The discipline of International Relations in India, although vibrant and growing, has suffered from the straitjacket of having as its only points of reference, IR Theories originating in the western hemisphere. Although country of origin can hardly be held as a sweeping disqualification against scholarship, the acknowledgement of this fact can help scholars from non-western worlds become more self-reflexive about their own discipline. International Relations: Perspectives for the Global South steers IR towards the global south, with an emphasis on India, to open up an interdisciplinary dialogue between western IR and the social, political and economic realities of India.
The book was the outcome of sustained conversation about the state of the discipline, particularly in the Global South. First among the major concerns is the deeply-embedded ethnocentrism of the discipline, with North America dominating this branch of the social sciences, determining its intellectual agenda and monetizing research according-ly. The editors set out to challenge this dominance by opening up to issues and ways of thinking that are decidedly unorthodox as far as mainstream IR is concerned.