Voices: The EISA Podcast is the official broadcast of EISA, the European International Studies Association. This space for cutting-edge research in the discipline of International Relations is the audible companion to EISA. Apart from our flagship conference, the EISA organises a range of innovative events and activities for scholars and students working in the field of International Studies. This podcast sets the stage for deeper insights into award-winning papers, books and theses, as much as it provides a room for the critical engagement with key concepts in political and sociological thought. Voices: The EISA Podcast traces how these concepts have been taken up in the discipline of IR. It interrogates their emergence, their gendered and racialized omissions, and their relevance to current debates and analyses. Through our erudite interview guests, a wide range of critical reading, and reflections on our everyday experiences, Voices: The EISA Podcast helps to think through core IR concepts.
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Voices: The EISA Podcast is the official broadcast of EISA, the European International Studies Association. This space for cutting-edge research in the discipline of International Relations is the audible companion to EISA. Apart from our flagship conference, the EISA organises a range of innovative events and activities for scholars and students working in the field of International Studies. This podcast sets the stage for deeper insights into award-winning papers, books and theses, as much as it provides a room for the critical engagement with key concepts in political and sociological thought. Voices: The EISA Podcast traces how these concepts have been taken up in the discipline of IR. It interrogates their emergence, their gendered and racialized omissions, and their relevance to current debates and analyses. Through our erudite interview guests, a wide range of critical reading, and reflections on our everyday experiences, Voices: The EISA Podcast helps to think through core IR concepts.
Why is...Rahul Rao interested in the Psychic Lives of Statues?
Voices: The EISA Podcast
50 minutes
6 months ago
Why is...Rahul Rao interested in the Psychic Lives of Statues?
What do recent controversies over statues reveal about global politics and the legacy of empire? In this episode, Rahul Rao (University of St. Andrews) joins us to discuss his new book “The Psychic Lives of Statues: Reckoning with the Rubble of Empire” (Pluto Press, 2025). In conversation with host Polly Pallister-Wilkins, Rahul Rao talks us through his work in which he explores how debates over statues – from Cape Town to Bristol and Richmond – uncover deeper struggles over race, caste, and decolonisation, and how these disputes have reshaped anticolonial political thought. Journeying through sites of contestation across South Africa, England, the US, Ghana, India, Australia, and Scotland, he examines how societies grapple with justice, cultural memory, and belonging through the icons they choose to honour or remove. Rahul Rao´s research spans international relations, postcolonial and queer theory, and South Asian politics. His award-winning work focuses on the global politics of identity-especially gender, sexuality, race, and caste.
Voices: The EISA Podcast
Voices: The EISA Podcast is the official broadcast of EISA, the European International Studies Association. This space for cutting-edge research in the discipline of International Relations is the audible companion to EISA. Apart from our flagship conference, the EISA organises a range of innovative events and activities for scholars and students working in the field of International Studies. This podcast sets the stage for deeper insights into award-winning papers, books and theses, as much as it provides a room for the critical engagement with key concepts in political and sociological thought. Voices: The EISA Podcast traces how these concepts have been taken up in the discipline of IR. It interrogates their emergence, their gendered and racialized omissions, and their relevance to current debates and analyses. Through our erudite interview guests, a wide range of critical reading, and reflections on our everyday experiences, Voices: The EISA Podcast helps to think through core IR concepts.
