Centre Researchers Participate in the Annual ISA Convention

The 64^th annual convention of the International Studies Association took place from March 15th to 18th in Montréal, Québec, Canada. This year’s iteration, ‘Real Struggles, High Stakes: Cooperation, Contention, and Creativity’ has been lauded for its multifaceted engagement with the ‘iterative waves of global crises’ that are facing the global community today. The convention saw a promising and productive return to the in-person conference model, which had been halted due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Researchers from around the world participated eagerly in wide-ranging panels, roundtables, breakouts, as well as more informal meet-and-greets.

Amongst the scholars gathered in Montréal, the Käte Hamburger Kolleg / Centre for Global Cooperation research was extremely well represented. Researchers and Fellows from the Centre both hosted and participated in an array of interventions and shared their research with the like-minded audience. Impressions from the convention have been overwhelmingly positive, with the Centre’s contingent citing the event as an excellent opportunity for networking, feedback, and research exposure.

Patricia Rinck, Head of Publications at the Centre (on leave), presented a paper titled ‘Feminist Political Settlement Perspective on Intervention in Sierra Leone’s Resource Sector’ in a panel on ‘Interventions' Gilded Age: (Anti)authoritarian security and incompatible visions of order’, organised by former Centre Fellow Adam Sandor (University of Bayreuth) and Florian Kühn (University of Gothenburg). Rinck also served as a discussant for a panel on 'Varieties in women's participation in peace and conflict'.

Postdoc Research Fellow Bruna Bosi Moreira presented two papers in two panels. In the first, ‘The Influence of China’s Energy Transition on its Rise in the International System’, she presented the results of her PhD dissertation. It was part of the panel ‘Global Implications of Energy Transition in East Asia’. The second paper, ‘An Imagined Green Future World Order with Chinese Characteristics: How different conceptions of a sustainable order affect global climate cooperation’ was a first draft of the research she is currently conducting, and represents an expansion on previous research and appeared in the panel, ‘Global Governance and Contestations Over of Sustainable Development’.

Senior Research Fellow Gemma Bird participated in the Research Grant session, ‘Who is the EU for?: Understanding Racialization in the European Union’ and also presented on the panels ‘In the European House: Understanding the Societal Impact of Institutionalised Racial Terror and Security’ and ‘Looking Beyond: Migration Dynamics and Change’. Pinar Bilgin had five appearances in the program. She presented her text ‘Who Can Speak Security (in the name of the ‘international community’)?’ in the panel ‘Alternatives to World Order’. She also took part in the roundtables ‘The Many Souths within the Global South: Problemetizing Location, Belonging, and Exclusions in Global IR’, and ‘Supporting the Troops, Twenty Years On: Discussing Katharine Millar’s Support the Troops: Gender, Military Obligation, and the Making of Political Community’ and two Distinguished Scholar lectures. Farai Chipato took part in the roundtables ‘International Relations in the Anthropocene’, ‘The African Union, Pan-Africanism and the Liberal International (Dis)order’, as well as the panel ‘Matter, Coloniality, and the Anthropocene’, where he presented his paper ‘Afrofuturism, Materialism, and the Politics of the Inhuman’.

Senior Researcher at the Centre, Matthias Ecker-Ehrhardt also appeared in the convention’s programme, participating in the panel ‘The Legitimacy of Global Governance Organizations’, which featured the paper ‘Folks, what do you think? The role of peer opinion in the formation of legitimacy beliefs toward international organizations’ (co-authored with colleagues from Stockholm University). Ecker-Ehrhardt also presented ‘Public Legitimation by “Going Personal”? Decoding the Remarkable Presence of IO Officials on Social Media’ in ‘Publics in Global Politics’.