14/08/2026
Call for proposals
Our colleague Professor Berit Bliesemann de Guevara, together with Xymena Kurowska and Erzsebet Strausz (Central European University) are organising a workshop on the topic Revitalising Interpretive International Relations for the Interpretive Policy Analysis conference in Budapest in January 2027.
Proposals are invited and the deadline for submission is 13 September 2026. More information is about the workshop is below, and here is the link to the conference website:
https://www.ippapublicpolicy.org/conference/ipa2027eur-budapest/panel-list/30/panel/still-studying-the-global-interpretatively-new-trajectories-of-interpretive-international-relations-amid-epistemic-crisis/2070
Interpretive International Relations has grown into a diverse and vibrant way of studying global politics. Today, however, interpretive approaches work in a challenging epistemic environment. Public debates are marked both by the relativisation of truth and of academic expertise, and by a renewed celebration of the “expert” as the guardian of science against mis- and disinformation. In International Relations, these tensions intersect with the return of “hard security” agendas and a renewed push for formal, standardised methods as the benchmark of rigorous knowledge.
Against this backdrop, the longstanding strengths of interpretive work, specifically its attention to ambiguity, plurality, everyday meaning-making, and co-existing worlds, risk losing visibility and leverage. This workshop asks whether and how current epistemic shifts call for revisiting, adapting, and revitalising interpretive practices in International Relations and related fields. It is interested in how interpretive scholars navigate these pressures in their research, writing, teaching, and wider public engagement, and in how interpretive projects can respond to current crises of knowledge, authority, and security without giving up their core commitments.
We aim to facilitate the exchange of papers across professional, geo-social and disciplinary boundaries and hierarchies to:
• Map how interpretive International Relations is currently practised in different contexts of global politics, policy, and security.
• Reflect on the ethical, political, and affective dimensions of interpretive research and its epistemic communities.
• Discuss how interpretive approaches can respond to contemporary epistemic crises while holding on to plurality, reflexivity, and hermeneutic openness.
• Create an ongoing network of scholars and practitioners working with interpretive modes of inquiry in International Relations.
INTERNATIONAL PUBLIC POLICY ASSOCIATION LAET-ENTPE, 3 Rue Maurice Audin 69120 Vaulx en Velin, France Tel. +33 (0) 72 04 72 53 [email protected]
