Author: Nassef Manabilang Adiong

Nassef is the founder of Co-IRIS (International Relations and Islamic Studies Research Cohort), PHISO (Philippine International Studies Organization), DSRN (Decolonial Studies Research Network), and BRLN (Bangsamoro Research and Legal Network). He works on interdisciplinary research between Islam and International Relations and explores the Bangsamoro society as he heads the Policy Research and Legal Services (PRLS) of the Bangsamoro Parliament. Visit https://nassef.info/ for more details.

WISC-IRIIS Exploratory Workshop: Alternative Cosmologies and Knowledge Systems in International Relations

PhISO will join the 2nd exploratory workshop on “Alternative Cosmologies and Knowledge Systems in International Relations” organized by the World International Studies Committee (WISC) and by the Institute for Research on India and International Studies (IRIIS). It will be held on 11-13 January 2016 in New Delhi, India. PhISO will be represented by Nassef whose research proposal was accepted by the review panel. In addition, he will lobby PhISO ‘s application for membership to WISC before formal discussion takes place in Atlanta, USA on March 2016.
 
 
This Global South workshop will discuss the following points:
 
– Critically interrogates both epistemological and ontological standpoints for knowledge creation in International Relations, with due recognition to the inherent multiplicity of ontologies.
 
– Draws upon the historical pasts of different civilizations including the Indian, the Chinese, the Egyptian, the Aztec, the Maya or the Inca located in the Global South or, those located in the recessive margins of the Global North such as the Aboriginal and Indigenous people of the North and South Americas and Australia, for devising new (alternate?) knowledge practices in International Relations.
 
– Explores ways to expose, unravel and, possibly transform the deeply embedded practices of ‘othering’ in International Relations that work through inscribing a whole range of binaries such as ‘men versus native’, ‘men versus women’, ‘white (wo)man versus black (wo)man’ to ‘reason versus belief’, ‘objective versus subjective’, ‘order versus chaos’, north vs south and ‘primitive’ vs ‘modern’—all of which are cast in an explicit or implicit hierarchy where the ‘self’ or the first category is privileged, most often also de-legitimizing the ‘other’.

See the results of the first exploratory workshop here.

Islam in International Affairs: Politics and Paradigms

Schermata 2015-11-04 alle 17.36.47

Call for participants for the section on

Islam in International Affairs: Politics and Paradigms

Organized by the European International Studies Association (EISA)

 

The section presents Islamic contributions to international affairs and to the field of International Relations. It seeks to explore theoretical approaches and empirical experiences of the Islamic civilization by referring to both classical and modern sources, the worldview of prominent thinkers, statecraft experiences, current transnational movements, and case studies on the Islamic State (ISIS, ISIL, Daesh) phenomenon.

The section offers analyses of both theoretical approaches of Islam in International Relations and concrete historical experiences. The main themes are patterned in three levels of abstraction: the individual, state (or society), and the international system. Most, if not all, of the researches carried out by students of IR have fallen into two extremities: they have either (1) tried to “Islamize” the Western tradition of IR or (2) overlooked Islamic contributions to the field and the rich tradition of the Islamic civilization regarding international affairs and statecraft. Going beyond these misleading extremities, we aim to promote a bridge between IR and Islam by looking into various variables such as theories, empiricism, and categorical levels of generalization in international relations.

The objective is to develop and sustain a body of knowledge that addresses the theories and practices of the Islamic civilization and of Muslim societies with regards to international affairs and to the discipline of International Relations. The larger aim of this section is to set a model for the inclusion of Muslim contributions to the field of IR in order to enrich, diversify, and strengthen it.

This section takes into account a whole picture of current Islamic contributions to IR fashioned under the themes highlighted below.

