Description
Despite bell hooks’s assertion, in 1994, that “the classroom remains the most radical space of possibility in the academy”, the development of such a radical space within IR appears to remain limited on many levels (Sen 2022; Sondarjee 2023); resources on teaching practice in IR from a decolonial, abolitionist and/or anti-racist perspectives do not necessarily abound. Nevertheless, this roundtable seeks to demonstrate that many educators in IR are implementing these liberationist practices in and through their teaching. The RT brings a few of them together offering a space to collaborate and think about the articulation between theories and practices, with the objective of collectively developing abolitionist, decolonial and anti-racist praxis in IR pedagogies. We hope that our RT will serve to light a flame that can be carried forward in academic spaces.
Roundtable speakers: Alyssa Claire Arends on “Queer decolonial approaches to IR pedagogy”, Amira Abdelhamid and Marianela Barrios Aquino on “Ethical pedagogies based on the approaches of bell hooks, Cusicanqui and Freire, Althea Rivas will be looking at the relationship between politics, scholarship and practice in relation to race and racism in IR and the everyday realities of the academy, and Jenna Marshall and Sharri Plonski will be bringing together legacies and realities of liberationist movements from the plantations to Palestine into the teaching of IR, and weaving this with the everyday battles of marginalisation and silencing in academic spaces.
Covenors: Heba Youssef and Leila Mohieb
