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Decolonising Development Research
Abstract Submissions Closed
RC09 Social Transformations and Sociology of Development (host committee)
Language: English, French and Spanish
Session Type: Oral
In this session, we bring together theoretically informed empirical papers that illuminate how inequalities in development research and knowledge can be challenged through processes of decolonization of knowledge. Papers may address, but are not limited to, the following questions:
Whose knowledge is privileged and considered more relevant to understanding and addressing pressing global problems such as inequality, climate change and social justice?
Why and how are distinctions between global and local knowledges being forged and with what consequences?
Why is Development Studies concerned with poverty only in certain parts of the world, say in the Global South and not in the Global North?
What are the similarities and differences of development aid in the South and social assistance in the North and of protests against development projects in the South and infrastructure projects in the North?
How can Non-Western concepts and cosmologies contribute to a pluriversal idea of positive social change?
The aim of this session is to counter epistemic asymmetries in knowledge production, explore alternative philosophies and bring to the fore non-mainstream, non-hegemonic knowledges that have for long been ignored and marginalized.