Undisciplining IR
Beyond Mainstream International Relations
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Taylor & Francis Ltd
Published:24th Jul '26
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
This volume celebrates the groundbreaking contributions of Prof. A.K. Ramakrishnan, whose work has redefined International Relations through critical theory, postcolonial lenses, and transdisciplinary methods. By centring the “unarticulated body” and subaltern experience, this volume invites readers to undiscipline IR—one critical perspective at a time. Challenging hegemonic narratives, the volume interrogates mainstream IR epistemologies—from Orientalist frameworks to neoliberal paradigms—while centring non-Western knowledge systems. Through themes like Political Islam, social movements, and intersectional identities, it bridges cultural studies, philosophy, and grassroots politics to reveal how West Asia’s contested realities reshape global discourse. The chapters dissect pressing issues: the Palestinian genocide, refugee experiences, artificial intelligence in conflict, and the suppression of dissent, while theorising agency through poetry, memory, and spatiality. The volume argues for area studies as the core of IR, dismantling “great power politics” to prioritise marginalised voices and organic epistemologies of the Global South. Designed for scholars, policymakers, and activists, this book is essential for reimagining IR pedagogy and praxis. It serves as a key resource for students and faculty in Political Science, Postcolonial Studies, and West Asia scholarship, offering radical methodologies to decode democratisation, religion, and resistance. Think tanks, journalists, and diplomats will find its critiques of policy formulation and Orientalist discourse invaluable, while civil society actors gain tools to link local struggles to global justice.
‘This festschrift celebrates A.K. Ramakrishnan’s enduring challenge to hegemonic knowledge in IR. Through critical engagements with postcolonial theory, Islamic cosmopolitanism, gender, artificial intelligence, and the Palestinian question, the contributors demonstrate how IR must be “undisciplined” to confront its own colonial inheritances. The volume offers scholars of South and West Asia a rigorous and politically conscious framework for reimagining the discipline.’
- JAMES ONLEY, Ahmed Seddiqi Chair in Gulf and Middle Eastern Studies, American University of Sharjah, UAE
‘Subscribing to A.K.Ramakrshnan’s line of thinking, this volume stands for a refocusing of IR theory away from the traditional domains of nation-state, power, diplomacy, and security. Repositioning the discipline which in its popular imagination is profoundly grounded in Eurocentric, elitist and statist experiences, this work draws attention to the differently situated experiences of people and movements of global south, such as women, minorities, refugees, whose voices were previously unheard of or completely excluded from the mainstream IR. Touching a relatively unchartered terrain, this book contributes significantly to the reimagining of conventional IR.’
- M.H.ILIAS, Professor and former Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences, Mahatma Gandhi University, India
‘Deeply impressed by the excellence of the contents of the festschrift to honour the unique contributions made by Prof. Ramakrishnan to his discipline. His philosophical approach to the discipline is humanity- centred and not state-centred. For him the state is only an instrument devised by humans. As a professional diplomat, I recall with joy and gratitude my conversations with him. His work is a study in holistic reasoning and rare clarity.’
- Ambassador K.P. FABIAN, Professor, Symbiosis University, India
ISBN: 9781041201731
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: 480g
160 pages