Introduction: TWAIL - On Praxis and the Intellectual

Authors

Usha Natarajan, American University in Cairo
John Reynolds, National University of Ireland
Amar Bhatia, Osgoode Hall Law School of York UniversityFollow
Sujith Xavier, Faculty of Law University of Windsor

Author ORCID Identifier

Amar Bhatia: 0009-0007-1883-1899

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

9-22-2016

Source Publication

Third World Quarterly, 37(11), 1946–1956. https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2016.1209971

Keywords

Third World; TWAIL; praxis; international law; Global South; Cairo

Abstract

This Special Issue emerges from the Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL) Cairo Conference in 2015 and addresses the conference theme, ‘On Praxis and the Intellectual’, by focusing on different aspects of the intellectual as a political actor. In introducing this Issue, we provide some background to the TWAIL network, movement, event, and publications; and delineate our own understandings of scholarly praxis as editors and conference organisers. Broadly, we understand praxis as the relationship between what we say as scholars and what we do – as the inextricability of theory from lived experience. Understood in this way, praxis is central to TWAIL, as TWAIL scholars strive to reconcile international law’s promise of justice with the proliferation of injustice in the world it purports to govern. Reconciliation occurs in the realm of praxis and TWAIL scholars engage in a variety of struggles, including those for greater self-awareness, disciplinary upheaval, and institutional resistance and transformation.

Repository Citation

Natarajan, Usha; Reynolds, John; Bhatia, Amar; and Xavier, Sujith, "Introduction: TWAIL - On Praxis and the Intellectual" (2016). Articles & Book Chapters. 3267.
https://digitalcommons.osgoode.yorku.ca/scholarly_works/3267