Relationship of Responsibility: Indigeneity in the IR Classroom

Abstract

This chapter starts with the premise that International Relations is, in itself, a disruption. There are so few International Relations (IR) engagements of Indigenous frameworks, experiences, and knowledges, let alone Native and First Nations scholars doing this important work. Why is this? For starters, Indigenous experiences and insights are incongruent with foundational principles that undergird IR theorizing and teaching and formations of political thought that fall outside of the state system are cast as incommensurable and, therefore, erased or ignored. IR itself is deeply implicated in the violent system of (settler) colonialism that functions to continue this erasure. A discussion on Native American, First Nations, or Indigenous approach to pedagogy in the IR classroom must, therefore, assert forcefully that there is no singular Indigenous approach, neither to IR practice nor classroom pedagogy. A complex rendering should lay the foundation for a reconstruction of an entire world and worldview. Moreover, the foregrounding of indigeneity offers a generative space to critically analyze various understandings of disruption. With this in mind, this chapter suggests an Indigenous approach to pedagogy premised on two broad concepts foundational to Indigenous worldviews: relations and responsibility.