*This is a guest post by Cynthia Weber, Professor of International Relations at the University of Sussex
As the International Studies Association gears up for its 2015 annual convention in New Orleans, USA, an email announcing its Sapphire Series of panels was sent to ISA members. The email reads: ‘Introducing ISA’s new initiative THE SAPPHIRE SERIES. Covering key issues in the field and in international affairs, these talks will feature scholars discussing current world events, trends in academic research, and new challenges in teaching and learning’.
Great idea, it seems to me, so I click on the link to ‘Find Out More.’ This is where things get troubling. For the more I find out, the more troubled I become. On the ISA Sapphire Series page, I find descriptions of four up-coming panels – Epistemology in IR, The State of IR Theory: Questions Big and Small, Topics in Teaching and Professional Development, and Commentary on Breaking Current Events. So far, so good. Each panel is composed of prestigious members of the discipline, men and women. Again, so far, so good. Then things start getting weird.
Every IR scholar is from the Global North, which seems strange to me given the conference theme of ‘Global IR, Regional Worlds’ and given the post-colonial expertise and commitments to post-colonial scholarship of this year’s ISA Program Chairs. Then I see the profile pictures of each speaker embedded next to their description, and here I audibly go ‘huh?’ Because every one of the 17 Sapphire participants appears to be white. Again, I’m confused. For at ISA 2015 in particular – with its two Program Chairs who are variously racialized against standards of normalized whiteness and who contest racialized IR knowledges – how is it that seemingly superior Sapphire Series knowledge appears to be universally white?
It was this that led my colleague Melanie Richter-Montpetit to tweet, ‘Sapphire – Blue is the New(?) White’ and to remind us of Sankaran Krishna’s comment back in 2001 that ‘the discipline of IR was and is predicated on a systematic forgetting, a willful amnesia, on the question of race’. I get these tweets on the very same day that the Guardian newspaper runs a story about the whitening of Louisiana Governor and Republican Presidential-hopeful Bobby Jindal.
I contact the ISA Program Chairs. Neither of them knew anything about the Sapphire Series until two days ago when ISA HQ sent them the same email all ISA members received.
All of this raises a lot of questions for me, like:
- Wasn’t this year’s ISA white enough already, without the Sapphire Series?
- What does this say about the relations between the ISA 2015’s racialized Program Chairs and those who put together the Sapphire Series panels?
- Are we ISAers really going to return to New Orleans to stage another non-conversation about race in (Disciplinary) IR in a place where conversations about race in the US are continuously kicked into the long grass?
- What will it take to transform our (generally) collective amnesia or our collective whitening of race?
- What specifically can we do as ISA members to challenge the whitening of the premier status of knowledge and knowledge production in our discipline and among those who represent our association?
I realize the apparent whiteness and Northerness of the Sapphire Series panelists was probably unconscious or accidental on the part of its organizers. I realize the Sapphire Series resulted from institutionalized knowledges and practices of normalized whiteness that are the fault of no individual person, institution or collective. Rather, normalized whiteness is infused into how ISA is generally programmed, how IR is generally organized, how IR scholarship and practice are generally conducted.
I also realize it is not the case that no white Northern scholars (can) speak meaningfully and knowledgably about race in (the discipline of) IR. And I realize that a liberal politics of inclusion of racialized scholars in IR is insufficient to correct how normalized whiteness is practiced.
But this case is about more than this. I shudder to think what it could have been about. Were our racialized Program Chairs perceived to be crowding out normative whiteness in their program decision-making and on the program? Did Disciplinary IR need to reassert its superior Sapphire Series white knowledge as a response? I certainly hope not. But it doesn’t look good.
