Category: Decolonising Development

3 Ways New Media Contributes to the Decolonising Development Discourse

  By , , ,

By Cara-Marie Findlay

A blogcast. Listen and read along as Cara-Marie Findlay reads her third and final individual blog post. 

Introduction

In my first blog post, I briefly touched on how new media— like social media —is helping to facilitate overdue discussions on racism and decolonisation within Development. As an example of how new digital media can help to facilitate discussions in general, I engaged my fellow practitioners by posing a question about motivation in different online practitioner groups. For my second post, I shared the answers of colleagues from around the world, and linked them to the Time to Decolonise Aid report published earlier this year. 

 

In this post, I discuss three ways new media contributes to the discussion around decolonising development: circulation of pertinent information through blogs and websites; community building through “writing back” on social media; and encouraging on-going dialogue about Development news and updates. In the following paragraphs, I share specific examples of each of the three contributions. I include a brief look at some of the limitations of new media in the decolonising development discourse. Finally, I conclude with my own reflections on my experience writing this blog series. 

 

Key Assertions 

In the context of this post, new media, refers to the “decentralization of channels for the distribution of messages…an increase in the options for audience members to become involved in the communication process, often entailing an interactive form of communication; and an increase in the degree of flexibility for determining the form and content through the digitization of messages” (McQuail, 1994 as referenced in Lievrouw & Livingstone 2002, p. 3). While decolonising development speaks to “the process of deconstructing colonial ideologies regarding the superiority and privilege of Western [or Eurocentric] thought and approaches” (Peace Direct, 2021, p. 13).  

 

Before going any further, it is important to note that as practitioners we are “doing development in an increasingly digitalised context,” or to state it another way, we are engaged in “Development in a Digital World” (Roberts, 2019). What does that mean? It means, in our current setting, many aspects of social and economic life have become datafied—from social interaction to shopping habits—and it would be remiss of us to ignore the consequences this has for international development. 

 

Three Contributions

Circulation of Pertinent Information 

One of the consequences of doing Development in a Digital World is an added digital layer to humanitarian work. Mark Duffield refers to this digital layer as “cyber-humanitarianism” or “the increasing reliance [on] remote and smart [inter]Net-based technologies” (Duffield, 2013, p. 4) for the delivery of, and access to, Development aid. Technologies such as artificial intelligence and virtual reality are rapidly reshaping the humanitarian space. Thus, Development agencies and practitioners need to understand the trends, emerging issues, and potential harm we are buying into. 

 

Fortunately, new media, such as blogs and websites, can offer a way to circulate pertinent information that looks critically at these emerging issues. Including, how cyber-humanitarian technology can, and has, helped to re-entrench neocolonial ideas in Development (e.g. modernisation). Blogs and websites also offer the possibility for significantly increasing the reach of the writer and/or publisher, thus attracting a wider audience. 

 

For example, U.S. media watch group FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting) has been around since 1986. FAIR’s weekly radio show CounterSpin has addressed topics such as racism and technology. ‘Black Communities Are Already Living in a Tech Dystopia’ is a Counterspin episode that featured an interview with Ruha Benjamin, the author of Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code. In the interview, Benjamin articulates that technology “is not, in fact, objective in the way we are being socialized to believe” (Jackson, 2019). A view that challenges the prevailing Western ideology that technology is neutral, and an important fact for us to consider as practitioners engaged in cyber-humanitarian work. 

 

FAIR’s website makes it easy to find and listen to previous episodes, including the one aforementioned; and for those who would rather read than listen, FAIR includes a typed transcript of the interview on the episode’s webpage. The FAIR website makes it convenient to share an episode’s page on social media or to email it. It is safe to assume that without a website, an email list, and shares on social media, FAIR would not be able to reach “an international network of over 50,000 activists” (FAIR, n.d.). New media has made it possible to amplify and circulate serious points, such as “how the implicit biases of the larger society can affect technological outputs” (Findlay, 2021). In turn, amplifying and circulating questions around the effectiveness of cyber-humanitarianism; and the need to decolonise our understanding and use of ICT4D (information communication technology for development). New media also made it possible for a U.S. organisation to reach an international audience. 

