Call for Papers: IPS Belgium Seminar Series 2024-25
After a fruitful fourth seminar series organized between January-June 2024, the IPS Belgium organising committee is pleased to share the call for papers for a new seminar series that will start in October 2024.
As a transdisciplinary approach to the study of International Relations, International Political Sociology (IPS) offers alternative lenses to understand global politics and transnational relations through a wide range of analytical perspectives and empirical research strategies. By questioning the fragmentation of traditional IR categories such as the domestic and the international, high and low politics, or rationality and constructivism, it casts a light on the power dynamics at play in these entangled spaces and on their outcomes. IPS brings insights from sociology, anthropology, geography, history, among others, in the analysis of international relations. One of its aims is to question and analyse the tensions and the connections between the concepts of the international, the political and the social. Contemporary IPS analyses embrace ethnographic and other anthropological and sociological methodologies, and employ a range of conceptual traditions, including (but not limited to) deconstruction, Foucauldian, Bourdieusian, postcolonial and decolonial, queer and feminist, assemblage and materiality, Deleuzian, and critical race theory.
IPS Belgium provides a platform for scholars to present and debate their research. We aim to create a space for discussion and to foster collaborations for anyone sharing an interest in the conceptual, ontological and methodological implications of the IPS perspective. From PhD candidates to senior scholars, all humanities and social sciences researchers are welcomed to participate in the seminar and present their work.
Themes in IPS
IPS includes various themes and research interests. We particularly welcome papers about (but not limited to) the following themes:
● Migration, mobilities and borders
● Postcolonial and decolonial thought
● (In-)Security and surveillance practices
● Technologies of governance
● Science and Technology Studies, Data Practices
● Socio-Legal, Critical Legal Studies approaches
● Queer, trans, and feminist theory
● Politics of emotions
● Citizenship and sovereignty
● Social mobilizations
● Environmental challenges
● Expertise circulation and knowledge production
● Fieldwork methodologies
● ...
Programme
The seminar series will run monthly from October 2024 to June 2025. Each seminar will last 1 hour and be devoted to the discussion of one work-in-progress paper in English (8,000-10,000 words of a journal article, a thesis or book chapter,...). Feedback on the paper will be provided by an invited senior academic and by another seminar participant. The discussion will be followed by questions and answers with the audience. All registered participants will receive the paper in advance and are encouraged to contribute to the discussion.
The purpose of the IPS Belgium seminar series is to foster dynamic exchanges. Therefore, all selected participants are expected to attend regularly and actively. In addition to the presentation of their paper, selected participants will be asked to discuss one paper during another seminar of the annual series.
The seminar will be hybrid, both online and at Vrije Universiteit Brussels (VUB). This allows discussants to attend the seminar session online. However, we strongly encourage the presenting participant to be present in-person when they present their paper.
Application
Please send your title and abstract (max. 300 words), together with a short bio and a description of how your research relates with IPS (max. 100 words) to ipsseminar.belgium@gmail.com by June 24, 2024 at 11:59 PM CET. Please also indicate the months in which you would be available to present your paper (ideally, three months). Notifications of acceptance will be sent early July 2024.
Do reach out if you want to join the mailing list to be informed of our future activities or if you have any questions.
(Post-)Doctoral organisers
Morgane GHYS (ULB) - Laura LUCIANI (UGent) - Marie KWON (ULiège) - Zeger VERLEYE (UAntwerp) - Alice WHELAN (VUB)
Senior academic organisers
Rocco Bellanova (VUB) - Denis Duez (USL-B) - Christophe Wasinski (ULB)
More information onwww.doingips.org/ips-belgium.