IGDC PhD students Stella Nwawulu Chiemela, Luqman Muraina, and Aasim Sheikh give an overview of the IGDC Research Away Day.

The decolonisation imperative

In recent years, there has been a growing demand within the fields of international and global development to decolonise the knowledge production process. This imperative arises from critical examinations of the historical power imbalances and epistemological biases that have shaped the field. In the intricate landscape of development research, the spotlight increasingly shines on a fundamental yet often obscured aspect – the concept of positionality and its inherent power dynamics. This scrutiny becomes imperative in an era marked by a heightened presence of diverse voices and a growing acknowledgment of the lingering impact of colonialism on research practices and relationships. The recognition and comprehension of these dynamics transcend mere scholarly pursuits, they represent a pivotal stride towards cultivating research practices that embody the principles of justice and inclusivity.

The IGDC’s research away day offered a valuable opportunity to explore the urgent requirement for decolonising development research, tackling obstacles, and collaboratively shaping a path that aligns with the wider goals of inclusivity and justice in the field. Against this backdrop, the concept of positionality and the inherent power dynamics within development research come under scrutiny.

The imperative to decolonise development research necessitates a profound recognition that the process of conducting research cannot be divorced from broader global socio-political and historical contexts. It is imperative to acknowledge that research endeavours are not conducted in isolation, but rather are deeply intertwined with power dynamics, cultural biases, and historical legacies. In his groundbreaking work on Orientalism, Edward Said established the foundational framework for interrogating asymmetries of power within the realm of scholarly inquiry. The author posited that the Western perspective frequently depicted the Eastern world through a distorted prism, influenced by preconceived ideas and prevailing power differentials. Said’s profound insights resonate deeply within the ongoing discourse, serving as a poignant reminder that the realm of research is inherently imbued with subjectivity and lacks the elusive quality of neutrality.

It must be underscored that researchers must not only scrutinise how power is wielded but also how it can be resisted within the research context. By acknowledging their own positionality and being mindful of power dynamics, researchers can begin to decolonise development research.

It is important to also note that research cannot occur in a vacuum. Researchers bring their unique identities, experiences, and worldviews to their work. Recognising this is the first step towards decolonisation. Understanding how one’s background may influence the framing of research questions, data collection, and interpretation. To decolonise research, researchers must critically reflect on their biases and preconceptions and actively work to mitigate their impact on the research process.

Power imbalances are also inherent in research, often stemming from historical structures that prioritise certain voices over others. To decolonise, researchers must strive for more equitable partnerships with the communities they study. This involves engaging in meaningful collaboration, sharing decision-making power, and valuing indigenous knowledge. By shifting power dynamics, research becomes more ethical and respectful of diverse perspectives.

With these considerations in mind, we aim to engage with postcolonial and decolonial scholarly work to discuss how researchers’ positionalities and power dynamics can be navigated to pursue equitable research partnerships with local researchers, people, and communities.

The role of positionality in decolonising research

The research process and the relations fostered by it are not solely driven by the search for objective facts and data. Rather, it is intricately shaped by the researcher’s positionality, encompassing their unique identity, personal experiences, and worldview. This acknowledgement serves as a critical starting point in the journey towards decolonising development research. Crucially, we must also acknowledge that researchers are not mere detached or neutral observers, but rather active participants who inevitably bring their subjectivities to the table. This recognition is essential in understanding the multifaceted nature of the research process and the potential impact of researchers’ personal perspectives and biases on the outcomes and interpretations of their studies.

By acknowledging the inherent subjectivities of researchers, we can gain a deeper understanding of the complexities involved in knowledge production and the need for reflexivity in the research endeavour. The recognition of personal bias is not a weakness but should be regarded as an essential aspect of the current discourse, necessitating careful consideration. In The Wretched of the Earth, Frantz Fanon, an influential philosopher on postcolonialism, stressed the importance of recognising one’s background in the pursuit of true liberation. In the context of development research, this liberation translates into understanding how a researcher’s background influences the framing of research questions, the process of data collection, and the interpretation of findings. Critical reflection and positionality is, therefore, the cornerstone of decolonisation. Researchers must interrogate their biases, preconceptions, and the inherent power dynamics at play.

Researchers must also strive to “unlearn” ingrained colonial perspectives, as urged by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak in her work, Can the Subaltern speak?. This unlearning involves a conscious effort to mitigate biases and acting as the subaltern ‘spokesperson’ during the research process. It is a continual process that demands introspection and a commitment to challenging entrenched norms.

Navigating power imbalances to seek equitable partnerships

The presence of power imbalances within the realm of research is an undeniable reality, deeply rooted in historical frameworks that have consistently favoured specific perspectives from certain regions while marginalising others. In order to embark on the process of decolonisation, it is imperative for researchers to actively pursue and cultivate more equitable partnerships with the communities they study. This transformative approach challenges and dismantle the prevailing power dynamics that have historically marginalised and silenced these communities.

By engaging in collaborative and reciprocal relationships, researchers can foster a more inclusive and just research process and relationships that attribute history, agency, and knowledge systems to the communities involved. This shift towards equitable partnerships not only enhances the quality and validity of research outcomes, but also contributes to the broader goal of decolonizing knowledge production, enhancing research impacts, and promoting social justice.

A renowned postcolonial theorist, bell hooks advocates for an engaged pedagogy that disrupts traditional power relations, fostering a more democratic and participatory learning environment. This perspective can be applied to the research landscape, thereby urging researchers to seek equitable partnerships with the communities they study. This involves engaging in meaningful collaboration, sharing decision-making power, and valuing local knowledge. By shifting power dynamics, research becomes more ethical and respectful of diverse perspectives.

In the scholarly discourse of Linda Tuhiwai Smith, equitable partnership is elucidated as a paradigm that prioritises the sharing of power rather than its exertion. It demands meaningful collaboration, equitable distribution of decision-making and authority structures, and a sincere appreciation for local knowledge. This ethos challenges researchers to relinquish the traditional role of the expert and embrace a collaborative methodology that duly recognises the agency and expertise of local communities.

The way forward

Decolonising research not only transforms the dynamics within the research process but also contributes to the broader goal of addressing historical injustices perpetuated by the colonial cum white superiority gaze. Audre Lorde posits that there is no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives. Lorde compels us to transcend the limitations of single-issue activism and embrace a more inclusive and comprehensive framework for social change. Development research, when decolonised, becomes a collective endeavour to create space for marginalised voices and rectify the historical imbalances inherent in the continuing colonial legacy. By centring marginalised perspectives, this process seeks to redress the power imbalances that have long characterised the development field.

