Motioning the International: Thinking International Relations with Movement

Abstract The “mobilities turn” across the social sciences has inspired critical engagements with the movement of people and things in international political sociology, as well as critical international relations (IR) more broadly. Yet, these engagements with the politics of varied (im)mobilities have paid less attention to the theoretical implications of motion, mobility, and movement as analytical and political tools. This article brings together a set of reflections that give primacy to movement, motion, and mobility as analytical frameworks through which to understand and intervene in international politics. It asks: how will our understanding of international politics change if we put “movement” at the center of our theoretical thinking? What we call “motioning the international” refers to re-working key concepts and issues in IR by thinking with movement. Through a series of short interventions, the article shows how key concepts and practices of international politics, from sovereignty to borders and from anarchy to technology, are reconfigured when we give analytical primacy to movement. In doing so, we propose to diversify existing modes of thinking IR by offering heterogeneous ways of problematizing concepts and modes of analysis that constitute the practices of international relations.