Hiding in Plain Sight: Pedagogy and Power

Pedagogy is fundamental to scholarship of global politics but too often remains unseen. Moreover, when it is seen, it is largely regarded as a narrow epistemological engagement concerned with the transmission of knowledge. We argue that pedagogies should be recognized as an ontological undertaking, shaping how we know, relate, and act. We draw attention to the subversive and generative potential of critical and creative pedagogies to critically interrogate dominant power structures and hegemonic narratives. The purpose of this article is not so much to point International Relations educators toward particular pedagogical practices, but to provoke reflection on what the pedagogies we habitually employ bring into being and what they foreclose. Revealing pedagogies as a source of power encourages intentional pedagogical practices to critique, diversify, and re-story global politics. In the final section of the article, we outline some of the ways we have transformed our pedagogical practices in recent years, paying particular attention to relationality and awareness of place and context.