The call to decolonise research practices is still gaining momentum and challenging the academic community and institutions to reassess their methodologies, ethics, and practices. It requires a commitment to dismantling structures that perpetuate inequality and embracing an ethos of respect for diverse perspectives and pluriversality. In this ever-evolving landscape of global development research, the journey towards decolonisation is a collective and transformative process. As we heed the call to decolonise, we embark on a path that leads to a brighter, fairer, and more respectful world for development research. The destination is not just a theoretical construct but a tangible reality worth pursuing, step by step, in the pursuit of justice and equity in the research paradigm. Join us on this transformative journey – the destination is worth every step.

About the authors

Luqman Muraina started his Global Development PhD programme at IGDC, University of York, UK in 2023. He completed his MA and B.Sc. Sociology programmes from the University of Cape Town (UCT), South African and Olabisi Onabanjo University, Nigeria, respectively. Luqman researches decolonisation, higher education, African politics & development, black feminism, and social movement. He also advocates on racism and injustice issues, including Black/African and Palestinian causes.

Stella Chiemela is a doctoral student at IGDC University of York. She holds a BAgric in Agricultural Economics from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Enugu State, Nigeria, and an MSc in Agroecology and Sustainable Development from Mekelle University in Ethiopia. Her research specialisation is in interdisciplinary studies, with a major focus on natural resource and environmental-related issues.

Aasim Sheikh is an interdisciplinary PhD researcher in Politics and Sociology at IGDC, University of York. After completing his LLB (Hons.) (University of Bristol) he graduated with two masters degrees – an i-LLM/LPC in Legal Practice (The University of Law) and an MPA focusing on International Development (University of York). Aasim’s research brings together Global Production Networks and Social Movements through a Cultural Political Economy lens to empirically study their interactions within the overlapping networks of Ivory Coast Cocoa Production and Fairtrade Advocacy.

Henrice Altink introduces her new article in Environment and History, Making Tourism Sustainable? Environment and Resort Tourism in Negril, Jamaica, 1970s–2002. Mass tourism has had severe environmental impacts but there are hopeful signs that sustainability is becoming central to the development agenda in the 2020s.

Mass tourism generates jobs, brings in revenue and enhances cultural learning but can also lead to a dependency on tourism, a loss of cultural identity, pressure on natural resources and environmental degradation.

Negril, one of the main resort areas in Jamaica, provides a useful case study for environmental historians to explore mass tourism’s environmental impact and attempts to make it more sustainable. It was planned by the Government of Jamaica (GoJ) as a resort town in the 1960s and 1970s, rapidly expanded in the 1980s and 1990s, when numerous large and mostly all-inclusive hotels were built, and had an active environmental lobby.

The impact of the development of mass tourism on the coastal environment, including beach erosion, reef destruction and loss of mangroves, only becomes visible after some time.

By the mid- to late-1970s, several scientists began to draw attention to the pollution of Negril’s coastal waters by sewage from hotels as many used septic tanks. In the 1980s, they were joined by local stakeholders, ranging from the Negril Chamber of Commerce (NCC), which was largely made up of small hoteliers, and local environmental groups such as the Negril Coral Reef Protection Society, set up by divers and diving operators. They lobbied both the GoJ and international donors to improve sewage disposal, supported by data that they had collected. For example, the NCC set up a water quality monitoring system and undertook a reef survey. These efforts had some success as the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) agreed to extend existing sewage lines and the European Economic Community (EEC) offered to fund a central sewage plant.

The GoJ was reliant on international donors to undertake sewage and other infrastructural developments in tourist resorts because of its limited fiscal space. In the 1980s, it took out several Structural Adjustment Loans that came with various conditions, including a reduction in public spending. The GoJ also made some marginal changes in planning processes by stipulating in the early 1990s that planning applications for hotels required an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) – an assessment of the impact of a planned project on the environment including vegetation, biodiversity, ecology and water. The EIA included a public discussion which local stakeholders in Negril actively used to raise concerns about proposed hotel developments.

Other than changing planning processes and working with international donors to improve sewage infrastructure, the GoJ did little to make tourism more sustainable. It, for instance, never mandated that hotels adopt energy-saving practices. This was not just because of its financial constraints; tourism was key to the Jamaican economy – it was the main foreign-exchange earner – and it was a private-sector driven industry.

Alongside local stakeholders, international donors such as the World Bank also put pressure on the GoJ to address the environmental sustainability of the sector. They also provided funding for initiatives to make tourism more sustainable, such as USAID which in the 1990s ran a programme that worked with small hotels in Negril to undertake environmental audits. This should be seen in light of a global shift towards sustainable tourism; that is, ‘tourism that takes full account of its current and future economic, social and environmental impacts, addressing the needs of visitors, the industry, the environment and host communities’ (UNWTO). In the wake of the 1992 United Nations’ Earth Summit (also known as the Rio Conference) which highlighted the need to adopt the principles of sustainable development in a wide range of economic and social processes, the World Tourism Organisation published a set of recommendations for governments and tourism operators to make tourism more sustainable.

The combined pressure of local stakeholders and international donors along with regional and local initiatives to make tourism more sustainable, such as the Caribbean Hoteliers Association’s Action for Sustainable Tourism which provided workshops, training courses and guidance material for its members on a range of environmental issues, encouraged the GoJ to develop a Master Plan for Sustainable Tourism. Work started in 1998 when consultations were held with various stakeholders, including local communities, to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the industry. It was completed in 2002 and addressed all three impacts of tourism. With regards to the environmental impact, the plan mentioned a new location strategy, environmental mitigation measures and support for the industry to adopt sustainable practices, which addressed some of the concerns raised by environmental groups and industry stakeholders in Negril, including poor sewage infrastructure and lack of inclusive planning. But it was not radical. It largely built on work already going on in Negril and other resorts, such as environmental audits, and the GoJ remained reluctant to prescribe changes in the industry. Furthermore, the island’s overall tourism strategy remained firmly focussed on the 3Ss – sun, sea and sand – which led to more tourist arrivals and an increase in hotel accommodation. Between 2002 and 2018, the number of hotel rooms available in Negril increased from 3,543 to 5,965 and the number of stopover arrivals rose from 256,667 to 410,665 (Jamaica Tourist Board annual travel statistics).

Because of its dependency on tourism, Jamaica was hit hard by the pandemic, which caused a 10 per cent decline in real GDP (World Bank). In the wake of the pandemic, various new tourism developments have been negotiated with government support. EIAs for these developments, including the 2,000-room Princess hotel in Negril, have been quickly approved despite objections by residents and environmental groups that local infrastructure cannot accommodate these large-scale developments and that they will destroy flora and fauna. However, there are some hopeful signs that the GoJ is trying to strike a better balance between the economic and the environmental sustainability of tourism, most notably its decision to finally replace the Master Plan. With support from the Interamerican Development Bank and input from industry stakeholders and civil society organisations, the GoJ embarked in 2023 on the development of a new tourism strategy that will put sustainability – economic, social and environmental – at its centre (Ministry of Tourism, 2023).

