The state of the field: an overview of the literature

Described by some as a scholarly defence of colonialism,Footnote ⁴ the centrality of racism and deep-seated coloniality in the IR field has long been discussed by several critical scholars.Footnote ⁵ Scholars recognize that IR is rooted in a politics of knowledge production that presumes the centrality of Western thinking,Footnote ⁶ which has shaped most of the assumptions that undergird IR theorization. This Eurocentrism is manifested in the field’s analytical categories, assumptions, theories, and preoccupations, which have given rise to distorted understandings of the Global South.Footnote ⁷ A prominent example is Morgenthau’s assertion that Africa did not have a history before the Second World War.Footnote ⁸ Rooted in the ’Peace of Westphalia (1648) narrativeFootnote ⁹ that instituted sovereignty in international society, this assertion assumes that Africa has no meaningful politics.Footnote ¹⁰ As put by Kayaoglu,Footnote ¹¹ ‘the Westphalian narrative allows scholars to reinvent a framework of normative hierarchy depending on where Western and non-Western societies are placed in the narrative. Western states produce norms, principles and institutions of international society, and non-Western states lack these until they are socialized.’ Our work on the Resource Bank found the enduring dominance of these Western accounts of what IR is and how it evolved.Footnote ¹² The neglect of non-Western histories and experiences exposes the colonial roots of IR concepts, such as the state, security, and sovereignty, which are universalized and often problematic when applied to Global South contexts.Footnote ¹³ Through its occlusions, mainstream IR falls short of providing adequate tools to understand contemporary global IR.Footnote ¹⁴ This not only limits the ability of students in the Global North to investigate and understand the world but also deeply affects students in the Global South, upon whom the perceived superiority of Western scholarship is imposed.Footnote ¹⁵ As noted by Mayanja and Yakohene in this collection, this is particularly evident in IR pedagogy in African classrooms, where the continent’s scholarship, insights, examples, and critiques remain underexplored.

The IR canon has consistently placed Africa on the periphery, rendering its significance to be ‘solely in its disruptive potential for neat theoretical paradigms.’Footnote ¹⁶ African countries are predominantly used as exceptional case studies, often on corruption, failed economic policy, political instability, or ethnic violence.Footnote ¹⁷ For instance, Hern (Reference Hern2023) demonstrates how, in comparative politics, describing African countries that perform well as miracles or darlings and highlighting their performance as the exceptions rather than the rule presents them as outliers that cannot be learned from. Hern additionally notes how the social science research published about Africa has largely focused on a handful of countries,Footnote ¹⁸ which contributes to the homogeneous lumping together of African states and societies despite their significant differences. In this paper, we define and locate Africa as the 55 Member states of the African Union. We recognize that there are multiple Africas in that these contemporary, postcolonial states might share similar historical and economic underpinnings but have varied politico-social contexts. As such, there is no homogeneous African political thought but rather a rich diversity in African cultures, histories, worldviews, and ways of knowing which make up a distinct African epistemology.Footnote ¹⁹

It is well-noted that the IR discipline remains characterized by the suppression of epistemologies and theoriesFootnote ²⁰ that do not conform to its orthodoxy of positivistFootnote ²¹ or rationalist methodological framework.Footnote ²² This ostensibly scientific approach requires the formulation of hypotheses and the provision of evidence to test, falsify, or validate them. Some scholars contend that using other sources of knowledge diverts scholars from the real study of world politics.Footnote ²³ Methodologically, most critical approaches, such as dependency and postcolonial theories, fall into postpositivist, reflexivist, or interpretive methodologies, which argue that the intersubjective understandings, intentions, and conduct of actors also matter when seeking to understand actor behaviour.Footnote ²⁴ Mainstream IR often dismisses these ontological differences and methodological frameworks as unfalsifiable or irrational,Footnote ²⁵ thereby relegating them to the field’s margins.Footnote ²⁶ This is evident in the marginalized position afforded to Africa in IR theory despite decades of critical scholarship interrogating dominant theoretical assumptions. As aptly put by Wai, the IR discipline’s inability to come to terms with African complexities results in its persistent depiction as ‘a region that has very little to contribute to world politics other than constituting a headache for Western policy makers, international strategic actors, aid agencies, and global do-gooders.’Footnote ²⁷ Countering this requires ‘epistemic disobedience’Footnote ²⁸ whereby what constitutes valid knowledge in the field needs to be challenged.Footnote ²⁹ However, often, non-Western IR theories are confined to the margins of the discipline. A good example is dependency theory, which was formulated to analyze the intimate linkage between developed and developing parts of the world, tracing the roots of underdevelopment to the dynamics of capitalist exploitation. Despite its novel insights, dependency theory was branded as unscientific and as constituting invalid knowledge, and it was dismissed by the mainstream of the IR field. As Darby puts it, dependency was pronounced dead, only to belatedly receive limited recognition from its critics.Footnote ³⁰

