Decentring the Western Gaze in International Relations: Addressing Epistemic Exclusions in Syllabi in the United States and Canada

Decentring the Western Gaze in International Relations: Addressing Epistemic Exclusions in Syllabi in the United States and Canada

Over the past few decades, International Relations (IR) scholars started to acknowledge the field’s racist and colonial legacy. However, only a few studies examined ethnocentricity in the Western IR classroom, and whereas most studied textbooks and graduate training, they seldom looked at undergradu...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Millennium 2023-07, Vol.51 (3), p.686-710
Main Author: Sondarjee, Maïka
Format: Article
Language:eng
Subjects:
Academic disciplines
Classrooms
Colonialism
International relations
Qualitative research
Racism
State
Textbooks
World history
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Summary:Over the past few decades, International Relations (IR) scholars started to acknowledge the field’s racist and colonial legacy. However, only a few studies examined ethnocentricity in the Western IR classroom, and whereas most studied textbooks and graduate training, they seldom looked at undergraduate courses. This article demonstrates that the discipline is taught to IR scholars-to-be by centring Western experience, epistemes, history and agency. After defining the Western gaze of IR, I explore ways to decentre syllabi in the presentation of (1) world history, in (2) reading lists and in (3) the minds of Western IR instructors. This article is based on a qualitative analysis of 50 ‘Introduction to IR’ undergraduate syllabi in the United States and Canada. Décentrer le regard occidental en relations internationales : Les exclusions épistémiques des plans des cours aux États-Unis et au Canada
ISSN:0305-8298
1477-9021