Learning and Unlearning: Sowing the Seeds of a Decolonising Mindset

By Peter Taylor / part of our “Share your Decolonising Story” project

Beginnings

I grew up in an industrial town in the North of the United Kingdom, and as a child my experience of agriculture was visiting the countryside, rather than working on farms. Along the way, I became very interested in farming and food production, and my first job was working on a dairy farm. I went on to study agricultural science at University. After that, I continued working for several years in different areas of agriculture and horticulture, enjoying the practical side of things, even when spending much of my time in wet, windy and cold conditions.

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What Challenges for Global Development Research are Posed by a More Decolonial Approach?

By Laura Camfield

The appetite for decolonial approaches within development research is growing, prompting a critical examination of the colonial origins of conventional methodologies such as surveys and ethnography. These methods, historically employed as tools of colonial governance, continue to shape development research and limit space for decolonial alternatives. In this blog post I explore colonial continuities in research methods and examine the potential of decolonial alternatives, acknowledging the challenges posed by existing power dynamics within the field).

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Confronting My Family’s Colonial Past. A Personal Journey

By Martha Knight / part of our “Share your Decolonising Story” project

Unravelling the threads that shape our understanding of the impacts of colonialism is a multifaceted and highly complex task.  I know this because I teach Global Development for the Open University (OU) and grapple with decolonising dominant discourses around development and change.  However, this is a personal story.  This is a story which goes beyond the intellectual challenge of decolonising knowledge and sits squarely with my family’s role in colonialism.  Something I only discovered recently.

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Navigating France’s Political Landscape: Implications for International Development Aid

By Hugo Pilkington / Part of the European Development Policy Outlook Series

Amid a welter of political drama, and after having successfully hosted the Summer 2024 Olympic games, France is struggling to find a stable government. The country still has no budget for 2025. This is not the norm (the last time anything roughly similar happened was in 1979) but can be said to proceed from the unusual events of Mid-2024. The current political conundrum arose on the heels of a snap election called, in a surprise move, by Emmanuel Macron, following disastrous results for his own political movement – Ensemble pour la République – during the European elections of June 9, 2024.

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