It is Strange: A Reply to Vrasti

Abstract

A reply to Vrasti’s recent article in Millennium is useful on four counts. Selected criticisms are overdrawn; what might be considered ‘pure’ ethnography is left unexplored; the relationship between method and methodology is not discussed; and useful methodological reflection is left unattended. This article proceeds to address these issues by first offering comments on Vrasti’s treatment of the most methodologically sophisticated of the scholars reviewed: Pouliot and Neumann. Then the rest of Vrasti’s reductive types are unpacked by way of critique of Cohn and Enloe. Framed by these presentations, the third section explores Vrasti’s understanding of ‘ethnography’ in relation to the anthropological review and critiques of the use of ethnographic methods in IR. Finally, the article engages Vrasti’s conclusions on the value of ‘ethnographic IR’, offering a different direction than the author tables, arguing that the inherent ethical dilemmas that confront the researcher using ethnographic methods are themselves potentially useful findings.