Film in an IPE classroom: for a critical pedagogy of the everyday

Abstract

This article discusses the use of film as pedagogical material to teach Everyday International Political Economy (EIPE). Film is an effective tool to bridge IPE research and teaching, and to fully integrate the everyday an as object of IPE scholarship and pedagogy. Film allows students to develop an understanding of IPE that considers often forgotten actors of the global economy, and to see how the global economy shapes and is shaped by what takes places in schools, workplaces, and households. The article discusses one practical experience of using film to teach EIPE: a ‘Political Economy of East Asia’ course developed by the author. It offers a concrete demonstration of how three movies can be integrated into the curriculum to discuss themes such as regional outsourcing, financial crises, East Asian developmentalism, the global division of labour, cultural globalization, and China’s economic rise; how active learning through film is encouraged; and how students’ work on these movies is assessed. The article concludes by addressing methodological difficulties, students’ evaluations of the course, and future research.

Keywords:

• Film
• pedagogy
• everyday
• actors
• curriculum
• East Asia

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers of Review of International Political Economy for their constructive comments on previous versions of this article. I would also like to thank all those with whom I discussed this pedagogical strategy, and who provided insightful feedback: David Shim, Roland Bleiker, Bill Callahan, Gabi Schlag, Kyle Grayson, Ian Bruff, Kamil Zwolski, Natalia Zaslavskaya, and Shane Markowitz.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Retrieved from http://i-peel.org/

2 Indeed, only one student from Vietnam had seen one of the three films, which is a popular 1990s Wong Kar-Wai film.

3 Including Hoang’s (2014) ethnographic account of sex work and changing imaginaries of economic geography in Vietnam.

4 I thank an anonymous reviewer for this excellent suggestion.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Juliette Schwak

Juliette Schwak is Assistant Professor of International Relations and Political Science at Franklin University Switzerland. She is a political economist with a sociological approach whose work focuses on the Republic of Korea. She has published research on Korea’s nation branding and foreign aid, and she is currently working on a monograph on the everyday politics of economic competitiveness in Korea.