So, is the study and practice of development politics inherently flawed? Post-development theorists would certainly say so, with a nihilistic call to completely abandon the idea of development as a ruined and malfunctioning “invention of the West” (Sachs, 2010: viii). However, denying agency to those in the ‘Global South’ is colonising in of itself, and as Sally Matthews (2017) argues, ignores the cautiously pro-development African perspective. She is part of a much larger community of academics that have proposed several ideas about the ways in which we might be able to ‘decolonise’ the subject, particularly with reference to the African continent, but what does this actually mean?

What does it mean to ‘decolonise’?

As a history graduate, I came to the session with a relatively solid understanding of the historical precedent that has led to such debates, from the ‘Scramble for Africa’ among European powers, to the sweeping post-war rise of independence. Decolonisation in this sense, was the throwing off of Yanguas’s ‘old rules’ (2018) in favour of the hope of a new kind of ‘decolonised’ politics. However, several decades later and the ‘post-colonial hangover’ of legal structures, local elites and neo-colonial interventions still persists, as Aldous Huxley once noted:

“That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all lessons that history has to teach.” (Huxley, 1959)

Should we decolonise development politics?

Central to ideas about decolonisation is Edward Said’s seminal work ‘Orientalism’ (1995), one that I am familiar with and which critiques normative ‘eurocentric’ world views and histories. Sabaratnam (2011) builds upon these ideas to frame her six ‘intellectual strategies’ for decolonisation, which I read in preparation for the session.  

In our first group task, I was able to employ one of these strategies by pointing out the discursive Orientalisms in Paul Collier’s ‘Bottom Billion’ (2007). He perceived it to be his Oxford-educated obligation to provide direction to “ill-equipped” (Collier, 2007: ix) African states, which is indicative of the paternalistic way some academics have viewed the ‘Global South’. As a British student, I am aware of Oxford’s own role in the ‘Rhodes Must Fall’ movement, reflecting an increasing desire within universities to decolonise academia. But this is merely symbolism, what about knowledge itself?

Does ‘Southern’ knowledge offer the answer?

Southern academics are key to decolonising development politics, but their ideas may well be a reflection of many years based in Northern institutions. Ali Mazrui (1995: 28), for example, applies Weberian interpretations of statehood uncritically to the African context of failed states, such as Somalia. This is later mirrored in development practice in that country, with AMISOM’s 2007 intervention rejecting clan-based political authority in favour of a more western-style multi-party system (Fisher, 2018). This intellectual domination of western frameworks within African ideas only goes to show how ingrained neo-colonial perspectives are within development politics, and how difficult it is to decolonise them.

What should we do?

There is no question that academics, policymakers, development practitioners, and we as students, need to do more to decolonise development politics. In fact, I was surprised to learn just how far we still have to go. The point of contention now is just how far to decolonise and how? Among the many ideas discussed at the end of the session, the one I found most personally achievable was to read and cite more genuinely ‘Southern’ academics in my assignments. This may be a difficult task given the structural inequalities against them (Medie and Kang, 2018), but it is one I will endeavour to apply.

References

Collier, P. (2007) The bottom billion electronic resource: why the poorest countries are failing and what can be done about. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Fisher, J. (2018) ‘Somalia and its neighbours: AMISOM and the regional construction of a failed state’. African Affairs. Accessed abstract available at: https://research.birmingham.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/somalia-and-its-neighbours(7129dbfb-4bf8-4ced-9e59-7be4e573b964).html

Huxley, A. (1959) “Case of Voluntary Ignorance. In Collected Essays. New York: Harper.

Matthews, S. (2017). “Colonised Minds? Post-Development Theory and the Desirability of Development in Africa”, Third World Quarterly, 38 (12): 2650-2663.

Mazrui, A. A. (1995). “The Blood of Experience: The Failed State and Political Collapse in Africa”, World Policy Journal, 12 (1): 28-34.

Medie, P. A. and Kang, A. J. (2018) The shocking absence of Global South scholars in international journals [Online]. Available at: https://africanarguments.org/2018/07/30/shocking-absence-global-south-scholars-international-journals/ [Accessed 6th January 2019].

Sabaratnam, M. (2011). “IR in Dialogue…but Can we Change the Subjects? A Typology of Decolonising Strategies for the Study of World Politics”, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 39 (3): 781-803.

Sachs, W. (2010) The Development Dictionary: A Guide to Knowledge as Power 2nd ed. London and New York: Zed Books.

Said, E.W. (1995) Orientalism. Reprinted with new afterword. edn, London: Penguin.

Yanguas, P. (2018) Why we lie about aid: development and the messy politics of change. London : Zed Books.