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Call for papers: BISA-ISA joint workshops - Transforming the international: Scholarship and solidarity in a world of inequalities

In an era marked by deepening social, economic, and environmental disparities, BISA and International Studies Association (ISA) joint workshops offer a welcoming space for advancing innovative research and pedagogy that analyses and reimagines the structures of the international system. We aim to explore what it means to identify and challenge the evolving dynamics of inequality in the international arena.

We seek paper proposals that will critically engage with issues such as social and climate justice, decolonising knowledge, human rights, peacebuilding, sexual democracy, economic inequality, structural violence, critical pedagogy, transnational solidarities, and practices of resistance. Submitters may indicate their first and second choice of workshops to which they wish to submit their proposals.

Workshops

  • AI Pedagogies: Practice, Prompts and Problems in Contemporary Higher Education
  • Civilian Protests Against International Peacekeepers
  • Co-creation as a Tool for Transformative Development Research: Interrogating Co-creation through an Epistemic Justice Lens
  • Critical approaches to studying apartheid as a concept and a crime
  • Critical encounters with the colonial archive: the production of pasts, presents and futures
  • Decolonising Knowledge and Global (In)Justice: Exploring Research and Pedagogy in International Development Studies
  • Defining, Measuring, Investigating, and Predicting Solidarity and International Solidarity
  • Global West vs Global East in an age of Trumpism: a comparative study of how states are responding
  • How Do “Global Governors” and “The Governed” Know?
  • International Sanctions Revisited with an Interdisciplinary Focus
  • Peace research in times of tension: lessons from the Cold War
  • Personality in Foreign Policy
  • Political Imaginaries of the ‘Slum’
  • Queering/Querying International Political Economy, Transforming the International
  • Rebel behaviour and external support
  • Religious actors and peacebuilding: Challenging or reifying international inequalities?
  • Re-Stor(y)ing In/As/Against International Relations
  • Solidarities and Allyships Across Power and Difference: Challenges and Possibilities
  • The Art of Politics: The Aesthetics of Repression, Resistance, and Reparation
  • The Global Politics of Hope
  • Improvisation, Temporalities, and Political Practice: Improvisation as Action Model in a World of Crises and Uncertainty

You can find out more information about each workshop on the conference website.

Proposal requirements

A paper should be an original piece of research that would be considered on the path to publication in your field. 

Paper proposal submissions require an author, three tags, a title, an abstract, and an indication of which group(s) should review them. Abstracts are limited to 200 words, titles are limited to 50 words, and all co-authors must be listed.

You should submit your paper via the ISA's submission portal.

The deadline for proposals is Friday 13 June 2025.

Location

The BISA-ISA Joint Workshops will be hosted by the School of Geography, Politics, and Sociology (GPS) at Newcastle University—an institution committed to social justice that is proud to be a University of Sanctuary, Stonewall member, and holders of Race Equality and Athena Swan Silver Charter marks. GPS has a long history of contributing to the profession as ISA section heads, BISA trustees and working group conveners, and journal editorships including serving as the current home of International Political Sociology.

Workshops will be held at the Newcastle Civic Centre in the heart of the city. Newcastle is a modern, thriving city and destination that you will love. With over 2000 years of history, Newcastle offers spectacular countryside, outstanding castles, stunning coastlines, vibrant cultural life in a compact city centre, and the legendary friendliness of its residents (known as Geordies). Newcastle is very easy to get to, with an international airport (there are daily flights from Amsterdam, Dubai, Dublin, London, and Paris as well as frequent flights from other European and North African locations), excellent rail connections (including 40 trains per day from London), an international ferry terminal, and major road routes. Newcastle Airport is just 15 minutes away from the Civic Centre via its Metro system. Newcastle was voted ‘the easiest city to get around in England’ by the readers of Conde Nast’s Traveller magazine and the top place in the world to visit in 2018 by the Rough Guide. From Hadrian’s Wall to the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art and the Sage, Newcastle offers a blend of the old and new alongside a thriving pub culture and food scene.
 

Find out more about the event

Photo by Jack Foster on Unsplash