Introduction: Southeast Asia in Global IR—A Reflexive Stocktaking in Research and Teaching

Abstract

Many scholars have devoted a great deal of attention to the problems of West-centrism and American parochialism in the scholarly discipline of International Relations (IR). Few scholars today would dispute the importance of the Global IR project in this regard. Although this intellectual exercise comprises a variety of approaches, the common unifying concern is to promote “greater diversity” in IR knowledge and knowledge production by embracing a wide range of histories, experiences and perspectives, particularly from outside the West. A key question remains: to what extent do we practise what we preach? Accordingly, this special issue takes a self-reflexive stock of contemporary IR research and teaching trends in Southeast Asia. More specifically, it brings together critical scholars living in six Southeast Asian countries—Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, the Philippines and Cambodia—who have conducted nationwide surveys of their own IR communities and identified how IR is researched and taught in their own countries. Based on the findings of this novel survey, the contributors discuss opportunities and challenges in continuing to encourage greater diversity in the knowledge production of the IR communities of which they are also members. In this way, this special issue presents not only social contexts and institutional constraints, but also autobiographical encounters, both positive (achievements) and negative (frustrations), that the contributors have had in their own IR communities.