(Third Generation) Constructivism in the Field of Scholarly Production: the Challenge of Reflexivity.

the implications for the constructivist research agenda of the fact that IR scholars do not exist outside of the world they study, but form an essential part of it? This challenge is posed by constructivism itself: if the world is 'of our making,' as first generation constructivist Nicholas Onuf noted, then the social location and personal investments of scholars themselves must be included in constructivist accounts of world politics. The challenge is also posed by the nascent 'practice turn' in IR, which, drawing on the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu, offers a conceptual language to explain the wider role and positioning of IR scholars in the 'field' of academic production. The issue this paper addresses, therefore, is whether this language is antithetical or complimentary to constructivism in its 'third generation' guise. The paper's aim is to lay out the challenge of reflexivity as it is posed to constructivism, and explore the interplay between these two responses: are they mutually complementary? Or does the challenge represent a potentially fatal one to constructivism?. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]