 

Community Building on Social Media

New Media (particularly, social media) also presents an opportunity for virtual communities to be formed around the postcolonial concept of “writing back;” that is “responding to colonial legacies [or] challenging colonial cultural attitudes” (McEwan, 2019, p. 31). New media allows people situated in the Global South, who are often “rendered voiceless” to “write back back from the margins” (McEwan, 2019, pp. 22, 57) and contest the ‘lingering and debilitating modes of thought and action’ in Development (Myers, 2006 as quoted in McEwan, 2019, p. 33). Modes that would silence or ignore the experiences of those who were previously colonised, and who are now receiving Development assistance from primarily Western humanitarian agencies.

 

These virtual communities may come in different forms. For example, there is the Black Women in Development Facebook group, which allows Black women from around the world to share their Development experiences (the good, the bad, and the ugly) while also enabling them to be a resource to one another (e.g. sharing job opportunities, offering advice, etc.). 

Another example of a virtual community centered around writing back is the No White Saviors (NWS) instagram page. NWS is an advocacy campaign, led by four women (three are native Ugandans, the other is described as a “white savior in recovery”), dedicated to directing the Development and Aid sectors towards an anti-racist future. NWS uses their instagram platform in particular to: highlight problematic examples of Development and aid practice; issue calls to take online and offline action; and to spotlight and support those they believe are doing Development right. Their instagram posts often feature long captions explaining the significance of the corresponding image and a call to action urging their community of 877K followers to respond to the post in some way. As in real life, people who are a part of, or who visit, this virtual NWS community “use words on screens [i.e. their comments on a NWS post] to exchange pleasantries and argue, engage in intellectual discourse…exchange knowledge, share emotional support, make plans, brainstorm” etc. (Rheingold, 1993 as quoted in Lievrouw & Livingstone 2002, p. 7). The NWS instagram community has united people who are physically separated (many situated in the Global South and many in the Global North as well) around the common belief that the Development sector needs to be decolonised and reformed to ensure a better, more equitable, Development. 

 

Encouraging On-going Dialogue

Another way new media contributes to the discourse of decolonising development is through its ability to generate dialogue and offer audience members an opportunity to react and respond in their own time. Sometimes these responses are close to real-time (for example, replying to breaking news on Twitter); and other times these responses may come weeks, months, or even years laters (for example, leaving a comment on an older blog post or online news article).  

New media has made it easier for anyone with access to the internet to collect, disseminate, and react to news; in this case, news regarding racism in the Development sector. For example, in September 2020, The New Humanitarian published an article, “Readers React | Racism in the Aid Sector and the Way Forward” composed almost entirely of reader comments to a series of different New Humanitarian articles on “how the Black Lives Matter movement is reverberating through the aid sector.” The Readers React article shared aid worker/Development practitioner experiences of racism in their humanitarian work, in their own words. The article also includes a link to a Google form where readers can continue to add and share their own experiences with racism within the sector, even today, more than a year later. It is important to note that the series of #BlackLivesMatter articles launched by The New Humanitarian in June was in direct response to the murder of George Floyd in the U.S. which sparked racial justice protests around the world. 

 

Limitations of New Media 

While new media has, and can, contribute to the decolonising Development discourse it also has its limitations. These limitations include the circulation of fake news or other inaccurate information, and the censorship (or “shadowbanning” – blocking a social media account’s content so that it is less prominent or visible to others) of voices that diverge from dominant Development discourses. 

 

Additionally, the ease of which a user can choose to engage (or not engage) in a virtual community is also a reason virtual communities must be considered more unstable than “‘real-life’ or offline communities;” since “individuals [and organisations and campaigns like NWS] can become active and prominent quickly, and just as quickly disappear altogether” (Lievrouw & Livingstone 2002, p. 7). 