I recently commented on how Disciplinary IR gentrifies critical theories to bring them into its fold. This is not what I recommend on any front, including in terms of the racial politics of IR scholarship and IR professional management. On the issue of race, we have to push beyond our critical reflections on the gentrification metaphor I proposed to critically consider another racialized metaphor that is circulating again in the press (and was circulated by Governor Jindal himself recently) – the idea of ‘no go zones’. On this front, we need to ask ourselves: How does (at best) a color-bind (whitened) politics of (professional) inclusion or (at worst) the de-authorization of racialized post-colonial expert organizers of ISA 2015 unconsciously sustain race as a ‘no-go zone’ in (Disciplinary) IR scholarship and in much the discipline of IR? And we need to ask ourselves what we are going to do about this to change it.
An excellent piece, raising very important questions about white privilege within ISA. Most troubling to me are the fact that the program chairs did not know about this series until it was brought to their attention by Cindy Weber. Can you imagine ISA headquarter going behind the back of program chairs who are white?! Additionally, there are prominent feminists on these panels — no doubt a result of feminist intervention into the male dominated ISA and IR field. However, those of us who struggled for inclusion of feminist voices within IR and ISA, did so with an understanding of power and privilege and with a commitment to other marginalized groups in the field. Given world events of the past year and the marginalization of people of color in the field and at ISA, this new series that was added to the program is VERY troubling and we must make our protest heard beyond our immediate circles!
An excellent piece, raising very important questions about white privilege within ISA. Most troubling to me are the fact that the program chairs did not know about this series until it was brought to their attention by Cindy Weber. Can you imagine ISA headquarter going behind the back of program chairs who are white?! Additionally, there are prominent feminists on these panels — no doubt a result of feminist intervention into the male dominated ISA and IR field. However, those of us who struggled for inclusion of feminist voices within IR and ISA, did so with an understanding of power and privilege and with a commitment to other marginalized groups in the field. Given world events of the past year and the marginalization of people of color in the field and at ISA, this new series that was added to the program is VERY troubling and we must make our protest heard beyond our immediate circles!
Thanks for this post Cindy… and spot on! What is going on here? Hopefully your post will get a proper conversation going at ISA. Questions need to be raised.
And what kind of a name is “Sapphire Series”? It sounds like events tied to a third-tier casino’s entry-level “club” membership.
“Sapphire Series, for the conference that has everything” … except 4 more panels filled from the Global North.
More seriously, it’s not just the gems of the field. A conspicuous number of the theme panels are considerably more locally (read northerly) sourced than you might expect, given the theme. Rather than ISA HQ vs. the chairs, though, I think this speaks to an enduring and deep-seated orientation in the field. We might want a global IR, but can we have it in the current sociological, geographical, and economic state of things? Two low-hanging e.g.s: 1) publications of esteem are all in English, 2) department and PhD rankings–both formal and informal–make it pretty clear that if you want to get into the field with some entrance velocity, your best bet is to shop local, as long as that local is northerly and Anglo-European.
lots of people are asking me – what should i/we do about this. i think it is important to ask #ISA2015 program chairs lily ling and pinar bilgin this question. they were left out of conversations about the sapphire series. they should not be left out of conversations about responses to it.
There is quite a conversation going on at the Facebook page #occupyirtheory/ipe. If you have ideas regarding alternative spaces/discussions to have about this issue and broadly about race in the discipline, feel free to contribute. I do agree with Cindy that the program chairs, however, should not be excluded in terms of responses to the series.
Of all the racial injustices that will take place in New Orleans next week, I would politely suggest that this one looks likely to be amongst the least consequential. While ensconced in the 5 star luxury of the conference, having traveled thousands of miles on expensive air tickets to get there, there will be thousands of poor people, black and white, on the streets of New Orleans, oblivious to the pontificating going on behind the walls of the Hilton. There will be thousands making our beds and vacuuming our floors in the hotels for a pittance. Police will probably be engaging in random acts of racially-motivated brutality, knowing the history of the NOPD. And yet everyone is getting het up over a few panels that are likely to be utterly uninteresting and inconsequential for the world outside. Don’t go to the ridiculously-named ‘Sapphire Series’ if you find it offensive. Go and chat to people on the street or in the bars, Make up your own racially diverse group and go have a conversation on the riverfront or at a jazz club. New Orleans is an extraordinary place full of extraordinary people. The ISA conference is necessarily a bastion of privilege and elitism, the sheer cost of holding it dictates that. Perhaps looking out rather than in might help in showing how small our own problems actually are.
