Relational scholarship is burgeoning across the social sciences and gaining ground in peace and conflict studies. But relationalism is prone to misunderstanding. This article demonstrates that the ‘relational’ is an ontological orientation, with foundational implications for how social scientists know the world, rather than a methodological stance oriented to relationships. It offers a threefold framework that clarifies forms of relational-ontological scholarship and the trade-offs among them without prescribing the methods of relational research. It argues that while all forms of relational-ontological scholarship have value, those that give greater emphasis to relations than to entities help to better analyse dynamism and diversity, and that the normative value of relational approaches lies in considering peace as an effect of relations and turning to relations-in-themselves.

中文翻译：

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推进和平的关系方法


关系学术研究在社会科学领域蓬勃发展，并在和平与冲突研究中取得进展。但关系主义很容易产生误解。本文表明，“关系”是一种本体论取向，对社会科学家如何认识世界具有基础意义，而不是一种面向关系的方法论立场。它提供了一个三重框架，阐明了关系本体论学术的形式以及它们之间的权衡，但没有规定关系研究的方法。它认为，虽然所有形式的关系本体论学术都有价值，但那些更强调关系而不是实体的学术研究有助于更好地分析活力和多样性，并且关系方法的规范价值在于将和平视为关系的效果并转向关系本身。