Pedagogies for Cultural Change

Abstract

Abstract How does (or should) the international relations classroom respond to a time of cultural change? To prepare the international relations practitioners for tomorrow, this chapter suggests addressing cultural changes through immersive understandings with borrowings from arts and anthropology, both known for interpreting cultural meanings. International relations represents cultural meanings about the world and frequently analyzes the cultural origins of the discipline. Culture is about the constitution of symbols, meanings, and rituals, and the institutions that support them. International relations arose as a formal discipline in the twentieth century when cultural meanings of global politics were defined through European great power rivalries and subsequently the multilateral institutions that arose after World War II. The current cultural changes include new forms of international interactions shaped through artificial intelligence and digital technologies, reckoning with global exclusions through oppressive structures such as racism, and existential crises such as climate change and pandemics. Three cultural techniques relevant for international relations are discussed: cultural immersions that enable reflexivity, multimodal techniques that enable complex consciousness of human interactions, and ethnographies that enable listening for building theoretical repertoires. Taken together, the techniques develop a critical consciousness about the world to recognize and adapt to cultural change through problem solving.