Originally posted on 1 March 2024 on White Horse Press blog.

Dr Saba Joshi, Lecturer in Gender and Development at the Department of Politics and Deputy Director of the IGDC, explores the gendered dimensions of the chronic underfunding and devaluation of paid and unpaid care work in global economies in a report recently published for Education International, a global union federation of teachers’ trade unions.

The global pandemic that swept across the world just a few years ago was a grim reminder of the fragility of human lives. Widespread illness and death, economic disruption, mobility restrictions and lockdowns precipitated by the unabated spread of Covid-19, was shocking, almost unbelievable for many of us.

At its crux, the pandemic sent a stark message about the significance of our health and wellbeing for the functioning of our societies and economies. Ultimately, what contributed disproportionately to our survival during this unprecedented event was “care”.

Care, in this context, refers to the life enhancing labour done “in part as unpaid work by families, friends, and community members, and in part as paid labour by workers such as doctors, nurses, teachers, home healthcare workers, nannies and domestic workers.”¹

Despite its centrality to our lives, care work is often a complex subject to grapple. How is care work of economic significance? How does care work impact upon individual workers’ lives? What challenges do care workers face globally? And how do these questions relate to education professionals, who work in a key sector of the global care economy? This blog piece will address some of these questions, with a global focus on gender and the education sector.

What is the care economy and why gender matters

Care work refers to the complex web of activities that sustain and reproduce life. Such work is wide-ranging and crucially, underpins all economic activity. Taken together, the term “care economy” captures to the relationship between economic and reproductive activities that sustain human societies.

One striking feature of the care economy is that it includes both unpaid and paid forms of labour. The work done by early childhood education and care personnel and schoolteachers, healthcare professionals, cleaners, and other household service providers are paid forms of care labour. At the same time, the time and energy spent on household tasks such as cooking, cleaning, and washing performed for oneself and others can be both paid and unpaid domestic labour.

It is impossible to talk about the care economy without recognizing the gendered dimension of both paid and unpaid care work. Globally speaking, women perform an inordinate amount of such labour in the world. The United Nations estimates that women carry out at least 2.5 times more unpaid household and care work than men². Unpaid care labour comprises 41 percent of the total global work hours.³

Paid care work is also dominated by women globally. The International Labour Organization’s (ILO) estimated that in 2018 global care workforce of 381 million workers is comprised of 248.9 million women and 132.1 million men. This implies a feminization rate (number of women per 100 men) of 65.3 percent⁴. In health-care, the most prominent sector of paid care work, women comprise 70 percent of workers globally⁵.

Measuring this care labour is complex, but assigning monetary value to it may help us understand its astounding economic contribution. Research indicates that women’s unpaid contributions to care equates to US$11 trillion or approximately 9 percent of the world GDP⁶.These estimates are based on time-use survey data gathered from 53 countries (63.5 percent of the global working age population) and were valued at the hourly minimum wage of each country.⁷

Gender, care and education

The education sector is a central pillar in the care economy. In developed economies, where the care workforce tends to be the largest, education and healthcare sectors are sizeable and relatively proportionate. Among poorer countries, care work is generally smaller and is concentrated in education, while healthcare sectors are more minor⁸.

The education sector is a bigger source of employment for women than for men. Around 7.4 percent of all women employed in the world find jobs in education, compared to 3.1 percent of men⁹. However there are important regional differences, in Africa and the Arab States, men tend to dominate the education sector overall. In regions where the education sector is larger, such as developed countries, women’s employment also tends to be higher.

Gender dynamics of employment in education are quite closely related to care work. For instance, the concentration of women teachers tend to be in the earlier years of schooling and their share of employment shrinks with each successive level of education¹⁰. This suggests that mainstream gender roles that associate women more closely with reproductive work and childcare are mirrored in their workforce participation. This in turn produce inequalities in the way this work is valued.

Early childhood education exemplifies this stark overlap between gendered nature of paid care work and its devaluation. Women make-up 85 percent of pre-primary school (typically between ages 3 and 5 years) teachers in all countries with available data¹¹. ILO analyses find that in both developed and developing countries, the pay and benefits for teachers for early childhood educators overall is lower than teachers at other levels. This has been linked to the high number of women represented in this category, the low recognition of their work and the low rates of unionization¹². Education International’s research on early childhood systems in 17 countries from almost all world regions found that early childhood education teachers, particularly in the private sector, remain largely nonunionized (EI, 2010)¹³.

Understanding the ‘crisis of care’

The ongoing struggles towards achieving gender justice and equitable, healthy, thriving societies are encapsulated in what is often termed the ‘crisis of care’. This crisis, which has long simmered under the societal and economic structures, refers to a) the chronic public underfunding and global devaluation of paid care work in economies, including but not limited to the education sector and b) the unequal participation in unpaid care work, where women and girls carry the largest burden. Undoubtedly, those further marginalised due to class, race, ethnicity, religion, sexuality or migration status, often face worse and more exacerbated impacts of this crisis.

The issue of chronic public underfunding of paid care work should come as no surprise to educators. In figures released by UNESCO in 2023, 9 percent of primary school teachers quit their jobs in 2022 (almost double the rate of 4.6 percent in 2015). According to these data, this trend is also visible among pre-primary school teachers, where the annually a global average of 5 percent of workers leave the profession¹⁴. The UN agency estimates that 44 million additional teachers need to be recruited if every child is to be provided education in the world¹⁵.

The shortfall of teachers is global—in sub-Saharan Africa there is a need for 15 million teachers to meet Sustainable Development Goal of education for all by 2030 (SDG 4), while in Europe and North America, 4.8 million teachers are needed¹⁶. This global shortfall is closely related to the deteriorating conditions, including pay and work-life balance for educators, which can only be ensured through sustained public funding of education. The ILO finds that “between 2005 and 2015, teachers’ statutory salaries decreased in real terms in one-third of the countries with available data.”¹⁷.

At the same time, considering women make up much of the education workforce globally, the dynamics of unpaid care labour are of equal importance here. The rising pressure to perform unpaid care labour is an acute problem due to issues such as the lack of affordable childcare and healthcare in many countries.

During the pandemic, lockdowns and other policies restricted worker mobility and the debilitating impacts of unpaid care work on teachers became increasingly visible. Feminist Center for Information and Action’s study of the care crisis for teachers from eight countries in Latin America during the pandemic found that women teachers experienced a “deepening of the care crisis” during the pandemic, with 1 in 4 women teachers stating that the time spent on care labour for non-dependent adults, increased¹⁸.

