Critical Whiteness Studies and International Relations: disputing narratives and challenging epidermalized structures of power in teaching, research and extension

Abstract

This paper aims to demonstrate that Critical Whiteness Studies (CWS) may provide useful tools for interpreting epidermalized relations of power in the international system and for challenging the racial dynamics that cut across the teaching, research and extension dimensions in the field of International Relations. This study shows that CWS have potential to support the implementation of Law 11.645/2008, which requires the inclusion, in a cross-curricular manner, of education regarding ethnic-racial relations in higher education curricula in Brazil. In this paper, I provide an introduction to the field of CWS, drawing primarily from the Brazilian afro-feminist contribution in pretuguês of Cida Bento, with her concept of narcissistic pacts of whiteness. Methodologically, this article makes use of a decolonial approach, based on bibliographic and documental research techniques. This paper stresses the importance of naming and historicizing the power of whiteness, to understand how it hegemonizes itself in space and time, and through which means it does so. It is a novel and original study, which innovates by introducing Black epistemologies and stating their applicability as regards teaching, research and extension, opening paths to destabilize the colonial support beams of the IR field.

Keywords

• Critical Whiteness Studies
• International Relations
• Racism
• Teaching, research and extension