Imagine facing a giant, complex machine, people around you shrug and say, “Sorry, there is no manual for using it.” You would feel frustrated, and question how could something so important come without instructions?
As an International Relation (IR) graduate, I always has the same frustration when I look back to my studies. Realism, liberalism, constructivism, state, international organisation and power – the world in IR always seems grand, spectacular, and complicated. But does the discipline offer any practical knowledge to live in this given system? Unfortunately, I’m afraid not.
We have manuals for fridges, guides on personal finance, rules for personal growth and productivity. The question is why we don’t have a guide for ordinary people to understand and even make advantage of current global events?
IR this discipline, traditionally and fundamentally, has treated states as the main actors, focused on national interests. Non-state actors, including individuals, are labeled “non-state,” inevitably under the shadow of states, only adding bit additional seasoning to IR. Learning from this discipline, you will find individuals inside are small and not important most of time. It is true that some IR scholars try to understand the world from the perspective of individuals’ decision-making, focusing on the power of agency rather than the structure. But they only look at “important” figures – world leaders and political elites. Ordinary people are hidden from the story, peripheral to the pursuit of the betterment (if it exists).
The good news is that more scholars are realising this gap. In a special issue of Journal of Cooperation and Conflict, scholars once asked “a neglected output of IR: how can lives be lived given certain IR?”. Great question, but no answer yet. Our global system is so intricate, almost like some form of art, that policymakers and experts inside almost fall in love with it, polishing the structure while forgetting what it was built for. As a result, when we try to make sense of this world, disciplines like international relations didn’t provide right knowledge on how to navigate, survive, or thrive within the current macro structure.
Yes, IR has ignored everyday life. But perhaps everyday life has also disconnected from the “international” and “the place elsewhere”. It is counterintuitive as you may say modern media never brings the world this closer ever – we know what happened to another side the world. But if we look through the illusion of global connection via media, modern life can feel lonely and atomized. When the screen turns off, we stayed away from international news and return to our routines, commuting, cooking, working, worrying. The “international” fades away. A manual on how to understand international events is not given by disciplines and may not be sought by ordinary people as daily life already feels too full, too heavy.
Then, why do I want to write about this? Maybe it started with a morning – I had breakfast and suddenly wondered how war in another country would influence my life. Would vegetable prices rise? Could the conflict spread here? Would it shake my small investments in stocks? I felt anxious about this uncertainty and even wanted to cry because sadness on social media was also a bit too much for me. As a normal person with average intelligence, limited knowledge and no generational wealth, I understand I’m nothing when facing the world. But I also genuinely hate the helplessness. Can I do something? At least I need to know where the ship is going. This is the moment I tell myself I’m going to write.
For this blog, “Everyday life plus”, I want to invite you to join me explore how international events influence our ordinary life politically, economically, emotionally. It won’t follow a single discipline or theory. My hope is to build, little by little, a simple guide for understanding the world we inhabit and for finding ways, no matter how small, to adapt, respond, and maybe even improve it.