 

Furthermore, it is still unclear how much influence new media has (if any) on the existing levers of power in Development—policy, practice, and scholarship. 

 

To quote one of my professors, Tobias Denskus, and his esteemed colleague Andrea Papan: 

 

“There is little evidence that blogging and its learning processes influence macro-policy making [in Development]. Organisational rituals and artefacts such as global summits, policy papers, and the powerful role of international organisations in research, policy, and practice still shape the [dominant] discourse[s]. Blogs can help to expose these rituals and continue to work towards an alternative virtual learning space that reflects new and diverse voices…and can help introduce reflexive writing to more people.” (Denskus & Papan, 2013, p. 466). 

 

Though this quote is in reference to blogging, the sentiment can be applied to all forms of new media. 

 

Another clear limitation is the lack of access to new media for peoples in the Global South. Many individuals situated in the Global South still do not have access to an affordable or stable internet connection that would allow them to engage and participate in these forums, which limits their important and needed contributions to the discourse on decolonising development. 

 

Conclusion

This blog series has allowed me to gain a deeper understanding of how useful a tool new media can be in adding to the discourse around decolonising development. Interestingly enough, new media is a term that has been used since the 1960s and 1970s by researchers investigating the implications of information and communication technologies (Lievrouw & Livingstone 2002, p. 2). And the Eurocentric thought and approaches that have led to, and invisibilised, racism within the sector is as old as Development itself. Thus, for me, questions still remain. Is new media capable of influencing transformative change within the sector? If yes, then how? Especially, when one of the key features of new media is the decentralisation of channels. The levers of power within development remain very much centralised and entrenched within the Global North. Since this is the case, as practitioners we must seriously question whether those who are currently at the helm of these levers of power even desire to see decolonial transformation within the sector. More than that, as practitioners, we must ask ourselves if we truly desire a decolonised Development which may in turn oust us from being positioned as “experts”. 

 

As previously mentioned in an earlier post, I started a consulting company to help ensure that more underrepresented and impacted peoples would be able to participate in the Development dialogue and process taking place. Thus, although this academic exercise is coming to an end, I (along with my colleagues at my consulting firm) will continue to explore these critical questions and engage the broader public on topics in Development through the company blog. 

 

My hope is that as practitioners we will continue to engage in reflexive practice and create space for, and embrace, difference within this field. Only when we take into account and value our different experiences and ways of knowing, will we be able to truly come together and discover the best and most effective ways to solve the world’s biggest challenges. 

 

References

Denskus, T. & Papan, A. (2013): Reflexive engagements: the international development blogging evolution and its challenges, Development in Practice 23:4, 435-447.

Duffield, M. (2013). Disaster-resilience in the network age: Access-denial and the rise of cyber-humanitarianism (DIIS Working Paper 2013:23). Copenhagen: Danish Institute of International Studies (DIIS). Retrieved from: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/122292/1/782863604.pdf

Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR). (n.d.). What’s FAIR? Retrieved from: https://fair.org/about-fair/

Findlay, C. (2021). On C.L.Ai.R.A. and Tech Bias in the United States. Findlay House Global, 14 September, retrieved from: https://peoplecentreddevelopment.com/pubs/2021/on-claira-and-tech-bias-in-the-us

Jackson, J. (2019): Black Communities Are Already Living in a Tech Dystopia (Links to an external site.), Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting, 15 August.

Lievrouw, L., & Livingstone, S. (2002). Handbook of new media. SAGE Publications, Ltd, https://www-doi-org.proxy.mau.se/10.4135/9781848608245

McEwan, C. (2019). Postcolonialism, decoloniality and development. Routledge.

Peace Direct (2021): Time to Decolonize Aid-Insights and Lessons from a global consultation. London: Peace Direct.

