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Introducing: Karen Smith

Karen Smith recently joined the Institute for History as a lecturer in International Relations. She introduces herself.

Although I am 100% African, I can claim to have some Dutch roots (going back to the early 18th century), and I spent part of my childhood in Vienna, Austria. Before coming to Leiden at the end of January 2017, I was based in the Political Studies Department of the University of Cape Town for 6 years, where I taught International Relations (IR). Prior to that, I taught at the University of Stellenbosch, in South Africa’s wine region. This is also where I completed my PhD in 2005 (exploring normative and ideational theories of global political transformation).

After my PhD, my interest shifted to the role of the Global South, and Africa in particular, as an object and agent of IR (theory). As a result, I became involved in various global research exploring alternative non-western contributions to IR. Continuing this work, I am teaching an elective course on “Decentering International Relations” as part of the MAIR programme, and am currently co-editing an IR textbook for and from the Global South, as well as a volume on race and the origins of the field of IR.

I have become increasingly aware that the Western-centric nature of IR is largely due to a marginalization and misappreciation of non-Western history in the discipline, so I am excited about the possibilities for new (and collaborative) research that being based in an Institute for History will open up. My other research interest is the foreign policy of emerging and regional powers, with a focus on South Africa, and the role of new governance groupings like the BRICS. Working mainly in a constructivist vein, I am particularly interested in how identity shapes foreign policy.

Other ongoing projects include a joint project on African agency in international relations (both historically and in the current global context) with colleagues from the LSE and Sciences Po, a project on the future of the BRICS with colleagues from the University of St Petersburg and, as part of the World International Studies Committee (WISC) and workshops aimed at mentoring young scholars from the Global South. I also currently serve as an editorial board member on a number of book series and journals, including Review of International Studies and Foreign Policy Analysis.

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