research – Debating Development Research

11/03/2025

Decolonizing Policy Advice: The Oxymoronic Nature of Danish Researchers Advising a Danish Ministry on a Danish Plan for Africa

By Adam Moe Fejerskov, Mikkel Funder and Nauja Kleist / part of our “Share your Decolonising Story” project

Denmark has a new strategy for engaging with Africa. In this blog follow some reflections on how we at the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS) collaborated with colleagues in African research institutions to turn the usual North-driven ”Policy Brief” on its head. Because who gets to influence development policy in European capitals? Who should influence development policy in European capitals? And should European capitals at all be making strategies and plans for Africa?

30/09/2024

Decolonising International Research Collaborations Requires us to go Beyond the “Ts and Cs Apply” Approach

By Eyob Balcha Gebremariam

In February 2024, I found myself at a pivotal moment in the academic landscape, attending a regional network launching event of “Africanist researchers” at one of the UK universities. The room was a microcosm of diverse academic, cultural, gender, and racial backgrounds, all converging with a common purpose to establish a network of researchers. The organisers set ambitious objectives, including partnering to co-develop research proposals, recruiting more African students to their respective regional universities, and providing capacity-building support for Africa-based partners. This was the backdrop against which I observed the dynamics of coloniality, power and privilege that underpin such collaborations.

12/07/2024

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.

12/12/202312/12/2023

The Normative Dimension of Transdisciplinary Cooperation

By Johanna Vogel, Francisco Porras, Michael P. Schlaile, Veronica Hector, Christina Plesner Volkdal, Zhiqi Xu / New Rhythms of Development blog series

In times of rising inequalities, geopolitical shifts, and complex crises, transdisciplinary cooperation is needed more than ever to support the path of just transformations.

Although most people would agree that any deep structural transformation should take place in a just and equitable manner, the idea of “justice“ in transformations is deeply normative and involves conflicting worldviews, contested pathways, and different interests. Transformation for its part means changing structures, changing cultures, and changing practices. A culture of transformation is, among others, also constituted by values, which are supposed to give meaning to action.

13/09/202315/09/2023

What Is a “Development” Research Project? Transforming Ideas of Development through Development Research

By Mette Fog Olwig, Jacob Rasmussen, Lone Riisgaard, Christine Noe, Geetika Khanduja, Peter Taylor, Herbert Hambati, Lisa Ann Richey, Chris Büscher and Paola Minoia / New Rhythms of Development blog series

Development Studies has long operated with binaries such as “developed/developing” and “traditional/modern” that foster implicit assumptions of Northern superiority. As a result, research projects taking place in so-called “developing countries” tend to ask different research questions and use different methods leading to types of theories that differ from those concerning so-called “developed countries.”