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- Convenors:
-
Nadine Machikou
(University of Yaoundé II)
Cecelia Lynch (UC Irvine)
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- Format:
- Paper panel
- Stream:
- Decolonisation and development
- Location:
- S314, 3rd floor Senate Building
- Sessions:
- Thursday 27 June, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
The panel seek to explore what is decolonization for German and transnational aid interlocutors, what barriers or possibilities do they see from related demands, and what practices and perspectives are changing or need to change to achieve them
Long Abstract:
In its recent engagement strategy with Africa in pursuing global structural policy, Germany claimed to be driven by principles of respect and reciprocity. This orientation seems to be imbued with a what appears as a decolonization claim. Our panel intends to analyze the way the contemporary development policy of Germany in Africa mobilizes the paradigm of decolonization. These moves by German officials, moreover, are occurring in the midst of potent calls by scholars of decolonial thought to “decolonize humanitarianism” and “decolonize development” (Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2018, 2022; Falola 2023; Adomako Ampofo 2019; Boateng 2021; Diagne 2018; Ziai 2020; Machikou 2018; Sieg 2021, Lynch 2022). The panel intends to analyze the decolonial turn as a global social justice frame and to what extend aid/development agencies are responding to this call. We intend to discuss and debate the state of decolonizing aid in Germany today, in intersectional terms by underscoring the fact that these interactions are framed in racialized, gendered and highly unequal power interactions. This goes with an effort to identify traces of both practical and epistemic forms of resistance (academic institutions, programs questioning the decolonization of aid and humanitarianism in Germany, etc.) toward these unequal structures in the field of development aid and humanitarianism. The panel examines how the past has or has not contributed to shaping the terms in which German development cooperation conceive equality and respect; with the sense of an epistemic tension between Germany and countries targeted by it’s intervention, around the meaning of development and aid decolonization
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 27 June, 2024, -Paper short abstract:
The paper will bring the following discussions and discourses: 1. The elements and issuses as regards, strenghtening cooperations among humanitarian actors in Nigeria 2. Discuss the ways, avenue and challenges of strengthening cooperations between humanitarian actors in Nigeria.
Paper long abstract:
This study examines strengthening cooperation between humanitarian, development, and peace actors to enable long-term programmes for vulnerable communities in Nigeria. Since humanitarian actors are the ones with the most firsthand professional knowledge of the crisis's situation on the ground and frequently have greater access to those in need, it is crucial that they take the lead, participate in, and engage in humanitarian responses. Both the local and international actors always stand in the vacuum of responding to humanitarian crises and truck more of their organizational goals. This study used a mixed research method of key informant interviews (KII) and secondary data sources. The key informants' interview questions will be open-ended questionnaires covering various research questions from the study. The study population will comprise 100 participants from local and international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) working in Nigeria. The study hopes to understand the elements, strategies, and challenges of strengthening cooperation between humanitarian, development, and peace actors to enable long-term programmes for vulnerable communities in Nigeria. Building a strong partnership continues to be a better understanding of humanitarian engagement worldwide.
In contrast, humanitarian principles remain important in ensuring that programmes for conflict-affected societies are implemented. This study concluded and recommended that strengthening humanitarian, development, and peace actors to enable a long-term programme for vulnerable communities in Nigeria is vital, and engaging thorough rights to ensure access to quality services is considered for all. Including local communities with government assistance is needed to build more resilient actions from Nigeria's humanitarian, development, and peace actors.
Paper short abstract:
Taking a pathways approach to change, we view FDPs/FFPs as pathways to transformative change and interrogate to learn if existing inequities are addressed in changes: - To structures of economies and power. - To systems, policies, and incentives. - That promotes alliances and actions from below.
Paper long abstract:
Feminist principles and social justice objectives for transformative change by FDPs/FFPs can be discussed in the below three indices.
Changes to structures of economies and power
The extent to which FDPs/FFPs have attended to repair histories of extractivism, commodification, and climate change or reproduce them in new forms can be argued by looking at climate financing economic models in support of climate mitigation and adaption. The contemporary architecture of international climate finance promotes debt-increasing options such as loans and green bonds for countries under non-concessional or unfavorable conditions (UNDESA 2023).
Changes to systems, policies, and incentives
There is a consensus among feminist and social justice advocates that strengthening gender equality and justice is achievable through direct public expenditures in social sectors and services (Winder and Smith, 2018). The realities are that the underlying organization of the economic, social, and political systems prioritizes growth in production and finance and neglects or omits social reproduction, the costs of caring labor pass to most vulnerable groups in society, especially low-income women (Cassirer and Addati, 2020).
Changes that promote alliances and actions from below
Women's rights movements, feminists and justice activists, scholars, and researchers all over the world rally around challenging patriarchal systems of oppression and discrimination while simultaneously emphasizing power struggles across race, class, gender, age, etc. (Inter-American Commission of Women (CIM), 2023). The lack of consideration of race and how racial hierarchies are often reinforced in the practices of FFDs like Germany simply underline enduring blind spots (Haastrup, 2023).
Paper short abstract:
This contribution adresses the conditions in which the decolonial turn opens a window to a common and shared understanding of the terms of decolonization of present relations especially in the humanitarian sphere
Paper long abstract:
If the decolonial turn is more than a buzz word, it appears that it’s meaning is diverse, especially in a context of insufficiently explored colonial past. Our paper intends to explore what decolonization for Cameroonian, German and transnational aid interlocutors, and what barriers or possibilities do they see from related demands. We look at the challenges posed by a specific linkage between colonial and contemporary, post-colonial forms of aid/humanitarianism in a the context of a nostalgic invocation of the German colonial past by some Cameroonians on the one hand, and an insufficient reference to the structuring German colonial presence in Cameroon on the German side. How, under these conditions, can a common and shared understanding of the terms of decolonization of present relations be constructed? The paper will be exploring the conditions in which is negotiated a shared space with a past that compels.