Knowledge and power: Rethinking language for a renewed perspective

The current polycrisis is reshaping many of the political, economic, social and environmental dynamics that have defined the international system over the past 80 years. While the future remains uncertain, one thing is increasingly clear: the frameworks and dynamics of yesterday cannot simply continue to be the basis for addressing the challenges of tomorrow. 

The approaching deadline of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development makes this particularly evident. According to the Sustainable Development Goals Report 2026, only 36% of SDG targets are showing sufficient progress, while a significant share remains unchanged and 15% has regressed from the baseline. These figures point not only to gaps in implementation, but also to the difficulty of sustaining collective action at a time when polarization increasingly shapes relationships amongst states, societies, and between humanity and nature. 

A shared blueprint for peace, prosperity and sustainability cannot deliver its promise without the collective cooperation needed to put it into practice. Collective cooperation is difficult to build when the realities we face are understood through increasingly dated, biased, polarized or fragmented frameworks. If “business as usual” is no longer an option, then change cannot only concern what we do differently; it must also concern how we understand the world in which we live. Rethinking the language we use, questioning the sources and assumptions that shape our perspectives, broadening the voices and forms of expertise we engage with, and becoming more aware of our own position within these processes are therefore not merely academic exercises. They are essential to develop the capacity to respond differently to the challenges before us. 

It is based on this premise that UNSSC and the American University of Beirut (AUB) have launched the programme Navigating the Middle East: Politics, Engagement and UN Relations, a face-to-face course taking place in New York from November 2 to November 5, 2026.

Deconstructing orientalism 

Policies and priorities are never developed in a vacuum but are grounded in a particular understanding of reality. Before actions are taken, assumptions are established and realities are named. Giving and receiving a name has intrinsic power, as well as the language used to describe people and contexts: they reflect the dynamics, relationships and influences amongst the parties involved.  

Language is not always neutral in describing reality; rather, it can determine what becomes visible, how it is interpreted, and what responses appear possible or acceptable. 

The way we speak about regions of the world offers a particularly clear illustration of this dynamic. Consider the term “Middle East”. Middle compared to whom? East compared to where? What appears to be a straightforward geographical designation positions an entire region in relation to an external and subjective point of reference. Terminology is not simply descriptive; it carries histories, assumptions and power relations that shape the way a region is represented, understood and engaged with.  

This reflection provides an opportunity to ask a fundamental question: what could happen if we paused to examine the language, categories and sources through which we have learned to understand a place? What histories are embedded in the terms we use? Would changing words affect our understanding? These questions extend beyond terminology. 

Edward Said, a pioneer in post-colonial studies in the Middle East, invites us to examine how knowledge is produced in his most famous work, Orientalism: what sources do we rely on? Whose expertise do we accept as true? Which perspectives are represented and which remain absent? What disciplines and methodologies inform our understanding?  

We are challenged to examine our frameworks and understandings as a whole. Meaningful engagement with a region means broadening the range of sources, disciplines, experiences and forms of expertise through which a context can be understood, while recognizing the value and relevance of the voices within the region itself. It means listening to local voices as reliable sources and not as background noise. 

It also requires a degree of reflexivity. Knowledge is never produced from nowhere: individuals and institutions occupy specific historical, political and institutional positions, which influence what they see, what they prioritize and how they interpret what they encounter. Therefore, questioning our assumptions also means questioning our own role in producing and reproducing specific understandings of reality.  

Describing a region through a geographical term without relationing it to another region represents the first shift for moving beyond the knowledge about the region towards forms of knowledge-building that emerge with and from it. This way, local expertise becomes an essential condition for developing more informed, insightful and context-sensitive approaches to engagement and cooperation.  

This is precisely why the programme Navigating Middle East Dynamics: Politics, Engagement, and UN Relations is needed.  

It invites participants to deconstruct interpretations of the region, providing them with the tools to question the lenses through which it is understood. It also addresses terminology, histories, political and social dynamics, economic interdependencies and the broader landscape of multilateral cooperation and UN engagement, while encouraging participants to examine the assumptions and sources underpinning their own understanding.

AUB is not only a partner in developing a programme on the region, but a vibrant voice from it, contributing to the development of expertise and skills for regional engagement. This collaboration reflects a broader principle: effective policy and multilateral cooperation cannot be built through a one-directional transfer of information, but rather through meaningful exchange with the people, institutions and communities at the heart of the realities and issues in question.