ISA's 44th Annual Convention - Portland 2003
Theme: The Construction and Cumulation of Knowledge
February 25th-March 1st, 2003, at the Benson Hotel; Portland, Oregon, USA
JOHN A. VASQUEZ, President -
DANIEL S. GELLER & JIM GEORGE, Program Chairs
The Construction and Cumulation of Knowledge
The theme for the 2003 ISA Convention will be the construction and cumulation of knowledge. The idea of knowledge is at the center of all scholarly inquiry. It provides a rationale for our disciplines and to its pursuit most of us have dedicated a good deal of our lives. Yet the concept of knowledge remains contested and problematic. Whether we can know and how we do know are questions that never go away, despite the millennia spent in writing works claiming to be knowledge. This year's theme speaks to this contradiction by embodying three sorts of panels: first, those centered on problematizing the concept of knowledge; second, those that present an overview of the existing state of knowledge in a specific subfield or area of inquiry, and third, panels that will bring together those who are prepared to defend the quest for knowledge and its achievements in certain areas with those who dissent from the way knowledge has been conceived in the modern era.
The first set of panels explores the construction of knowledge. The turn toward post-modernism and post-structuralism has swept through the social sciences, raising fundamental questions about inquiry and its "product." International relations inquiry has embodied a number of these insights to give us a better understanding of what it means and has meant to construct knowledge in IR. Those working in critical theory, feminist theory, as well as those taking post-positivist or constructivist approaches have, along with others, been in the forefront of bringing about this turn in international relations inquiry. Proposals related to any aspect of the construction of knowledge within international studies are invited. Such proposals can include, but need not be limited to: how knowledge is constructed in general or in specific areas of inquiry; the role such knowledge plays within the field and its genealogy; the role constructed knowledge plays and continues to play in history and the conduct of international politics, international political economy, and other aspects of international relations; how knowledge can be de-constructed; the relationship among knowledge, science, and ideology; the role of culture, gender, nationalism, power, class, and other factors in the construction of knowledge.
If the first set of panels question and reevaluate particular kinds of claims made for knowledge, the second set extols its achievements and defends the way it has been practiced. The growth and cumulation of knowledge has been the hallmark of those taking a scientific approach, but it has also been characteristic of others, including those focusing on normative or legal inquiry. These panels are intended to bring together for ourselves and for those outside international studies a compilation of what we have learned as scholars in the last twenty-five or thirty years, what we think we know, and what we think is erroneous. As the field has grown and the literature has become voluminous, it is increasingly necessary for various subfields to take stock and communicate their best results to the discipline as a whole. These panels seek to do that not only for various subfields, like those formally organized into sections, but also for various invisible colleges, for those taking specific methodological or theoretical approaches (e.g. formal theory), for those researching a single theory (e.g. neoclassical realism), or investigating a specific problem--like alliance behavior, economic sanctions, law of the sea, race in international relations, the role of non-state actors, the ethics of war-crime tribunals, and so forth. It is hoped that these panels will provide an efficient way for those working outside an area to gain a comprehensive overview of what the different areas of inquiry within ISA have accomplished and have to offer, while still maintaining rigorous standards as to what constitutes knowledge.
The third set of panels aims to bring together those who hold very different philosophical perspectives on epistemology to engage in a dialog about the implications and contradictions embodied in the theme of the construction and cumulation of knowledge. Some of these panels will speak to the issue on a highly general and abstract level. These might bring together post-positivists and post-structuralists with those committed to scientific approaches, recognizing that there is variation within these broad schools of thought. Other panels will replay these themes, but in the context of shared research interests. Here, scholars who take very different approaches or are part of invisible colleges that rarely cross paths are invited to submit panel proposals that will bring them together to see what they can learn from each other, both in terms of philosophical approach and empirical research. Thus, those studying nationalism or territorial disputes might bring together post-structuralists, quantitative scholars, constructivists, and formal theorists to see how they study the same subject but in different ways and whether any cross fertilization is useful. Similarly, those who hold different philosophical, ethical, or legal positions might come together to see how they might approach a given normative question, like human rights or poverty. These panels will help us see how we are different and to what extent these differences can help us in our various endeavors.
