The Sociology of International Relations in India: Contested Readings of Global Political Order

Lecture Series Cluster of Excellence "The Formation of Normative Orders"

Prof. Siddharth Mallavarapu, South Asian University, New Delhi

Abstract

The objective of this lecture is to examine the broader sociology of the discipline of International Relations (IR) in India. I do this by consciously turning towards the disciplinary history of the Indian variant of IR while situating it against the backdrop of comparative disciplinary histories of IR. I argue that the specificities of context left an indelible imprint on the make-up of the Indian variant of the discipline and this is most evident in the preferences exercised by scholars in the early years of Indian IR scholarship. One valuable point of entry to gauge particular slants of emphases in IR from India is the manner in which the question of international political order was theorized from this setting. Drawing on both implicit and explicit treatments of this question, I both juxtapose and reflect on distinct images of political order viewed in terms of India’s relations with the world theorized by an assorted bunch of scholars drawn from different generations of Indian IR scholarship. I argue that competing conceptions of political order often served as the backdrop for shared bonds as well as animated disagreements among particular constituencies of Indian IR scholarship.

CV

Siddharth Mallavarapu is currently Associate Professor and Chairperson, Department of International Relations at the South Asian University. His prior publications include a single author book titled Banning the Bomb: The Politics of Norm Creation (2002), two co-edited books (with Kanti Bajpai) on International Relations in India 2005) and another (with B. S. Chimni) titled International Relations: Perspectives for the Global South (2012) besides other journal contributions. His research interests include disciplinary histories of International Relations, the politics and episteme of the global south, the theory and practice of global governance and evaluations of both mainstream and critical approaches to the study of world politics. He has also been featured in February 2014 on Theory Talks.

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8 July 2015, 6.15pm

Goethe-University Frankfurt am Main
Campus Westend, Hörsaalzentrum, HZ6

Presented by:
Cluster of Excellence "The Formation of Normative Orders"

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