Readers React | Racism in the Aid Sector and the Way Forward. (2020). The New Humanitarian. Retrieved from: https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/opinion/2020/09/11/racism-in-humanitarian-aid-sector-Black-lives-matter 

Roberts, T. (2019). Digital Development: What’s In a Name. Appropriating Technology. http://www.appropriatingtechnology.org/?q=node/302

Gender and ICT4D initiatives – access, empowerment and transformative agency

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In my first blog post in this collective project, I initiated a discussion on de-/postcolonial and participatory development processes and reflected on how this is a part of the development discourse and sector gaining more and more ground. I also reflected on its complexity; the theorisation around it is more straightforward than its actual implementation, with so many layers in need of close analysis; the power relations, social hierarchies, opportunities for participation, as well as the structures and productions of knowledge we operate within.

In this final blog post, I want to immerse myself even more within this question, with a focus on the area of ICT4D and gender; an intersecting area often assumed to support the progression of “empowering women”, democratising opportunities for participation with increased access to online spaces, information, and technology. The focus of this text is not the gendered divide or gender gap of access to technology and internet on global or local scales per se, but rather what the empowerment and participation consequently imply and the expected outcomes of greater access. I want to problematise and explore further how ICT initiatives can be a tool for women’s empowerment when these so often seem to be purely focused on access – without regard to transformative agency.

 

 

ICT, gender, and development

The research on ICT for development dates back some 30 years; since its beginning more or less focusing on the less materially advantaged in low- and middle-income countries. Similarly, the relation between gender and technology were initially explored already in the 1980-1990s, with scholars from different fields arguing that the areas are co-constructed, gender relations reproducing themselves by the use of technology in society, while technology “can be flexibly reinterpreted, re-designed, or performed in ways that move beyond stable categories and showcase women’s agency”. States Hafkin (2000): “By the mid-1990s, when ICTs became an important productive resource, gender analysts turned their attention to finding ways to ensure women’s access to ICT”. Since, the importance of ICTs for human development has been discussed at length within international development cooperation, and in 2013, the director of UN Women spoke on the importance of ICTs for achieving gender equality and women’s empowerment, namely how ICTs can improve women’s economic productivity, have the potential to improve access to education, involvement in politics, and enable women’s access health services and report on safety risks. (Hafkin, 2000; Walsham, 2017; Williams and Artzberger, 2019)

 

 

Initiatives on the nexus of ICT, gender and development are thus increasing in their presence within international development initiatives, with the hopes of ICT projects supporting social, economic, and political development in low- and middle-income countries. There is hope for ICTs to “open up windows for women to the outside world”, thus speeding up development processes, giving direct access to internet and information technologies, the rhetoric in the majority of initiatives outspokenly highlighting women’s empowerment (Asiedu, 2012). This goes in line with various of the Sustainable Development Goals explicitly focusing on ICT4D, such as target 5.b: “Enhance the use of enabling technology, in particular information and communications technology, to promote the empowerment of women” and target 9.c: “Significantly increase access to information and communications technology and strive to provide universal and affordable access to the Internet in least developed countries by 2020”, amongst other related SDGs. For target 5.b., the single indicator is “Proportion of individuals who own a mobile telephone, by sex”; however, according to Our World in Data, there is no defined target level for this indicator. While writing this text, the latest progress report from the UN was published in April 2021 and states: “Empowering more women with mobile telephones has been shown to accelerate social and economic development. However, in the 66 countries and territories with data for the period 2017–2019, average mobile telephone ownership was 8.5 percentage points lower for women than for men” (Our World in Data SDG Tracker).

 

Access = empowerment?

A conclusion to draw from the evolution of gender, development and ICT initiatives is that there seems to exist an assumption that the usage of, and access to, ICT for certain groups will subsequently lead to empowerment and positive social change. As noted in SDG 5.b. “Enhance the use of enabling technology (..) to promote the empowerment of women”, the only indicator is that of increasing access to mobile phones. One might, therefore, problematise – in what concrete ways does access equal empowerment in the context of gender and ICT4D?

