Posted on

Towards a Non-Extractive and Care-Driven Academia

by Vijay Kolinjivadi, Gert Van Hecken, Jennifer Casolo, Shazma Abdulla and Rut Elliot Blomqvist

The white gaze permeates many aspects of even the most critical disciplines. In this piece, we offer some thoughts on how we might reclaim what the university could be  – a place that equips people with the knowledge they need to unlearn/unmake/dismantle the knowledge framings and worldviews that lend themselves to white supremacy and other forms of oppression more broadly.  Continue reading “Towards a Non-Extractive and Care-Driven Academia”

Posted on

Empowering African Universities to have an impact

By Liisa Laakso   | EADI/ISS Blog Series

Discussions on the impact of higher education and research have increased, together with the rise of strategic thinking in the management of universities during the last decade. Governments, taxpayers and private funders want to know which benefits they get from universities. Academic Institutions, in turn, want to prove how their work is beneficial to society in multiple ways. This tells us much about the global management culture in public services – and about a new pressure against the academic authority and standing of universities. Continue reading “Empowering African Universities to have an impact”

Posted on

Why a decolonial lens must be at the heart of all those who claim to research and teach “development”

By Julia Schöneberg  

My research focusses on decolonial approaches to knowledge production and pedagogy, especially in the context of “development”. Development is a contested term that has been filled with different, sometime contradictory meanings. I am convinced that one cannot meaningfully speak about “development” without seriously considering critique and arguments brought forward by decolonial scholarship. Essentially, this means to acknowledge and to confront the ongoing impacts and legacies of colonial rule in all realms of academia, society and politics. Continue reading “Why a decolonial lens must be at the heart of all those who claim to research and teach “development””

Posted on

Knowledge, Asymmetric Power Relations and Us

By Henning Melber

Rather than summarising my chapter on “Knowledge Production, Ownership and the Power of Definition: Perspectives on and from Sub-Saharan Africa” in Building Development Studies for the New Millennium, I’d like to offer some additional thoughts I am dealing with since I wrote the piece. These thoughts are motivated by the view that that such asymmetries are not a matter confined to North-South relations and/or promoted by a specific group of “dominators” alone. Continue reading “Knowledge, Asymmetric Power Relations and Us”