– Theoretical Approaches of Islam in International Relations (2 panels)
– Worldviews of Muslim Thinkers and Practitioners (2 panels)
– Islamic Polity/Governance vis-à-vis Nation-State (2 panels)
– Transnational and Political Movements of Islamists (2 panels)
– The Islamic State (ISIS, ISIL, Daesh) Phenomenon (2 panels)

Proposals (with abstracts of 200 words maximum) must be submitted, starting 10 November 2015, via the online submission system: https://www.conftool.pro/paneuropean2016/

Instructions on how to submit proposals are available at http://www.paneuropeanconference.org/2016/spage.php?s=52

Please note that there will be a participation limit of three contributions per participant — whether as paper giver, roundtable speaker, or discussant/chair (any of these roles counts as one contribution).

The closing date for paper, panel, and roundtable proposals is midnight (CET) on Friday, 8 January 2016.

Unfortunately, we do not have financial support but we will write a letter of support for your application of conference and/or travel grants to your specified institution(s).

PhISO is now an accredited ISA Partner Organization

We are very happy to inform everyone that PhISO is now an accredited Partner Organization of the International Studies Association (ISA). They informed PhISO today (October 29, 2015) that:
“We are pleased to welcome the Philippine International Studies Organization (PhISO) as a Partner Organization of ISA. As an ISA Partner Organization, you are part of a network of international studies groups accredited by ISA to promote contacts among specialists and practitioners and facilitate scientific and cultural exchange. As a Partner Organization, PhISO will be included in the list of current Partner Organizations on our website: http://www.isanet.org/ISA/Partners. PhISO is also invited to participate in ISA’s activities, including the annual convention, various international conferences and joint workshops.”
According to their website, “the International Studies Association (ISA) has been the premier organization for connecting scholars and practitioners in fields of international studies since 1959. ISA was founded in 1959 to promote research and education in international affairs. With well over six thousand members in North America and around the world, ISA is the most respected and widely known scholarly association in this field. ISA cooperates with 57 international studies organizations in over 30 countries, is a member of the International Social Science Council, and enjoys nongovernmental consultative status with the United Nations.”
Congratulations to all members of PhISO.

Open Letter: PhISO (Philippine International Studies Organization)

OPEN LETTER

Dear all,

I am calling out to all academics, practitioners and students of International Relations (or popularly known in the Philippines as International Studies) to join me in creating an association which I will call the Philippine International Studies Organization (PhISO). Most countries abroad have professional IR organization, which represents mutual collaborations among IR scholars, professionals, and students. I aspired the same venture in forming PhISO because there is a potential ‘Philippine IR’ to emerge from the Global South.
The primal mission of PhISO is to instill a culture of scholarship whose interest is on the theories and praxes of both International Relations as a discipline and international affairs of the Philippines.

PhISO’s first step is to gather all Filipino academicians (scholars, teachers, and students) in the field of International Relations including related social/physical sciences and practitioners (diplomats, etc.) by convening e-meetings through Facebook and Gmail groups. The first project is to form a core group that aims to formally establish PhISO. Members of the Executive Committee (officers) will be selected from the core group. Invitations will simultaneously be emailed to selected Filipino IR scholars here and abroad.

The second step is to convene a conference at the end of 2016. The tentative schedule is on November 21-25 or early December, which includes panels, one or two plenary session(s), and meetings of the core group members. Papers presented will be collected, peer-reviewed, and published in a journal as a special issue or in an edited volume by early 2017.
The third step is to go global by participating in the 5th Global International Studies Conference 2017 at the National Taiwan University. PhISO’s goal is to become a member of the World International Studies Committee (WISC). By late-2017 or after our participation at WISC, we will officially submit our interest to become a member (partner organization) of the International Studies Association (ISA), the highly respected and widely known scholarly association dedicated to international studies.
PhISO’s fourth step is to contact prestigious publishing houses in order to find a host for the PhISO’s flagship journal. In 2018 onwards, PhISO members are hoping to participate in the ISA and ISA-Asia Pacific conventions annually, and papers presented will be part of PhISO’s publications.

Please email me at contact@nassef.info and if you have Facebook please join the group by clicking here.

I am looking forward to receiving your responses.

