024, Boer Cueva, Catterson, and Shepard 2023), its role beyond discourse, (Kapoor 2023, Sondarjee and Andrews 2023), importance of differentiating between decentring the Western gaze and decolonializing (Sondarjee 2023, Orbie et al. 2023), and influence of the Eurocentric approach on expectations of knowledge production (Behera 2021). This article departs from these conversations by challenging the fundamental expectations of decolonial theory itself. It argues that today’s decolonization movement in IR requires more material action, not extensive intellectual elaboration. It invites scholars to wrestle with the idea that the discipline does not need another decolonial theory. It does, however, urgently require reparative action in its knowledge production processes and focus on the material dimension.  

International Relations was established as an academic discipline in 1919 following World War I. At the time, political leaders began deploying the idea of “national self‑determination” and enshrining a new world of equal, sovereign states. However, instead of creating an equal international order, international politicking continued to produce similar asymmetrical power structures to the previous era. In parallel, international relations (IR) as an academic subject was established with the same logic, consequently extending the colonial-imperial realm through ”assumptions, concepts, and language… infused with imperial and colonial reasoning” (Saurin 2006, 24; Sen 2023). As a result, decolonial IR understands IR as “…purpose-built to forefront the perspectives of the metropole, while also marginalising the experiences and knowledge of the ‘darker … races’” (Ibid 340, Clapton 2023). This tension has animated recent IR scholarship, particularly (non) Western and (de)colonial, specifically as to whether IR studies world politics or general politics through a Western lens.  

In reaction to the intellectual exclusion, the sub-field of non-Western IR has proliferated and established several principles that critique and offer alternatives to Western (traditional) IR’s epistemological  and ontological foundations: (Viramontes 2022, Hobson 2012, Bilgin 2010). For example, since the Enlightenment, Western philosophy has prized the notion of truth and objectivity (Kurki and Wight 2014). This affinity has permeated into IR and its scientific explorations, shaping the discipline’s positivistic expectations for theory testing, validating findings, and deeming what questions are worthy of inquiry.

Decolonial scholars contend that remaining objective throughout the research process is unattainable; researchers themselves cannot wholly divorce themselves from their own context, epistemological positionality, confirmation bias, or internal points of reference. Black Feminist, Chicana, and non-Global Minority intellectuals articulated early on (Collins 1990, Moraga and Anzaldúa 1983, Dussel 1977) that researchers speak and write from a “particular location in the power structure” (Sharma 2021, Grosfoguel 2011, Castro-Gómez 2005). If researchers cannot be objective, then the traditional IR claim that Western scholarship produces universal knowledge becomes suspect.  

To organize through the researcher’s subjectivity, some scholars have sketched out avenues for how subjectivity and reflexivity can fit into IR theory (Guillaume 2002), as well as the need for a radical reflexive turn overall (Hamati-Ataya 2012). From a process perspective, practices such as requiring positionality statements, reflexive and subjectivity analyses in methods sections, and structured cross-examinations in ethics processes are part and parcel of interrogating assumed objectivity. These practices are not meant to be panaceas nor are they immune to colonial thinking (Gani and Khan 2024). Nonetheless, they remain a valuable opportunity for the researcher to map out avenues and cautions in which their position could impact their processes and outcomes. However, the issue remains: as long as the discipline continues to standardize objectivity without critical practice, works that align themselves accordingly gain an epistemological advantage over explicitly positioned non-Western scholarship. This produces continued fracturing and marginalization of non-Western knowledge and traditions.  

Building upon this foundation of prizing objectivity, the discipline has also established generalizability as a standard of theoretical validity (King, Keohane, and Verba 1994, Sartori 2014, Levy 1997, and Wolfers 1947), with more worthwhile theories being those that explain more cases across the globe. As Aradau and Huysmans noted, “in most of the literature the concepts of method and methodology mobilise a demand for rigour, systematicity, scientificity, or generalisability” (2014, 10). Interestingly, recent empirical work has challenged whether the theoretical generalizations produced by traditional IR are truly universal. Bysan-Nagate et al. (2025) found that IR theories are overwhelmingly based on evidence coming from the United States. This echoes the aforementioned contradiction: scholars operating in the traditional IR paradigm argue that their theories are universal precisely because they were derived through rigorous scientific methods applied to diverse cases. Yet, empirical analysis shows IR’s empirical and theoretical foundations remain Lilliputian and Western-dominated. 

On a more philosophical basis, non-Western and decolonial scholars assert that an emphasis on universality privileges reductionism, as pursuing generalizability as the standard of validity requires theories to be reduced, if not significantly uprooted, in their own contexts. Consequently, context-specific knowledge from non-Western scholars appears “particular” rather than “universal” and therefore less rigorous. Considering generalizability as an institutional value, these privileges work that align themselves accordingly, leading to rapid expansion of one type of knowledge to the exclusion of the others (Anderl and Witt 2020, Chatterjee 2021, Escobar 2018, Reiter 2018). These critiques point to a larger question as to whether IR truly embodies the international (Acharya 2014, Hoffman 1977). Indeed, theories aiming to improve the understanding of world politics that are based upon a handful of countries are provincial, not international.  Other cases have illuminated the constraints involved in mobilizing classical IR theories for the non-Western cases. For example, Safi, Momand, and Safi’s (2025) research argue drawing upon indigenous paradigms to study Afghanistan, such as the Loya-Jirga, could enhance dominant paradigms in understanding varying contexts.  