This is in line with EI’s global findings on women union members during the pandemic, which noted that due to increased burden of care work, members “were forced to leave teaching because of the uncertainty of loss of income, not to mention those who left due to stress cause by the shift to online teaching modalities.”¹⁹

The quote below from a key informant interviewed in this study, explains the relationship between unpaid care work and teaching during the pandemic:

Single parents are drowning in tasks constantly, no time for anything but childcare, work and housework. Out of hours working, lack of prep time, precarious work, having to cover classes, all of these things existed from before, so women’s lack of equality, but what we saw during the pandemic was that this really impacted members’ mental health.”²⁰

Key Informant – Europe

This statement captures what is at the heart of the crisis of care: the compounding impact of unsustainable working conditions for teachers, and the unjust, unequal burden of care work that disproportionately affects women.

About Education International

Education International is the Global Union Federation that brings together organisations of teachers and other education employees from across the world. It comprises 383 member organisations and represents more than 32 million teachers and education support personnel in 178 countries and territories.

This blog was originally posted on the Education International website.

1. Duffy, M., & Armenia, A. (2021). Paid Care Work Around the Globe – A comparative analysis of 47 countries and territories (Discussion Paper 39). UN Women, p.1. ↩︎
2. International Labour Office. (2016). Women at work: Trends 2016. International Labour Office.
   ↩︎
3. UN Women. (2020). COVID-19 and the Care Economy: Immediate action and structural transformation for a gender-responsive recovery (Policy Brief 16; Covid Response). UN Women, p.3. ↩︎
4. ILO (2018). Care work and care jobs for the future of decent work. International Labour Office, p.168.
   ↩︎
5. UN Women. (2020). COVID-19 and the Care Economy: Immediate action and structural transformation for a gender-responsive recovery (Policy Brief 16; Covid Response). UN Women, p.3. ↩︎
6. Ibid ↩︎
7. ILO (2018). Care work and care jobs for the future of decent work. International Labour Office, p.49. ↩︎
8. Duffy, M., & Armenia, A. (2021). Paid Care Work Around the Globe – A comparative analysis of 47 countries and territories (Discussion Paper 39). UN Women, pp. 8 , 15. ↩︎
9. ILO (2018). Care work and care jobs for the future of decent work. International Labour Office, p.185. ↩︎
10. OECD. (2019). Education at a Glance 2019: OECD Indicators. OECD. p.436. ↩︎
11. ibid ↩︎
12. ILO (2018). Care work and care jobs for the future of decent work. International Labour Office, p.188. ↩︎
13. (2010). Early Childhood Education: A Global Scenario. Education International. ↩︎
14. UNESCO. (2023). The teachers we need for the education we want: The global imperative to reverse the teacher shortage; factsheet. UNESCO, p.36. ↩︎
15. UNESCO. (2023). The teachers we need for the education we want: The global imperative to reverse the teacher shortage; factsheet. UNESCO ↩︎
16. Ahmed, K. (2023, October 4). World needs 44m more teachers in order to educate every child, report finds. The Guardian. ↩︎
17. ILO (2018). Care work and care jobs for the future of decent work. International Labour Office, p.129. ↩︎
18. Feminist Center for Information and Action CEFEMINA. (2022). Who is going to foot the bill?: Loss of labor rights and deepening of the care crisis for women teachers in eight Latin American countries during the pandemic. Education International Latin America. ↩︎
19. Miller, C., & Sabra, H. (2022). Women’s Participation in Education Unions in a Time of Covid-19 [Education International Research]. Education International, p.10 ↩︎
20. Miller, C., & Sabra, H. (2022). Women’s Participation in Education Unions in a Time of Covid-19 [Education International Research]. Education International, p.11 ↩︎

Written by Jon Ensor, Steven Johnson and Daniel Vorbach.

“Rather than defining the particular characteristics of a decision making institution, perhaps the most important step towards sustainable water governance lies in supporting communities to work through alternative approaches.”

A long-running interdisciplinary collaboration has seen two University of York staff working in the South Pacific island archipelago of Vanuatu since 2015. As an engineer and social scientist, they have been exploring approaches to technology development that are undertaken with and for marginalised communities (they now co-lead the new Equitable Technology Laboratory at York). In Vanuatu, this work focuses on water quality monitoring, which in practice means engaging with village-level water committees.

In Vanuatu, remote villages are distributed on more than 80 islands. It is a geography that does not lend itself to standardised water service provision, and neither private nor public sector water providers supply services to these rural communities. Instead, the responsibility of managing water systems lies with the communities, and for the vast majority in the donor, NGO and policy sectors this means setting up village water committees to ensure sustainable access to safe water.

NGOs, on behalf of the government, have set up or revived water committees to govern and manage repaired or newly established water systems. Yet, as one water sector actor has reported:

“[I’ve] never heard about a water committee that lasted more than five years. Many times they last less than that. Some only last one or two months.”

Despite widespread reporting of the limitations of water committees worldwide, they continue to be rolled out through programmes of training and support. In Vanuatu they remain an important pillar in the government’s framing of how water sector challenges can be resolved.

Water committees in practice

Against this backdrop, community members, Department of Water Resources personnel, and NGO and donor community representatives met at a workshop convened by the University of York in July 2023 to explore the underlying challenges facing water committees, and consider whether they are, in fact, the best option for securing sustainable access to safe water.

The workshop built on findings from research interviews with community members and national level water sector actors, facilitating group discussions between workshop participants with first-hand experience of community water management. Three themes dominated discussions:

Water challenges

Water is fundamentally a challenging resource to manage. Water sources are often distant (and uphill) from village centres, with routes cutting across land holdings; water quality is variable, and regular extreme weather events and growing populations threaten the sustainability of existing supplies; water tanks and containers are expensive to buy and maintain, requiring community members to contribute through water fees.

People challenges

Water committees are run by people. Even in settings with strong traditions of communal activities, such as in rural Vanuatu, relying on volunteering does not always work. Often due to poor or ‘one-off’ training, committee members lack clear roles and responsibilities, while many skills, including understanding of policy, financial standards and transparency, are absent or not shared with new members. Effective committees require resourceful people to be present, willing and available, supported by high quality and regular training on key issues and/ or by incentives.

Governance challenges

Resolving water resource and personnel challenges requires addressing deeper questions of governance, legitimacy and authority. Even dedicated committee members can easily lose interest if community leaders disregard water committee decisions. Effective and sustainable water committees are reported to be more likely when there are other strong community institutions, including strong chiefly governance, and when the water committee is clearly a part of (rather than apart from) these established village structures.

Why water committees?

Discussions emphasised that while the current way that committees are established rarely produces the expected outcomes, community governance and water governance are essential, and need to be supported. However, committees are only one way to govern community activities.

Potential alternative approaches raised during the workshop illustrate this: participants proposed governance arrangements more closely linked with Kastom (traditional knowledge, values, beliefs and practices), run by chiefs rather than committees; a shift to more inclusive committees with a focus on trained individuals; a closer and sustained link between water committees and NGOs; and the establishing of small businesses that are able to provide services across several communities. In all cases, stronger links are required to higher level (area and provincial) governance.

