Thinking freedom relationally: Life projects and care as an ethical orientation for International Studies

Abstract The field of International Studies has often been concerned with either negative conceptualisations of freedom and liberty (i.e. freedom from obstacles and interference) or positive notions of freedom (i.e. the possibility to act and develop). Further, these two notions of freedom have been conceived of as rival and incompatible. Drawing upon Simone de Beauvoir’s ethics of ambiguity (1947), this article rejects such a binary conceptualisation of freedom and instead puts forward a relational understanding of freedom. This article also begins to sketch the possibilities offered by such an understanding of freedom via a nascent dialogue between this relational freedom and the ethics of care. Specifically, it is posited that care and freedom weave together to form the very ethical space and conditions in and through which in becomes possible to pursue various life projects in the first place. Care and freedom, it is suggested, may thus provide one orientation for studying and practising international relations in a manner that moves towards building, amending, and maintaining relations that better support everyone (where this, crucially, also entails the ending of relations which oppress, harm, and cause suffering).