No, your hashtag is not decolonizing international development
By Leah Goldmann
Global Human Rights Hub Fellows Blog
In my last blog, I reflected on the definition of “expertise” in international development, including my own journey as a woman in global development who has benefitted from racial whiteness, citizenship privilege, and education opportunities. My presence, as well as that of other (white) Europeans and Americans in the sector, has further reinforced the ongoing projects of neocolonialism, heteropatriarchy, white supremacy, colonization, and climate injustice.
Time and time again, history shows us how resistance is co-opted by elite institutions, whereby radical concepts are watered down and stripped of their original meaning. For example, the international development sector’s relationship with the word “empowerment,” is one way institutionalization has diluted the initial political project of empowerment. Srilatha Batliwala (2007) traced the history of “empowerment” in international development discourse, with a particular focus on the Indian context, and its trajectory toward a depoliticized, neoliberal concept. Yet, Batliwala explains that the popularization of the word led to co-optation by multilateral, bilateral, and private agencies as a panacea for economic development. This shift to viewing empowerment as an individual process, as opposed to a systemic one, reflects Western conceptualizations of power and agency as equally accessible to all, manifesting primarily through market access, and as “benefits” that international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) can “provide” to racialized people across the world.
Similar to empowerment, the concept of “decolonization” has become increasingly popular across international development organizations, multilateral institutions, governments, philanthropists, and well-intentioned individuals eager to show their wokeness. Just as the concept of empowerment has been stripped of its radical political origins, decolonization is being co-opted in similar ways: “decolonizing monitoring and evaluation,” “decolonizing international development,” “decolonizing research,” “decolonizing programming,” and the list goes on. I recently saw an advertisement from a well-known humanitarian organization for a “Decolonizing Strategic Growth Consultant,” that equated decolonization with Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives. Decolonization has become a ubiquitous term, often used as a virtue-signaling device by many people who are likely well-intentioned. I include myself in those who have misused and appropriated this term prior to learning more about its origins.
In their canonical essay Decolonization is not a Metaphor, Tuck & Yang (2012) explain: “The absorption of decolonization by settler social justice frameworks is one way the settler, disturbed by her own settler status, tries to escape or contain the unbearable searchlight of complicity, of having harmed others just by being oneself. The desire to reconcile is just as relentless as the desire to disappear the Native; it is a desire to not have to deal with this (Indian) problem anymore” (Tuck and Yang, 2012, p. 9). Misusing the term decolonization is one way in which the enduring project of settler colonialism’ dominates current structures and institutions.
As Tuck & Yang (2012) illuminate:
Tuck & Yang describe the multiple ways in which “settler moves to innocence” operate. “Settler moves to innocence” seek to (shallowly) assuage settlers and avoid a process of accountability that would, in reality, give up land, power, and/or privilege. For example, the authors speak about multiple moves to innocence, including “colonial equivocation,'' which is when the terms colonial and decolonization are used ambiguously and/or invoke some arbitrary process that occurs in any social justice movement. Consequently, the distinct features of settler colonialism are erased.
According to Arvin et. al “settler colonialism is a persistent social and political formation in which newcomers/colonizers/settlers come to a place, claim it as their own, and do whatever it takes to disappear the Indigenous peoples that are there” (2013, p. 12). Arvin et. al explain that, in the case of the US, Europeans extracted value from the land by displacing Indigenous peoples and extracting labor through the enslavement of Black and Brown people. Under this settler-native-slave triad, “white, non-white, immigrant, postcolonial, and oppressed people” can all take part in furthering settler colonialism.
In the context of global development, Tuck & Yang speak to “third world decolonizations,” and the tendency for anti-colonialism and decolonization to be collapsed into one process with the aims of making solidarity appear less complicated. However, these approaches are different—anti-colonial critique does not undo colonialism but rather aims to restructure the colonial state. Moreover, as many continue to do in the international development sector, we cannot equivocate decolonization with localization. Attempts to localize similarly become a form of settler moves to innocence—setting up field or country offices while the “headquarters” in the US or Europe is still operating as the primary decision-maker on stolen land with profit gained from the exploitation and enslavement of minoritized people. Oftentimes, these calls for localization are often laden with patronizing language of “building capacity” and “increasing the efficiency” of “local actors.”
I recognize the irony of a white woman from the US troubling the use of decolonization. Where do we go from here? I do not claim to have the answers, nor do I have a role in shaping that conversation. My main aim is to raise concern about the misuse of the term “decolonization” and encourage others in the global development sector to engage critically—if we are not decolonizing, then what are we actually doing? How can we find alternative language to describe our efforts? How can we be intentional about backing up our claims with substance? Can a settler-colonial nation write an effective strategy to decolonize international development
Be wary of using the term “decolonization” as a move to innocence. As Achile Mbembe maintains:
“Decolonization is not about design, tinkering with the margins. It is about reshaping, turning human beings once again into craftsmen and craftswomen who, in reshaping matters and forms, need not to look at the pre-existing models and need not use them as paradigms.”
Making shallow commitments disguised in unrealistically ambitious language ultimately does a disservice to the future of the international development sector, and more importantly, to those for whom decolonization has significant implications— including land repatriation—beyond a vague commitment to social justice.
Some suggested reading on Decolonization & Global Development, including some of the work included in this blog:
- The decolonial bandwagon and the dangers of intellectual decolonization – Leon Moosavi
- Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses – Chandra Talpade Mohanty
- Decolonization is not a Metaphor – Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang
- Decolonizing the University- Achile Mbembe
- Decolonizing Feminism: Challenging Connections between Settler Colonialism and Heteropatriarchy- Maile Arvin, Eve Tuck, and Angie Morrill
- The narrative of decolonization of development aid- Themrise Khan
Leah Goldmann
Global Human Rights Hub Fellow 2021-2022