As outlined above and in this volume, a plethora of scholarship now exists interrogating the IR field’s imperialist and Eurocentric foundations. Several proposals have been put forward for a Global IR,Footnote ³¹ and calls have been made for the reconsideration of Africa’s positioning in the field.Footnote ³² However, a significant impact on the field’s theories and pedagogy remains to be felt as Eurocentrism has persisted and alternative theoretical approaches remain at the margins.Footnote ³³ This can be attributed to the limited guidance available on how to diversify and decolonize our theoretical and pedagogical practices. How does one expand the range of theoretical options beyond the narrow ambit of Western knowledge? Simultaneously, how does one avoid parochialism and the ostracization of Western theories? Scholars such as de Matos (Reference de Matos-Ala2017), who integrated Ubuntu principles into her curriculum at the University of Witwatersrand in the wake of the #RhodesMustFall movement, raise these questions, asking if decolonizing knowledge entails ‘eradicating all Western knowledges and substituting them with Indigenous knowledges?’Footnote ³⁴ Many scholars in the Global South and beyond struggle with the question of balancing diverse perspectives, which can often constrain the exercise, leading some to question whether the IR field can indeed be diversified and decolonized.Footnote ³⁵ Our work on the Resource Bank aims to help fill this gap. By providing a practical tool to guide theory development and pedagogical innovation, we strive to contribute to the study and practice of building knowledge-plural IR. In the sections that follow, we discuss how the existing scholarship informs our theoretical grounding for this article and introduce the Resource Bank.

Theoretical framing: centring postcolonialism

Postcolonial theory is a framework concerned with uncovering how colonial power relations continue to structure the study and practice of global politics.Footnote ³⁶ Postcolonial scholarship underscores that colonial power relations and representations are embedded in and reproduced through the dominant epistemologies employed in academia, highlighting how discourse and knowledge not only describe but also construct the Other.Footnote ³⁷ While postcolonial theory has been employed by scholars in diverse disciplines since the 1970s, it has had relatively limited impact in the field of IR.Footnote ³⁸ Studies that employ a postcolonial lens to investigate international politics highlight the enduring influence of colonial power relations on the contemporary dynamics of IR, illustrating how concepts central to IR, including the state and sovereignty, are rooted in colonial epistemologies.Footnote ³⁹ Postcolonial IR scholarship further underlines that Eurocentric epistemologies, ontologies, and methodologies inform the major paradigms in the field,Footnote ⁴⁰ revealing how racialized, gendered, and hierarchical representations have been indispensable to the making of the discipline.Footnote ⁴¹