Before immersing ourselves in this question, it is important to define what we mean by women’s empowerment – a concept widely and often arbitrary used in international development cooperation without much definition. Beginning in the 1980s, the empowerment approach was added to the gender and development intersection overall, stressing the need for women’s access to productive resources (Hafkin, 2000). Some scholars argue that “neoliberal development agendas” often use the concept as “a tool for self-help participation in the development process”. Others argue that the focus often seems to be on economic empowerment, equalising economic strength with power (Asiedu, 2012). However, this text will use the definition by Naila Kabeer; that empowerment equals transformative agency, not only focusing on immediate inequalities but enabling “achievements that suggest a greater ability on the part of poor women to question, analyse, and act on the structures of patriarchal constraint in their lives”. Empowerment processes should thus enable capacity, agency, and choice to challenge normative gender roles and power relations in each context, including the sense of agency and self-worth. (Kabeer, 2005)

Asiedu states that the focus on access to information, technology, and internet “repeats the modernisation approach to development rhetoric which assumes that when women are given access to resources, they would automatically benefit from development”, in line with the assumption that mass global communication of Western industrial societies, science and transfer of modern technology would solve global poverty (Asiedu, 2012). Essentially, an assumption that technologies are objective, neutral, universal – global access creating equal opportunities, thereby ignoring local techniques, knowledge, and practices. Already in 2004, Anita Gurumurty, prominent scholar of the gender and ICT-intersection, stated that ICT is strategically managed by “powerful corporations and nations” with little space for ownership by many groups (Gurumurty, 2004). Indeed, power-holders manage algorithms and moderate online content favouring consumerism and specific knowledge-spread, more so today than 17 years ago. As an example, data from 2018 demonstrate that only 0.7 per cent of the world’s domain names are registered in sub-Saharan Africa (Ojanperä et al. 2017, 40 in O’Donnell and Sweetman, 2018). Analysing online content and their sources, the organisation Whose Knowledge, with the global aim of centring the knowledge of marginalised communities online, state that while 3/4 of internet users today come from Asia, Africa, and Latin America, most of the online content is created by men from Europe and North America. In addition, the organisation estimate that only 7% of world languages are captured in online published material. (Whose Knowledge)

Interestingly – why do we assume positive social change and “empowerment” automatically originating in increased access to online spaces and technology when structures online reflect the structures that already shape the world and our societies: power relations, the production of knowledge, class, race, gender? Information, technology, communication, and the internet are neither objective, universal nor neutral, as stated by these scholars and accessible data. While embracing the notion that technology mirrors our societies, we understand that “technologies are affected by intersecting spectrums of exclusion including gender, ethnicity, age, social class, geography, and disability”. Infrastructure, freedom of information, affordability, ability, are other factors that can present challenges for recipients of ICT initiatives (O’Donnell and Sweetman, 2018). With gender relations reproduced by and embedded within ICTs, these are subsequently not gender-neutral – and we cannot assume sudden empowerment solely by access.

 

A case study from Afghanistan by scholars Hussain and Amin explores how ICTs are used in processes to support empowerment, with the conclusion that the majority of these activities (with the exception of a few initiatives on health) do not realise the vision of empowerment in challenging patriarchal power relations; they merely enable them to meet existing needs. Using ICTs for empowerment and thus challenging current power relations (“e.g. using the internet to learn about rights to divorce or citizen’s rights, or sharing ‘private’ stories of abuse in social media spaces”) is putting them at security risks or repercussions, risking an increased regulation of online presence and actions. The scholars conclude that ICTs, more than creating an agency of access, also need to challenge traditional gendered structures and “how men prevent them exercising transformative agency at household level, controlling and policing women’s use of ICTs.” The scholars conclude that the gender, development and ICT intersection need to move beyond the focus on access, affordability, availability, and awareness and question whether certain groups can use these technologies to advance their interests when it comes to economy, health, and political initiatives both within and outside the home, thus analysing both design and content of ICT initiatives. (Hussain and Amin, 2018)

 

Analysing power structures to enable the transformative potential of ICTs

However, the idea of this text is not an argument to criticise the fundamental and imperative use of ICTs to support gender equality and empowerment; it is rather an aim to reflect on development practices and methods (linking to the theme of this collective blog) and problematise the assumption that access to ICT equals empowerment, as well as emphasise the need for transformative agency.

