Human Territoriality and Teaching First Image Theorizing in IR

• In Event: TLC at APSA: Doing Global Politics: Simulating the Dynamics of International and Comparative Political Phenomena

Abstract

Teaching first image theories requires an effort on our part to ask our undergraduate students to reflect on their own subjectivity as it relates to conflict and international relations. This is a demanding task as students and individuals at large would think of themselves as rational beings who would want to avoid conflict and war. This manuscript shares a simulation at the individual level of analysis that the author has used over the course of ten years of teaching International Relations Theory. The simulation exemplifies the workings of the theory of human territoriality with the assistance of random volunteers in the classroom. During the simulation the volunteers interact with one another and in doing so reveal to the audience that they are carrying around themselves boundaries that they feel protective of and when intruded either stand their ground or retreat. The simulation is very successful in teaching the students that a) theories are very relevant and help explain human behavior b) understand human communities at large who feel a connection with space c) shows the workings of a theory as an explanation of conflict at the individual level of analysis d) realize that theories are not universal but do show differentiation across culture, time, and space. The manuscript also shares the author’s cross-national experience in teaching this simulation across American, European, and Middle Eastern cultures. The manuscript concludes by asking colleagues to critically reflect on the universality of theories of international relations and the very practice of teaching them.

Author

• Halit M Tagma