Co-Chairs:
Dr Mwita Chacha
Associate Professor
Department of Political Science and International Studies
University of Birmingham m.chacha@bham.ac.uk
Dr Florian G. Kern
Reader (Associate Professor)
Department of Government
University of Essex fkern@essex.ac.uk
African governments and societies increasingly play more prominent roles in shaping international politics, both regionally and globally, as geopolitical balances shift, and new global orders and narratives emerge. The stream we organise brings together scholars with an interest in the intersection between African and international politics, highlighting how Africa experiences and shapes international politics. What drives Africa’s role in the world? How will global politics reshape based on forces driven by Africans, from Africa to the world? This theme is motivated by the ongoing scholarly discussions on decolonizing the social sciences and specifically the field of International Relations. Calls to decolonize IR aim to appreciate the underrepresentation of non-Western scholarship, the need to critically reconsider the applicability of mainstream theoretical perspectives in non-Western settings and evaluating how and the extent to which historical, political, and social experiences of the non-Western world can contribute theoretically, methodologically, and empirically to IR as a field of study.