Many scholars disseminating and discussing practices of ICT initiatives for gender equality and empowerment argue that a postcolonial and bottom-up approach would better support enabling empowerment and transformative agency. With the notion of technology mirroring our societies, postcolonial approaches analysing the production of knowledge and gendered relations within ICTs are essential to disentangle issues of power and inequalities, including a deep analysis of the power players and content creators online. Integrated and holistic approaches that encourage equitable access and collective empowerment of “local ICT appropriation”, including the inclusion of marginalised communities online, are needed (Asiedu, 2012).

Adding an intersectional perspective would further nuance the issue, taking into account that not only ICTs but also their recipients are shaped by class, ethnicity, age, sexuality, interplaying with the recipients’ access and the ability for transformative agency. This is, of course, the case for development initiatives in general; “the conversion of a commodity to a capability, as well as the choice to act on the opportunity, is influenced by a number of factors”, as put by Sein (2019) adding to recently mentioned factors cultural traditions, environmental factors, and virtually all factors playing into a person’s life and immediate context. As put by Asiedu: “When gender issues are defined in terms of male/female, it is assumed that barriers to ICTs faced by women have to do largely with their gender rather than their gender intersecting with their class, ethnicity and social position” (Asiedu, 2012).

Analysing these structures, initiatives of ICTs and their limitations, online content, and the question of who designs ICT, including the greater inclusion of marginalised groups in these integrated approaches, could help us facilitate processes better supporting the enabling of transformative agency for users and the transformative potential of ICTs. This includes adding this lens to our own organisational and institutional structures as practitioners within the development sector, in our forming of ICT initiatives and their implementations in practice, with a focus on agency and ownership, more than access only, to make use of the powerful role ICTs can have for transformative agency.

 

 

Concluding my last blog post, I want to reflect shortly on this blogging experience. Writing academic texts that are to be published online is somewhat new to me, most of my earlier experiences being academic essays for my university teachers’ eyes only or more commercial texts in work settings.

I did not expect the initial hesitancy I noticed in my writing when developing texts meant to be published online. I am not used to writing from a first-person perspective, in the “I” form. However, by developing the different blog posts and discussing with my group colleagues, I became more and more comfortable with the format and started to enjoy this mixed form of writing, a style between the more informal format and academic texts. I will bring the blogging experience to my future practice within the development sector, including the reflective practice on our roles as practitioners within the development sector.

My most significant learning from this experience is reading my fellow classmates’ texts, both within and outside this blog. I realise that we rarely have the opportunity to read each other’s texts and essays in university studies overall, if not in group work or group seminar settings. This was an exciting way of exploring different persons’ writing styles, topics of interest and expertise. It has been a great experience to learn more about ICT4D research, initiatives, and the sector as a whole, through this type of “new” format, hand in hand with what the area is actually about. I was impressed by the diversity of topics, expertise, and case studies from all over the world within this cohort.

 

 

Bibliography:

