Name: BISA 2027 virtual conference - Conflict and cooperation in a changing world
Start: 2027-01-11T08:30:00+00:00
End: 2027-01-13T18:50:00+00:00
Location: No location set

BISA 2027 virtual conference - Conflict and cooperation in a changing world

从 2027年1月11日星期一 (08:30) 到 2027年1月13日星期三 (18:50)

2027年1月11日星期一

08:30 Climate, Conflict and Governance
Climate, Conflict and Governance (Environmental degradation, development and transformation)
08:30 - 10:00
Climate, Conflict and Governance

Conflict and Contestation in Kashmir
Conflict and Contestation in Kashmir (Understanding conflict, insecurity and vulnerability)
08:30 - 10:00
This panel explores the conflict in Kashmir and its local, national, and international implications

From Maritime Security to Securing Outer Space
From Maritime Security to Securing Outer Space (Cooperation and contestation in the Global North, South, and beyond)
08:30 - 10:00
Panel on From Maritime Security to Securing Outer Space

How is technology shaping global politics? Past, present, and possible futures
How is technology shaping global politics? Past, present, and possible futures (Understanding the past, present and future of global politics)
08:30 - 10:00
How is technology shaping global politics? Past, present, and possible futures

Shifting World Orders: Collapse, Contestation and Emergence
Shifting World Orders: Collapse, Contestation and Emergence (Understanding the past, present and future of global politics)
08:30 - 10:00
Shifting World Orders: Collapse, Contestation and Emergence

Towards the transnational study of Indigenous and settler colonial studies
Towards the transnational study of Indigenous and settler colonial studies (Understanding the past, present and future of global politics)
08:30 - 10:00
From their origins in challenging ongoing colonialism, both Indigenous studies and settler colonial studies have developed important bodies of understanding regarding our colonial present, and the possibilities for decolonization. Despite early interventions, both have trended towards centring individual cases, and operating within the context of existing states and the state system. Both challenges potentially limit the fields’ possible contributions. To move away from these limitations, this roundtable brings together participants to propose a 'middle range' transnational approach. We argue transnationalism offers great possibility for the fields to view the interactions and exchanges that take place outside of currently-dominant contexts. By looking across cases, sites, and settler states, we can better understand the intertwined phenomena of settler colonialism and Indigenous organizing and governance, including the enduring importance of Indigenous nations that have been historically linked to each other and other polities and social movements. Participants’ interventions will highlight how a transnational perspective will help recover and study these links.

10:15 Coffee and Networking Session
Coffee and Networking Session
10:15 - 11:15

12:00 Between Regional Governance and Regionalised Sovereignty
Between Regional Governance and Regionalised Sovereignty (Cooperation and contestation in the Global North, South, and beyond)
12:00 - 13:30
Between Regional Governance and Regionalised Sovereignty

Developments in contemporary security politics
Developments in contemporary security politics (Understanding the past, present and future of global politics)
12:00 - 13:30
Developments in contemporary security politics

Nations and Nationalism in a Changing World
Nations and Nationalism in a Changing World (Connections and disconnections in borders, mobility and technology)
12:00 - 13:30
Nations and Nationalism in a Changing World

Prospects and Pitfalls for Post-Conflict Societies
Prospects and Pitfalls for Post-Conflict Societies (Understanding conflict, insecurity and vulnerability)
12:00 - 13:30
This panel explores the challenges and opportunities facing conflict and post-conflict societies.

Teaching and Pedagogy in a Changing World
Teaching and Pedagogy in a Changing World (Teaching and pedagogy in a changing world.)
12:00 - 13:30
This panel explores developments, challenges and opportunities in teaching.

The Role of Leadership in Geopolitics
The Role of Leadership in Geopolitics (Understanding conflict, insecurity and vulnerability)
12:00 - 13:30
This explores how national leaders influence international politics.

