statehood, recognition, critical theory, recognitionality
This article offers a critical outlook of existing debates on state recognition and proposes future research directions. It argues that existing knowledge on state recognition and the dominant discourses, norms and practices needs to be problematised and freed from power-driven, conservative, positivist and legal interpretations and reoriented in new directions in order to generate more critical, contextual and emancipatory knowledge. The article proposes two major areas for future research on state recognition, which should: (i) expose the politics of knowledge and positionality in state recognition studies; as well as seek epistemic justice and decolonisation of the discipline; and (ii) study more thorough recognitionality techniques encompassing of diplomatic discourses, performances and entangled agencies. Accordingly, this article seeks to provoke a long overdue debate on the need for re-visioning state recognition in world politics.