Ida Roland Birkvad (she/her) is a Fellow in Political Theory in the Department of International Relations at ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳. Her research engages with questions related to international political theory, history, and postcolonial politics.
Ida is currently developing a monograph based on her 2022 PhD thesis: The Aryan Other: A Conceptual History of Connection. The monograph considers Aryanism’s trajectories in the time of British imperialism in the Indian subcontinent. Contrary to its popular understandings as an endogenous European notion of white supremacy, the monograph rather understands Aryanism as an inter-elite political concept produced through sustained and heterogeneous interactions between European imperial and Hindu Indian elites. These historic examinations lead the project into a larger theoretical effort to re-centre the coordinates of Western intellectual history by pointing to the agential role of the colonial periphery in articulating modern Romanticist thought.
More broadly, Ida has been engaged in interdisciplinary explorations related to critical strands of International Relations. Inspired by intellectual and political traditions such as South Asian anti-caste critique and the emerging field of transfeminism, she interrogates theoretical, historical, and political intersections between race, caste, gender, and sexuality.
Ida conducted her doctoral research in the School of Politics and International Relations at Queen Mary, University of London (QMUL), where she was supervised by Professor Kimberly Hutchings. Her PhD was supported by the Leverhulme Trust. Prior to her PhD, Ida worked at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) where her research was focused on migration, international security, and minority politics.
With over ten years of teaching experience in higher education, Ida has taught at all academic levels at numerous institutions, including the ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳, QMUL, SOAS, and the University of Oslo. She is the proud recipient of a 2023-24 ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳ Class Teacher Award.
Ida is co-convenor of IR502 International Relations Theory/Area/History Research Workshop for the 2024/25 session.
Not available to supervise MPhil/PhD students.