This panel examines the political and intellectual utility of indigenous myths for decolonising International Relations/Studies in the Asia-Pacific. It asks how myths, stories, cosmologies, and fantasies drawn from indigenous knowledge traditions can unsettle the ontological, epistemological, and methodological foundations of mainstream IR/IS pedagogy and research. Rather than treating indigenous myths as cultural artefacts or symbolic residues of premodern life, the panel approaches them as living archives of world-making, political imagination, and relational knowledge.
Despite growing interest in decolonising International Relations/Studies, the field continues to privilege Western social imaginaries, categories of analysis, and claims to universal knowledge. This panel responds to that limitation by centring indigenous myths as sources of political theory and relational practice.
Bringing together scholarship on Asia and the Pacific, the panel explores how indigenous myths challenge the assumption of a singular universal world, expand the terms through which political community and subjectivity are understood, and open alternative ways of thinking about sovereignty, hierarchy, belonging, human/non-human relations, and global order. It invites papers that examine how indigenous myths from Asia and the Pacific reconfigure what counts as knowledge, who is recognised as a political subject, and how relations among humans, non-human beings, territories, ancestors, spirits, and worlds are imagined and governed.
Guiding Questions
• How can indigenous myths contribute to the decolonisation of International Relations/Studies pedagogy and research?
• What kinds of political imaginaries, worldviews, and relational ontologies are made visible through indigenous myths?
• How do indigenous myths challenge colonial hierarchies, Western epistemic authority, and supposedly universal categories of political analysis?
• What methodological possibilities emerge when myths are treated as theoretical resources rather than merely cultural narratives?
Proposed Themes
1. Plural Worlds and Decolonial World-Making: Papers may examine how indigenous myths sustain pluralistic world-making practices among communities minoritised by colonial and postcolonial nation-building projects.
2. Indigenous Epistemologies and Diversality in IR/IS: Papers may investigate how myths unsettle Western social imaginaries, challenge colonial aesthetics of thought, and create space for indigenous ways of knowing, teaching, and researching International Relations/Studies.
3. Dismantling Colonial Hierarchies and Rehumanising Relations: Papers may explore how indigenous myths subvert colonial politico-economic systems, decentre Western hegemonic knowledge, and reconfigure the terms through which humanity, agency, and relationality are recognised.