The underlying assumption that committees are needed to govern natural and social resources is widespread among stakeholders at all levels and in many countries across the globe. However, there are a great diversity of local contexts in Vanuatu, and what works in one community may not be appropriate for the next.

Diverse governance arrangements (e.g. village councils, committees, chiefly systems, community meetings) already exist: on the one hand, illustrating the differences between communities, while on the other, identifying the existing forms of governance that can be drawn on and strengthened.

One size does not fit all

While governance through committees may work in some communities, alternatives may be more effective in others. One size does not fit all.

What is required is a shift away from interventions that rely on prescriptive institutional structures, such as water committees, towards facilitated processes that support communities to develop or adapt their own governance arrangements.

This means identifying the challenges that need to be addressed, in context, and developing ideas around how these might be resolved. External interventions can support this by providing this facilitation and supporting local negotiations over which governance arrangements should be implemented.

Rather than defining the particular characteristics of a decision making institution, perhaps the most important step towards sustainable water governance lies in supporting communities to work through alternative approaches and to assemble arrangements that have the skills, legitimacy and authority to address their challenges in context.

In May and October 2023, the IGDC hosted two workshops in partnership with the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA), at University of York. IGDC members from across the University of York and members from Insituto de Saude Colectiva (Institute for Collective Health- ISC), UFBA attended the workshop that focused on our shared interests in decolonizing global development research.

These workshops sought to specifically explore the role of participatory research as a means and method to decolonize global development. We asked participants “what are the potential benefits or pitfalls of decolonization through participatory research methods”?

Our aims were to learn from each other’s experiences of using participatory research methods and brainstorming good practices and principles of decolonization of and through participatory methods.

Principles of decolonizing development research

Our discussions brought forward several principles in decolonizing global development research. These included critically assessing structures, processes, and needs implicated in generating development research. Participants’ reflections on the principles of decolonial project design laid emphasis on centralising the needs and voices of Global South partners to counter colonial legacies that privilege access to knowledge for elite, white, Western audiences and thinkers.

The decolonization agenda is, however, more than ‘diversifying’ or changing representation in knowledge formations, although this is also important. Rather, decolonial thought must be integrated in development research agendas in ways that mitigate deep-seated power imbalances.

As decolonial scholar Linda Tuhiwai Smith reminds us in her influential work Decolonizing Methodologies (2021) –

“research is not an innocent or distant academic exercise but an activity that has something at stake and that occurs in a set of political and social conditions.”

In her presentation at our workshop, UFBA Professor Leny Trad reflected on this statement and its implications on patterns of international research cooperation, wherein colonial power relations are often reproduced through the control of research budgets and agendas in the Global North, while the Global South tend to be sites of data collection or in some cases, ‘extraction’.

Our participants spoke of strategies to counter these tendencies through reflection on who defines research priorities, roles, planning processes and how research is published (for e.g. what languages are adopted and how accessible is the research). Alongside these reflections, participants spoke of establishing efficient modes of communications and trust building among research partners and participants. See also IGDC’s guide to inclusive research.

Overcoming power relations in knowledge generation will likely elicit discomfort. Development and knowledge are intimately linked with, and indeed constitutive of, colonial logics and structures. In this context, development researchers must recognize the complicity of high education institutions in reproducing hierarchies of knowledge production, through for e.g. enforcing disciplinary boundaries or organising researchers (and the validity of their knowledge) according to levels of educational attainment.

In turn, methodologies such as participatory research may seemingly contradict standards of rigour or validity enforced in higher education learning. Decolonizing research thus involves uncomfortable encounters with researchers’ own epistemic constraints and its relationship with power and coloniality.

Participants at our workshop argued that decolonizing development research implies recognizing that concepts are not the only form of knowledge, and that embracing other capacities for “knowing”, such as the body and senses. In doing so, decolonial methodologies may serve to rupture colonial divides between the mind and body or the rational and sensory.

“(Establish an) equitable, collaborative, pluriversal process of mutual learning which acknowledges past and present injustices, avoids unnecessary hierarchies and gives proper credit particularly to Majority World scholars and though leaders”

An extract from a workshop exercise asking participants to formulate a core principles for decolonization

Decolonization is an unfinished process, one fraught with tensions, which cannot be totally resolved but must be continuously negotiated.

A participant’s feedback on the key “take-away” from the workshops

Arts-based methods and participatory research

A common research theme that emerged through this exploration was the use of arts-based methods in participatory research and its potential for decolonizing research. Both our institutions are engaged in projects where the art-based methods have been central in exploring other ways of accessing experiences and engagements with inequality, injustice, health, and wellbeing.

Researchers from ISC- Lara Beck, Saulo Moreira and Tainá Azevedo- discussed their experiences of using ArtEthnography in project ECLIPE, an interdisciplinary and participatory research project developed in communities in Brazil, Ethiopia and Sri Lanka. IGDC members Emile Flower and Ana Bilbao Yarto discussed their research and engagement with arts-based methods (see the Arts Rights Truth project hosted at the Centre for Applied Human Rights), activism and human rights, while Steven Johnson offered insights into how science and engineering can be reimagined – and historic power relationships upturned – through sustained creative engagement with local communities.

These researchers presented their reflections on participatory research that seeks to “address extractive processes and inaccessible practices through co-creation and co-ownership – some of the principal concerns of decolonization.” (Emilie Flower’s presentation). In this context, art-based methods can serve to both create communities and friendships (as stressed in ECLIPSE project’s experiments with Artnoethnography), as well as foster critical thinking (Flower).

Participants thus discussed the potential of art as an alternative methodology that is not only participatory, but also disruptive to linear, rigid research agendas that view methods as a means of extraction rather than engagement. Methods in global development research can also be re-imagined as encounters that goes beyond research, towards recognizing different audiences, needs and voices.

Conclusion

For us, these endeavours were a means to generate ideas that would serve as a source of inspiration, critical (self) reflection and experimentation with themes and issues related to global development. They form a part of an ongoing conversation and emerging platform for collaboration between our institutions to explore and learn from each other’s experiences in the co-production of research linked to global development.

Other useful resources: Linda Tuhiwai Smith’s Decolonising Methods and Methodologies video on our YouTube channel where Dr Smith discusses decolonising research methods and provides reflections regarding the practical conduct of social science research methods. She also talks about how to navigate and resist colonial legacies of knowledge production and resist extractivist models.

Jon Ensor, IGDC Director, discusses four broad themes which came out of 2023’s Annual Lecture.

On 28 November it was my huge privilege to introduce Professor Uma Kothari as the speaker for IGDC’s 2023 Annual Lecture – Towards decoloniality and justice: when the past pushes unfinished into the present. Professor Kothari is well known for her work as a human geographer and scholar of development theory, social policy and social change.

