Latin America: Brazil “Teaching IR Theory in Brazil’s Northeast: The Challenge from the Periphery within the Periphery at the Paraiba State University (UEPB)”

The examination of International Relations Theories in Brazil's Northeast region exhibits the unique attribute of existing at the periphery within the periphery. Faced with a Eurocentric epistemological framework, the imperative to foster meaningful engagement among students of international relations with the theoretical underpinnings of the discipline necessitates that instructors furnish the requisite tools. This endeavor aims to imbue the course with a critical outlook that draws the student body closer to the subjects and scholars under scrutiny. The central contention of this article is that the field of International Relations (IR) should adopt an inductive approach to delineating its expansive terrain of theories, amalgamating indigenous and distinctive perspectives. Specifically within the Brazilian context, a reexamination of viewpoints grounded in the cosmologies of indigenous peoples, alongside emancipatory pedagogical paradigms, is advocated. Such an approach facilitates the incorporation of Brazilian students as active agents within IR, transcending their characterization merely as peripheral subjects of regional thematic inquiry.