On the afternoon of June 2, 2023, the Institute for International and Area Studies (IIAS) of Tsinghua University hosted the third Eurasian studies lecture of the “Knowledge Production in Global Area Studies” lecture series online. Themed “IR Theory and Area Studies – A View from the Global East,” the lecture was delivered by Dr. Katarzyna Kaczmarska, Lecturer at the School of Social and Political Science, the University of Edinburgh. Yin Zhiguang, Professor at the School of International Relations & Public Affairs, Fudan University and Dr. Catherine Owen, Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, the University of Exeter’s Penryn Campus, were the disscussants. Present at the lecture were IIAS faculty members and doctoral students, and scholars and students from Sun Yat-sen University, Fudan University, Nanyang Technological University, etc.
The binary hierarchy between theoretical research and area studies is a reality facing scholars in the study of international politics in English-speaking countries. Based on an article co-authored by Dr. Katarzyna Kaczmarska and Dr. Stefanie Ortmann, this lecture introduced the emergence of the two independent yet intertwined fields of study, namely, international relations (IR) and area studies, and examined the construction of borderline of area studies. The lecture also discussed topics related to European/Western centrism in IR. Dr. Kaczmarska expounded on the divide between the theorization of IR and non-Western empirical research. The calls for bridging the divide are thus far focused on how to give “non-Western” knowledge more consideration in IR, but they neglect the broader meaning of theoretical/regional divide.
The dynamics of global knowledge production processes have been studied in various disciplines under social sciences, including sociology, IR, and area studies. Scholars with different disciplinary backgrounds have started looking at and continued to explore a wide range of topics, including structural barriers to engagement in the global academic community, the process of non-Western-centered narrative and conceptual frameworks, and the importance of “background” in knowledge production. The “Knowledge Production in Global Area Studies” lecture series hosted by IIAS aims to make a dialog with scholars on the specific dimensions of knowledge production in area studies and the resultant new issues, with a view to providing more thinking space for discipline construction in China.
Katarzyna Kaczmarska is a lecturer at the School of Social and Political Science, the University of Edinburgh. Her academic outcomes on international relations theory, sociology of knowledge in international relations and post-Soviet politics are published in International Studies Review, Journal of International Relations and Development, Problems of Post Communism, etc. Before joining the University of Edinburgh, she did research at the Department of International Political Science, the University of Aberdeen (2016-2019), and carried out field research as a visiting scholar in Russia at the invitation of University of St. Petersburg. She obtained her doctoral degree from Aberystwyth University in 2015, where she studied the performance of international politics in academic and policy discourse in English-speaking countries and Russia.
Contributed by: Wang Qin
Proofreader: Eurasian Studies Research Group
Typesetting editor: Cheng Yao