I first came to know her work following the publication of Participation, the New Tyranny back in 2001: a groundbreaking work that challenged the co-option of participation, identifying how its roots as a radical force for redistributing power had been eroded as it entered the toolbox of approaches deployed by those more comfortable working with dominant interests.

In this lecture, co-option again appeared (more on that below) in an important reminder that radical and emancipatory concepts – including participation, and decoloniality – will never be enough to secure transformative change. Rather, we must focus on and constantly interrogate our praxis, critically examining from where it springs and for whom the benefits accrue.

Engaging, informative and punctuated with stunning images, this year’s annual lecture left me thinking about four broad themes. The caricatures that follow are inspired and informed by Professor Kothari’s thesis – but don’t claim to be an accurate report of her talk, or a reflection of the nuance and depth of her scholarship!

You can find the full talk on the IGDC YouTube channel.

Future perfect

Professor Kothari opened with a discussion of how development discourse fetishises the future; obsessing over future goals while ignoring the relevance of the past. Recurrent efforts to rethink development are imbued with this orientation (think: SDGs), looking to prescribe the future through goals and targets. Inevitably, these targets are not fully open and do not leave communities and peoples “free to become”. Amnesia underpins and enables development, allowing it to ignore its own colonial history and to become a system that is seeking to solve the problems that it has caused. At the same time, amnesia and the future-perfect mindset close down the space to break this cycle and inhibit our ability to explore escape pathways and transformation.

Missing histories

Amnesia, and the limited historical analysis that it implies, is a central obstacle to decoloniality, concealing the past and leaving present day legacies unexplored. Distancing ourselves from the past – implicitly conceiving of history as irrelevant to development – allows “the endless circulation of abbreviated histories and bad ideas”. No room is made in our conceptual frameworks or methodological approaches to recognise past injustices, explore their genesis and consequences, or consider how remedies might be developed and secured. This ahistorical mire allows uneven geographies of time to emerge, in which those “over there” can be understood as less developed, more traditional, not modern and / or more primitive; dualisms that persist even when obscured by language that delicately differentiates between the global north and south.

Co-option capture

As noted above, a central problem for development is the persistent spectre of co-option. If decolonisation is to have real meaning and real teeth, then it needs to avoid being sanitised and depoliticised in the way of so many similar terms and concepts. How long until the neoliberal co-option of development solidarity – shopping our way out of crisis – is reworked to identify decolonial consumption or a new line in reparation offsets? This potential for capture is perhaps all the more pointed because decolonisation is in part about not doing: it demands that development scholars, professionals and privileged polities at times step aside and let others speak and set the agenda in processes of social, economic and cultural change.

Where next?

Identifying and acknowledging the continuing legacy of coloniality and challenging the “lure of amnesia” means that development needs a new role, and new narratives, that not only recognise the echoes of colonialism that surround us – in art and architecture, for example – but also foreground neglected stories and release submerged and suppressed ways of understanding the world. This means recognising the cultural context of knowledge but – and it’s an important “but” – there’s also a trap here for efforts towards decolonising development. The strongest message I took from Professor Kothari’s lecture was the risk of worrying about decolonising knowledge at the expense of dismantling the structures, institutions and praxis that is the legacy of colonialism. We need to focus on material transformation rather than only on symbolic shifts. The return of territory, the repatriation of stolen resources, and the transformation of structures cannot be lost in an explosion of anti-racist and social justice metaphors that allow evasions and continued reproduction of colonial relations.

For IGDC, this annual lecture was an important opportunity to reflect on our commitment to decoloniality, to be challenged on what it means for our approach to research, and to problematise the assumptions and perspectives that we bring to global development. Professor Kothari’s talk surfaced critical issues: how we work with history and think about social justice; how we balance concern with the future with appreciation for how we arrived at where we find ourselves today; and perhaps most pointedly, how so much of our work – across disciplines – has learnt to ignore legacies of empire, race science, dispossession and exploitation. It is for us to take these concerns seriously, and ask what they mean for our work and how we understand ‘global development’ as an area of engaged research and practice.

Written by Nick Wolterman – Senior Commissioning Editor, International Development, Bloomsbury Academic.

My job is pretty straightforward. It is to read book proposals from would-be authors for Bloomsbury’s international development list (as well as its African studies and economics lists); to determine whether those proposals are in line with strategy; and if they are, to send them out for peer review in order to help determine whether we should ultimately offer a publishing contract. I read and consider all the proposals I receive with care, but some have features that make them really stand out. That is, some have features that enable me to start envisioning the finished product, complete with its marketing strategy, from the time I read the short summary.

In this post, I offer a “top three” list of these features. If you are planning to submit a book proposal to me—or probably to any other international development editor—you would do well to bear these in mind. You definitely wouldn’t want to use this list to overhaul your project in order to shoehorn it into boxes it wouldn’t otherwise fit, of course, but you could use this to frame your project in a strategic way or to emphasise certain qualities already present. Even little tweaks can make a big difference. Here’s the list, in no particular order.

Evident inter- or multidisciplinary appeal

Be it in its focus, method, or authorship, a book characterised by evident inter- or multidisciplinarity will always catch my eye. This is largely because Bloomsbury is committed to publishing and promoting work that engages with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and those goals, by their very nature, require non-siloed, problem-driven research.

If your work already has a strong inter- or multidisciplinary element, and/or if it already strongly aligns or engages with one or more of the UN SDGs, you would do well to highlight this in your proposal. If it doesn’t, it could still help to explain in your proposal, however briefly, how your work might resonate with or complement work in other disciplines, or how it might strengthen or complicate one or more of the SDGs. Note that “engagement with the SDGs” does not necessarily mean “uncritical alignment with the SDGs.” Interdisciplinary critical engagement with the goals is also welcome (and relatively rare).

Theory/practice balance

International development scholars fall into three broad camps: those who work in theory, those who work on practice—e.g. on policy, practitioner approaches, or the private sector—and those who try to balance both. From my perspective, the more balance, the better. As a commissioning editor for academic books, I want everything I sign to be grounded in a coherent theoretical position that will be convincing to scholarly readers. At the same time, I want to publish books grounded in the real world with a potential to make a difference, however specifically targeted, beyond academia. Robust empirical evidence and concrete, intelligent recommendations for policy or practice, then, are always very appealing. A book proposal that manages to tick both the “theory” and “policy” boxes convincingly is a rare thing indeed and will always catch my attention.

That said, I’ve got plenty of time for “primarily theory” and “primarily practise” books, as well, so long as they acknowledge what they are and make gestures towards their limitations and possible further implications. If your project is primarily practice-driven, for example, a couple of lines about how your findings might resonate with relevant theoretical debates would usually be enough to convince me that it might get the attention of a few theory folks. If yours is a primarily theoretical work, some engagement with what your argument might say about practice—e.g. about the SDGs, or the assumptions behind them—would have a similar effect.