I agree ISA is a site of privilege and elitism. But, as scholars, we need to probe more deeply than what’s on the surface. There is a direct line of connection between the privileges and elitism of the academic world and the subalterns of New Orleans. After all, who makes the policies that keep them trapped in poverty? Let’s not kid ourselves. What goes on “inside” the halls of privilege has a lot to do with what goes on “outside.”
Please note: ISA HQ did not act “behind the backs” of the ISA Program Chairs. And we learned of the Sapphire Series along with everyone else when the announcement came out.
ISA HQ often develops panels/roundtables in conjunction with various committees independently of the main program. This time, it is the Professional Development Committee that’s responsible for the Sapphire Series. This is the first time it’s been tried and I’m sure ISA HQ and the Professional Development Committee would be more than happy to hear from you on how to do it better next time.
As an FYI, a number of members of the PDC are as surprised by their supposed involvement as we are ….
Disappointed with your blindness towards racial minorities in the “Global North” Dismissal of all the minorities either working in the “North” or those who came there for the opportunity and resources is just as bad a violation.
If you know anyone not on Facebook, or the occupyirtheory group, who wants to see the current version of the #Ruby series list, I’ve put it up on the blog, here:
https://occupyirtheory.info/?p=404
I will continue to update it as and when.
All, if you know anyone not on Facebook, or the occupyirtheory group, who wants to see the current version of the #Ruby series list, I’ve put it up on the blog, here:
https://occupyirtheory.info/?p=404
I will continue to update it as and when.
I’m always a bit saddened by the balkanization of the ISA that I end up witnessing. It’s odd to travel to wherever the conference is to see rooms full of Europeans talking to each other using their own (critical theory) jargon, rooms full of mostly white guys that I went to Michigan with talking to each other using graphs and data sets, (incredibly small) rooms full of women earnestly talking to each other about feminist theory. I think it might be good for all of us to set a goal like “This time at ISA I’m going to go to two panels where I don’t know any of the panelists” or “This time I’m going to get to know five people from universities I’ve never heard of” or something of that sort. Perhaps there’s a way we can establish new ISA-going norms by defining a couple and behaving collectively as if they existed.
Great idea Mary!
In a co-authored piece a few weeks ago on the lack of women analysts invited to Middle East policy events, Tamara Cofman Wittes and Marc Lynch suggested that male scholars should commit themselves to accept invitations to panels only when there is gender diversity, and to question organizers where there isn’t. Looking at the elite names associated with these panels, I wonder if any of the participants thought to inquire about diversity when the panels were formed. Now that their makeup is known, are any of them considering declining the invitation? There is no one on the Sapphire Series roster who needs another line on their CV, and the conference as a whole does not need another opportunity to hear the same voices we’ve heard (and read) for years. It seems like taking a stand would be a low-cost but high-impact gesture for these participants.
Rather than see them decline the invitation at this point; I would much prefer that they commit to raising this issue at every Sapphire Series event. Or even better, do so and then excuse themselves so that someone could take their place. Surly these individuals would have no problem arranging someone to pinch hit on short notice.
Given the thousands of people attending the ISA conference, I’d say finding more diverse voices to pinch-hit would be no trouble at all.
After making my initial comment last night, I’ve also been reflecting on how the Sapphire Series overall shows a lack of creativity on the part of ISA. A new “eminent speakers” panel would also seem like the ideal opportunity to bring in non-academic policymakers or activists to engage with scholars. I would be ten times more interested in seeing a current events panel featuring someone from Doctors Without Borders discussing Ebola, a journalist recently returned from the Middle East, or an activist from the Afghan Women’s Network. Sadly, this just looks like another missed opportunity of the sort that allows non-academics to (rightly) accuse us of insufficient engagement with real-life issues.