Abstract
This paper shifts the focus from the familiar question of why is there no non-Western theory in International Relations (IR) to a process-oriented inquiry of what happens to non-Western perspectives when incorporated into IR? While critical IR scholarship has explored the way ethnocentrism, essentialism and empire shapes knowledge within IR, the mechanisms and processes of marginalisation that occur when non-Western voices are included in IR remain less understood. To address this gap, the paper conceptualises marginalisation not as a static outcome but as a dynamic process unfolding in stages. Drawing on the case of Kautilya, an Indian strategic thinker, and autoethnographic accounts of engaging with Kautilya as student, researcher and teaching assistant in both India and Canada, I develop the concept of ‘exclusion with access’. I argue that ‘exclusion with access’ encompasses two key dynamics. First, ‘exclusion with access’ offers a lens to analyse the dynamics of inclusion and exclusion in IR, particularly the superficiality, tokenism and symbolism of diversity and inclusion in the discipline. Second, ‘exclusion with access’ represents a distinctive stage of integrating non-Western thought into IR, one succeeding the stages of exclusion and formal exclusion. Ultimately, by proposing the lens of ‘exclusion with access’, I propose challenging the binary of inclusion-exclusion in IR and exploring access’, I propose challenging the binary of inclusion-exclusion in IR and exploring the specifics, conditions and mechanisms of integrating non-Western voices into IR.