Global North/South balance or collaboration

For a number of reasons, historical and structural, Global-South-based authors are underrepresented on the lists of Global-North-based publishers, and those publishers’ international development books are disproportionately focused on development in the Global South. Bloomsbury Academic is in the midst of a years-long push to correct this problem. For example, my colleagues and I are developing a number of initiatives that would increase the representation and visibility of Global-South-based authors on our lists. Among these is Bloomsbury’s new open-access initiative, Bloomsbury Open Collections, which is being trialled on my African studies and international development lists next year. Other initiatives aimed at increasing the number of Global-South-based scholars on the list are in the works and should come to fruition within the next year or so.

In the meantime, however, I am simply doing what I can do to redress the imbalance manually. I am reaching out to research institutions in the Global South, and I am keeping a special eye out for proposals from Global-South based authors or from authors who collaborate with people based in the Global South. At the same time, I am keeping an eye out for Global-North-focused books framed in terms of global development, or for books that fall into the broad category I call, “What the South might teach the North about development.” I’m equally interested in any other attempt to move beyond stereotypical North/South divides. It goes without saying, then, that if any of this applies to your project, you would do well to highlight it in your proposal however you can.

That’s it: the top three things that make an international development book proposal stand out to me. Remember that these are only tips for tweaking, and that the real fundamentals of a good proposal remain the same regardless of field: namely, clear argumentation, rigorous research, palpable conviction, and never to be underestimated, a believable timeline for completion. If you’ve got that much, you’ve come a long way already, and the above can provide the icing on the cake.

If you have any questions, suggestions, or most of all, book ideas, please feel free to drop me an email at Nick.Wolterman@Bloomsbury.com.

IGDC Member Henrice Altink, and Tim Hart discuss urban farming in Johannesburg.

There are more than 300 farms in Johannesburg and new ones are sprouting up across the city, including in informal settlements. Urban agriculture (UA) has the potential to enhance food security in Johannesburg – more than 40 % of households are food insecure – and reduce poverty through job creation. Our research into the production and consumption of traditional vegetables by migrant communities in Johannesburg shows that to fulfil this potential, urban farmers in the city need more support as most are only eking out a precarious existing on infertile soils.

UA in Johannesburg takes various forms, ranging from backyard and community gardening on land provided by churches and schools to larger-scale urban farms. Many urban farms in the city were set up with support from the government, NGOs and other organisations¹. The Ruterang Agricycle project, for instance, was set up in 2013 and has received seeds, manure and tools from the Gauteng Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (GDARD). One of the seedling farms we visited in Braamfontein was the recipient of support from the Urban Agriculture Initiative (UAI), a not-for-profit social enterprise that provides training and other support to grow fresh produce in limited spaces, such as rooftops.

Most urban farms we visited were based on school land or land adjacent to schools. Some farmers had also taken over existing farms that had gone into decline. The farmers are driven not by business profit but by the social benefits that the farm can bestow on the local community. Take, for example, Joseph, whose farm is close to the Protea Glen shopping mall. On approximately 2000m² and in polytunnels, he grows not just spinach, kale, lettuce and other commonly consumed vegetables but also traditional leafy vegetables, such as pumpkin leaves, okra leaves, and mustard spinach (mutshaina), which are nutrient-dense and can reduce malnutrition²(Mwadzingeni et al., 2021). Like most urban farmers we interviewed, Joseph sells his produce to community members who visit his farm. As the land is adjacent to a school, teachers and parents comprise a large proportion of his clientele. Joseph has plans to extend his clientele base by opening a spaza shop (tuck shop) to sell his produce and wants to undertake a survey in the neighbourhood to better understand the vegetables that people would like to eat so that he can better meet the community’s needs.

Like most of the other urban farmers we interviewed, Joseph is an organic farmer. He grows most of his crops in deep trenches, which improves soil quality, and uses only natural fertilisers and pesticides. Recently, he started a scheme that offers a discount for vegetables for anyone who can bring him a jerrycan of urine. Urine is rich in nitrogen and phosphorus and has been used for centuries across parts of Africa and Asia as a fertiliser for plants. He also has plans to keep rabbits on his farm not only for manure, like some other urban farmers already do, but also to improve the community’s food security as rabbit meat is nutrient-rich and affordable. Rabbit farming is growing in South Africa, partly because start-up costs are relatively low and recovered within six to eight months³.

Joseph is currently providing primary school learners with raised beds so they can grow crops to take home to their family. Alongside enhancing their family’s food security, the learners acquire key agricultural skills that can help them secure a job in future. And Joseph also feeds the community directly. Every weekend, he and his wife cook for about 40 people from the local neighbourhood and during the week, they cook for the workers and some hungry community members. Like some other farmers in the area, he allows community members to freely pick the leaves of seasonal leafy vegetables that germinate after the first summer rains in the uncultivated areas of the farm, including blackjack and amaranth. Some migrants in the area like the leaves of young sweet potato and pumpkin plants, and Joseph allows them to pick these when the crops are grown.

But Joseph and other urban framers in the city need more support to scale-up their enterprises so they can feed more people in the community and provide more local jobs. They need:

• Land: Many urban farmers we interviewed found it difficult to access land, did not hold a secure tenancy, and cultivated land with poor soil. Joseph has an agreement with the school that he can use the land for 15 years, and some of the land he is currently converting into deep-trenched raised beds for the school children was a waste field. However, there are large tracts of unused public and privately-owned land in Johannesburg that could be used for more urban farms. 
• Water: Urban farmers need access to a reliable supply of water. Many urban farmers we spoke to struggled to irrigate their lands because of load-shedding (rolling blackout).
• Financial support: Many urban farms in the city are largely driven by social benefits. Support to buy seeds, tools and other agri-inputs would enable them to balance their books.
• Training: Many of the farmers we interviewed had received training in agriculture. Some had a degree in agricultural sciences and others had undergone training provided by NGOs. But all would benefit from support from extension services, such as training in organic soil management and climate-smart agriculture.
• Market access: Our research has shown that there is a demand from rural migrants and African migrants, who are amongst the most food insecure in Johannesburg, for certain types of vegetables, such as pumpkin leaves and chomolia (African kale), that are not widely sold in the city. Most urban farmers only grow produce that is commonly sold and eaten, such as spinach, kale, cabbage and tomatoes. Traditional leafy vegetables can easily be grown locally and there is a market for them. Joseph, for instance, sells rape, African nightshade (managu), chomolia, and okra leaves to migrants from Zimbabwe and Mozambique. To supply the migrant market for traditional leafy vegetables, farmers need to link up with the traders of these vegetables, while migrants need to be made aware of where these vegetables can be purchased – directly from the farms or traders.
• Other support: Urban farms need more trained staff to scale up their activities. The Rutegang Agri-cycling farm employs student interns from a local college. But most of the farms we visited used only volunteers.

