Global South Instructor Teaching in the Global North “A Caribbean Perspective on IR Theory in American Liberal Arts Education”

A Caribbean scholar brings specific assets in teaching IR theory to students in the US. These include openness to multiple theoretical perspectives and habits of thinking, and willingness to synthesize the best insights from any relevant source. This synthesis integrates Western and Global South influences, comprising African, Asian, and Latin American elements. A scholar’s access to global histories and ideas is valuable to students in the US who have limited prior exposure. Inter-cultural contact in the classroom gives US students the confidence for critical and respectful evaluation of fraught topics such as race and gender in IR theory. Using hermeneutics in teaching helps students to understand the context of challenges and debates that led to particular IR theories. Vivid metaphors and colorful art are powerful teaching tools that help students anywhere to map patterns of relationships and axes of debate in world politics.