This post is the fourth in a series examining the future of the international order. One of the five programmatic series that the Bahá’í Chair for World Peace explores is Global Governance, and in 2018, the Chair began a series of conversations focused on the future of the international order. This series of short reflections highlights the ideas discussed, and the solutions offered for improving international relations.
At the 2019 ISA Annual Convention, the Bahá’í Chair for World Peace organized a roundtable, this time on the topic of Re-envisioning the Foundations of International Relations: Innovation, Progress, Inclusivity, and Commonality. The theme for the 2019 conference was Re-visioning International Studies: Innovation and Progress and was focused on the ways in which international studies has become increasingly interdisciplinary.
The conference organizers sought to highlight the diversity of approaches and methods utilized within the field of international studies and the ways in which these reflect the increasing complexity of the field. The theme of the conference was chosen to celebrate the diversity and to emphasize the need for more effective communications across theoretical and methodological boundaries.
As the organizers stated in the call for papers
Re-envisioning International Studies requires new strategies for communicating within and beyond academic and policy communities while we strive to develop rich theories and cutting edge methodologies. Innovation, if it is to be carried out with positive impact, requires concentration and time investment.
They encouraged proposals exploring the questions below:
- What kind of new methodological approaches do different disciplines, such as anthropology, sociology, philosophy, economics, and communication, contribute to the study of global dynamics? How can scholars protect the integrity of the disciplinary theories and methodologies, while increasing their applicability?
- How can we communicate our theories and findings beyond scholars who share our approaches and methods? How can we better integrate findings from other disciplines into our own scholarship?
- What is the future of various theories of international studies? How do we define theoretical progress and innovation in different thematic areas?
- How has the discipline of International Relations transformed with an increasingly multidisciplinary scholarship?
- How can technology be further utilized in communicating ideas across borders? How is it theorized in international studies? What kind of an epistemological impact does it have?
- With more information available than ever, how are discoveries, expressed in theories and investigated through methods, to be shared in mutually comprehensible ways?
- How do we re-envision International Studies and its thematic subfields? Are there more integrative and inclusive ontological and epistemological possibilities that do not compromise diversity?
- How is innovation tied to responsible scholarship? How can we increase access and diversity through new methods and theories?
- What are the challenges brought by innovation? Is innovation always desirable? Under which conditions, do innovation and progress become burdensome practices or problematic concepts?
- Where have we made progress in international studies and where do we need to make more progress? How can we use visual communication toward that end?
At the 2019 convention, the roundtable organized by the Bahá’í Chair for World Peace was included in the special series on Structuring Inclusion. This series is designed to explore ideas on how to reimagine the academy and ISA as an inclusive terrain. It asks how we can and should develop institutions and structured relationships that target racism, misogyny, ableism, geographic bias, homo- and transphobia? The series also asks who does the work of decolonizing our knowledge development and production? And, what forms should decision-making and academic culture take to eliminate barriers and increase the diversity of voices with authority?
The aim of the series is to challenge systemic exclusion through the articulation of new practices, approaches, cultures, and institutional parameters that liberate ISA in particular, and scholarship in general. The series calls for proposal that draw from expertise across research, governance, teaching, and decision-making, and seeks proposals for full panels and roundtables that highlight the work that is being done to increase the visibility and authority of scholars from diverse experiences and positions, disentangling scholarship from static modes of thought and behaviors that are closed and privileged. It also encourages both panels that offer practical reforms and institutional mechanisms to advance inclusivity in ISA or at our home institutions, and those that provide support, encouragement, and strategies for coping with differential treatment in professional and academic settings.
The suggested themes of the series include:
- Inclusive search, hiring, and employment practices
- Research methods that center race, gender, sexuality, and indigeneity in IR
- Campus cultures that empower the diversity of voices and experiences
- Addressing North-South inequalities
- Letting go of power – and empowering – as processes of inclusion
- Recognizing microaggressions as structural impediments to inclusion
- Interrogating the professional power of the North
- Professional practices that are inclusive and empowering
- Allyship and networks of support in confronting racial, gendered, and ableist exclusions
- Inclusive pedagogies and professional standards
- Empowerment, decision-making, and global access in journals and publishing
- Decolonizing academic cultures and scholarship
The roundtable organized by the Bahá’í Chair for World Peace Re-envisioning the Foundations of International Relations: Innovation, Progress, Inclusivity, and Commonality examined the ways in which the discipline of International Relations needs to be re-examined, re-defined, and re-envisioned to better deal with the rapidly changing global context. Reference to and reliance on the dominant hegemonic narratives is no longer sustainable.
The discussion focused on how to move the discipline forward into the future, whilst also retaining the important lessons learned from the past. By examining the questions, listed below, the participants discussed how the discipline is changing, what more needs to be done to make it inclusive, and how we can focus on our commonalities on a global scale to push for more innovative approaches moving forward.
Questions for Discussion:
- What global changes do you think the discipline of IR needs to respond to the most?
- How has the context of studying, teaching and researching IR changed?
- If we retain a focus on historical context, how can we ensure the discipline keeps moving forward?
- Which agents will be crucial in changing our approach to IR?
- How can we identify shared commonalities, patterns, and ideas, that can help us create more innovative approaches to IR?
- How can we better connect global approaches in IR to locally specific approaches?
- What do you think needs to happen to make IR a more inclusive discipline?
The discussion was chaired by Professor Hoda Mahmoudi, Research Professor and the holder of the Bahá’í Chair for World Peace and Dr. Kate Seaman, the Assistant Director at the Baha’i Chair for World Peace.
The participants included Professor Siba Grovogui, professor of international relations theory and law, Cornell University, Professor Jacqueline Braveboy-Wagner, professor of political science, The City College of New York, and Professor Anna M. Agathangelou, professor of politics, York University.
From L-R: Professor Anna Agathangelou, Professor Siba Grovogui, Professor Jacqueline Braveboy Wagner, Professor Hoda Mahmoudi, Dr. Kate Seaman
Focusing on how to create space for new approaches, the discussion examined the context of studying, teaching, and researching in international studies. The key takeaways were that international studies needs to be reframed, to allow new and different perspectives to flourish, and that we need to rethink how we imagine the ways in which the world is made possible.
The participants also recognized the ongoing marginalization of viewpoints from different regions, particularly Africa, Asia, and Latin America, and the need for International Relations and the study of it to be truly globalized. This will require challenging the foundations of the discipline, seeking to study the world as it truly is and, thinking about how we tell the story, when other people know the story differently.
Openness to dialogue, to learning, and to creating understanding are essential. We will have to listen differently, to think about what kind of knowledge and literacy we are willing to engage in to understand other viewpoints and understand the world differently. This will then inform the kind of community we create.
About the Author:
Kate Seaman is the Assistant Director to the Bahá’í Chair for World Peace where she supports the research activities of the Chair. Kate is interested in understanding normative changes at the global level and how these changes impact on the creation of peace.
You can find out more about the Bahá’í Chair by watching our video here.