In his review of urban agriculture in Cape Town, Kanosvamhira⁴ has presented the formation of Farmers’ Associations, which currently only exist at the national and provincial level, as an essential strategy to enable urban farmers to ensure that extension services and other relevant bodies meet their specific needs. Urban farmers in Johannesburg already come together in various groups. Several of our interviewees, for instance, attend the monthly farmers’ lab organised by Izindaba Zokudla which teaches farmers practical organic techniques, and are part of seed-swapping groups. These groups can form the basis for forming a Farmers’ Association that, alongside the support mentioned above, can help them improve food security in their locality.

About the authors

Professor Henrice Altink is a professor of Modern History at the University of York.

Dr Tim Hart is a chief research specialist and social anthropologist in the Developmental, Capable and Ethical State Research Group at the HSRC.

References

1. Rudolph, Mello, and Muchesa, 2021:131 ↩︎
2. Mwadzingeni et al., 2021 ↩︎
3. SME South Africa ↩︎
4. The Organisation of Urban Agriculture in Cape Town, South Africa: A Social Capital Perspective by Kanosvamhira, Tinashe Paul. ↩︎

Olivia, a third year student at the University of York studying on the BA in Global Development, went on a field trip to Accra in Ghana in April 2023 to carry out development research.

Hi, I am Olivia, and I’m a third year student at the University of York, studying on the BA in Global Development. In April 2023, I went on an incredible field trip to Accra in Ghana to carry out development research.

To gain context of the country, the group visited different places across Accra and Cape Coast. When we arrived, we explored some of the capital city, Accra. One of the first places we visited was Makola Market (the largest market in Ghana), where the resilience of our senses were put to the test. We were dropped in the deep end (in a market labyrinth), with tens of thousands of people buying and selling produce; from fresh avocados and mangoes to handmade fashion items, smoked fish, and grains and delicacies from across the country…you could find anything there. We also visited Black Star Square where Kwame Nkrumah declared Ghana’s dependence from the UK in 1957. A particularly poignant place, it was huge; you really got a sense of how electric the area would’ve been back then.

After our initial settling-in period (and to adjust to the heat and humidity!) we headed to Cape Coast via a cocoa growing community in Asafo, in the Eastern region. Here we gained an insight into the workings of a cocoa farm, with a session led by the community’s leader and gatekeeper. Cocoa is one of the country’s largest exports, along with gold and oil¹. We learned how cocoa farming is overseen by Ghana’s Cocoa Board, which represents farmers at the national level to ensure they are protected through policy and fair pricing every season. We spoke to local women who worked for the Board to ensure good quality produce who took us through the process of cocoa production from cultivation to harvest. There was a real family community feel in Asafo, with farms employing most of the households in the local area, and a school that supported local children’s education and development, all taught by local people to keep indigenous knowledge and learning at the heart of their studies.

In Cape Coast, we visited Cape Coast Castle, previously owned by the British during colonial rule of the Gold Coast (the colonial name for Ghana). Perhaps the most harrowing experience of the trip, the Castle saw millions of African captives pass through and sold as slaves for around 200 years. We stood in the dungeons where captives were held; 1,500 captives were kept in one small space, left there to eat, sleep, excrete, vomit, and suffer for up to 3 months while waiting to be sold and put on the next ship and taken them across the Atlantic, never to return. The dungeons were hot, sticky, dark, and smelt like the horrors of history. A truly eye-opening and emotional experience, one that is hard to comprehend until you are stood inside. Below the ‘Door of No Return’ a fishing community were going about their daily routines, in handmade boats of incredible colour and design, donning their individual flags. Again, the sounds of music, the hustle and bustle of people working and selling, and the smells of the fish and the sea air were a real sensory overload – nonetheless, beautiful.

Perhaps the most shocking experience of the trip was our visit to Agbogbloshie, one of the world’s largest informal e-waste dumps. The site is home to over 10,000 workers, and more of their families, who wade through scrap metals, rubbish, e-waste, and plastic every day, in a process of informal recycling for their livelihoods. As we got out of the minibus, the smell of burning plastic and electronics filled the air – you couldn’t escape it. Piles of plastic and plumes of smoke dominated the horizon, and the walkways up to the top were lined with plastic, tyres, metal, rubber, electronics, old car engines – anything you have ever thrown away in life, you would find it here. The river Voltar, which runs alongside the dump, is certified as ‘dead’, meaning no living organism can survive in its waters. Cows were grazing on the tops of rubbish mountains; not a blade of grass in sight. However, despite the atrocities of the conditions people were working in, this place provides thousands of people with jobs, a place to live, and a livelihood. People from the northern regions migrated down to Accra to work in sites such as these, because there are opportunities to earn a living there. Although it is informal, the government could do little to prevent this, with our guide telling us “Ghana would shake” if the government destroyed the site.

Finally, on our return to Accra, I conducted research into the impacts of COVID-19 on informal traders, and the role of the government regarding recovery and resilience. Co-designing with a student from the University of Ghana and York, the project was conducted across three days, aiming to interview 20 participants and determine initial key findings. The research days were incredible experiences; they provided a vital insight into the processes of researching in a developing country and into the issues Ghana is facing in the current economic climate.

The Simon Bryceson Fund helped to support this research, and I’m so grateful I had this opportunity to develop my skills, see a different part of the world, and to meet some amazing people who supported my research report. The skills, knowledge, and experiences gained on this trip are immeasurable, getting me one BIG step closer to starting a career in the development field.

Extra information

Across the two weeks, the group visited several NGOs to gain insight into the work individual organisations are doing, from grassroots to national level. The groups we visited were:

Jaynii Streetwise Foundation

Local, grassroot community dance and music group that support children who are not in school. Providing them with a safe space to explore their creativity, confidence, and passion for the arts, and offering scholarships to study for students.

Global Mamas

Supporting mothers and women to build financial, health, and emotional wellbeing through developing their skills and knowledge of entrepreneurship. Their mission is to create a life of prosperity for African women and their families.

The OR Foundation

Clothing waste and justice NGO, the foundation promotes the circular economy through the regeneration of clothing and plastic waste across Accra. Working at the grassroot, national and international levels, the foundation provides work and skills training for local people, conducts research across Accra to provide policy suggestions regarding plastic, waste, and water provisions, and works internationally through advocacy work at the UN and other international organisations.

The GNECC

The Ghana National Education Campaign Coalition is a network of over 200 civil society organisations. The GNECC represents these organisations at the national political level, influencing policies by gaining research and data from local organisations.

1. Ghana – Country Commercial Guide market overview, International Trade Administration website (retrieved 2023) ↩︎