Decolonizing Political Science Teaching: Students Matter

• In Event: Theoretical Approaches

Abstract

Scholars such as Robbie Shilliam and Gurminder K. Bhambra have significantly contributed to decolonizing the political science curriculum and the discipline. Decolonizing the curriculum begins by exposing the colonial origins of the discipline's concepts, frameworks, and methods. This initial stage invites students to interrogate the limitations of the formalized discipline more thoroughly, challenging the epistemological foundations of the Western canon. By dislodging the theoretical and methodological underpinnings of Western political studies, the next step is to diversify the perspectives and voices in the curriculum, moving beyond dominant canonical sources. This shift broadens the curriculum and encourages students to evaluate the discipline critically. From here, educators can reevaluate learning objectives, assignments, and assessment strategies to transition from atomized, competitive, and segmented approaches to more collective, collaborative, and holistic methods.

This curricular and pedagogical transformation must better reflect and be shaped by who our students are. The two of us teach within the discipline of political science at an elite PWI (Predominantly White Institution). When we decolonize our syllabi in this context, we primarily engage with those who benefit from structural inequality in the US and globally. However, what we teach and how we teach can vary greatly depending on the institution of higher education. For both of us, teaching has occurred outside the confines of a prestigious research institution: in one case, at a high-security state prison in California, and in the other, at a women's university in India. Decolonizing our syllabi for students in these spaces looks very different precisely because of the differences in the student population.

In this paper, we use our experiences as teachers in multiple contexts to theorize a reflective decolonial pedagogy that centers on the importance of actual students in guiding the decolonization of political science curricula. Teaching about the US carceral state and prison abolition to young people in a competitive, co-ed, four-year university is quite different from teaching the same subject to incarcerated students. Similarly, teaching about gender and secularism in a co-ed university contrasts with teaching those topics in a women's university in the Global South. The goals of teaching these subjects are distinct. The types of information students need to be taught and the kinds of theorizing they generate from their experiences vary, meaning what they read and engage with in dialogue must also differ.

And yet, we are committed to decolonizing curricula in these disparate spaces by integrating students' experiences as the primary starting point for critical inquiry and learning. This approach ensures that the curriculum is diverse, relevant, engaging, and reflective of the students. It is evident that the same syllabus cannot be used in such divergent contexts. Decolonization must be attentive to the specific contexts of our students, not as a metaphor, as Eve Tuck & K. Wayne Yang (2012) stress, but as a political-ethical project aimed at the total transformation of settler-colonial society.

View paper on APSA Preprints here.

Authors

• Nandini Deo, Georgetown University Qatar

• D.C. Caivano, Lehigh University