With letters circulating, signatures being gathered, accusations of inaccuracies & unfairness on all sides - & little good coming to anyone - I imagine that I'm not alone in trying to think about how we can now find a constructive way forward #SecuritizationTheory #SDScandal

I also imagine that I'm not alone in thinking that most of the interventions in this debate - starting with the original article, proceeding through the discussions with the journal, the responses & subsequent interactions on social media could have been handled a LOT better

There is hurt on all sides and seeing one's friends tearing into each other on twitter is horrible. Now more and more colleagues, equally outraged and righteous, are being drawn in - and battle lines are being drawn ever deeper. This helps none of us.

It also doesn't help the causes at stake, IR's reputation nor our possibility to either understand or influence the world. So what to do. Without getting into specifics, a moratorium on public mobilisations (open letters, etc) would help end the cycle of accusations

Whatever anyone thinks of the original article, the discussion around it has certainly made many - I hope all - of us in IR think about how race, racism and other forms of structural prejudice and injustice shape our work and our actions more widely. There is common ground here.

If we want it. The controversy has also, helpfully, shed light on scholarly standards and shown, again, that peer review is not sacrosanct nor necessarily a guarantee of accuracy or veracity of knowledge production. there is much to learn here - for journals, authors & reviewers

How we handle complaints and disagreements between scholars has also been shown to be woefully inadequate. For all the claims of structural factors at work, we all know very well that it is our own, individual, careers and reputations at stake and heavily tied up in our work

So the kind of ‘critique’ that accuses the body of work of particular authors then disavows responsibility for accusing the authors is not helpful – however just or unjust the critical points being made. There are better ways.

However overblown the response to the original article, it has shown very clearly the need for the maintenance of academic standards and the need for proper channels of response and responsible handling by journals.

All of this has shown the need for what was rightly called for in the excellent podcast (below) – Generosity. Regardless of their other merits, neither the original article nor the response from B&W showed enough of this – & it is key to our field. https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/whiskeyindiaromeo/episodes/2020-05-21T14_58_46-07_00

As well as generosity we need to show more empathy. We can all, I’m sure, understand the passion that comes with striving in the name of a critical cause, but empathy would prevent the kind of critique that, in such a maximalist way, effectively goes for the kill.

And what is it trying to kill? There may be differences between cancel culture and abolition, but how we judge them largely depends on our normative positions, which again are largely shared. If its radical reform we want - then we should say that. language matters.

This kind of inflation affected critique may help one stand out from a crowded field but as @JarrodNHayes notes "the discussion started at a radicalized extreme [...] an entire research program was labeled racist & irredeemable" & couldn't really be productive after that.

As Lene Hansen noted, this type of 'critique' also carries the possibility of serious stigma – as Lene Hansen noted – however (un)justified it is.

However much we discuss structures, we know full well that in academia everything is personal – our reputations, and careers are bound up in our work. It goes all the way to and from the way we cite – by name and year.

It's therefore not surprising that such accusations, which threaten reputations and careers hurt and offend disproportionately – and provoke disproportionate responses in turn, which likewise threaten reputations and careers.

As we have seen, VERY clearly, this IS personal on all sides. What has been good about that is the highlighting of relative vulnerabilities & a strong discussion about power imbalances & privilege (in different ways) in the discipline & how this relates to 'critical' scholars

Recognition of mutual vulnerability and personal investment in work, empathy for the other (scholar) and thinking with as well as against are key in our line of work – and life. Generosity and empathy need to be the watchwords, not veneration or evisceration.

Amid all the talk of structures and structural factors, there is also need for consideration of our agency – how we can do better or worse; how, given different positions we occupy we can help or hinder causes and people.

The personal, the professional and the political are blurred and confused here and its difficult, but I'm pretty sure we can do better - a lot better. It starts with finding that common ground, which I am sure is there, but also in stepping back from the antagonistic brink.

That requires agency too. It requires someone to press the stop button, to be the one to see the smile in the other’s eyes and say, ok, how do we now make this better. How to make this agonistic not antagonistic

Having worked in post-conflict situations, and with people who have had their relatives killed by others, I’ve been astounded by the capacity of people to do this. Doing so in academic disputes should be possible too.

We need some fundamental reconsideratiosn of how we value our work and how we relate our work to ourselves – but also how we value each other. That goes for all sides in the debate.

We have common ground if we choose to recognise it – and that is the ground for a more productive kind of debate. We don’t have to agree and on many things we probably won’t, but we need to have an agonistic rather than antagonistic debate.

Lots to address, but lets start with ourselves and go forward rom there. And lets stop with the rest that is only driving a destructive cycle from which no one wins. Instead, lets think how to make this better, for us all - with generosity and empathy.