Decolonising gender and nationalism through critical pedagogies: A case study from Mexico

This chapter focuses on the analysis of an undergraduate experimental course on Nationalism, Gender and Global Politics delivered in a private Catholic university in Northern Mexico, designed to examine the nexus between the masculinisation of international relations and nationalisms from a gendered perspective, to counter recurrent and prevalent gender stereotypes, and to highlight women’s and LGBTQ groups’ under-representation in International Relations scholarship. The chapter, thus, examines the populist and patriarchal rhetoric of the state and its configurations with respect to gender, race and class in Mexico by employing critical pedagogies and feminist epistemologies through ethnographic research. The case study aims to illustrate and exemplify the broad implications of the intersections between homonationalism and femonationalism intended as processes of othering in a neoliberal context. Moreover, the discussion on sexuality and the body opens up the debate on the limits of heteronormativity and related discourses on hegemony and marginalisation.