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Cosying up the desirability of EU democracy support in Africa to postdevelopment: a bridge too far?

by Nathan Vandeputte

This contribution is part of a blog series seeking to explore how postdevelopment approaches can inform, infuse and potentially transform the study of EU (development) policies and relationships with the Global South.

In 2018, Freedom House recorded the 13^th consecutive decline in ‘global freedom’, otherwise described as an ‘unfolding third wave of autocratization’. A notable factor has allegedly been the complacency of the international community, in particular the US, Russia, and China. Yet, also the EU is admonished, particularly since its new foreign policy instrument – the Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument that was approved by the European Council in July 2020 – does not convincingly emphasize democracy.

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[COVID-19 Pandemic: Worlds Stories from the Margins] Relinking as healing: Ruminations on crises and the radical transformation of an antisocial and antirelational world

by Julia Suárez-Krabbe

Relinking

My dear friend, mentor and guide among the spiritual authorities of the four peoples that inhabit Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in Colombia (from now on: Mamos), Saúl Martínez, once told me that he was sometimes asked if he was religious, and that his answer was yes – in the etymological sense of the word: re-ligare (Latin), re-link. And Saúl also emphasized that it is important that I relink in/to Denmark too, inasmuch my roots lie here as much as they lie in Colombia. This re-linking with the Mother as we have used it with Saul not only complements Walter Mignolo’s notion of delinking from modernity-coloniality,[i] it also involves a movement into decolonial healing. Indeed, while delinking is an important move, it appears incomplete if it is not accompanied by relinking, a continued practice of deep reconnection. As we will see, relinking is crucial to these reflections.

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News from the Convivial Thinking Writing Collective: Engagements with the (de)coloniality of development research and teaching

The latest issue of Acta Academica contains the Special Focus: How do we know the world? Collective engagements with the (de)coloniality of development research and teaching.

The Special Focus was guest edited by the Convivial Thinking Writing Collective. Our collaborative engagements with the topic have evolved from a workshop in early 2019 and a consecutive blog series. Convivial Thinking is a collective platform seeking to surpass boundaries of origin, ethnicity, professional affiliation and academic disciplines in order to give space to inclusive, interdisciplinary and alternative approaches to mainstream methods of knowledge production, especially in the context of “development”. The articles in the Special Focus reflect these concerns.

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[COVID-19 Pandemic: Worlds Stories from the Margins] Between solidarity and charity: a dialogue from the kitchen

The Barricade is a volunteer-run collective inspired by raccoons and anarchism, active as a public library and an anti-foodwaste kitchen. Our* library has a variety of radical left wing books and zines that can be loaned for free. We believe that self-education is a crucial element in the struggle for social change and therefore we aim to provide a space for collective learning. We organize discussions, reading groups and workshops that are free and open to anyone interested. Our vegan dinners are for donation and made out of what would have been otherwise trash. By fighting foodwaste we make it possible for people to eat a decent meal without having to pay a fortune.

* The I of this story is actually a we, collecting the experiences of more people part of The Barricade collective.

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How postdevelopment can transform EU (‘Development’) Studies

by Sarah Delputte, Jan Orbie and Julia Schöneberg

This is the introduction to a blog series seeking to explore how Postdevelopment approaches can inform, infuse and potentially transform the study of EU (development) policies and relationships with the Global South. The aim is to stimulate thinking about different imaginaries of ‘another Europe’ and alternative role(s) the EU could/should play, inspired by insights from postdevelopment thinkers. The blog series results from various exchanges and discussions between the contributors since early 2019. It builds, amongst others, on the insights gained through a reading group on post-development at the Centre for Studies (CEUS) at Ghent University, a full-day workshop on bridging EU- & Post-Development in May 2019 and a visiting scholarship by Julia Schöneberg at CEUS in September-October 2019.

