Disrupting U.S. Think Tanks’ “Pedagogies of Cruelty” and Orientalist Discourses on Yemen

• In Event: The Geopolitical Economic of Knowledge Production

Abstract

Scholars have documented think tanks’ impacts on U.S. foreign policy and links to Department of Defense and Department of Defense contractors funding. Drawing on decolonial and postcolonial theories, this paper examines the pedagogical and policy impacts of U.S. think tanks reports on Yemen in the context of Yemen’s support of Gaza. We argue that in their reporting on Yemen, think tanks have operated as “stenographers of the state,” sustaining and mobilizing U.S. imperial interests and perpetuating “pedagogies of cruelty” (Segato, 2018) that facilitate modern/colonial violence and Orientalist understandings of Yemen while obfuscating U.S. complicity.

Authors

• Alexandra Allweiss, Michigan State University

• Shireen Al-Adeimi, Michigan State University