Encountering Pedagogy: A Forum on Naeem Inayatullah’s ‘Pedagogy as Encounter’

Publication Date

7-30-2026

Document Type

Article

Publication Title

Millennium Journal of International Studies

DOI

10.1177/03058298261443431

Abstract

The tension between the pragmatics of information and the heroics of liberation sets up much of the conversation on teaching. Naeem Inayatullah’s Pedagogy as Encounter unsettles this foundational dichotomy by proposing a change of starting point: what happens to pedagogy when we shift our fundamental assumption from the possibilities of teaching to its impossibility? He provocatively states, ‘Teaching is impossible. Learning is unlikely. Encounter is the remainder’. This forum offers critical responses to Naeem Inayatullah’s book. With pieces solicited from scholars at different points in their academic careers, each contribution grapples with the provocative claims of the book in distinct ways. Within the forum, readers will find a multiplicity of forms and points of critique and reflection, highlighting the political stakes of Inayatullah’s book, basic pedagogical principles, and reflections on the difficulties and imperatives of pedagogical and academic inheritance. Also included in this forum is a response from Naeem Inayatullah, giving the forum a dialogical shape.

Keywords

autobiography, critique, encounter, impossibility, learning, pedagogy, teaching

Department

Sociology and Interdisciplinary Social Sciences

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