14:00 Plenary roundtable - Order and Disorder in a Changing World
Plenary roundtable - Order and Disorder in a Changing World
14:00 - 15:30

17:00 Contesting Accountability and its Limits in Conflict
Contesting Accountability and its Limits in Conflict (Cooperation and contestation in the Global North, South, and beyond)
17:00 - 18:30
Contesting Accountability and its Limits in Conflict

Exploring Resources and Conflict
Exploring Resources and Conflict (Understanding conflict, insecurity and vulnerability)
17:00 - 18:30
This panel examines the relationship between resources and conflict

Gender, Embodiment, and East Asian Cultures
Gender, Embodiment, and East Asian Cultures (Understanding the past, present and future of global politics)
17:00 - 18:30
East Asia is central to the future of International Studies, due to the accelerated flow of technologies, cultures, and aesthetic norms from and within the region. The convergences and divergences of such cross-border flows produce the developments that impact gendered bodies, from idols to working-class women, both locally and globally. However, these politicised yet non-militarised areas arising from East Asia remain largely under-theorised within the IR discipline, which continues to centre on western cultural and feminist phenomena. Through an embodied feminist lens, this panel seeks to explore the positive outcomes and pitfalls emerging through East Asian cultures, using case studies about China, Thailand, South Korea, and North Korea. With this in mind, the panel unpacks the following: How are sociopolitical shifts in modern-day East Asia impacting the embodiment of gender inequalities within and across national borders? And why is this worth examining? Embodiment here defines bodies as a site of power, where political shifts at the structural level are constantly being enacted on and mobilised through, interweaving the micro and the macro. Ultimately, this panel offers a bottom-up feminist understanding of future cooperation and tensions in everyday spheres of East Asia, to invigorate discussions within today’s ever-changing IR landscape.

Gendering Power: Radicalisation, Rights, and Resilience in a Changing World
Gendering Power: Radicalisation, Rights, and Resilience in a Changing World (Justice, inequality and exclusion)
17:00 - 18:30
This panel examines the gendered dimensions of power, exploring how inequality, exclusion, and injustice are produced, contested, and resisted across political, institutional, and everyday life. Bringing together perspectives from international studies, the papers consider how radicalisation, rights frameworks, and development practices are shaped by and reproduce gendered hierarchies. Particular attention is paid to how misogyny operates as a form of political mobilisation, how global governance institutions engage with gender inclusion in practice, and how universalist rights frameworks intersect with religious and cultural specificity. The panel also considers how women's everyday labour and lived experience unsettle dominant narratives of development and economic progress. Together, these contributions highlight the resilience and agency of women navigating structures of exclusion, while raising critical questions about whose justice is served by existing systems of power. The panel offers a timely, interdisciplinary contribution to debates on gender, justice, and global inequality.

On Digital Colonialism and Authoritarian Convergences
On Digital Colonialism and Authoritarian Convergences (Cooperation and contestation in the Global North, South, and beyond)
17:00 - 18:30
On Digital Colonialism and Authoritarian Convergences

Reconfiguring Power and Inequality in Global Political Economy
Reconfiguring Power and Inequality in Global Political Economy (Justice, inequality and exclusion)
17:00 - 18:30
This panel examines how power and inequality are reconfigured within global political economy, tracing the mechanisms through which financial systems, digital infrastructures, and political discourse produce and sustain exclusion. Bringing together perspectives from international studies, the papers interrogate how international financial institutions construct vulnerability and subordination within emerging economies, and how global financial standards encode and reinforce hierarchies between states. The panel also considers how digital and media platforms shape geopolitical narratives, particularly around race, power, and Western responses to global crisis. Further attention is given to how theories of risk and wealth help explain shifting patterns of global inequality, and how data driven extraction in ocean governance extends colonial logics into new domains. Together, these contributions reveal how justice and exclusion are embedded within the structures of global capitalism and governance. The panel offers a critical, interdisciplinary contribution to debates on power, inequality, and the political economy of injustice.
2027年1月12日星期二

08:30 Conflict and Cooperation in a Changing World
Conflict and Cooperation in a Changing World (Understanding conflict, insecurity and vulnerability)
08:30 - 10:00
Conflict and Cooperation in a Changing World

Global Energy Supply Chains and Competition for Critical Minerals
Global Energy Supply Chains and Competition for Critical Minerals (Cooperation and contestation in the Global North, South, and beyond)
08:30 - 10:00
Panel on Global Energy Supply Chains and Competition for Critical Minerals

