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The ethics of scholarship in a changing region

Peoples and states in the Asia-Pacific face acute and overlapping insecurities: competition between countries; domestic violence, instability, and poverty; normative contestation between local and global values; and susceptibility to climate change and natural disasters. Tensions in the region are amplified by complex issues of history and memory, with scholars playing important roles in defending and challenging competing narratives. Meanwhile, universities have become increasingly neoliberalised, which has led to considerable revisions in terms of how the core functions of academics—research, teaching, administration, and outreach—are framed, measured, and rewarded. What does this all mean for those of us working in these contexts? This broad question motivated a pair of roundtable discussions held on 25th–27th June 2016 at the ISA (International Studies Association) Asia-Pacific conference at University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong and at the Seventh Oceanic Conference on International Studies in Brisbane at University of Queensland, Australia on 4th–6th July 2016. The intent was not to outline or defend a specific ethic of scholarship, but to reflect on how each of us understands our own role and responsibilities. One unresolved issue is how relevant the specific context of the Asia-Pacific is: are there unique or distinct features to this region that create specific demands on us as academics? Here the contributors diverge: for some, regional issues clearly shape their reflections; for others, their responses connect to more general disciplinary concerns. There is now a growing debate about whether the discipline of International Relations (IR) has lost its way, with concern about it splintering into narrow sub-fields while failing to provide influential ideas or big theories (Dunne, Hansen, and Wight 2013; Jahn 2016; Rosenberg 2016). These big questions remain important, but so do the seemingly smaller but equally significant ones about how each of us reconciles the competing demands we face as researchers, as teachers, as employees, as colleagues, as friends, and as people. In presenting these reflections, the aim of the forum is to show how some of us engage with these basic dilemmas, and in doing so, encourage further discussion around how we should study and practice IR.