Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The past decade has seen a number of studies questioning the applicability of existing IR theory to the developing world, and lamenting the neglect of the developing world, and Africa in particular, in IR theory. The lack of African studies and African perspectives on IR means that the discipline currently only presents a partial/distorted view of world politics. This paper contends that Africa as an object of study and Africans as potential agents of IR knowledge are currently marginalised in the discipline of IR by two discourses – one rationalist and one Africanist. On the one hand, Africa(ns)’ marginalisation has become entrenched by the dominance of the rationalist theories, neorealism and neoliberal institutionalism, over the past few decades. The homogenising framework imposed itself on how Africa is studied, if studied at all, and also determined the type of questions that IR scholars, including African IR scholars, can ask in order to produce legitimate knowledge. On the other hand, there are the Africanist critiques which attack the neorealist discourse, and are mostly reflectivist in orientation. Although they place the African context and African knowledge at the centre of their analyses, their focus on an essentialised history of Africa continues to portray the continent as apart from the world, further cementing its marginalisation. The problem which this paper therefore seeks to explore is: How can Africa as an object of study and Africans as potential agents of IR knowledge be included within the discipline without leading to their marginalisation? The proposed answer is that employing a constructivist approach to study the African context can lead to the bridging of the theoretical abyss in which Africa finds itself, and ultimately the inclusion of Africa as an object of study and Africans as potential agents of IR knowledge. This premise is derived from the middle ground position that constructivism occupies between rationalism and reflectivism, as well as the contention that constructivism, in establishing the middle ground, has changed the culture of IR, thus creating the necessary dialogical space to overcome the institutionalisation of the incommensurability thesis within the discipline.

Publication Type: Roundtable Paper
Abstract: The paper summarizes the results and conclusions of an ethnographic study of
foot patrol officers in Halifax, NS. Halifax has recently become Canada's
most violent census metropolitan area, measured in incidents per capita, and
this has resulted in a number of municipal and provincial initiatives to
re-establish order and public confidence in police. Officers' perceptions of
their role in reducing violence and engaging the community in this decidedly
late-modern policing arrangement are the central focus of the study.
Observations of and discussions with officers illuminate the actual
experience of street-level officers during a time of programmatic flux, and give insight
into the congruencies and disconnections between policy initiatives and police
practice.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This study examines how learners actually perform the negotiation of meaning in the NS-NNS intearactions through on-line conversations on two types of communicative tasks: information-gap tasks and personal information exchange. The negotiation of meaning was analyzed by focusing on their use of communication strategies.