Voices: The EISA Podcast

What are ‘tricksters’ and how do they exert power in international politics? This podcast takes a closer look at political actors that seek to undermine order and sow confusion around their actions by employing contradictory logics. Discussing their article ‘Trickstery: pluralising stigma in international society’, which won the EISA’s Best Article in the European Journal of International Relations (EJIR) Award in 2022, Xymena Kurowska (Central European University) and Anatoly Reshetnikov (Webster Vienna Private University) shed light on ‘trickstery’ as a form of behavior that appears to simultaneously conform with and deviate from dominant norms. In conversation with Felix Berenskötter (SOAS University of London), Xymena and Anatoly explain how digital ethnography of folklore scholars and their research on the Russian blogosphere and foreign policy inspired them to develop the concept and introduce it to the field of International Relations. Tune in for an insightful contribution that intriguingly advances IR’s conceptual orbit.

strong textXymena Kurowska

Anatoly Reshetnikov

Kurowska, X., & Reshetnikov, A. (2018): Neutrollization: Industrialized trolling as a pro-Kremlin strategy of desecuritization. Security Dialogue, 49(5), 345–363. https://doi.org/10.1177/0967010618785102

Morozov, V. (2015). Russia's postcolonial identity: A subaltern empire in a Eurocentric world. Springer.

Felix Berenskötter

How can the study of friendship inspire and enhance our understanding of international politics? Evgeny Roshchin (Princeton University) draws on conceptual history inspired by Quentin Skinner to trace the development of the concept of friendship in international diplomatic practice and in Western political philosophy. In conversation with Felix Berenskötter (SOAS University of London), Roshchin discusses his research into contractual forms of friendship, embedded in treaties, and their function in ordering colonial spaces. He explains why this understanding disappeared from social contract thinking following Hobbes and was replaced by an ethical and normative reading that remains dominant today, and why he cannot offer a definition of friendship.

Roshchin, Evgeny

Roshchin, Evgeny (2017): Friendship among Nations: History of a Concept. Manchester University Press, Manchester.

Berenskoetter, Felix (2007): Friends, There Are No Friends? An Intimate Reframing of the International. Millennium: Journal of International Studies 35(3), pp. 647-676.

Smith, Graham (2011): Friendship and the Political: Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Schmitt (Imprint Academic)

Koschut, Simon and Oelsner, Andrea (eds) (2014): Friendship in International Relations (Palgrave Macmillan) ** Digeser, P.E. (2016): Friendship Reconsidered: What It Means and How It Matters to Politics (Columbia University Press)**

Haugevik, Kristin (2018): Special Relationships in World Politics: Inter-State Friendship and Diplomacy After the Second World War (Routledge).

Almost every major political event over the past decade has been "memed". This episode delves into the dynamic world of internet memes and their significance for the study of International Relations. In his paper "Cucktales: Race, Sex, and Enjoyment in The Reactionary Memescape", that has been awarded the EISA ́s Best Graduate Paper 2023, Uygar Başpehlivan, PhD candidate at the University of Bristol, takes us on a journey into the world of internet memes. In conversation with host Polly Pallister-Wilkins (University of Amsterdam), he explains the ways in which memes are integral to the political space by being simultaneously used by political subjects and being themselves political. Introducing his concept of the memescape, Uygar Başpehlivan contends that the creation and consumption of memes shapes political relations, including resistance, reaction, capture, and excess. Envisioning memes as architects of a spatial realm, the memescape thus captures the agency of political subjects, as well as aesthetic objects, discourses, affects, and technological infrastructures that converge, interact, and transform across time and space. Inspired by Deleuze and Guattari ́s concepts, Uygar Başpehlivan talks us through his notion of memes as "smooth spaces" that challenge the traditional "striated space" of the international, thereby offering unique political possibilities. In his paper, Uygar Başpehlivan further dissects how the reactionary memescape gives rise to racist and misogynistic politics through the infamous meme, "the cuck". Tune in to learn about meme ́s role in knowledge production, and their specific relevance for the study of International Relations.

Uygar Başpehlivan

Baspehlivanm Uygar (2023): Theorising the memescape: The spatial politics of Internet memes. Review of International Studies, pp. 1-23. doi:10.1017/S0260210523000049

Deleuze, Gilles & Guattari, Félix (1980): A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia.

Halberstam. Judith J. (2011): The Queer Art of Failure. Durham and London, Duke University Press.

