Call for papers: worlding from South East Europe, remaking international relations
The SEE WG is pleased to announce its fourth annual Worlding from South East Europe, Remaking International Relations workshop.
The discipline of International Relations has often been negligent of standpoints outside the Global North and the West. Scholars of South East Europe (SEE) have responded to this problem in a myriad of ways: by highlighting the contributions and developments of the discipline in the region, challenging understandings of foundational concepts from the vantage point of SEE, highlighting the disciplining gaze of IR, and excavating the ways in which the region has been (mis)used in the discipline.
The SEE WG remains committed to further strengthening the SEE critical scholarship by bringing researchers into conversation and creating space for insightful exchange. We are inspired by methodologically, conceptually, topically, and empirically innovative interventions and would like to invite contributions that seek to rethink International Relations in and from the SEE broadly understood.
Themes might include, but are not limited to:
• Rethinking International Relations and its concepts from/with the SEE
• Arts, creativity, (pop) culture, and visual politics in SEE
• Feminisms and the politics of gender in SEE
• Political ecologies and environmental politics in SEE
• The politics of social movements, protests, activism and organising
• Constructing and understanding Europe, whiteness, ethnicity and race in/of the region; intersections and the (geo)politics of identity and citizenship
• (Re-)Imagining mobility and migration
• Post-socialist and post-Yugoslav heritage and the neoliberalisation in the region
• (Re-)Conceptualising the region’s and SEE countries’ agency in foreign policy
The workshop will continue to build collaborative networks within and beyond the Working Group and the UK. The format will be based on presentations of extended abstracts, enabling discussion of research at different stages. After the workshop, we envision the discussions to continue at BISA 2026 (June 2026, Brighton) and encourage authors to submit their paper abstracts for consideration at the annual conference.
Please submit short abstracts of 300 words by 6 October 2025, to seewg.group@bisa.ac.uk. If accepted, extended abstracts (ranging between 1,500 – 3,000words) should be submitted by 13 October 2025.
The workshop will take place virtually on 16 October 2025 (half day; exact time TBC).