Description
International Relations (IR) has long been grappling with the issue of defining itself as a discipline. This has initiated important debates: while some aim to draw strict disciplinary boundaries, others expand the scope of the discipline with the aim to make it ‘truly’ global. The objective of this collective discussion is to explore the myriad of ways in which IR, including the debates on what IR as a discipline is/should be, is ‘disciplining’ scholar and student subjectivities. The discussion, first, explores formal/informal and explicit/implicit hierarchies that have been reproduced even in the critical circles. This discussion considers aspects of IR, including, the fetishization of the state and its gaze as well as broader structures of academia such as science, authority, and expertise, where these canon-building practices homogenise, silence, and exclude. Second, the discussion explores the discipline of IR and academia as a power structure where knowledge is commodified and made ‘useful’ for the policy-making sphere. Moreover, as different roles and identities are crafted and imposed on individuals within the academy, resistance to those roles and identities can be met with punitive consequences, stifling creativity. This collaborative practice, involving five facilitators and the audience, opens up the space for collective sharing of experiences and ideas to deal with the hierarchies in IR and power structures in academia.
