Enseignement et pratique professionnelle

M08 - Workshop 'Let's Give Them Something to Talk About'

Date: May 31 | Heure: 08:45am to 10:15am | Location: Classroom - CL 431 Room ID:15725

Chair/Président/Présidente : Megan Gaucher (Carleton University)

Discussant/Commentateur/Commentatrice : Kiera Ladner (University of Manitoba)

Session Abstract: Although political science departments remain largely white, largely settler, and largely male, conversations about expanding, diversifying, and Indigenizing the “core” of the discipline have increased both in number and in tenor. There is growing demand for new research methods, new teaching approaches, and new areas of scholarship that reflect the demographics of Canadian society and the students whom we teach. There is also some recognition that research employing intersectional, anti-racist, Indigenous, or feminist frameworks offer fruitful analytic potential for political science and the potential of revealing new answers to old question. At the same time, loyalty to the canon runs deep, and there are questions about the maintenance of established forms of expertise and knowledge production. Panelists will tackle key questions and debates in this area. Their papers will examine feminist and Indigenous methods in IR, the use of intersectional, anti-oppression approaches in Canadian political science, the possibilities for disciplinary decolonization, and the representation of immigrants and minorities in political science textbooks.

What is Your Lingua Franca?: Methodological Progress in the Field of International Relations: Leah Sarson (Dartmouth College)
Abstract: It was only twenty years ago that Keohane demanded that Tickner define her research program as a feminist International Relations scholar. While the field has expanded since then, the impudence of his 1998 article remains a dividing force. For Tickner, the boundaries between her approach and those of positivists and neopositivists, as Keohane self-identified, were based on their adherence to a scientific method of causality and testability versus a more reflexive practice of “knowledge-building”. But are the two sides that different? This paper investigates the boundary between advancing and expanding the field to include diverse ontologies, epistemologies, and methodologies and the need to cultivate the fundamental lingua franca essential to the sharing and disseminating of academic knowledge within a defined field. By exploring recent work on feminist and Indigenous scholarship in International Relations, it asks what it means to be critical in a discipline and questions the relationship between established standards of authority and expertise and knowledge production. In response to the questions implicit in this paper – what is good work and good work for whom – it argues that enhanced pedagogy on critical methods, and particularly research design, can provide the bridge between maintaining the common language of the field while also encouraging development beyond its traditional limits.

Decolonizing International Relations: Disruptions from the Margins: Mariam Georgis (University of Alberta)
Abstract: International Relations, like most disciplines, tells stories about itself -- stories about its origins, its great thinkers, and dominant theories. These stories take the Global North as their point of departure with the ideals of peace and security as their intended destination. Drawing on contemporary debates within postcolonial and decolonial theories, I argue the erasure of race as an analytical category in the stories of IR is made possible through a series of ontological and epistemological maneuverers. These in turn, structure a ‘common sense’ of the parameters of the field and consequently, how it is taught. It is my contention that IR, as a field that purports to study the world, can no longer sustain this colonial starting point. The paper is organized to reflect IR pedagogically: first, I critically analyze the story of IR as it has been told, exposing the core’s similar epistemological assumptions regardless of its seemingly opposing ontologies. Second, I examine critical theorists’ responses to the traditional story of IR to show they too commit similar errors in terms of violence against the Other, despite important contributions and attempts to broaden the field. Third, I argue that IR as a field is sustained through its refusal to acknowledge its colonial legacies. I demonstrate that when the margins are IR’s point of departure, the gendered, racial, and class hierarchies that shape the field become visible. Countering the core of IR with voices from the margins is a critical pedagogical step in decolonizing IR.

Linking Indigenous and Western Knowledge Systems and Intersectionality: Pushing Political Science: Leah Levac (University of Guelph)
Abstract: Pressing socioeconomic, political, and ecological challenges demand new approaches to creating and acting on research, including in (and in collaboration with) political science. Canada’s acknowledgment of the persistent legacy of colonization, including through responses to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s (2015) final report, recognizes that the attempted erasure of Indigenous peoples’ knowledge and knowledge systems has resulted in missed opportunities for creativity and innovation in pursuit of research that advances social justice and sustainability. Some knowledges have long been marginalized within Western scientific traditions as well. Women, queer, disabled, and racialized knowledge holders are examples. One of the responses to these exclusions has been the theoretical idea and practice of intersectionality. This paper explores the connections and disconnects between theoretical and applied frameworks that link Indigenous and Western knowledge systems (“linking frameworks”) (e.g., Evering, 2012; Gaudry, 2011), and intersectionality (e.g., Hancock, 2007; Bowleg, 2008). Drawing on the results of an extensive scoping review, I answer the question, “What methodologies bring together linking frameworks and intersectionality”? As part of responding to this question, I offer examples of the application of identified methodological principles and data collection approaches in political science and public policy research (e.g., Chatwood et al., 2015; Clark, 2016; IRPP, 2012), and postulate on how the application of these methodologies challenges all aspects of the research process, not only in terms of how we work (our methods), and how we talk about or share our work (knowledge mobilization), but also how we exist as reflexive and relational beings.