Intermediaries of Order: Historicising and Decentring International Political Economy from Empire to Global China
Intermediaries of Order: Historicising and Decentring International Political Economy from Empire to Global China (Understanding the past, present and future of global politics)
08:30 - 10:00
The debate over the “liberal international order” and its possible collapse has become the master frame of contemporary IPE and IR. Yet that frame is doubly narrow. Temporally, it treats the order as a recent, largely American and post-war artefact. Spatially, it reduces global economic politics to a contest between liberal openness and its breakdown, or to US–China rivalry. This panel argues that both moves obscure more than they reveal: they flatten a much longer history of how economic orders are made, contested, and remade, and they marginalise the non-Western regions, actors, and concepts through which those orders have actually operated. The panel pursues two connected objectives - to historicise the categories defining our current moment, and to decentre the frames through which they are understood. Its shared analytical framework is one of agency and intermediation. Across very different cases - Britain’s hegemonic decline, the evolution of South-South cooperation, the reception of the “Global South” in Chinese IR, and the local politics of Chinese infrastructure in Pakistan - the papers foreground the individuals, brokers, and intermediaries who interpret, translate, and redirect structural conditions instead of just treating them as predetermined constraints. Whether figured as the “switchmen” who steer trade orders, the merchants and distributors of “shadow governance,” the academic-political agents who domesticate travelling concepts, or the local elites who welcome or resist “Global China,” these intermediaries are the connective tissue between structure and outcome. Read together, the four papers trace a single conceptual arc from the imperial centre to the contemporary periphery, and from the nineteenth century to the present. They show that the concepts and theories needed to understand today’s transitions, such as reciprocity, dependence, self-reliance, intermediation, agency within structure, predate and exceed the liberal frame. Recovering them from their historical and empirical contexts allows IPE to think about the rise of China and the restructuring of the global economy without collapsing them into a single US-centred story, and to build richer and more inclusive conceptual tools for an international political economy in transition.

Navigating Justice Across Borders, Institutions, and Everyday Life
Navigating Justice Across Borders, Institutions, and Everyday Life (Justice, inequality and exclusion)
08:30 - 10:00
This panel explores how justice is contested, constructed, and experienced across borders, institutions, and everyday life. Bringing together perspectives from international studies, the papers examine the intersections of climate change, displacement, development, and global governance, revealing how inequality and exclusion are embedded within both formal institutions and lived realities. Particular attention is paid to how climate induced vulnerability reshapes questions of security, peace, and rights, particularly in the Global South. The panel also considers how development is framed as both political rhetoric and lived reality, as well as how international institutions produce and legitimise their own forms of expertise and authority. Further, it examines how care, intimacy, and belonging are represented within global economic discourse, complicating dominant narratives of technical neutrality. Together, these contributions highlight the uneven distribution of justice across global systems, while foregrounding the voices and negotiations of those most affected. The panel offers a critical, interdisciplinary contribution to debates on justice, exclusion, and global inequality.

Understanding Peace and Security in India and Beyond
Understanding Peace and Security in India and Beyond (Understanding conflict, insecurity and vulnerability)
08:30 - 10:00
This panel explores Peace and Security in India and Beyond

Who Decides? Power, Policy and Exclusion in Contemporary Governance
Who Decides? Power, Policy and Exclusion in Contemporary Governance (Justice, inequality and exclusion)
08:30 - 10:00
This panel examines how power, care, and legitimacy are negotiated within contemporary governance, questioning who is included in decision making processes and on what terms. Bringing together perspectives from international studies, the papers explore how welfare and redistributive policies circulate across regions and historical periods, revealing enduring hierarchies between the Global North and South. The panel also considers how care work is experienced and sustained amid neoliberal restructuring of public institutions, highlighting the everyday labour that underpins social welfare. Further attention is given to the growing role of algorithmic and generative technologies in shaping political representation and gatekeeping, raising new questions about democratic accountability. Finally, the panel interrogates how power operates within research partnerships between communities and academic institutions, exposing the limits of inclusion without equity.

