Programme: PhD Seminar Series in International Political Sociology (2025-2026)
Description
Organised by the research group DoingIPS and PhD students in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London, the School of Politics and International Relations at Queen Mary University of London, and the Department of International Relations at the London School of Economics.
Now into its 7th year, the ‘Doing IPS’ PhD Seminar Series introduces graduate students to research inspired by International Political Sociology’s (IPS) commitment to challenge methodological and conceptual assumptions in their research disciplines, and ask new questions about transdisciplinary modes of inquiry. It will address the need for doctoral candidates to have a forum dedicated to IPS where they can: (1) present their work and receive feedback from peers and senior academics in the field; (2) engage with contemporary IPS research designs and debates; and (3) develop transdisciplinary and cross-institutional relationships with a view to facilitating further discussions and collaborations around common research themes. Lastly, the series will strengthen the analysis and evaluation skills of early career researchers.
The series runs over a period of 10 months starting from September usually meeting on the last Friday of each month, from 3-5pm. In each seminar, two participants have the chance to present their work-in-progress on/in IPS to PhD student colleagues and senior academics from universities across London and the UK who work within the realm of IPS. The seminars will rotate between the three host institutions (King’s College London, Queen Mary University of London, and London School of Economics and Political Science).
In addition to our regular seminars, we organise special events around IPS topics and debates. Check this page regularly for updates.
Sponsor
The seminar series is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council’s London Interdisciplinary Social Science Doctoral Training Partnership (LISS-DTP).
Doctoral student organisers
Chana Rose Rabinovitz, School of Politics and International Relations, Queen Mary University of London
Kazimier Lim, Department of International Relations, London School of Economics
Kira Tuominen, Department of War Studies, King’s College London
Senior academic organisers
Audrey Alejandro, Assistant Professor of Qualitative Text Analysis, Department of Methodology, London School of Economics and Political Science
Jef Huysmans, Professor of International Politics, School of Politics and International Relations, Queen Mary University of London
Mirko Palestrino, Lecturer in Sociology, School of Politics and International Relations, Queen Mary University of London
Programme
The series will run from September 2025 to June 2026, usually meeting on the last Friday of the month. In each two-hour seminar, two participants introduce their work-in-progress (thesis chapter, book chapter, journal manuscript) to the group and invite a senior academic as discussant. The discussion is followed by questions and answers with the group. All participants are expected to make every effort to attend the seminars and are expected to have read the papers in advance. Presenters are encouraged to invite their supervisors and colleagues interested in their work.
Date: 26 September 2025
Host Institution: Queen Mary University of London
Presenter: Charlie Thomas (Queen Mary University of London), ‘Outside Agitators’.
Discussant: TBC
Presenter: Meg Poff (City St. George’s, University of London), ‘Between and beyond: Negotiating belonging within queer borderlands’.
Discussant: TBC
Date: 31 October 2025
Host Institution: King’s College London
Presenter: Mohammed Amer (University of Sussex), ‘Islamic Peacebuilding and Resistance: Afsha Al-Salam’s Approach to Confronting Organized Crime Gun Violence in Palestinian Communities in Israel’.
Discussant: TBC
Presenter: Hongli Liu (King’s College London), “The Queer Performativity of State Sovereignty in the 1942 Cripps Missions to India”.
Discussant: TBC
Date: 28 November 2025
Host Institution: London School of Economics and Political Science
Presenter: Madeleine Anne Berry (Queen Mary University of London), ‘Who belongs? A genealogy of Canada’s border regime and the disappearing asylum seeker’.
Discussant: TBC
Presenter: Callum Smith (Queen’s University Belfast), ‘‘Hot Air in Shenzhen’: Experimentation, Disruption and the Endurance of the Drone’s Technological Promise’.
Discussant: TBC
Date: 12 December 2025
Host Institution: Queen Mary University of London
Presenter: Deheng Wang (Queen Mary University of London), ‘Rethinking Ontological Security in International Security Studies: Insights from Laclau’s Theory of Contingency and Hegemony’.
Discussant: TBC
Presenter: Zak Tobias (Queen Mary University of London), ‘Ayla’s “ecosystem” and the geo(political) engineering of “techno-borderlands” in Aqaba (Jordan)’.
Discussant: TBC
Date: 30 January 2026
Host Institution: King’s College London
Presenter: Taif Alkhudary (University of Cambridge), ‘Gardening at the end of the World? Mangroves and the Afterlives of Capital’
Discussant: TBC
Presenter: Noel Mariam George (London School of Economics and Political Science), ‘Refuge by ‘Technical’ Means: Humanitarianism, Bureaucratic Asylum, and the Politics of Refracted Mandates in Postcolonial India (1947–1981)’.
Discussant: TBC
Date: 27 February 2026
Host Institution: London School of Economics and Political Science
Presenter: Nicholas Chukwudike Anakwue (Queen Mary University of London), ‘Outsider and Networked: Navigating Positionality, Power and Trust in Studying Hashtag-driven Protest Movements in Sub-Saharan Africa’
Discussant: TBC
Presenter: Partha Moman (London School of Economics and Political Science), ‘International order change and the new politics of violent conflict: explaining the evolution of the Somali security assemblage’
Discussant: TBC
Date: 27 March 2026
Host Institution: Queen Mary University of London
Presenter: Meredith Warren (Queen Mary University of London), ‘Constructing climate change litigation - how legal storytelling shapes our political imagination’.
Discussant: TBC
Presenter: Brunno Cunha (Queen Mary University of London), ‘Tales of Concreteness: Confronting Brazilian Architectural Modernism’
Discussant: TBC
Date: 24 April 2026
Host Institution: King’s College London
Presenter: Judith Hoppermann (School of Oriental and African Studies), ‘Unpacking the Displacement–Conflict Nexus: Non-State Refugee Governance in the Middle East’.
Discussant: TBC
Presenter: Helen Gutierrez (Queen Mary University of London), ‘Mapping Latin London through Socionatural Placemaking: methodologies and methods’.
Discussant: TBC
Date: 29 May 2026
Host Institution: London School of Economics and Political Science
Presenter: Alice Figes (University of Cambridge), ‘Utopianism at the End of History, Transnational Resistance in the Age of Neoliberalism, 1979-2005’.
Discussant: TBC
Presenter: Kazimier Lim (London School of Economics and Political Science), ‘Performing Sovereignty in International Aviation Politics’.
Discussant: TBC
Date: 27 June 2025
Host Institution: Queen Mary University of London
Presenter: Lisa Pleijzier (University of Oxford), ‘The Politics of the Not-Yet: Hope, Affective Futurity and Political Imagination’
Discussant: TBC
Presenter: Kira Tuominen (King’s College London), TBC
Discussant: TBC