Description
This paper emerges and is situated within a moment marked by the increasingly visible neoliberal appropriation of ‘decolonisation’, while the persistence of colonial violence continues to expose the contradictions within institutional claims to decoloniality. Co-written with undergraduate students, the paper reflects on the course ‘Global Palestine and the Politics of Solidarity’, taught within a Politics and International Relations programme, as a pedagogical site through which to navigate and confront these contradictions. It explores how decolonial learning, even within the constraints of the neoliberal university, might be cultivated through moments of affective dissonance that open possibilities for a praxis-oriented pedagogy grounded in affective solidarity. Drawing on Zembylas’s (2023) concept of ‘affective infrastructures’, the discussion situates the pedagogy of affective solidarity within a dynamic constellation of material arrangements, discursive frameworks, and the affective intensities that circulate within the classroom. The paper discusses the curriculum design, delivery, and assessment of the module, envisioned as an attempt to practice a decolonial praxis pedagogy rooted in affective solidarity, and examines students’ reflections on their learning experiences.
