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
