Critical Pedagogy and International Studies: Reconstructing Knowledge Through Dialogue with the Subaltern

Abstract

The emerging trend and pressure for higher education to internationalize the curriculum, meet the challenges of globalization and prepare students for global citizenship is identified as the ‘global turn’ in education. The notion of knowledge production in a global context raises epistemological questions regarding the community of knowing subjects and institutions who participate in and structure such knowledge systems. Critical pedagogy offers a theoretical framework in which we can imagine students and teachers engaging in dialogue with knowing subjects of other cultures and locations with the aim of creating a global community of knowledge production. Challenges to such dialogue as articulated by subaltern studies are viewed as critical in considering the politics of knowledge claims and imagining the possibility of democratic practices and discourse in global and international knowledge construction.