  • O’Donnell, N & Sweetman, C (2018) Introduction: Gender, development and ICTs, Gender & Development, 26:2, 217-229, DOI: 10.1080/13552074.2018.1489952
  • Williams, L & Artzberger, G (2019) Developing women as ICT users: a miniature scoping review of gender and ICTs for development, Gender, Technology and Development, 23:3, 234-256, DOI: 10.1080/09718524.2019.1679330
  • Walsham, G (2017) ICT4D research: reflections on history and future agenda, Information Technology for Development, 23:1, 18-41, DOI: 10.1080/02681102.2016.1246406
  • Hussain, F & Amin, S (2018) ‘I don’t care about their reactions’: agency and ICTs in women’s empowerment in Afghanistan, Gender & Development, 26:2, 249-265, DOI: 10.1080/13552074.2018.1475924
  • Kabeer, N (2005) ‘Gender equality and women’s empowerment: A critical analysis of the third millennium development goal 1’, Gender & Development 13(1): 13–24, doi: 10.1080/13552070512331332273
  • Our World in Data: SDG Tracker. https://sdg-tracker.org/ (Information retrieved November 6, 2021)
  • Asiedu, C (2012) INFORMATION COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES FOR GENDER AND DEVELOPMENT, Information, Communication & Society, 15:8, 1186-1216, DOI: 10.1080/1369118X.2011.610467
  • Whose Knowledge. https://whoseknowledge.org/  (Information retrieved November 7, 2021)
  • Seing, M et al. (2019) A holistic perspective on the theoretical foundations for ICT4D research, Information Technology for Development, 25:1, 7-25, DOI: 10.1080/02681102.2018.1503589
  • Hafkin, N. (2000). Convergence of concepts: Gender and ICTs in Africa. Gender and the information revolution in Africa, 1-15.

“We must take this moment to ensure Africa can prosper”

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On October 12, it was announced that Matt Hancock, former UK health secretary, had been appointed UN special envoy to help Covid recovery in Africa. First reading about this in an article accompanied by a photo where Matt Hancock gives his thumbs up with a big smile on his face, my first reaction was that this surely had to be some type of The Onion article; a satiric take. But it wasn’t. The role of United Nations envoy for financial innovation and climate change for its Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) was assigned to the former UK health secretary due to his success in managing the UK’s pandemic response, more specifically his “economic policy expertise, experience operating financial markets at the Bank of England and in-depth understanding of government and multilateral through his various ministerial cabinet roles“, according to the Guardian.

The debates after this announcement have been many, with critics examining the history and actions of this specific person at length. However, the point of departure for this blog post is not whether this person is fit for the role due to his public and political history. Instead, I am interested in the structures allowing yet another Western/European man/person leading “Africa to prosper”, consequently assuming that this person is the best fit for the job, overlooking African leaders and experts for this position.

Adding a postcolonial lens; Whose expertise do we really listen to in international development initiatives? Says Sardar (1999) in McEwan (2018): “For some, the real power of the North lies not in its massive economic development and technical advances, but in its power to name, represent and theorise”. I come back to Meera Sabaratnam mentioned in my first post, and her core statement that international actors’ interventions in low- and middle-income countries keep failing because they are constituted through structural relations of colonial differences; underlying colonial dynamics consisting of constitutive assumptions regarding who is entitled to what in the world (and who is to blame for failure), rooted in forms of common sense that naturalise such inequalities of wealth and power (Sabaratnam, 2017:4). Flipping these structures upside down, shifting the discourse of international development is what is needed; feeding into old colonial structures of agency and discursive power is not. African voices, such as Dr Ayoade Alakija, co-chair of the African Union’s Africa Vaccine Delivery Alliance for Covid-19 and Sagal Bihi, a Somali MP, reacted similarly, with quotes such as: “-The definition of a colonial hangover. Decolonise aid – no, here’s Matty!” and “-Africa is seen by the west as [the] dumping ground for their locally unemployable shady characters”, according to The Telegraph.

And more than neo-colonialism and the UN’s complex donor relations and diplomacy, this is fundamentally also a question about underlying racism. Says Hugo Slim, Senior Research Fellow, Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict, in a blog post:

“I wonder if racism is at the root of why we can’t ‘let go’ of our international power (…) and genuinely enable people and power in local organisations and national governments. I suspect it is. (…) But we are clearly still not trying hard enough, and this suggests a deeper reason. We can’t quite bear to share the system with ‘them’. We don’t really trust ‘them’ to get it right. Our colonial ancestors had misgivings about political independence, and so do we. And we like what we do and the rewards and reputation that it brings. Quite simply, we don’t want to give all this away.”

