Conceptual Cultivation and Homegrown Theorizing: The Case of/for the Concept of Influence

Abstract

The absence of theoretical perspectives in International Relations originating

in the worldviews and experiences of human geographies outside the West has

elicited persistent calls in the discipline for homegrown theoretical frameworks

based on indigenous practices and intellectual sensibilities. Responding to the

veritable marginalization of non-Western viewpoints in the discipline belying

the plurality of global experiences, a diverse range of studies on homegrown

theorizing has ensued. Inasmuch as the initial step in any social theorizing

is pertinent to concepts, studies of homegrown theorizing have necessarily

engaged conceptual cultivation by drawing on local conceptual resources. Most

of these studies, nonetheless, have evinced an analytical proclivity to forge an

exclusive and immutable semantic affiliation between concepts and what they

signify. Transmuting conceptual indigeneity into conceptional idiosyncrasy,

this insular practice of homegrown theorizing can incur manifold degenerative

shortcomings. On the other hand, in the lexicon of international relations,

influence is a ubiquitous word which is yet to be rigorously conceptualized. By

virtue of imparting indigenous properties, a systematic conceptual cultivation of

influence is propounded in this study, which arguably transcends the prohibitive

semantic inflexibility and associated shortcomings of conceptual exclusivity in

homegrown theorizing.

Keywords

• Conceptual cultivation,homegrown theorizing,influence,power,conceptual exclusivity

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