CALL FOR PAPERS

Issue 57 / Is there an Indo-Pacific space? Reflections from International Relations

Publication: October 2024

The academic journal Relaciones Internacionales is pleased to announce a call for Issue 57, dedicated to reflection on the space of the ‘Indo-Pacific’ and from theories of International Relations. The objective of the issue is to go beyond the traditional geopolitical debate and showcase the diversity of theoretical positions, especially from critical perspectives, which reflect on how (or not) the Indo-Pacific has been defined as a unique regional space, whose normative, institutional, discursive, ideological and identity dynamics are framing the relations between states and societies which conform to that space.

The Indo-Pacific region spans the Asia-Pacific to the Middle East and Africa, across the Indian Ocean. It is a space of enormous dynamism and profound changes, including in the area of international relations, which is attracting more and more academic and political attention. Frequently, the prevailing analyses on the region, particularly from conventional perspectives, have focussed on the existing geopolitical and economic dynamics of this space. That is, those which encompass the agendas of and relations between some of the greatest powers situated in the region.

Nonetheless, many other dynamics have remained hidden. These dynamics traverse and form the Indo-Pacific in an interconnected and situated way, along with its political, institutional, normative, cultural, identity, gender or environmental dimensions. As well as being partial and distorted, these analyses run the risk of perpetuating the orientalist vision of this geographical space, together with the dynamics and societies which shape it. In effect, they end up inscribing it as a homogenous, static and peripheral space, or with little capacity for agency at the global level. In this issue of the journal, on the contrary, the aim is to listen to and make visible those studies and voices that help us to critically understand the complexity of the phenomena, processes, dynamics and actors that shape the Indo-Pacific.

Therefore, we invite contributions both from within International Relations- especially from critical perspectives- and also from adjacent disciplines that are rethinking the best theoretical, analytical and normative tools to analyse this regional space. In addition, we are also interested in those papers that are reflecting, for example, on the limitations that traditional approaches to the study of the Indo-Pacific suffer. Or for instance reflections that tackle questions such as: Are Eurocentric categories and concepts reproduced in dominant narratives about the region? Is it necessary to decolonize these interpretations and incorporate new definitions and tools? What are the roles of the non-state actors or processes of state construction in the configuration of this regional space, of the relations that make up its core, or with the rest of the world? What are the implications of these other concepts for rethinking the Indo-Pacific and the societies that form it, beyond evaluating them from models of state organization and/or development constructed by and for the ‘West’? What alternative notions of power and security are suggested by the heterogeneous conglomerate of actors who act in that regional space? Are they similar to hegemonic notions found globally? What role do the cultural, identity and religious dynamics and processes play in the configuration of the space and the relations that comprise its core? What resistance and social movements act in that regional space? Which of those do so in a transnational way? And, what marginalization or discrimination dynamics are present in this space and its societies, or in its relations with the rest of the world? What other notions (for example, civilization or law) have been developed from or on the Indo-Pacific that can be, in turn, useful to rethink the international?

In short, through this call for papers, we encourage authors to explore challenging topics that broaden our understanding of what is understood by the ‘Indo-Pacific,’ and thus promote critical theoretical discussions that make visible the multiple interpretations and readings of this space.

The general objective of the issue is to offer a better understanding of the Indo-Pacific region, as well as rethink the role of the region in a world undergoing profound transformation. It may well be the case that this region assumes an even greater prominence in the coming years and decades. In particular, the issue would like to include perspectives and contributions from the region, as well as other regions of the Global South: e.g. Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East.

Although the list is not exhaustive, in what follows we shall propose a series of thematic groups that will be of special interest for the current issue: 

• Definitions of the Indo-Pacific region: Valued positively shall be those contributions which propose the critical exploration of the ontological and epistemological limits of concepts that traditionally define the region. Some alternatives could be: theoretical debates on the geographical reach of the term ‘Indo-Pacific’ and the political and socio-economic implications of such definitions; discussion on the notion of centrality in the political imagination of the different actors in the region; epistemic colonialism in opposition to the proposals of academic communities in the production-transmission of knowledge from a decolonial perspective of theory.
• Reflections on the models of governance and development in the Indo-Pacific region: encouraged are contributions on the notion of centrality in the political imagination of different actors in the region, as well as reflections on the concept ‘civilization standard’ as an orientating principle of the international relations of the region. In this sense, a call is also made for contributions related to the historical and cultural context of the region. Similarly, on South-South and North-South relations, especially in the transformation of agendas and perspectives of the Indo-Pacific.
• Human mobility: those proposals which tackle, from a critical perspective, questions related to human mobility, on those relations with and at the border, on resistance in migrations in the region, will be given special consideration.
• Spaces of insecurity and/or from the Indo-Pacific region: contributions on critical and alternative visions of security and the construction of peace, hybrid regimes and different phenomena included in the agendas shall be valued.
• Intersectional questions: new proposals are welcome on urbanism and the international role of the megalopolis; multiple ontologies (religious, syncretism and plurality, philosophy, languages, ethnicity and society), among others. 

