Epistemic Erasures: Unlearning and Reimagining Comparative Political Science

• In Event: Toward a Spacious Comparative Politics: Knowledge Production & Outsiders Within

Abstract

The comparative political science cannon conventionally prioritizes the work of Western scholars who are undertaking research on both ‘industrializing’ and ‘developing’ countries. Non-mainstream, critical approaches – which include but are not limited to feminist, intersectional, decolonial/postcolonial and critical race approaches to comparative political science – at best tend to be taught at the last weeks of the course, under the theme of “other approaches to comparative political science “or at worst are omitted altogether. Only teaching mainstream approaches to comparative political science means that researchers who are interested in using methods, methodologies and theoretical frameworks outside the canon are placed at a disadvantage because they are then tasked with having to learn a whole new set of literature of how to do comparative work outside the mainstream. I argue in this paper that comparative political science, as a field, suffers from its tendency to centre hegemonic approaches because it forecloses the possibility of considering political power in multi-faceted and in nuanced ways, as experienced and as theorized by actors who conventionally would not be seen as ‘political.’ Using an autoethnographic approach, I reflect on the challenges that I faced when studying Comparative Political Science as one of my main core courses in graduate school. I assess the epistemic erasures emerging from a cannon that only included Western-based scholars. This canon promoted colonial, Western-centric tropes that left unquestioned how states are categorized and compared, and that relegated analysis of race, gender and other social locations at the realm of the individual. I also discuss how my research on migrant domestic workers’ social movements necessitated unlearning hegemonic knowledge claims in Comparative Political Science and familiarizing myself with feminist epistemologies and interpretive methodologies. Ultimately, this paper is in favour of an expansive comparative political science that sees the value in counter-hegemonic approaches to Comparative Political Science because these add depth and nuance to one’s understanding of the political world.

Author

• Ethel Tungohan, York University