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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Story-Telling: A Method to Support Decolonising Knowledge for Development

By Peter Taylor

I have recently been working closely with a group of EADI members reflecting on the importance of “decolonising knowledge for development”. This is in response to our acknowledgement that social divides are driven by race, gender, religion, class and financial inequities. We know that knowledge is crucial in tackling multiple, intersecting crises grounded in, and amplifying, these divides. Yet, knowledge processes themselves are underpinned by historic, structural power asymmetries, inequities and inequalities. These inequalities are perpetuated through exclusion of many groups, communities and individuals from knowledge creation processes.

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Power Dynamics are Everywhere, and Language is no Exception

We can talk in English, but can we talk about English?

By Basile Boulay (part 3 of 3)

Facilitating publication in English for non-native speakers is important: as we saw in the previous post (1st post here), they face numerous entry barriers that prevent them for having the same chances as their native peers on the ‘research market’. It’s not the full story, however, and far from it. In this third article, I would like to stress how far this linguistic divide takes us on the terrain of structural inequalities, power dynamics, and, yes, intellectual reductionism. Although we cannot ignore the practical gains that English as a lingua franca brings for research, we can’t turn a blind eye to the fact that this hegemony creates serious problems for everyone, native speakers included.

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We Can Talk in English, but Can We Talk about English?

Social science Research and Linguistic Predominance

By Basile Boulay (part 1 of 3)

The 50th anniversary of EADI is a good opportunity to reflect on the multiple evolutions of Development Studies, and social sciences more generally, over the past decades. Through this series of three blogposts (second post here, third post here), I would like to open a space for discussion and reflection on the issue of languages and epistemic communities. The growing predominance of English has imposed a radical change on the academic landscape; a change so profound that many non-native English speakers in academia barely question this linguistic hegemony, while native speakers themselves are often unaware of its effects.

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Reflections on Decolonising Knowledge for Development: An invitation to a conversation

By Peter Taylor

A moment to reflect

Anniversaries are times to celebrate, and also opportunities to reflect on the past, the present, and the future. As we enter 2024 and see EADI’s 50th anniversary coming into view, we are taking a moment for reflection amidst what is increasingly viewed as a time of crisis in development and in Development Studies itself, particularly in regard to coloniality and how it manifests today in multiple ways. These are not new reflections, and they have featured in many other conversations and blogs, including within EADI.

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