10:15 Plenary roundtable - AI, Drones, and More: The Future of Peace and Conflict
Plenary roundtable - AI, Drones, and More: The Future of Peace and Conflict
10:15 - 11:45

12:00 Development and Environmental Challenges in the Global South
Development and Environmental Challenges in the Global South (Environmental degradation, development and transformation)
12:00 - 13:30
Development and the Environment in the Global South

International Aid, Trade Policy and Global Monetary Regimes
International Aid, Trade Policy and Global Monetary Regimes (Cooperation and contestation in the Global North, South, and beyond)
12:00 - 13:30
International Aid, Trade Policy and Global Monetary Regimes

Making and institutionalising peace and security
Making and institutionalising peace and security (Understanding the past, present and future of global politics)
12:00 - 13:30
Making and institutionalising peace and security
Meet the Editors of Review of International Studies and European Journal of International Security - Andrew Mumford (University of Nottingham) Andy Hom (University of Edinburgh)
Meet the Editors of Review of International Studies and European Journal of International Security
- Andrew Mumford (University of Nottingham)
- Andy Hom (University of Edinburgh)
12:00 - 13:30
This publishing discussion, brought to you by the *Review of International Studies* (RIS) and the *European Journal of International Security* (EJIS), is aimed especially towards doctoral and early-career researchers, based at universities around the world, who are curious about the submission, review, and publishing process in International Relations journals. Two editors in chief at EJIS (Andrew Mumford, Nottingham) and RIS (Andrew Hom, Edinburgh) will introduce their journals and the general contours of the publication process, before opening the discussion to any queries that you may have about journal publishing.
Power and influence in the global economy
Power and influence in the global economy (Understanding the past, present and future of global politics)
12:00 - 13:30
Power and influence in the global economy

Power, Information and Misinformation in a Changing World
Power, Information and Misinformation in a Changing World (Understanding conflict, insecurity and vulnerability)
12:00 - 13:30
Power, Information and Misinformation in a Changing World

15:45 Coffee and Networking Session
Coffee and Networking Session
15:45 - 16:45

17:00 Domestic politics and International Relations
Domestic politics and International Relations (Understanding the past, present and future of global politics)
17:00 - 18:30
Domestic politics and International Relations

International Climate Governance: Between Crisis and Diplomacy
International Climate Governance: Between Crisis and Diplomacy (Cooperation and contestation in the Global North, South, and beyond)
17:00 - 18:30
International Climate Governance: Between Crisis and Diplomacy

Multilateral politics, global governance, and changing international norms
Multilateral politics, global governance, and changing international norms (Understanding the past, present and future of global politics)
17:00 - 18:30
Multilateral politics, global governance, and changing international norms

New Innovations in Understanding Armed Groups
New Innovations in Understanding Armed Groups (Understanding conflict, insecurity and vulnerability)
17:00 - 18:30
The panel explores new innovations in understanding armed groups.

Peacebuilding from the Bottom Up: Youth Agency, Everyday Justice, and Global–Local Connections
Peacebuilding from the Bottom Up: Youth Agency, Everyday Justice, and Global–Local Connections (Understanding the past, present and future of global politics)
17:00 - 18:30
Panel Description This roundtable brings together scholars at different career stages to explore bottom‑up approaches to peacebuilding, with a particular focus on youth agency, everyday justice, and the relationship between local and global dynamics of conflict and peace. Moving beyond state-centric and institutional frameworks, the panel foregrounds how peacebuilding is enacted in everyday contexts through communities, education, and relational practices. Across diverse empirical and conceptual cases, including youth engagement, arts-based methodologies, and critical perspectives on selective justice in international law, the contributions examine how peacebuilding is shaped by lived experience, inequality, and contested political realities. The papers interrogate the assumption that peacebuilding is only relevant to sites of overt conflict, instead demonstrating how everyday injustices, social divisions, and institutional failures can generate conditions of fragility even within liberal democracies. The panel also bridges macro- and micro-level analyses. It considers how global dynamics, such as selective international justice, interact with and are contested through local, bottom-up peacebuilding practices. In doing so, it highlights the importance of connecting global ethics, human rights, and community-based approaches to develop more inclusive and sustainable forms of peace. Methodologically, the panel showcases innovative approaches, including arts-based and participatory research, which enable young people and communities to articulate their own visions of peace. These approaches not only generate new knowledge but also actively contribute to peacebuilding processes. By situating peacebuilding within everyday social relations, this roundtable offers new insights into how peace can be cultivated from the ground up in an increasingly fragmented global political landscape.