Yours truly,

Nassef

Call for Papers: Co-IRIS Workshop at the 3rd European Workshops in International Studies

Call for Papers
3rd European Workshops in International Studies
European International Studies Association
University of Tübingen, Germany
06-08 April 2016
In recent history, International Relations (IR) has been defined as a field by the dynamics of (neo)colonial powers, especially with the triumph of the United States as the sole world power in the post-Cold War era. The field has been dominated by theories and perspectives that are almost solely built on Western European and American traditions and perceptions of what IR is and of what it should be. Theoretically, IR was and continues to be informed by a widespread belief in the secular nature of IR actors (both nation-states and non-states actors). This secular discourse disregards the impact of religious elements and lacks recognition of the importance of both rational and revealed knowledge equally. Mainstream and reflexive IR theories and approaches, e.g. realism, liberalism, neo-neo synthesis/debate, social constructivism, critical theory, Marxism, post-structuralism, English school, etc., have most, if not all, determined a lack of interest in the possibility of truly encompassing, inclusive, and globally-based international values and norms distinguishing peripheral contributions beyond the usual European/American IR ontologies and epistemologies. Following the end of the Cold War, however, the nature of world politics has been changing drastically, shifting from great power competition to the management of transnational issues and to the necessity of cooperation among global different actors.
The research agenda of the International Relations and Islamic Studies Research Cohort (Co-IRIS) aims at fostering research that is inclusive of Islamic Studies in International Relations theory and praxis. Rather than an all-inclusive alternative theory of international relations, Islam represents a paradigm and research program that emphasizes law over anarchy, community over human selfishness, commitment over inconstancy, ethics over materialism, etc. As one of the foremost world religions and way of life, Islam offers useful elements of comparison and inspiration that can help improve our understanding and vision of international affairs and world politics. Co-IRIS is established and built to explore Islamic contributions to the field of IR on many levels: the theoretical level and the praxis of international affairs in Muslim societies. The inclusion of Muslim contributions is not meant to create an isolationist, judicious divide between what is Islamic and what is not. Co-IRIS is created to act on the inclusion of that knowledge as a building bloc in the IR field. That is, finding bridges and commonalities between IR and Islam.
The workshop aims: 1) to provide synergy between Islamic notions/practices and Euro-American notions/practices of international relations, and 2) to provide an analytic platform whereby the relations between the Western world and the Muslim world are contextualized. That is to say, going beyond civilization clashes to the stem causes of differences and worldviews to provide a theoretical bridge between the existing viewpoints of international relations at large.
Prospective themes and/or topics:
A. Theories
– Non-Western Movement in IR: The Islamic Perspective
– Islamic Approaches to IR Theory
– Islamic Norms and Values in IR
– Civilizational Analyses in Islam
– Islamic Thinkers in International Relations
– Islam in the West: Democracy, Secularism, and Modernity
– Comparing Nation-State and Muslim Governance
– Islamism and Post-Islamism
B. Praxes
– Emergence and Evolution of ISIS, ISIL, Daesh
– Competing Leaderships in the UN, OIC, GCC, Arab League, and ASEAN
– Muslim-dominated countries’ foreign policies
– Post-Arab Spring and its Geo-Politics
Instructions
—Go to EISA’s website by clicking this link to read further details about EWIS.
—Click here to submit your abstract by creating first your free account.
—Then, click ‘Your Submissions’ and select the first selection from the list which states: “WS A – Worlding beyond the Clash of Civilization“
—Fill it out by writing or pasting your abstract of up to 250 words and type in your five keywords. Then proceed with your submission.
—Please remember that the deadline to submit your abstract proposal is October 2, 2015 (Friday, 11:59 PM).
—Applicants will be notified about the outcome of the selection process by the end of October 2015.
—Accepted papers are expected to be part of a prospective publication project which will be discussed during the workshop proper.
—Unfortunately, Co-IRIS cannot provide support for travel and accommodation expenses. But we can give a letter of support for accepted papers by early November 2015 to solicit funds from your university or organizations.
—Registration opens on 16 October 2015 and closes on 30 November 2015. The registration fee for EISA members will be EUR 100 (full) / EUR 50 (research students). The non-member rate is EUR 200 (full) / EUR 100 (students) and does not include membership.