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SASNET hosts STANCE seminar

The STANCE brownbag lunch seminar is held Wednesday September 12 from 12noon-1pm in the large conference room in Eden. This seminar presentation will consider the construction of Afghan statehood as a ‘frontier state’ through the development of colonial knowledge by the British in India.

Martin b
The presentation will delineate the intellectual origins of this knowledge, its influence on policy decisions, and its impact on nineteenth century Anglo-Afghan relations. The presentation will also reflect on the implications this case study has for the treatment of empire and statehood by the International Relations discipline as a whole. 


Bio: Martin J Bayly is a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow in the International Relations Department at LSE, where he has taught International Relations since 2014. Having joined the Department as an LSE Fellow his latest research project, funded by the British Academy, will be hosted by the Centre for International Studies for the duration of 2016-2019. His research interests concern empire and International Relations in South Asia, with a particular emphasis on knowledge and expertise as a product of the colonial encounter. His first book, Taming the Imperial Imagination, published by Cambridge University Press in 2016, provides a new history of Anglo-Afghan relations in the nineteenth century showing how the British Empire in India sought to understand and control its peripheries through the use of colonial knowledge. The book was awarded the Francesco Guicciardini Prize by the International Studies Association for best book in historical international relations 2018. His current research concerns the origins of modern international thought amongst South Asian intellectuals in the early twentieth century. His work has appeared in The Review of International Studies, The European Journal of International Relations, The British Academy Review, and elsewhere. Prior to joining LSE he taught at King’s College London where he also completed his PhD. He holds an MPhil in International Relations from St Antony’s College Oxford and a BA in Politics from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne.