CEVAW at OCIS 2025: Showcasing Feminist International Relations and the Fight Against Gendered Violence
From 9–11 July, CEVAW researchers joined scholars from across the region for the 2025 Oceanic Conference on International Studies (OCIS), held on the traditional lands of the Bidjigal Peoples, at UNSW Sydney Kensington Campus.
Across several panels and roundtables, CEVAW contributed to important conversations on state and structural violence, radically transformed futures grounded in gender justice and feminist international relations. Some highlights from the conference included:
Roundtable: How State Violence Perpetuates and Enables Violence Against Women
CEVAW’s Professor Bina D’Costa chaired this vital roundtable featuring Dr Helen Stenger, Dr Zoe Bell, Ms Queenie Tomaro, and Dr Phyu Phyu Oo, discussing how state structures and repression, across Australia and the Indo-Pacific, enable and compound violence against women, and what meaningful resistance and accountability could look like.
Panel: The End of the Liberal International Order – The Case of Afghanistan
This panel interrogated the limits and contradictions of the liberal rules-based international order, drawing on Afghanistan as a case study. CEVAW’s Professor Jacqui True and Dr Farkhondeh Akbari joined experts including Emeritus Professor William Maley, Dr Niamatullah Ibrahimi, and moderator A/Prof Srinjoy Bose to explore how recent developments in Afghanistan expose global failures in promoting peace, democracy, and gender justice.
Reframing Security from a Feminist Political Economy Approach
CEVAW PhD Candidate Daniela Philipson Garcia’s paper, “Reframing Security from a Feminist Political Economy Approach: (De)militarising Mexico’s War on Drugs,” offered sharp insights into how militarisation fuels gender-based violence and women’s experiences of insecurity, both informing and challenging traditional security thinking.
Norms Research in International Relations – Past, Present, Future
This academic roundtable brought together key thinkers in the field, including Professor Jacqui True, Professor Sara Davies, Profssor Phil Orchard, Dr Liam Moore, and others, to reflect on the evolution of norms in international relations, critically important in addressing violence and gender inequality.
Workshop: Building Communities of Care and Resistance
As part of a half-day workshop focused on supporting HDR and ECR scholars of colour, Professor Bina D’Costa helped centre care, reciprocity, and collective flourishing, challenging the isolating logic of competition in academia.
Panel: Imagining Radically Transformed Futures
CEVAW Associate Investigator Professor Kirsten Ainley chaired a future-oriented conversation focused on feminist, decolonial, and participatory methods for reimagining social justice in the face of global crises. Speakers explored possibilities for radically inclusive futures and rethinking partnerships for social transformation.
ARC Grant Success Roundtable
Professor Bina D’Costa shared insights on research strategy and grant-writing in international relations during a special session aimed at supporting scholars navigating Australia’s challenging funding environment.
Roundtable: Unruly Politics in the Contemporary World
In a timely discussion, Professor Bina D’Costa joined Ms Catherine Hirst, A/Professor Nicole George, Mr Lukas Nagel, and Professor George Lawson (Chair) to explore the global surge in “unruly politics” from riots to revolutions. The panel mapped the roots of this unrest, corruption, inequality, inflation, and examined cases in Myanmar (Nagel), Bangladesh (D’Costa) and the Pacific (George).
CEVAW acknowledges the Bidjigal Peoples, the Traditional Custodians of the lands on which OCIS 2025 was held. We pay our respects to Elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.