Technological changes to war and peace
Technological changes to war and peace (Understanding conflict, insecurity and vulnerability)
17:00 - 18:30
This panel explores how technological changes are influencing the practice of war and peace.
2027年1月13日星期三

08:30 Climate security discourses, cooperation and conflict. Do climate security discourses matter?
Climate security discourses, cooperation and conflict. Do climate security discourses matter? (Environmental degradation, development and transformation)
08:30 - 10:00
The changing global order and rising geopolitical competition intersect with the need to address climate change. This leads to a mix of competition and limited cooperation. Climate change creates destabilising conditions but also offers opportunities for dialogue and cooperation. Climate-induced impacts—like resource scarcity, extreme weather, and supply chain disruptions—can increase mistrust and geopolitical rivalry. These tensions can expand into areas such as clean-energy technologies, critical minerals, and green industrial policy. Securitisation processes can further amplify these tensions. Yet, climate change can drive cooperation, especially where countries share vulnerabilities, threats, and narratives. Conflict or cooperation depends largely on how we discuss the link between climate change and security. This roundtable brings together senior and junior scholars to discuss Chinese and European perspectives and discourses on ecological security and the securitisation of climate change. It debates their relevance for promoting cooperation or increasing geopolitical competition.

Diplomatic relations past and present: cooperation and conflict within and between regions
Diplomatic relations past and present: cooperation and conflict within and between regions (Understanding the past, present and future of global politics)
08:30 - 10:00
Diplomatic relations past and present: cooperation and conflict within and between regions

Insights on War from Ukraine and Beyond
Insights on War from Ukraine and Beyond (Understanding conflict, insecurity and vulnerability)
08:30 - 10:00
Insights on War from Ukraine and Beyond

Navigating Change in Global Politics
Navigating Change in Global Politics (Understanding conflict, insecurity and vulnerability)
08:30 - 10:00
Navigating Change in Global Politics

Rethinking Strategic Autonomy, Cooperation and Rivalry
Rethinking Strategic Autonomy, Cooperation and Rivalry (Cooperation and contestation in the Global North, South, and beyond)
08:30 - 10:00
Rethinking Strategic Autonomy, Cooperation and Rivalry

Women’s Wellbeing, Care and Digital Culture in a Changing China: Everyday Negotiations of Social Transformation
Women’s Wellbeing, Care and Digital Culture in a Changing China: Everyday Negotiations of Social Transformation (Justice, inequality and exclusion)
08:30 - 10:00
Women’s Wellbeing, Care and Digital Culture in a Changing China: Everyday Negotiations of Social Transformation This panel examines how women in contemporary China experience, interpret and participate in social change through everyday practices of care, family life, beauty, intimacy, digital media and cultural participation. Responding to the conference theme of “conflict and cooperation in a changing world,” the panel understands conflict not primarily as confrontation, but as the everyday negotiation of different expectations: personal aspiration, family responsibility, social recognition, health and wellbeing, digital participation and community belonging. Cooperation, similarly, is approached as a practical and relational process through which women create meaning, maintain relationships, support one another and adapt to changing social environments. Bringing together five papers on postnatal care, beauty practices, heterosexual intimacy, influencer culture and fan communities, the panel explores how women’s lived experiences illuminate broader transformations in contemporary Chinese society. The papers show that women are not merely shaped by social expectations; they also actively interpret, adjust and reshape these expectations through embodied practices, emotional labour, consumption, peer evaluation, family negotiation and online participation. The panel contributes to China Studies, feminist sociology, media and cultural studies, and international studies by foregrounding women’s everyday lives as important sites for understanding social transformation. Its social significance lies in taking women’s experiences seriously as sources of knowledge about wellbeing, family relations, cultural participation and gender equality. Rather than presenting social change only through institutions or formal politics, the panel highlights how change is lived and negotiated in bodies, homes, relationships and digital communities. Panel Convener: Dr Hua Ma, Stirling College, Chengdu University Email: ma.hua@stir.ac.uk Chair: Dr Chalisa Chintrakarn, University of Birmingham Email: c.chintrakarn.1@bham.ac.uk Chair bio: Dr Chalisa Chintrakarn is a Teaching Fellow at the University of Birmingham, where she was awarded a PhD in Sociology. Her academic curiosity relates to gender and media studies, consumer culture, inequalities, and social policy. Discussant: None

