Contribution short abstract:

This research examines power dynamics in Ghana's development sector through critical discourse analysis and interviews. We analyse how African feminist scholars and women development workers resist capitalist approaches, advancing strategies for accountable, reparative development practices.

Contribution long abstract:

International development organisations have been criticised for perpetuating power dynamics that maintain the othering of developing countries. Guided by capitalist thoughts and liberal feminist ideas, international development programs particularly situate the othering of African women. While alternative development approaches prioritising accountable practice within the Global South and non-Western feminisms have been proposed, there remains a disconnect between these alternative feminist approaches and mainstream international development practices. Through critical discourse analysis and in-depth interviews, this research explores how African feminist scholars and Ghanaian women development workers navigate and interrupt the invocation of power in the course to ‘help’ countries in the Global South when development projects are implemented in Ghana. Power dynamics are revealed through the relationships between donors, international organisations, staff, and 'beneficiaries', particularly in how projects are conceptualised - with an apparent disconnect between intended goals and participants' needs and the universalising of participant identities that reinforces images of vulnerability and lack of autonomy. Advancing a transnational, intersectional African feminist theoretical framing, we highlight how African women in development and feminist scholars resist, negotiate, and strategise within these spaces. By examining strategies of resistance and combining African feminist scholarship with development practice, this research proposes pathways toward more accountable and reparative development approaches that challenge historical patterns of oppression.