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The End of Development Aid?

By Aram Ziai

In the last few months, our object of research has seen some dramatic changes. I am referring to the de-facto dismantling of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) after the inauguration of President trump in January 2025. The USA has been by far the largest donor of Official Development Assistance (ODA) during the past decades (although in relation to its GDP it has been among the less generous). In February 2025, the Trump administration has announced to eliminate more than 90% of USAID’s foreign aid contracts and 60 billion US-$ in assistance.

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“Vulnerable Research” in a Time of Climate Change and Coloniality

By Charlotte Weatherill

It must be by its death

The role of the academy in empire and colonial violence is the main theme of Babel: An Arcane History, a book by R. F. Kuang. Having wrestled with his own complicity in a system that also provides him with comforts his child-self couldn’t have imagined, the book’s protagonist Robin ends the novel by sacrificing himself to blow up Oxford University’s ivory tower of Babel.

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