Call for Paper: South Asian Women and/in International Relations

Dr Pramod Jaiswal Announcement
Subject Fields
Area Studies, Humanities, Political Science, South Asian History / Studies, Women's & Gender History / Studies

Call for Paper for an Edited Book

South Asian Women and/in International Relations

South Asian women’s voices remain marginalised in the theory and practice of international relations in the region. Foreign and security policy in South Asia is chiefly driven by men. Diplomatic corps of South Asian countries tend to have very few women in positions of power. This is largely due to false yet persistent gendered beliefs in many foreign policy establishments about lack of ‘toughness’ of women which results in their neglect in debates of ‘High Politics’. This problematic construction further leads to many critical issues being neglected as they are seen as having less priority. Moreover, the academic field of IR in South Asia is also dominated largely by men. Women scholars are often pushed implicitly or explicitly to perceived ‘soft’ subject areas in IR like environmental or development studies. This belies the fact that South Asian women are working as academics in diverse domains within the discipline of IR, with their intersectional identities informing their works. Some are contributing immensely to traditional security studies, while some others denounce the toxic masculinity of security studies itself.  Feminist epistemology thereby demands unthinking and rethinking theory as well as practice of IR in a manner that places women’s experiences and their diverse voices at the centre. The challenge of this book is therefore to refuse the temptation to typecast women and instead embrace and highlight the varied voices of South Asian women in international relations. Women of South Asia are not a monolithic block and this book seeks to survey and showcase the varied roles South Asian women play in the theory and practice of international relations.

The themes that the book intends to explore are (but not limited to):

  1. South Asian women Theorising IR
  2. Feminist epistemologies from South Asia
  3. South Asian women doing IR
  4. From speaking about Women in international relations to women in international relations  speaking
  5. Unpacking presence/absence of women’s voices in international relations
  6. Informing policy discourse from gender lens
  7. Capturing women’s writing on international relations
  8. Concerns of South Asian academics in IR
  9. Speaking/Silence on South Asia with/without women
  10. Intersectional experiences, contestations and (un)common future?

The book will be edited by Dr. Abhiruchi Ojha (Assistant Professor, Central University of Kashmir  and Visiting Fellow, Nepal Institute for International Engagement and Cooperation) and Dr. Pramod Jaiswal (Research Director, Nepal Institute for International Engagement and Cooperation) and it will be published by reputed publishers.

 

Those interested, please send your abstract (200-300 words), and brief bio of author (of 100 words) before 15 March 2021 to email: niicebookproject@niice.org.np

The complete chapter has to be submitted before 1 May 2021 and the length of the paper should be between 5000-6000 words. Please use citation, APA Style 6th Edition .

Contact Information

Nepal Institute for International Engagement and Cooperation

Kathmandu, Nepal

Email: niicebookproject@niice.org.np

Phone: +977-9840383300

Contact Email
niicebookproject@niice.org.np