This article and the Resource Bank project draw on three key insights from postcolonial theory. First, we draw on postcolonialism’s insight that colonial epistemologies, ontologies, and methodologies have shaped the dominant approaches, debates, and topics in the field.Footnote ⁴² This insight reveals that the taken-for-granted IR epistemologies, ontologies, and methodologies are neither neutral nor universal but rather Eurocentric constructions shaped through colonial conquest and epistemic violence. We make use of this insight to locate the foundational sources of the field’s important occlusions, including its oversight of the contributions of African knowledge systems. Second, postcolonial IR underscores the need to challenge the epistemologies at the heart of the discipline by looking to alternative places and sources to develop a more comprehensive understanding of the international. Drawing on this insight, in the Resource Bank project, we present works by and about the Global South broadly and Africa specifically that employ alternative epistemologies, ontologies, and methodologies that complement, enhance, and challenge the existing IR canon. As such, the Resource Bank can serve as a tool that scholars can use to produce works that speak to the foundational theoretical oversights in the field. In the implications section of this paper, we illustrate how the Resource Bank can be used in this regard. Third, postcolonial theory stresses the importance of situated knowledge, in the place of knowledge that proclaims to be both neutral and universal.Footnote ⁴³ Drawing on this insight, in this article, we utilize the Resource Bank to highlight the contributions of African knowledge systems in IR, demonstrating how situated knowledge can meaningfully expand our understanding of the international. Overall, the Resource Bank project provides a repository of alternative epistemologies, ontologies, and methodologies, designed to help construct a more theoretically and pedagogically pluralistic field.

The Resource Bank: a labour of passion

We consider our work on the Resource Bank to be a labour of passion. Putting together this vitally important project was simultaneously daunting because of the sheer size of the undertaking, and yet intellectually exciting. The project provided excellent opportunities to grapple with the broader epistemological and ontological debates in the field, as we were forced to rethink what we thought we understood about the field and how to disrupt it. These moments were highly fruitful because they forced us to answer some of the most fundamental questions this project raises, such as: Where do we start? With recent scholarship, or with earlier work on which it draws? Do we begin with a specific theme or geographic area, or do we cast the net widely to incorporate as many perspectives as possible? How do we curate a collection of resources that offer clear alternatives to the mainstream orthodoxy in the field while at the same time being mindful of the differences among and within these resources? This included considerations for the format of the final output – would it be an expanded critical syllabus or a bibliography?Footnote ⁴⁴ Most importantly, we grappled with tensions about whether our aim is to decolonize the curriculum or to diversify it? We resolved to design a Resource Bank that would presently provide tools for diversifying the discipline and pave the way for undertaking decolonization down the line. From initial brainstorming to the soft launch, the Resource Bank took over 12 months to complete.

Mirroring the heated debates on how to reimagine the IR field,Footnote ⁴⁵ the question of diversification versus decolonization fueled much discussion within our team. The two concepts are interrelated but generate tensions because of their differences in terms of depth, purpose, and political commitments. While there is variance in the conceptual definitions, decolonizing refers to the process of rethinking, reframing, and reconstructing the curricula and research practices, challenging the institutional hierarchy of a Western-centric lens.Footnote ⁴⁶ Decolonization demands a deeper epistemic shift that Lu (Reference Lu2017)Footnote ⁴⁷ describes as repudiating the marginalization of non-Western modes of knowledge, discourse, and political practice to erode normatively obscuring myths about the origins of the modern international order. Diversification, on the other hand, focuses on representation and refers to the process of being more inclusive of as many voices as possible to avoid parochialism.Footnote ⁴⁸ According to Akel (Reference Akel2020), decolonization differs from diversification in that the latter can still exist within a Western bias. Decolonisation goes further and deeper in challenging the institutional hierarchy and monopoly on knowledge, moving out of a Western framework. Decentring is another mechanism in the movement to reform, as highlighted by Lu (Reference Lu2017). Decentring involves proactively creating space for the inclusion of marginalized and oppressed agents and perspectives. According to Lu, decentring facilitates the process of decolonization by refocusing political inquiry and action away from the powerful or dominant modes of inquiry and political engagement.

Along the lines of decentring, the challenges we encountered while putting the Resource Bank together included limitations such as the inability to include non-English language scholarly publications due to our linguistic constraints and intended audience. More broadly, as el-Malik and Kamola (Reference el-Malik and Kamola2017) note, the curation of a collection such as this is a political process, and as such, the decisions around what to include/exclude proved to be quite challenging. Pragmatic considerations were also significant. For instance, we wrestled with the question of how to make the Resource Bank widely accessible and the best form to present it in. To enhance its user-friendliness, we decided to go with a format like the Oxford Bibliography model that enables the inclusion of a quick synopsis of each resource used, situating its content or context within relation to the project. A list of tags and associated descriptions was added to the lists to help readers understand how to use the Resource Bank and to facilitate contributions and suggestions for new content to add. Finally, we engaged in conversations around whether to make the Resource Bank an internal resource at Queen’s University or to make it publicly available. In line with our goal of aiding diversification and decolonization in the field, the Resource Bank is a publicly available resource that IR scholars and students can freely access.