Although much research on the European Union (EU) and its ‘development policy’ can be considered ‘critical’ towards the EU’s policies and approaches, remarkably, post-development debates have remained largely off the radar in debating the EU’s global role. In line with a call by Manners & Whitman (2016) to advocate for more dissident voices in theorising Europe, and Schöneberg’s (2019) plea for ‘practical’ post-development, we argue that a post-development perspective towards EU ‘development’ can contribute to the field in important ways. In framing our approach, we want to use postdevelopment insights to imagine the EU as part of a ‘pluriverse’ and foster more creative and critical thinking on the EU and its relations with the so-called ‘Global South’.

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[COVID-19 Pandemic: Worlds Stories from the Margins] Eating my Food Politics; Reflections During COVID-19

by Rosa de Nooijer

Image 1 – Quince by Paul de Nooijer

My ways of eating have become fundamental to the way I want to be in the world. Food has always played an important role in my life, as we need food to stay alive, but it also connects us to those around us, whether that is when we are growing food, eating food or when we are caring for the earth and the other-than-humans on and in it. However, over the past years, I have come to understand that much of the food we buy and eat is produced in agricultural landscapes that are highly industrialized and mechanized. Not just that, but the bigger food systems, of which the growing of crops is only a small part, are de-humanizing and exploiting workers all over the world to ‘please the needs of consumers’ and destroying bio-cultural diversities to sustain capitalism and other oppressive systems. Also, the inequalities that are reproduced in these food systems result in the majority of the world population relying on cheap and unhealthy food, which increases their risks to a variety of diseases, one of which is COVID-19 which has been linked to different food-related diseases, for example diabetes, obesity and malnourishment.

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Cultural management and transition: reflections during the pandemic

by Ana Agostino

On 29 April this year the Faculty of Culture from University CLAEH in Montevideo organised a forum to reflect on the role of cultural managers during the pandemic, where different approaches and visions were shared. I was glad to participate and contribute with some reflections. This text is the continuation and deepening of those first ideas.

The current crisis caused by the Coronavirus pandemic has transformed daily life in almost all countries of the world. In these four months, countless articles have been written in Uruguay and around the world on the impact of the pandemic, on the possible exit and future scenarios. If we could talk about the density of virtual meetings, we could certainly be facing a historical record, not only of simultaneous activities in the virtual space but also of the number of people on line. Most of them analysing the very meaning of the pandemic itself, a variety of aspects of reality and their relationship to the phenomenon. Perhaps the greatest coincidence in this babel of seminars, articles, videos and other diversity of tools used to try to understand and project, is that reality as we know it, to a greater or lesser extent, will change. It is changing. It changed. And therefore it is possible to say that the future, the sense of the future, is in dispute.

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[COVID-19 Pandemic: Worlds Stories from the Margins] Caring for Our Shared Life-Worlds

by Wendy Harcourt

In her beautiful and widely circulated piece in Con Tactos, Judith Butler speaks of Human Traces on the Surfaces of the World asking us to consider deeply our interconnectedness:

“The virus lands on, enters, one bounded body and departs to land on the skin of another or on an object, looking for a host —the surface of a package, the porous material of a shared world” (21 April 2020).

The question is how can we share this world, as we all feel our vulnerability and our interconnectedness. How can we move beyond the deep multifaceted inequalities which are so starkly revealed in the pandemic and work towards maintaining communities that are based on care and respect for others diversity and our common responsibility for our shared life-worlds.

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Re-enchanting Education Beyond the Crisis: On Care in Knowledge Re-Creation

by Adrian Schlegel

The COVID-19 pandemic, its political responses as well as their devastating social consequences have left me unsettled and weary. As for many students, this moment of total uncertainty has pushed my heart off a cliff while tying my head to the desk attempting to focus on classwork. Continue reading “Re-enchanting Education Beyond the Crisis: On Care in Knowledge Re-Creation”

It is time to abandon “development” goals and demand a post-2030 Utopia

by Mia Kristin Häckl and Julia Schöneberg

Following the critique, by Brecht De Smet, of the inherent shortcomings of the development paradigm, Julia Schöneberg and Mia Kristin Häckl argue for a post-2030 Utopia that starts now. They propose to ‘un-develop’ the Global North and to start from a multitude of radical alternatives from below.

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