Knowledge Production and Power Asymmetries in the Reordering of the Global Order: Perspectives from the SWANA Region

Ongoing challenges to international law and the role of international organizations raise pressing questions about the stability and future of the global order. Recent policy choices by major powers, particularly the United States, have visibly eroded the international system as it has been understood in recent decades. This has significant implications for the concept and practice of sovereignty. These transformations are not only of a geopolitical and economic nature, but also epistemological, reshaping the frameworks through which the global order is interpreted, contested and governed.
In this evolving context, Europe and Asia occupy a pivotal position, with the South West Asia and Norh Africa - SWANA region emerging as a crucial site where global power asymmetries intersect with persistent epistemic hierarchies. Actors in these regions have developed variuos strategies of resistance, adaptation, and accommodation in response to shifts in global governance, power distribution, and normative frameworks. While shaped by distinct historical experiences, institutional settings, and geopolitical constraints, these strategies also reflect converging concerns about autonomy, security, and economic resilience. At the same time, however, they also reveal ongoing tensions in the production, circulation, and validation of knowledge, often structured by unequal access to resources, platforms, and legitimacy.
This panel invites contributions examining how state and non-state actors in the SWANA region engage with and reshape dominant regimes of knowledge production whitin the context of global asymmetries. We particularly welcome papers that explore the interplay between power and knowledge, including how epistemic hierarchies are reproduced, contested, or transformed across different sites and scales. Contributions may also address the methodological implications of studying these dynamics by reflecting on how research design, positionality, language, and access shape the production of knowledge about—and within—the region. We encourage submissions that engage critically with questions of epistemic justice, methodological pluralism, and the potential for more symmetrical—or explicitly asymmetry-aware—approaches to understanding the ongoing reconfiguration of the global order.