Prof. (Dr.) Deepshikha Shahi

Prof. (Dr.) Deepshikha Shahi is Associate Professor of International Relations at Jindal School of International Affairs (JSIA). Before joining JSIA, she spent twelve years teaching several courses related to International Relations and Political Science at Delhi University. She holds MA, M.Phil and PhD from Delhi University. After completing her PhD study on ‘post-911 Afghan crisis’ at Delhi University in India, she conducted her postdoctoral research on the ‘Indian philosophical contribution to post-Western International Relations’ at Kate Hamburger Kolleg, University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany.

Her current research interests revolve around the theoretical frameworks of Global International Relations, non-Western intellectual resources, pedagogical practices, politics of knowledge-production, Indian politics, Afghan politics, and global politics. Methodologically, she likes to perform symptomatological readings of the classical texts to theorise IR and to boost the transdisciplinary synergies between Humanities and Social Sciences. In her attempt to bridge the cognitive gaps between the West and the-non-West, and to make the academic discipline of IR more ‘inclusive’ (or more ‘Global’), she carried out a series of multidisciplinary explorations of the classical texts, such as Advaita, Arthashastra, and Sufism. Her books, Advaita as a Global International Relations Theory (2018, London and New York: Routledge), Kautilya and Non-Western IR Theory (2019, Cham: Palgrave Macmillan), and Sufism: A Theoretical Intervention in Global International Relations (2020, London and New York: Rowman and Littlefield) employ these classical texts to design a ‘de-centering agenda’ in IR that seeks to foreground the theoretical-practical complementarities between the West and the non-West.

She has to her credit multiple publications, including three single-authored books, an edited book, several book chapters, book reviews, and refereed journal articles in European Journal of International Relations, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, Global Intellectual History, Economic and Political Weekly, among others. She developed academic content for a postgraduate IR programme, ‘E-PG Pathshala’, funded by the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India. She also worked in the course-development committees at School of Open Learning, Delhi University, and School of Gender and Development Studies, Indira Gandhi National Open University. She has carried out peer-reviews for various reputed IR journals, such as European Journal of International Relations, International Studies Quarterly, and International Studies Perspectives. She is an editor of the Turkey-based journal, All Azimuth: A Journal of Foreign Policy and Peace.

She has participated as mentor in staff development programmes organised at European University Institute, Italy, and Indian Defence University, India. Her invited lectures and presentations have been delivered at American University, US, Tsinghua University, China, Ibn Haldun University, Turkey, University of Copenhagen, Denmark, Goethe University, Germany, University of Warwick, UK, International Studies Association Conference, San Francisco, US, and Millennium Conference, LSE, UK, among others. She has been an active member of prominent academic associations, such as International Studies Association (ISA), British International Studies Association (BISA), and World International Studies Committee (WISC). She aims to encourage a ‘multicultural pedagogical mission’ in IR which is concerned with not only where we (as learners of IR) come from or whether we can interact irrespective of wherever we come from, but also where we wish to go as future inhabitants of this incredible world which, according to her, perpetually was and manifestly is more interconnected than we ever projected it to be.