Theoretical and pedagogical implications

We produced the Resource Bank in the hope that it can serve as a tool to foster theoretical innovation and pedagogical transformation in the field of IR. This resource can serve as an important tool for theoretical innovation in two significant ways. First, as numerous scholars have convincingly argued and as we have highlighted in the preceding sections, the theoretical toolkit of IR is rooted in an exclusionary, Western philosophical foundation. This Western philosophical tradition used the European experience to ground its claims about human social reality, universalizing the experiences of an unrepresentative group of people. These universalizations of Western experiences informed the theoretical foundations of the IR field. Presenting a collection of texts that provide rich empirical, historically grounded, and situated scholarship from across the world, the Resource Bank provides sources that can serve as important starting points for theoretical innovation in IR. Looking at a range of different places and histories to diversify the experiences we use as bases for developing our theories is vital for addressing IR theory’s parochialism and Eurocentrism. In particular, the texts included under the subheading of geographic areas, covering a range of diverse spaces, provide empirical insights that can be vital for theoretical innovation that decentres Europe and diversifies the canon, aiding efforts to decolonize the field.

Second, and relatedly, the Resource Bank contains a plethora of sources that illustrate how scholars have used African experiences to undertake IR theory revision and development, which can serve as important templates for theoretical innovation. For instance, closely examining Namibia, GrovoguiFootnote ⁵¹ demonstrates how race and imperialism entrenched international hierarchy, recasting dominant accounts about the development of international law. Similarly, GetachewFootnote ⁵² focuses on African and Caribbean anticolonial leaders and thinkers to develop the concept of worldmaking that she details in her book. Finally, in Ethiopia in Theory, ZelekeFootnote ⁵³ examines the literature associated with the Ethiopian Student Movement of the 1960s and 1970s to draw invaluable insights about how African systems of political thought and activism speak to and enhance Marxist theory specifically and critical theory more broadly. These texts, as well as many others included in the Resource Bank, illustrate how scholars are looking to places and issues that are often overlooked in mainstream IR to generate theoretical insights that complement, challenge, and advance the existing theoretical toolkit. Moreover, the Resource Bank includes a section on research methods, which sheds light on the alternative methodological approaches scholars can utilize in the course of their work. In all, the Resource Bank features a collection of empirical texts that can spur theoretical innovation and theoretical works that provide frameworks for how to undertake such a task. And, given that theory lies at the heart of all IR literature, whether explicitly acknowledged or otherwise, the work of theorists is vital in fostering not only theoretical diversity but also ontological and epistemological transformation in the field.

In terms of pedagogy, the Resource Bank is a repository from which instructors can draw to develop syllabi that introduce students to diverse strands of IR thought and theorization. For instance, the Resource Bank can be used to create syllabi that centre the contributions of African systems of thought to IR. Similar to el-Malik & Kamola’s (Reference el-Malik and Kamola2017) conceptualization, we define African systems of thought as diverse streams of political thought produced by those within and outside Africa, united by a focus on the past and contemporary political dynamics on the continent. Our aim here is not to provide a ready-made African IR syllabus but rather to illustrate how the Resource Bank can be used to develop syllabi and courses that highlight how the continent has shaped the field, focusing on the contributions of African scholarship and knowledge systems. Such an IR syllabus and the broader pedagogical revision that we hope the Resource Bank can foster will be especially important for students and institutions located on the African continent. As other contributors to this special issue have noted, the coloniality of knowledge production and dissemination has meant that IR students across African institutions have very limited opportunities to engage with Africanist IR scholarship, a challenge we hope the Resource Bank can help address. Moreover, in addition to designing specific courses centred on African IR, institutions and departments – especially within the continent – can utilize the Resource Bank to integrate African histories and knowledge systems into mandatory and introductory courses in the field.