Weber, Cynthia (1994): ‘Good Girls, Bad Girls and Little Girls: Male Paranoia in Robert Keohane’s Critique of Feminist International Relations’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 23 (2), pp. 337–49

Josh Hutcherson Whistle Meme Edit (2023)

Why should IR scholars pay attention to new technologies, big data, and algorithms? In this episode, we are joined by Claudia Aradau, Professor of International Politics at King's College London, who unpacks the significance of digital technologies for practices of governance. In conversation with Felix Berenskötter (SOAS University of London), Professor Aradau shares her research into the datafication of border security, the operation of algorithms in producing identities and controversies around them. They discuss the importance of a critical and interdisciplinary approach that captures what these new technologies do, who uses them and to what effect. Tune in to this episode exploring the transformative potential and the complexities of technological innovation for the study of IR, shedding light on the impact of algorithmic assemblages on contemporary global politics.

Professor Claudia Aradau

Aradau, Claudia & Blanke, Tobias (2022): Algorithmic Reason. The Government of Self and Other. Oxford, Oxford University Press.

SECURITY FLOWS (‘Enacting border security in the digital age: Political worlds of data forms, flows and frictions’), Consolidator Grant funded by the European Research Council (2019-2024) Further Reading:

Coward, M. (2006). Against anthropocentrism: The destruction of the built environment as a distinct form of political violence. Review of International Studies, 32(3), 419-437. doi:10.1017/S0260210506007091

Jacobsen, K. (2021). Biometric data flows and unintended consequences of counterterrorism. International Review of the Red Cross, 103(916-917), 619-652. doi:10.1017/S1816383121000928

Bourne, M., Johnson, H., & Lisle, D. (2015). Laboratizing the border: The production, translation and anticipation of security technologies. Security Dialogue, 46(4), 307–325. https://doi-org.sussex.idm.oclc.org/10.1177/0967010615578399

Machold, Rhys (2018): Reconsidering the laboratory thesis: Palestine/Israel and the geopolitics of representation. Political Geography, Volume 65, Pages 88-97, ISSN 0962-6298, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2018.04.002.

Edler Duarte, Daniel (2022): The Making of Crime Predictions. Sociotechnical Assemblages and the Controversies of Governing Future. Crimehttps://ojs.library.queensu.ca/index.php/surveillance-and-society/article/view/14261

Benjamin, Ruha (2019): Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code. Cambridge, UK: Polity.

Since South Africa brought the case of applying the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on 29 December 2023, the topic of genocide has re-entered both popular and scholarly debates. How is genocide comprehended - or rather, misunderstood - within International Relations, and as a legal concept? In this episode Jo Bluen, educator, writer, and PhD researcher (University of Cape town & London School of Economics) is in conversation with Polly Pallister-Wilkins (University of Amsterdam). Jo Bluen explores the multifaceted interpretations and political ramifications of genocide, highlighting the inherent inadequacies of legal structures in fully grasping the complexity of genocidal violence. Arguing for a critical reassessment of our perception of genocide as a systemic issue, Jo Bluen challenges the traditional paradigms of International Relations rooted in colonial modernity, a history deeply intertwined with acts of genocide. The episode further delves into the nuances of intentionality, practices, and complicity behind genocidal acts, and offers a curated selection of essential readings. Tune in to this timely episode for a compelling exploration of one of the most pressing issues of our time.

Recommended readings:

Journal of Genocide Research, 26 (1), Special Issue (2024)

Moses AD (2021): The Problems of Genocide: Permanent Security and the Language of Transgression. Cambridge University Press.

The Funambulist (37), Sepcial Issue (2021): Against Genocide. Edt. by ZOÉ SAMUDZ.

Grovogui, Siba N. (2001): Come to Africa: A hermeneutics of race in international theory. Alternatives 26 (4), pp. 425-448.

Campt, Tina Marie (2009): Other Germans: Black Germans and the politics of race, gender, and memory in the Third Reich. University of Michigan Press.

Eghbaria, Rabea (2023): The Harvard Law Review Refused to Run This Piece About Genocide in Gaza. The Nation, 21 November 2021.

[Ba, Oumar, K.; Bluen, Jo and Owiso, Owiso (2023): The Geopolitics of Race, Empire, and Expertise at the ICC. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of International Studies. DOI:10.1093/acrefore/9780190846626.013.717](https://oxfordre.com/internationalstudies/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780190846626.001.0001/acrefore-9780190846626-e-717? p=emailAUsuVhqTfNGHM&d=/10.1093/acrefore/9780190846626.001.0001/acrefore-9780190846626-e-717)

Nichanian, Marc (2009): The historiographic perversion. Columbia University Press.

South Africa ́s submission to the ICJ, 12/29/2023: Application instituting proceedings and request for the indication of provisional measures. International Court of Justice, Document Number 192-20231228-APP-01-00-EN.