Aims
Into
its 4th year, the ‘Doing IPS’ PhD Seminar Series introduces graduate students
to research inspired by International Political Sociology’s (IPS) commitment to
challenge methodological and conceptual assumptions in their research
disciplines, and ask new questions about transdisciplinary modes of inquiry. It
will address the need for doctoral candidates to have a forum dedicated to IPS
where they can: (1) present their work and receive feedback from peers and
senior academics in the field; (2) engage with contemporary IPS research
designs and debates; and (3) develop transdisciplinary and cross-institutional
relationships with a view to facilitating further discussions and
collaborations around common research themes. Lastly, the series will
strengthen the analysis and evaluation skills of early career researchers.
IPS
is a collective intellectual project that seeks to challenge the fundamental
oppositions within traditional theorising, such as that between politics and
society, the individual and the collective, structure and agency, internal and
external, international and national or local. Scholarship inspired by an
IPS-approach centre around two related methodological orientations: firstly,
understanding the everyday and situated practices as the primary site of power
relations, and secondly, thinking processually and relationally. Thinking and
writing from an IPS tradition is an active process, with motion and movement a
central concern. In place of fixed and unchanging phenomena, IPS emphasises
flows, networks, conjunctures and connections, disjunctures and disconnections,
tensions, frictions, accelerations, entanglements, crystallisations, relations,
alterities, differences, and multiplicities. Broadly speaking, IPS asks, “what
are the connections between 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, postcolonial and decolonial, queer and
feminist, assemblage and materiality, and critical race theory.
Themes in IPS
- Migration, mobility and borders/border
management
- Citizenship, sovereignty, and exception
- Resistance
- Surveillance
- Technology and STS (Science & Technology
Studies)
- Racialisation, racism and coloniality
- Socio-legal studies and human rights
- Transnational sociology of expertise
- Innovations and interventions in critical
theory and methodologies
- Ethnography and fieldwork methodologies
Doing IPS Seminar Series – Programme and
Structure
The
series runs over a period of 10-12 months starting from September usually
meeting on the last Friday of each month for two hours. The exact time will be
determined based on the preferences of the accepted participants. The seminars
will rotate between the three host institutions (King’s College London, Queen Mary
University of London, and London School of Economics and Political Science),
with sessions streamed virtually where possible for participants based outside
London (see also: Key information below).
Standard sessions
In each two-hour seminar, two participants will present a piece of work-in-progress (around 8,000-10,000 words of a thesis chapter, book chapter, journal manuscript) to the group. In preparation for the session, each presenter will invite a senior academic to act as discussant for their paper. The discussion will be followed by questions and answers with the audience. Each presenter is allocated one hour, and all participants are expected to have read the papers in advance. Presenters are encouraged to invite their supervisors and colleagues interested in their work. We also organise special sessions, such as IPS open discussions, roundtables, writing retreats, etc.. Please email us on ips.phd.seminar@gmail.com with your suggestions.
Key information
● We
accept applications from doctoral students in any discipline across the social sciences and humanities.
● Please
be aware that this is a forum for extensive and engaged discussion of your
work; if you are planning on presenting near to the time you will be submitting
your thesis, please make us aware when you apply.
● We
are aware that the ongoing COVID-19 crisis has impacted us all as scholars and
in our personal lives in myriad ways. We are very much understanding of these
changing circumstances and are committed to being as flexible as possible in
whatever way we can. If you’re facing a problem that impacts your ability to
engage with our group, please feel free to contact us.
● Limited
travel and accommodation grants are available for travel to London if
necessary.
How to apply (deadline: Friday 4 June 2021 at
12:00pm BST)
Applications to the PhD seminar series should
include:
● A
short bio (name, institutional affiliation, the year of your PhD, prospective
thesis submission date, key words that describe your research interests)
● How
does your work relate to IPS (broadly defined)? (100 words)
● Abstract
of the work you want to present (250 words)
● Whether
you would like to apply for a travel/accommodation grant (if you live outside
of London)
Please send your
application to ips.phd.seminar@gmail.com
The deadline for
applications is Friday, 4 June 2021 at 12pm BST. Notifications of
acceptance will be sent by 30 June 2021.
Please email us at ips.phd.seminar@gmail.com
if you have any questions or queries.
Doctoral student organisers
- Josh Walmsley, Department of War Studies,
King’s College London
- Hannah Owens, School of Politics and
International Relations, Queen Mary University of London
- Mirko Palestrino, School of Politics and
International Relations, Queen Mary University of London
- Shruti Balaji, Department of International
Relations, London School of Economics and Political Science
- Mattia Pinto, Department of Law, London School
of Economics and Political Science
Senior
academic organisers
● Audrey
Alejandro, Assistant Professor of Qualitative Text Analysis, Department of
Methodology, London School of Economics and Political Science
● Jef
Huysmans, Professor of International Politics, School of Politics and
International Relations, Queen Mary University of London