This special issue is animated by the necessary entanglement of theory and history, the cortical relationship between theory and practice, and the transboundary (i.e. international) relations that help to constitute systems of thought and practice. We make three core arguments: first, all theory is situated knowledge, derived in and through history; second, theory-practice is a single field in which theory arises out of and acts upon historical experience; and third, both social and political theory have international origins — theory is forged through ongoing encounters between ‘here’ and ‘there’, ‘home’ and ‘abroad’, and the ‘domestic’ and the ‘foreign’.