Although these lines of research are prioritized, the acceptance of contributions will not be limited to the previously set out areas.

Issue 57 of Relaciones Internacionales will be published in October, 2024; el Editorial Team of the journal and the Coordination of the issue have established the following dates:

 

DUE DATE

SUBMISSION OF ABSTRACT

A text of between 500 and 1000 words should be sent that displays clearly and concisely the fundamental aspects to be developed in the subsequent article. The submission period ends on 30th December, 2023 (up to and including). The proposal must be sent in a PDF document indicating authors, their institutional affiliation, provisional title of the article and text of the abstract, and with the following two email addresses in copy:

• juan.gascon@uam.es
• blanca.marabini@uam.es

SUBMISSION OF ARTICLES

The full document of the article must conform wholly and meticulously to the Style Manual of the journal. You can obtain our template for authors by clicking here (in Spanish). The submission stage ends on 10th April, 2024 (up to and including).

The submission of the article will be made on the web-page of the journal through the management platform OJS (Open Journal System). It is essential that the authors —all of them in the event that there is more than one— are registered by completing the requested data on the platform registration page with the most up-to-date information:

https://revistas.uam.es/relacionesinternacionales

EVALUATION process

Once the article is submitted correctly through the website the double-blind evaluation process begins. The decision process will take between three and six months, depending on the case: this may include the return of the text to its author(s) for the revision or correction of changes and suggestions made by the anonymous reviewers. During the evaluation process, the reviewers will be responsible for certifying the quality of the work of the authors, as well as the appropriateness of the final texts for the topics proposed in the call for papers.

• PLEASE NOTE: suggestions by the authors of possible reviewers for the evaluation of their texts are permitted. With the text of your proposal, you can send us by email the names of academics with extensive knowledge of the aspects dealt with in your work so that- if the coordination considers it appropriate- these people can be contacted as blind reviewers.

DEFINITIVE ACCEPTANCE

Throughout the evaluation process (between May, 2024 - August, 2024), those authors whose text receives the complete approval of the assigned reviewers will be notified of the definitive acceptance of their article, at which time they can have the absolute certainty that the paper will be published in the journal. That the article is published in Issue 57 as planned – and not in a later issue – is subject to the complete conformity of the text to the instructions indicated in the Style Manual of the journal, or other contingencies that will be duly communicated to the authors.

EDITING process

During the month of September 2024, the journal will proceed to the definitive editing of the text, to be published in October. The complete and careful compliance with the rules stated in the Style Manual of the journal is understood to be the responsibility of the authors, and this is a requirement for the final publication of the article in Issue 57.

PUBLICATION OF THE VOLUME

Throughout the month of October 2024 the 57^th edition of the journal Relaciones Internacionales, with the title “Is there an Indo-Pacific space? Reflections from International Relations,” will be published in digital format, online, open access and free. All the articles that have fulfilled the requirements of the stages indicated above will be included.

LANGUAGES

Proposals in Spanish, English, and Portuguese will be accepted. Nonetheless, the articles will be translated to Spanish for publication in the journal. It will be the authors themselves who send the translated articles in Spanish.

OTHER INFORMATION FOR AUTHORS:

It is fundamental that the authors consult the Style Manual to get to know in detail the editing and evaluation requirements for publication in the journal. Moreover, the OJS system of the journal website allows for online tracking of all the administration processes and the state of the text.

Notification of copyright: the authors who publish in Relaciones Internacionales accept the following terms:

• The authors retain copyright and guarantee the right of first publication of the work to the journal, which will be simultaneously subject to the Creative Commons License Reconocimiento-NoComercial-SinObraDerivada 4.0 Internacional (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).
• The authors will be able to make other non-exclusive licence agreements for the distribution of the published version of the work (e.g., deposited in an electronic institutional archive or published in a monographic volume) provided that the initial publication in this journal is indicated.
• It is permitted and recommended that the authors circulate their work through the internet (e.g., in electronic institutional archives or on their webpage) before and during the submission process, which can produce interesting exchanges and increase the citations of the published work.
• The authors are responsible for obtaining the appropriate permissions to reproduce material (text, images or graphs) from other publications and for citing their origins correctly.
• Relaciones Internacionales does not charge the authors any fees for the presentation, submission, or publication of the articles.

COORDINATION OF THE ISSUE

Juan Andrés GASCÓN MALDONADO – jagasconm@gmail.com / juan.gascon@uam.es
Blanca MARABINI SAN MARTÍN – blanca.marabini@uam.es