critical | decolonial | collaborative
by Joschka Köck
A question that I have often asked myself as a researcher and theatre maker is: Can social science jump off the page and into reality? Can theatre jump off the stage and become/have impact on reality? In this webinar I will try to argue that this is not a yes/no question but rather we should ask: How can and do we have impact on reality as activist researchers/theatre makers?
by Julia Schöneberg
Postdevelopment proponents offer the most radical critique of past and present development policy and cooperation: It is failed. Rather than thinking about alternative development approaches, reforms and refinements, they call for a full abandonment of “development” as a discourse, as a vision and as a practice. Proponents like Escobar, Esteva, Sachs and many others have been challenged as merely offering critique, but no construction. Indeed, the vision for alternatives to development remains blurry. Almost 25 years ago, Escobar proclaimed that truly just alternatives can only source from the grassroots, the local, the communities. This may be right to some extent, yet realising that grassroot alternatives are not existing in a vacuum, but in a system of globalised, neoliberal capitalism makes it hard to imagine how these alternatives can claim their just and legitimate spaces.
Continue reading “Alternatives to what?: From “The Divide” towards the “Pluriverse””
by Vanessa Bradbury
I felt a deep sadness on the 31st of January 2020, as the UK left the EU. It was a sadness that seemed to run much deeper than the repetitive ‘what ifs’ of politics, policies and trade deals echoing through news channels. A sadness that seemed personal, and, as I was trying to understand and reflect on these emotions, brought me to question the ambiguity of identity, ‘Britishness’ and, ultimately, what this farewell will mean for the wider project of decolonisation.
by Budd L Hall
I live in Victoria, British Colombia on the traditional territory of the Lekwungen-speaking peoples, the Songhees, Esquimalt and W̱SÁNEĆ First Nations. Indigenous people have been living in British Colombia for at least 16,000 years. It is the home of 52 different First Nations with about the same number of languages. Continue reading “Indigenous Sovereignty and the Canadian Colonial State: Pipelines, Orcas and a Poem”
by Julia Schöneberg
Starting to read about critical perspectives towards “development” you will soon encounter post- and decolonial literature and arguments, popping up regularly as catchwords. Both are not homogenous streams of thought, but rather certain standpoints from which “development”, capitalism, Eurocentrism, Anthropocentrism and the ongoing legacies of colonialism are critiqued and contested.
Then, you may notice that likewise postdevelopment (PD) comes with a “post-“ prefix. How to make sense of all the “post” and “de”? How do they all connect?
You’re confused? Fret not and look no further, here’s a zine for you!
We are calling on scholars of EU Studies, Development Studies, International Relations and related fields.
We would like to invite you to submit your abstracts for our panel session on “Views on the EU as a development actor in conversation with postdevelopment”, which will take place at the upcoming EADI ISS 2020 Conference in The Hague (29 June – 2 July 2020): https://www.eadi.org/gc/2020/
by Fiona Faye
I felt uncomfortable when writing about other people after my last research stay in Benin. In qualitative research, you have so much material and then you need to decide what to take in, what to leave out. The picture is always incomplete because you only have a certain number of pages. How can you make comprehensible to the readers all you saw and experienced and everything people explained to you so patiently? Even worse, you have the power to choose and thereby to substantially shape what the readers will think about the persons or groups of people you are writing about. It’s this kind of power, which is probably impossible to avoid (is it?) when writing about somebody else, which makes me feel uncomfortable in my skin, especially as a white researcher in Benin.
Continue reading “Uncomfortable in white Skin: Research, (Self-)Reflexivity and Representation”
Read also in SPANISH
It’s time to abandon development and think about postdevelopment instead.
by Julia Schöneberg
“They talk to me about progress, about ‘achievements,’ diseases cured, improved standards of living. I am talking about societies drained of their essence, cultures trampled underfoot, institutions undermined, lands confiscated, religions smashed, magnificent artistic creations destroyed, extraordinary possibilities wiped out. They throw facts at my head, statistics, mileages of roads, canals, and railroad tracks. […] I am talking about natural economies that have been disrupted – harmonious and viable economies adapted to the indigenous population – about food crops destroyed, malnutrition permanently introduced, agricultural development oriented solely toward the benefit of the metropolitan countries, about the looting of products, the looting of raw materials.”
– Aime Césaire (1950): ‘Discourse on Colonialism’
by Rabbia Aslam
(English below)
Continue reading “Empirical Evidences of a Scholar from the Periphery of the Global South”
by Laura Loyola-Hernández
This intervention is written from someone who is from the Global South and working in a Global North institution, often encountering racism, xenophobia and “white fragility;” someone in between borders, juggling dos lenguas, two epistemologies and cultures.
Continue reading “As scholars from the Global South, we must resist being complicit”