République des Savoirs

Laboratoire transdisciplinaire du CNRS, ENS et du Collège de France

Site web : http://geopolitics-of-risk.ens.fr/en/collaborators/marie-kwon

Axes de recherche :

Titre de thèse :

« A Theory of the Indo-Pacific and its Consequences
for European External Action »

Directeur de thèse :
J. Peter Burgess (ENS)
Cotutelle : Julien Pomarède (Université de Liège)

Année académique d’inscription :
2022-2023

 

Abstract:
The rise of the Indo-Pacific as a distinct regional sphere is a notable phenomenon in contemporary world politics. It is also becoming an increasingly significant element of the European Union’s external action today. Combining an innovative reading of traditional International Relations theories with insights drawn from Critical Geopolitics and Political Philosophy, this doctoral project takes part in the development of Indo-Pacific literature with two original investigative agendas. First, it explores how the region’s local actors interpret the regionalist “Indo-Pacific” project. Starting from an understanding of regions as political-strategic spaces and, at once, historical-cultural milieus, the project will explore a proper, deeper genealogy of the Indo-Pacific idea. Secondly, based on extensive periods of fieldwork in South Korea, India and Indonesia, this project asks how a further knowledge of the Indo-Pacific’s sub-regional textures and its genealogical-historical backgrounds can inform EU policy-making. This analytical focus speaks of the unique feature of EU-Indo-Pacific relations as an encounter between multilateral political forms. With these phenomenological as well as epistemological objectives in mind, the objective is to make a historically informed and original contribution to European Foreign Policy Studies.

Keywords:
Regional studies; International Relations; Critical Geopolitics; Post-colonialism; Europe-Asia Relations.