While Hugo Slim writes more directly about humanitarian practices and local operations, this could also be applied at the higher level. Again – whose expertise do we (and in this case, the UN) accept and trust to do the best job to help Covid recovery in Africa, leading “Africa to prosper”? Clearly not a person from Africa.

However, on Saturday, October 16, the UN withdrew the job offer to the former UK health secretary, allegedly due to campaigners objecting to the appointment “because of his record in government during the coronavirus crisis”, according to the Guardian. In other words, it was a question of a personal track record more than the structures surrounding the appointment, that led to this withdrawal. Let us see who the next candidate for the job will be.

 

Sources:

McEwan, Cheryl (2018, 2nd ed) Postcolonialism, Decoloniality and Development. London: Routledge

Sabaratnam, Meera (2019) Decolonising Intervention: International Statebuilding in Mozambique. London/New York: Rowman & Littlefield.

Slim, Hugo/The Humanitarian Practice Network (2020) Is racism part of our reluctance to localise humanitarian action? Retrieved from: https://odihpn.org/blog/is-racism-part-of-our-reluctance-to-localise-humanitarian-action/ (October 16, 2021)

The Guardian (2021) Matt Hancock appointed UN special envoy to help Covid recovery in Africa. Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/oct/12/matt-hancock-appointed-un-special-envoy-to-help-covid-recovery-in-africa (October 16, 2021)

The Guardian (2021) United Nations withdraws Matt Hancock job offer. Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/oct/16/united-nations-withdraws-matt-hancock-job-offer (October 16, 2021)

The Telegraph (2021) ‘Jaw-dropping colonial hangover’: fury greets Matt Hancock’s UN Africa role. Retrieved from: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/jaw-dropping-colonial-hangover-fury-greets-matt-hancocks-un/ (October 16, 2021)

Eurocentrism, New Media, and Development in a Digital World

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By: Cara-Marie Findlay

One could argue that since the “formal” inception of aid and international development, Eurocentrism has been at the core. Eurocentrism, meaning that the countries associated with the “West” or “Global North,” and their roles, have been the central focus. In fact, many academics credit the beginning of formal aid programs with the Marshall Plan of 1948—an initiative to invest foreign aid in an effort to help Europe rebuild after World War II.

Previously, imperial powers such as Britain, France and Germany made economic investments in their colonies, and American tycoons created foundations that participated in aid and humanitarian work. However, it was only after World War II that aid and international development programs continued to take shape and went on to expand beyond Europe and into countries that had been previously colonised.

With the expansion of aid and international development into the Global South, the Global North—places like North America, Western Europe, and Australia—became the standard.

‘There was the idea that countries [in the Global South] had to catch up…[while the countries in the Global North] were the goal that everybody else had to reach.”

– Rosalind Eyben, Author of International Aid and Making the World A Better Place

That Eurocentric point of view permeated all aspects of aid and international development work and translated into the levers of power over Development—including, policy, practice, and scholarship.

But what was once shrouded in darkness, has now come to light. In recent years, and thanks in large part to new media like social media platforms, there have been more (and overdue) discussions about racism and the need to decolonise development. Undoubtedly, these conversations can be uncomfortable and unsettling for many who are used to the old way of Development. But Development is changing (and must change!) in order to be transformative and effective.

I intend to use my series of blog posts to explore how new media has helped to facilitate these discussions on racism and decolonisation within Development, especially through “writing back” or “challenging colonial cultural attitudes” (McEwan).

In my opinion, it is one aspect of what Tony Roberts refers to as Development in a Digital World, that is “doing international development in an increasingly digitalised context.”

Sources

McEwan, C. (2019). Postcolonialism, decoloniality and development. Routledge.
Phillips, K. (2013). The history of foreign aid – World. ReliefWeb. https://reliefweb.int/report/world/history-foreign-aid
Roberts, T. (2019). Digital Development: What’s In a Name. Appropraiting Technology. http://www.appropriatingtechnology.org/?q=node/302