ISA_CNA_PUNE_2025

FLAME UNIVERSITY

From Upward Pipelines to Sideways Networks: Reimagining International Collaboration

Nazanin Shahrokni Associate Professor of International Studies Simon Fraser University, Canada nazanin_shahrokni@sfu.ca

ISA_CNA 2025

extraction of data or empirical material

“International collaboration” today reproduces extractive logics rather than dismantling them

the extraction of credibility

extraction of authenticity

extraction of context

extraction of moral & epistemic legitimacy

Uneven politics of knowledge production

The Global South supplies the grounding; the Global North receives the credit.

English functions not simply as a medium of communication, but as a gatekeeping device

geographic concentration in academic publishing

Funding regimes & Visa regime

When “Global” Becomes Selective

The consequence is not the disappearance of global ambition, but its redefinition. Globality becomes narrower, more selective, and increasingly upward-looking- despite the continued rhetoric of inclusivity, diversity, and global engagement. What we see here is not a lack of commitment to the world, but a political economy of globality- one that privileges certain directions of connection and circulation over others, and in doing so quietly reshapes what international collaboration is allowed to mean.

Today, universities in the Global North operate under chronic budgetary pressure, intensified competition, and increasingly managerial logics. In this context, “global” no longer means expansive or redistributive; it increasingly means strategic, efficient, and risk-managed.

In all of these settings, sociological associations have nonetheless persisted, sustaining intellectual life amid uncertainty, fragmentation, and structural pressure. What matters analytically, however, is not only that they have endured, but how their conditions of endurance are patterned and interconnected across contexts.

While our national contexts differ, many of us are navigating analogous institutional tensions: dependency without capture, proximity without co-optation, survival without silence.

Connected Histories and Shared Structures

Moving away from treating each national sociology as a self-contained unit of resilience, and toward asking how sociological knowledge is produced under shared, though unevenly experienced, global pressures.

If we frame collaboration not only as national strengthening, but as reaching outward beyond the national—building lateral ties, shared analyses, and collective strategies—then international collaboration can do more than celebrate diversity. It can become a resource for sustaining, and defending, sociological life itself.

Toward New Directions Reimagining Flows, Networks, and Learning

reopening south–south exchange channels

breaking national silos

reversing the pedagogical flow

Toward New Directions Reimagining Flows, Networks, and Learning

What the PhD Laboratory is:An intensive, short-term pedagogical space for doctoral training Brings together a small, carefully selected cohort of PhD students Who participates: Doctoral students from different regions, institutions, and intellectual traditions An internationally diverse teaching faculty How it is organized Each laboratory is hosted by a university in a different country Emphasizes immersion rather than scale

Closing

The question, then, is not whether we collaborate, but how we choose to orient those collaborations: what flows we reinforce, which ones we interrupt, and which new pathways we are willing to build. If we take seriously sociologies forged across uneven conditions—of constraint and possibility, stability and disruption, proximity and distance—then collaboration can become something else: not a pipeline upward, but a network sideways.

Thank You!

Got an idea?

Use this space to add awesome interactivity. Include text, images, videos, tables, PDFs... even interactive questions! Premium tip: Get information on how your audience interacts with your creation:

• Visit the Analytics settings;
• Activate user tracking;
• Let the communication flow!

Got an idea?

Use this space to add awesome interactivity. Include text, images, videos, tables, PDFs... even interactive questions! Premium tip: Get information on how your audience interacts with your creation:

• Visit the Analytics settings;
• Activate user tracking;
• Let the communication flow!

Got an idea?

Use this space to add awesome interactivity. Include text, images, videos, tables, PDFs... even interactive questions! Premium tip: Get information on how your audience interacts with your creation:

• Visit the Analytics settings;
• Activate user tracking;
• Let the communication flow!

Got an idea?

Use this space to add awesome interactivity. Include text, images, videos, tables, PDFs... even interactive questions! Premium tip: Get information on how your audience interacts with your creation:

• Visit the Analytics settings;
• Activate user tracking;
• Let the communication flow!

Got an idea?

Use this space to add awesome interactivity. Include text, images, videos, tables, PDFs... even interactive questions! Premium tip: Get information on how your audience interacts with your creation:

• Visit the Analytics settings;
• Activate user tracking;
• Let the communication flow!