Call for papers Two-day Symposium ‘(En)countering violence: critical approaches to studying and representing violence, and dangerous and disposable subjects’
Organisers: Meena Masood (Queen Mary University of London) and Leah de Haan (University
of Amsterdam)
Date: 9-10 September 2026
Place: Queen Mary University of London
In the context of increasing conflicts and contestations – be it associated with ongoing colonial
legacies, migration, climate change, late capitalism, war and genocide, the rise of the far right,
transphobia, and more – questions of violence are at the heart of global politics. Accordingly, a
wealth of scholarship in International Studies explores the manifold origins, manifestations, and
effects of violence, often through the lens of conflict and war. Nevertheless, the centrality of
violence to International Studies is often overshadowed and obscured. The study of violence – that
is, how we study violence itself – remains marginal(ised) and confined to critical subdisciplines.
There is a need for an explicit focus on the ethico-political dimensions of knowledge production
on violence and, importantly, people subjected to violence. This attention is crucial in a context
where certain forms of violence are increasingly sanitised and rendered mundane, and relatedly,
violence enacted on specific bodies is normalised. As a discipline, we lack the understandings,
frameworks, and tools to adequately and ethically conceptualise violence in an integrated and
sustained manner. For example, by refusing to confine the questions and politics of knowledge
production on violence to administrative processes for ethical approval, research proposals, PhD
methodology chapters, and superficial and perfunctory footnotes, which risk reproducing
hierarchies, including of coloniality, class, race, and gender.
This symposium will provide a much-needed space to explore how we study, write, and talk about
violence and people subjected to violence. It will attend to the centrality of violence in International
Studies by building understandings, frameworks, and tools to conceptualise violence, in addition
to foregrounding the politics of knowledge production on violence and how this can be integrated
throughout the entire research process. Accordingly, the symposium is concerned with the
following questions:
• What are the structures, materials, and discourses that shape and legitimate violence?
• How do we challenge the subjection of certain people, deemed dangerous, deviant and
disposable, to violence?
• How can we bring together, expand on, and amplify the many theorists, frameworks, and
methodologies used to study violence? Relatedly, how can we mobilise these theorists,
frameworks, and methodologies to explore and challenge contemporary manifestations of
violence?
• What are alternative ways of studying violence that unsettle hierarchies, including those of
knowledge production?
• How do we better connect ongoing enactments of violence to the associated histories and
legacies of oppression, exploitation, and exclusion?
In short, the symposium aims to unsettle assumptions about the study of violence: what constitutes
violence, who is subjected to violence, whose knowledge is worthwhile, and whose experiences
are legitimate. These questions go to the heart of International Studies and ideas of who matters,
who can be targeted or protected, and ultimately, who is human.
The symposium is co-hosted by the Critical Alternatives for World Politics (CAWP), BISA
Working Group and the Research Group in International Political Sociology, School of Society
and Environment at Queen Mary University of London.
The symposium
The two-day symposium will be held on 9 and 10 September 2026 at Queen Mary University of London
London. The symposium will be structured around papers, each of which is expected to be between
4,000 and 5,000 words. The symposium will consist of four sessions and a keynote on the evening
of 10 September. The symposium aims to put together a journal special issue and, more generally,
to continue collaborations on the study of violence in the context of International Studies.
Expressions of interest
Please submit expressions of interest to the convenors (L.J.A.deHaan@UvA.nl and
M.Masood@qmul.ac.uk), including a title and abstract (max 250 words) of your proposed paper.
The deadline for abstracts is 17 June 2026. You will be notified about acceptance to the
Symposium by 19 June 2026.
Limited travel bursaries of £50 are available to support early career researchers, including PhD
candidates. If you wish to apply for a travel bursary, please indicate this in your expression of
interest. The symposium is open to anyone, though travel bursaries can only be awarded to BISA
members.