Pedagogical approach

Teaching philosophy

My teaching philosophy is characterised by three core, interrelated goals: “scrutinise”, “decarbonise” and “decolonise”.

By the shorthand “scrutinise” I simply mean analysing the actions of economic and political actors to lead students beyond an initial understanding of how the social, economic and political realms are organised. I push students to become obsessed with the “why”.

The term “decarbonise” encapsulates how my teaching is aimed at addressing the, and preparing students for, the climate and environmental emergency. Broadly, this means both teaching political economy with an environmental perspective and teaching environmental matters from a political economy standpoint. The point is to teach as if nature mattered, that is, to challenge the in-built degradation, devaluation and extraction of nature which are inscribed in paradigmatic ideas, entrenched institutions and longstanding material interests, from economic growth and fossil fuels to government and the conditions of production. In practice, it entails not just integrating but fore fronting cutting-edge, pluralistic and interdisciplinary scholarship on the environmental and climate crisis in an organic and dynamic manner in the social science curriculum in order to “decarbonise” it.

Finally, by “decolonise” I signal my intention to 1) reshape the curriculum and teaching delivery to offer a truly integrated and holistic perspective to the material – the point being that only a multi-causal, intersectional approach can reveal the fault lines of the world’s main challenges, from inequality and poverty to climate change; 2) rely on critical and de/post-colonial thinkers to challenge the traditional Western canon – the objective being to shed light on the history, present and future of the world economy which have so far been obfuscated and rendered opaque as taught in IPE and other disciplines; and 3) highlight the role of traditional and Indigenous knowledge from beyond the Western world that has usually been suppressed in both policy and in academia – to show the intrinsic wealth and value of non-Western cultures, nations and leaders, and the challenges and critiques they bring to traditional approaches and policies.