Global North Instructor Teaching in the Global South “Teaching IR Theory in the Global South: An Autoethnographic Approach”

The teaching of IR theory in the Global South represents a complex entanglement of intellectual content and pedagogic process with exclusionary social structures, which often defies an easy categorization as either a process inherent to colonial modernity or a possibility for emancipatory reasoning. This is not surprising, as the Global South itself should not be understood as a geographic space, or as a collectivity of persons with commonality of interests, but rather as a network of sites in which structural inequalities are enacted in complex and often contradictory ways. Proceeding from autoethnographic reflections on our experiences of teaching IR theory in Colombia and Myanmar, respectively, we demonstrate some of the creative readings and hybridizations that IR theory may receive in Global South contexts. We also discuss some experiences gained from trying to teach IR theory in an inclusive and co-constructive process with students.