Strata and Strategies of Teaching about the Global “Other” Using Critical Feminist Pedagogical Praxis

Abstract

In this paper I analyze the way “globalization” is deployed in U.S. universities as a value-addition. I explore issues of teaching about the global “other,” as well as the “third world” and other unfamiliar, objectified spaces. Through critical discourse analysis of syllabi I outline some representational and pedagogical trends. I also draw from my experience of teaching globalization-focused courses, including courses on transnational feminisms, international literature, social movements, migrations and socio-economic exchanges to undergraduate students. Teaching about "the other" often leads to a multiplier effect of "othering" within the classroom. Using transnational feminist perspectives, I argue that teaching such classes, on "global" "transnational" or "international" women, gender, sexuality and feminisms require de-centering not just dominant paradigms but also of oneself as purveyor of insider/global knowledge. I also argue, like many others before me, that a classroom can serve as a site for epistemic injustices and colonizing acts, and we must attempt to find ways in which such neo-colonial damages can be mitigated. This paper is an exercise in finding some ways to de-center and decolonize dominant discourses on the global "other” and suggest critical and compassionate pedagogical strategies.