The racist murder of George Floyd in May 2020 galvanised international mass action. It highlighted the need for us to intensify work to expose and oppose institutional and systemic legacies of imperialism, capitalism and colonialism as expressed through socially constructed hierarchies based on ‘race,’ sex, gender, class, sexuality, religion (or lack of religion), physical (dis)ability, culture, language, and so on. These hierarchies are structural and embedded into all aspects of our society.

Many of us believe inequality is promulgated by the ‘aid’ industry under the auspices of ‘development’ and that these sectors are anchored in colonialism and white supremacy as revealed in the language used. As Terembo Cherono Maritim has said: “Going to ‘the field’ (fuels the) fantasy of going somewhere dangerous to rescue people with no autonomy or initiative. We never refer to European or North American offices as ‘the field’.”

INGO safeguarding scandals reveal a system that shores up relationships of privilege/poverty and domination/subordination under the guise of addressing inequalities. Researchers and academics from so-called ‘developing’ countries are prevented from progressing by fees demanded for processing and publishing their work. It seems to many of us that the discourse of ‘development’ exists to mask trade and foreign policy interests.

Colleagues in four LIDC member institutions  ( University College London Institute of Education, the School of Oriental and African Studies, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Birkbeck (Geography Dept) have organised this event so that we can come together with others to share ideas on harnessing our strengths to effectively challenge how power is exercised in the ‘aid’ and ‘development’ sectors. We hope it will act as a catalyst for further interdisciplinary collaborations as we work to decolonise development.

This workshop is open to all.

Information on the exact timings of these sessions will follow shortly. Once registered, you can attend all/any of the sessions.

NB: Times stated in the schedule are provisional – they will be confirmed shortly.  All times are BST (GMT+1) We open at 09.30 for informal introductions and a chat.

There will be time for discussion. This event will be recorded.

Register for this free event here

For the full programme agenda click here