Knowing the global-local: Imagining pasts, debating futures

June 18th – June 21st 2024
University of Rijeka; Rijeka, Croatia

The politics of knowledge production shapes how we make sense of world politics and our scholarly practices. Established analytical frameworks and the distinction between the local and the global are often taken for granted in International Studies. They reflect epistemic authorities hailing from social and material hierarchies. Such structures generate and discipline political imaginaries and policy designs. They underpin interpretations of current events even when impartial expertise is claimed. The main conference theme seeks to unpack the politics of knowledge and policy processes in the making of the global-local. We promote the adoption of heterogeneous approaches that unsettle received categories in the study of the international. The ambivalent positionality in the global order of the diverse Eastern, Central, and South-Eastern Europes provides for a dynamic space from which and in which to debate such questions. We encourage proposals that make critical use of context-sensitive interdisciplinary knowledges to offer such grounded perspectives. We do not, however, limit the scope to any one region.

For more information visit the International Studies Association website.