An African-centred IR syllabus could cover a range of topics and themes that can serve to decolonize and diversify the discipline of IR. In terms of decolonization, the Resource Bank features a number of texts that draw on African histories, experiences, and systems of thought to uncover and critique the colonial and Eurocentric origins of the IR field. Among them are Du Bois’s seminal ‘The African Roots of War’; Thakur et al.‘s (2017) discussion on the racialized and imperial origins of the field; and Henderson’s (Reference Henderson2013) ‘Hidden in Plain Sight,’ which unpacks the racially infused constructs that inform mainstream IR paradigms. While it is impossible to list all the relevant authors and titles, the Resource Bank features numerous texts that discuss coloniality, decolonization, and postcolonial approaches in IR through an examination of Africa.Footnote ⁵⁴ Altogether, these texts provide a critical re-reading of the origin story of the discipline, demonstrating how race, racialization, colonialism, and empire have long been at the centre of the field. In contrast to standard IR courses that often replicate incomplete – and, at times, incorrect – narratives around the foundation of the field, an African-centred IR syllabus could prominently feature texts that highlight the colonial origins of the field, enabling students to uncover how these factors continue to shape existing debates, paradigms, and knowledge in the field.

In addition to featuring decolonial and postcolonial perspectives, an Africa-centred IR course could also be vital in diversifying the field by incorporating insights from African and Africanist IR scholars. An important theme raised by such scholars is a critical analysis of the global political economy and Africa’s place within it. Rodney’s deeply influential How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (Reference Rodney1981) and Robinson’s Black Marxism (Reference Robinson2020), which have vastly improved our understanding of the complex link between capitalism, race and imperialism, stand out as important examples. The Resource Bank also includes more contemporary scholarship on African Political EconomyFootnote ⁵⁵ that contributes to IR broadly and International Political Economy specifically. Another important area where African knowledge systems and scholarship have made important contributions includes debates on agency in the global arena. Scholars such as Compaoré (2018), Grant (Reference Grant2018, Reference Grant2022), Grant et al. (Reference Grant, Issa, Söderbaum and Yusuf2023), and Tieku (Reference Tieku2013, Reference Tieku2022) have looked to the African continent to contribute to the burgeoning research agenda on state and non-state agencies. Given that much of IR is preoccupied with great power politics, a focus on African agency would serve to de-centre the Euro-American core. Finally, the Resource Bank features African scholars and scholarship that have made important contributions to the fields of security and conflict studies.Footnote ⁵⁶ While due to spatial constraints we cannot list all the contributions of African IR scholarship, the topics discussed above highlight the distinct insights, themes, and topics that can be covered in an Africa-centric study of IR which privileges African histories, experiences, and perspectives.

Lessons

Several valuable insights emerged from working on this project, three of which we will briefly highlight. The first is the importance of recognizing and drawing on the work that has already been done. In the course of our work, we engaged with and drew from scholars who have long wrestled with the same questions we are grappling with in this project, including Henderson, Mignolo, Vitalis, Shilliam, and many more.Footnote ⁵⁷ Interacting with these scholars and texts underscored the importance of building on existing foundations because, despite not being well-acknowledged in the IR field, postcolonial scholars have provided insights that contribute immensely to advancing our understanding of global politics and challenging the problematic disciplinary boundaries of IR. Building on this robust intellectual history, this engagement also illuminated for us gaps in African IR scholarship that limit innovative theory building, knowledge production, and mobilization. For example, the focus of several scholars in responding to the marginalization of Africa in the IR field is found by Tieku (Reference Tieku2022)Footnote ⁵⁸ to be defensive. Tieku calls instead for advancing epistemic freedom by shifting to a more proactive form of knowledge production, which is best done by drawing on pre-colonial African history to produce counternarratives to the 1648 metanarrative, and by engaging with Indigenous African knowledge systems. This allows for privileging African voices, ideas, and experiences. The work of Sesay in this volume and elsewhere on legal internationalization in settler-colonial environmentsFootnote ⁵⁹ is a good illustration of knowledge production using the history of legal development in Africa.

