No voice for the Global South – analysing the Annual Convention of the International Studies Association (ISA)

Abstract

The article contributes to the postcolonial and decolonial debate on epistemic inequality in International Relations (IR) research by analysing the global representation of universities at the Annual Convention of the International Studies Association in Toronto in 2019. The results are fourfold. First, the overwhelmingly represented Western countries are mostly located at universities in North America and Europe. Second, universities located in Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS) are largely underrepresented compared to their population size and number of universities. Third, even in so- called Global South panels, the representation of scholars from the Global North is much higher than that of academics from the Global South. Fourth, the representation gap also holds true when analysing researcher mobility and individual publication records. The implications of the case study results shed light on the difficulties of analysing epistemic violence without contributing oneself to the prevalent asymmetries.

Keywords

• epistemic inequality
• knowledge production
• postcolonial and decolonial studies
• International Relations
• North-South divide