BISA at 50: Reflections and perspectives – Insights from former Chairs

As part of the BISA at 50 reflections and perspectives article series, we set out to reveal the wisdom of BISA’s past Chairs. We asked them about BISA’s milestones, main contributions, and memorable moments. Topics spanned our impact on the global development of the discipline to recollections of northern weather and British plumbing. This piece focuses on the celebration of the importance of the BISA annual conference, the significant development of the working groups, and the linked necessity of a ‘big tent’, pluralist approach to International Studies. A follow up article will explore BISA’s impact on global IR.

Contributors:

• Ruth Blakeley
• Chris Brown
• Stuart Croft
• Inderjeet Parmar
• Paul Rogers
• Mark Webber

The BISA annual conference – kind and (no longer) cold

For many, including past Chairs, the conference at Birmingham in December 1975 is “where BISA first really got off the ground” (Chris Hill). Our annual conference has since become a key event in the academic calendar, enabling networking and intellectual exchange in a welcoming environment. Of course, those heady pursuits are not all that matters when recollecting the success of a good conference…

For some former Chairs, BISA demonstrated a stroke of genius when taking a single, simple decision. When asked about BISA’s most important milestones, it was the call to re-organise the annual conference in the summer that was a recurring theme. As many academics will know, the lure of a conference destination – in the right season – can be irresistible. Equally, it seems, the trauma of the wrong town at the wrong time can be lasting:

"I’m not sure when it happened; moving the annual conference from winter to summer. I went to a couple during the winter … and all I can remember is the awful weather." (Mark Webber)

"My first memory of a BISA conference: as a student, 40 years ago! Travelling from the south of England to the hosts in the north. A long-delayed train journey. Shower required on arrival. But the water was cold, and the snow blew into the shower through the gaps in the window. Facilities have improved for BISA conferences a lot since then!’ (Stuart Croft)

Weather aside, the welcoming nature of BISA generally, and the conference, as a collaborative and kind space specifically, were frequent and encouraging refrains:

"Best conference moment? Maybe giving a paper, and realising I’d misread one of the authors significantly. In the discussion, everyone said so. But what was great was that it was all done so supportively. BISA has always had that great community feeling!" (Stuart Croft).

It is perhaps a heartwarming notion for early career and PhD colleagues that you can attend a conference, misread a key author, and get snowed on in the shower, stifling your career to the extent that you end up as Vice Chancellor of the University of Warwick!

The working groups – intellectual homes

Working groups constitute our research motor, as well as one of our main paths to shaping the future of International Studies. Ranging from Astropolitics to War Studies, our 27 working groups, plus the Postgraduate Network, offer an engaging and collaborative space for in-depth research and knowledge-sharing. They are, in a nutshell, intellectual homes, allowing colleagues to fully take part in the most current IR debates and to become embedded in a collegiate and career supporting community. BISA working groups’ active and developmental approach to PhD students and ECRs was a recurrent theme. 

"To my knowledge BISA is noticeably better’ – in its "emphasis on supporting research students" – "than many learned societies." (Paul Rogers)

"I think its working groups, in particular, have been its greatest contribution because they are the daily life blood of BISA that most members have regular access to and affiliate and identify with." (Inderjeet Parmar)

The importance of the working groups for networks was emphasised, whether this led to jobs, publications, or ‘just’(!) friendships.

"[The] Establishment and diversification of BISA working groups, and subsequently, of the Postgraduate Network [was key]. I speak to lots of academics from the UK and beyond who say that a specific working group or the PGN made a real difference to their sense of belonging and purpose in the discipline. They say that through the PGN or working groups, they were able to build fruitful relationships for collaboration and benefited from excellent mentoring and support, and this often helped them secure their first publication, postdoc, book contract, or academic job. This has also been my own experience from my very first BISA conference at the LSE in 2002." (Ruth Blakeley)

Ultimately, 

"BISA’s people make BISA what it is … international studies colleagues still need professional associations to stay connected, build working relationships and to realise their aspirations for their research and educational activities.’ (Ruth Blakeley)

A big tent – for a pluralist discipline

The development of multiple working groups over the years denotes at the richness of the discipline, characterised by a remarkable range of topics, theories, and approaches, especially in comparison to proximal disciplines. It is also revealing of the way the discipline thinks of itself, and how it structures itself in terms of intellectual divisions and demarcations.

"I think IR is much more pluralistic in outlook than when I entered the profession in the early 1990s. This is not because scholars were blinkered or overly partisan back then (we were always open-minded and critical/Critical). It’s rather that the social sciences in general have grown more sophisticated conceptually and methodologically, and so have imported in influences from cognate disciplines (cultural studies, psychology, neuroscience, feminism, queer theory, gender studies, environmentalism etc). The process has also been enabled by the proliferation of journals, the growth of blogs and the democratising impact of the internet. This has been of great service to scholarship and debate." (Mark Webber)

Yet, BISA has excelled at creating an umbrella organisation, uniting and respectful of a diversity of ways of ‘doing IR’. 

"BISA’s main contribution has been to raise the profile of International Studies inside and outside the academy, while retaining generally a ‘big tent’ approach to the subject and its myriad approaches and specialisms. Its officers have managed to maintain a collegial spirit with relatively few factional quarrels." (Paul Rogers)

Crucially, even where groups of scholars have disagreed, BISA has welcomed the ensuing debate. 

"I always found the BISA community to be welcoming...and open to critical and multi- and interdisciplinary thinking." (Inderjeet Parmar)

"BISA has been important in the … big shifts in the study of IR that have taken place over the last 50 years. The first was in the 1980s when scholars of constructivism, post-structuralism, post-modernism, gender, international political theory, and critical theory more generally found BISA a… welcoming environment … this was, I think, a good thing." (Chris Brown)

With academic pluralism and intellectual diversity as key strengths – alongside an all-important summer conference – BISA is well set to continue to facilitate advancements in IR’s intellectual agenda, just as we have done over the past half century. By fostering interdisciplinary dialogue, encouraging methodological innovation, and providing a platform for rigorous debate, BISA continues to support the evolution of a field, whose landscape is experiencing very rapid change. The commitment to inclusivity, and the cultivation of new perspectives, ensures that emerging research agendas, critical theoretical contributions, and pressing global challenges remain at the forefront of academic inquiry. As we look forward to the next 50 years, we will build on the rich legacy of scholarly engagement to further strengthen BISA’s role as a hub for shaping global International Relations research.