The second key insight that emerged was the importance of collaboration. During this project, we engaged in fruitful formal and informal conversations with one another, fellow graduate students, and IR faculty within the department of Political Studies. The collaboration also enabled us to build bridges with scholars beyond Queen’s. For example, our paper presentations on the Resource Bank in Round Tables at local and domestic conferences helped broaden support for similar initiatives in the discipline of IR.Footnote ⁶⁰ A notable outcome of the collaboration is a presentation made at a workshop on African Systems of Political Thought in International Relations hosted by the University of Ghana in July 2025. The workshop served as a platform for the exchange of knowledge on IR pedagogies that centre African systems of thought, epistemologies, ontologies, and lived experiences. In addition to helping us establish strong connections, this collaborative approach enabled us to brainstorm ideas, devise new ways of tackling challenges, and refine our vision for the Resource Bank. Moreover, these conversations impressed upon us the importance of this work, as the colleagues and faculty members we spoke with were not only enthusiastic about the work but also ready to assist our efforts.

Third, this project highlighted the vital role of institutional, professional, and disciplinary power. The Resource Bank project was made possible because of the efforts of faculty members within the Department of Political Studies at Queen’s University.Footnote ⁶¹ These scholars not only laid the groundwork for the Resource Bank by creating opportunities to have critical and reflexive conversations about the IR field but also materially contributed to the project. Funding for the project was made available by Dr. von Hlatky’s Canada Research Chair (Tier 2) on Gender, Security, and the Armed Forces, who supervised the project together with Dr. Martel. Moreover, faculty within and beyond Queen’s University generously offered their expertise, support, and guidance throughout the process. A key takeaway from this is that the types of transformations that will make IR more pluralistic require professional and institutional support. While institutions often claim that they want to see such transformations (frequently framed as diversity and inclusion), they do little to materially support those doing this work. Accordingly, these tasks frequently fall on the shoulders of junior, racialized, and/or women faculty members who provide the uncompensated labour for such work. Our experience with the Resource Bank project illustrates the importance of recognizing and compensating the labour of scholars doing this work.

Conclusions and recommendations

In the years after 2020, various academic disciplines have been undertaking important conversations and debates around diversifying – and, at times, decolonizing – their respective fields. These conversations have been happening in IR long before 2020, but in the past 5 years, there has been a rise in the number of publications, conferences, and conversations engaging with these topics. In this article, we have highlighted our IR Resource Bank project – a project designed to address some of the systematic exclusions in the field – as one possible way to push these conversations forward. The article introduced the Resource Bank, highlighted the impetus for its production, and discussed the collaborative efforts that went into compiling it. We also highlighted how the Resource Bank can help the work of IR scholars and students interested in the debates around diversifying and decolonizing the discipline. Drawing on our experience with the Resource Bank project, we conclude by offering the following three recommendations to those hoping to undertake a similar project. First, institutional culture matters: This project would not have been possible without the resources, support, and commitment of the IR faculty and graduate students in the department of Political Studies at Queen’s University, who directly and indirectly contributed to the Resource Bank. This illustrates the fact that attempts to foster transformations within fields and disciplines rely not only on the efforts of individuals but also require supportive institutional cultures and environments. Second, it is widely recognized that the work of diversifying and/or decolonizing curricula often relies on the unpaid and underappreciated labour of people in academia.Footnote ⁶² In contrast, despite being a labour of passion, the Resource Bank was the result of paid labour, which was integral to its success. As such, directing financial support towards such projects is vital in ensuring that efforts to make the discipline more pluralistic do not exacerbate the marginalization that many of us in academia face. Third, as put by de Matos-Ala (Reference de Matos-Ala2017), developing plurality goes beyond including a smattering of Global South scholarship together with a few local examples or case studies. As such, what is required is not simply adding a few local examples but rather a sustained and meaningful commitment to pluralism in our theoretical and pedagogical practices.