The academic field of international relations ignores the Global South and is limited by its reliance on the English language, a South African humanities scholar has argued.

Peter Vale, professor of humanities at the University of Johannesburg, made the argument in a memorial lecture at Aberystwyth University on 14 March.

The discipline does not see the world outside of Europe and the United States as ¡°having an independent role or agency in the [global] system¡±, he explained to Times Higher Education after the lecture, which commemorated the historian and international relations scholar Edward Carr, who once held a professorship at Aberystwyth.

The subject of international relations developed within what Professor Vale called the ¡°knowledge courts¡± of the Global North, and so ¡°its universe was Europe and the US,¡± he argued.

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It is ¡°totally preoccupied with the European state system. Everything else is seen as peripheral,¡± he said.

However, with the rapid economic growth of the so-called Bric nations (Brazil, Russia, India and China) this might be changing, he continued.

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Professor Vale also argued that international relations, as a subject, was mainly conducted in English, but this meant it could be missing out on different sets of assumptions about the world that were embedded in other languages.

¡°English is a terribly hierarchical language. I think English¡­is increasingly a technical language,¡± he said, and as a result the discipline had itself become technical, which ¡°turns international relations into a series of contractual relationships between people.¡±

The lecture is set to be published in the journal International Relations later in the year, Professor Vale said.

david.matthews@tsleducation.com