12:00 Environmental Security and Insecurity
Environmental Security and Insecurity (Environmental degradation, development and transformation)
12:00 - 13:30
Environmental Security and Insecurity

From South to North: Global Inequities in Military Institutions
From South to North: Global Inequities in Military Institutions (Cooperation and contestation in the Global North, South, and beyond)
12:00 - 13:30
On the global stage, state power is wielded by military institutions entrenched in outdated cultures and toxic behaviours disguised as standardisation and cohesion. Inequity characterises the institution: inequity that manifests as visible and invisible harms perpetrated disproportionately against gendered and racialised bodies, manifesting itself through hierarchies. Given the race- and gender-granting nature of the military, these characteristics, in turn, influence gender and race dynamics in society and, as such, it is imperative that scholarly studies focusing on equity within military institutions pay attention not only to civil-military relations and entry into military careers but also to access to positions of power and leadership within these institutions. Scholarship on inequity in public institutions is hierarchised in itself, remaining dominated by Western ideals and thinking, with an implied assumption that the West knows best. In the context of the international rise of populist and far right governments, jeopardising the equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) agenda, we ask what inequity looks like when we compare Global South and North contexts. With speakers researching the Brazilian, United Kingdom and Thai contexts, we ask the following questions: - How do inequities in the military differ between the Global South and North contexts? - What inequities exist between research and military communities in the Global South and North, and how can we better foster collaboration? - How can the Global South and North exchange experiences and establish strategies to address inequities in the Armed Forces? - What might the threat to the EDI agenda mean for studies and interventions to address inequities in the military?

Geopolitics of the European Union
Geopolitics of the European Union (Understanding conflict, insecurity and vulnerability)
12:00 - 13:30
This panel examines security, economics and other geopolitical issues facing the EU and its member states.

New directions in the study of populist and authoritarian politics
New directions in the study of populist and authoritarian politics (Understanding the past, present and future of global politics)
12:00 - 13:30
New directions in the study of populist and authoritarian politics

Russia’s Foreign Policy Before and after Ukraine
Russia’s Foreign Policy Before and after Ukraine (Cooperation and contestation in the Global North, South, and beyond)
12:00 - 13:30
Russia’s Foreign Policy Before and after Ukraine

Understanding Conflict in Israel, Lebanon, and Gaza
Understanding Conflict in Israel, Lebanon, and Gaza (Understanding conflict, insecurity and vulnerability)
12:00 - 13:30
The panel explores recent developments in Israel, Lebanon, and Gaza.

15:00 Plenary roundtable - Conflict, Cooperation, and Change: International Politics in the Global North and South
Plenary roundtable - Conflict, Cooperation, and Change: International Politics in the Global North and South
15:00 - 16:30

17:00 Change and Upheaval in International Politics
Change and Upheaval in International Politics (Understanding conflict, insecurity and vulnerability)
17:00 - 18:30
This panel explores change and upheaval in international politics

Conflict and Contestation in the Middle East
Conflict and Contestation in the Middle East (Understanding conflict, insecurity and vulnerability)
17:00 - 18:30
This panel explores conflict and contestation in the Middle East

Understanding Borders and Power
Understanding Borders and Power (Connections and disconnections in borders, mobility and technology)
17:00 - 18:30
Understanding Borders and Power

Women's Protest: Agency and Political Participation Across the World
Women's Protest: Agency and Political Participation Across the World (Understanding conflict, insecurity and vulnerability)
17:00 - 18:30
This panel explores the central role of women in contemporary protest against state violence, inequality and environmental degradation. The panel brings together comparative perspectives from case studies from India, Russia and Kenya and examines a variety of protest forms ranging from institutional activism to organized mass protests to individual forms of embodied everyday resistance. Contributors will highlight how gendered power relations influence strategies of women’s protest and discuss intersectional approaches that account for race, class, and age in understanding women’s protest participation and political agency. The discussion aims to generate new insights into how women’s protest reshapes democratic practice and will be of interest to scholars of protest movements and everyday resistance practices as well as scholars working on the specific geographic areas.

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