Another issue arising between Western and non-Western scholars centers on the challenges of developing theories of a context far away and unfamiliar. Specifically, the risk of exoticizing or commodifying societies and people as units of analysis, effectively orientalizing and essentializing the non-West (Lee 2023, Ramakrishnan 1999). Although this is not unique to IR, several patterns and ways of categorizing are relevant to how the field conceptualizes states, societies, and power. This includes binary templates between colonizer vs. the colonized (Bhabha 1994) and Global North and. Global South (Deridder and Eyebiyi 2025). Apart from the ethical issues that arise in mobilizing totalizing binaries, these templates lack the infrastructure to show how the world is interdependent – economically, politically, socially, technologically, and more. In sum, they flatten and simplify relationships that would otherwise lead to rich contributions to International Relations.  

Calls for decolonization in IR research have coincided with movements for diversity, for epistemological pluralism, active inclusion, and the recognition of marginalized ways of knowing and histories (Lim 2025). Chipato and Chandler (2022) argue that decolonial approaches by expanding the field beyond Western and Euro-centrist approaches in a bid to repair and reconstruct a more diverse International Relations.  Simmons and Smith (2025) offer alternatives to classic generalizability, such as using the lessons of translation: “…a recursive process of making sense of ideas or phenomena across two or more contexts with the goal of illuminating family resemblances in the concepts, political practices, or causal processes among them.” 

Yet, decolonializing IR is not only about remaking knowledge, but transforming how it is produced. “Decolonisation, after all, is not simply a ‘topic’ to be covered in classrooms but a politics aimed at promoting access to critical learning and knowledge production by all – and by the subaltern first” (Kapoor 2023, 353). Basing his argument in development studies, Kapoor names epistemic decolonization and material decolonization as avenues to redress the discipline’s “colonial past and neocolonial present” (250). The former involves remaking knowledge production while the latter consists of a “range of strategies at the level of the university,” including universal access to higher education for marginalized populations throughout the globe, pushing back on neoliberalization, privatization and corporate-making of the University, all of which have pertinent lessons for the IR discipline.  

What remains unaddressed is that most work from this tradition, particularly from Western institutions, rarely includes mentions of addressing material dimensions of decolonizing knowledge production, save for a few that touch upon its political economy (Ibid., El Kurd 2023, Sen 2023, Behera 2021, Kamola 2020). The lack of material mention is ironic in a discipline devoted to studying the impact on the exchange of both material and immaterial goods between entities. If the field is to take seriously the impact of material dimensions in global politics, it cannot neglect the material and hierarchical conditions that shape its own knowledge production. This oversight suggests that calls for decolonization may remain incomplete and/or performative (Two Convivial Thinkers  2024).  

As noted by Kapoor (2023), fighting for one dimension without the other is a step backward for the decolonial IR project. In the spirit of moving forward, this article addresses an aforementioned trap laid by focusing on epistemology alone: “the goal here is to rethink, for example, the privileging of theory …” (Kapoor 2023, 351). Decolonization cannot stop at diversifying ideas or increasing representation in curricula and hiring committees. At its core, decolonization requires material redistribution of resources and epistemic authority. The notion that decolonial theory will lead to decolonization is conceptually contradictory. Theories by nature carry no commitment to action. Hence, decolonial theory and the epistemic dimension alone cannot deliver on tangibly changing the discipline. As Sen (2023, 340) observes:  

From the appearance of a multiplicity of articles and special issues in the major IR journals to panels and roundtables at large international conferences focused on the colonial makings and imperial workings of IR, there seems to be a reasonable degree of mainstream recognition of the discipline’s coloniality. But as was also evident during my department seminar, recognition does not necessarily lead to the acceptance of reparative strategies. 

Decolonial as theory is misleading because it categorizes decolonization as first and foremost an intellectual exercise – critiquing colonial epistemologies, proposing alternative frameworks, and centering marginalized voices in analysis. Albeit important, this collapses the decolonial project into a cerebral one, side-stepping conversations that demand action to redress palpable colonial harms. Even well-intentioned decolonial scholars cannot bridge this gap while only relying solely on intellectual tools. 

To be decolonial in IR knowledge production is to intellectually and practically interrupt and resist the cycle of domination, hierarchy, and rentierism. If the goal is to decolonize the field holistically, in methodology, approach, theory, and practice, then scholars must accept that decolonization is not a cerebral activity. In other words, teaching curricula are not decolonial. Reading lists are not decolonial. Analyses are not decolonial. But what is done afterward can be (Kuang 2024). Based on this definition, there are two spaces in which decolonial action can occur. One, which is well addressed by the literature, is within the knowledge itself. But another, which has gone largely untouched on a systemic scale, is within knowledge production practices inside the academy. Applying decolonial action internally is chiefly about resisting the normalization of exploitative knowledge production practices. This includes paying “regional” or “local scholars” less for the equivalent (but oftentimes more) work conducted than if they were from the Global North.  

When working toward material decolonization, scholars should take caution to differentiate between support and solidarity. A decolonial praxis favors solidarity as support “… can be occasional. It can be given and just as easily withdrawn. Solidarity requires sustained, ongoing commitment” (hooks 1984, 67). Solidarity for decolonial scholars is acting on decolonial principles inside research processes and community in a concrete way. It has become evident that the consequences of not integrating material action alongside decolonial verbiage are what led to the paradox of the two co-existing from the start.  

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