Critical Race Theory “Is Your IR Class Racist?”

In this chapter, we sketch a pedagogy for teaching race/racism in IR theory classes based on three core assumptions: first, as argued by race scholars, that racism produces race, rather than the other way round; second, as evidenced by postcolonial scholars, that race and racism is integral to the study and practice of international politics; and third, that therefore a responsible IR pedagogy must be anti-racist. Adopting a total approach to the classroom, as a space in which race is always already present, we identify five tests—the Rosa Parks test, the Aberystwyth test, the W.E.B. Du Bois test, the Small Facts test, and the Black Lives Matter test—to help teachers of IR theory think through where and how their pedagogy might be improved. The chapter concludes with some suggestions for how teachers might negotiate the racial complexities of the classroom, particularly in an era characterised by widespread attacks on any such teaching as itself racist.