The Personal Is Political: Teaching Decolonial Connected Feminist Middle East Politics through Self-Reflexivity

In the post-Cold War era, “Islamic terrorism” has taken the place of the Communist threat. The Middle East, a construct developed in nineteenth- and twentieth-century European colonialism, is the region from which this threat is said to emanate. Teaching politics of the Middle East is therefore by definition a political endeavor: even if students arrive to the classroom with very little factual knowledge about this region, they will, through media portrayals, inevitably bring a certain image of the region and its inhabitants. In this essay, I examine ways educators can promote critical, self-reflective connected decolonial thinking. I argue for the importance of a critical theoretical toolkit, drawing on anticolonial pedagogy and self-reflective praxis. Teaching in universities of the Global North to a mostly white, non—Middle Eastern student body, I encourage students to embrace self-reflexivity and develop embodied and connected feminist learning skills through self-reflective journaling.