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- Convenors:
-
Rakiya Mamman
(National Open University of Nigeria)
M. Jahangir Alam Chowdhury (University of Dhaka)
Saadatu Umaru Baba (Kaduna State University)
Zeus Hiram Zamora Guevara (Tecnologico de Monterrey)
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- Chair:
-
Abdalla Uba Adamu
(Bayero University Kano, Nigeria)
- Discussants:
-
Oluwakemi Olayinka
(Leipzig University, Germany Addis Ababa University Ethiopia)
Muyiwa Odele (United Nations Development Programme (UNDP))
- Format:
- Paper panel
- Stream:
- Decolonising knowledge, power & practice
- Location:
- L1.17
- Sessions:
- Thursday 9 July, -
Time zone: Europe/Dublin
Short Abstract
Curricular power: Examining the political economy of standard-setting as Global South institutions navigate North-based academic networks, standards and national regulatory demands to forge decolonial futures.
Description
The DSA2026 theme invites a critical reimagining of development by questioning its epistemic limitations and how power relations are reconfigured at institutional scales. This panel focuses on a crucial, yet often-untheorised, site of struggle: Development Studies and allied social science, education, and humanities curricula in the Global South(gS). We investigate the tensions that arise when institutions in Africa, Asia, and Latin America assert agency within a global academic landscape still shaped by colonial knowledge hierarchies.
Drawing on anchoring case studies including the pioneering establishment of Development Studies at the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) we unpack the political-economy of academic standard-setting. What are the shared and divergent experiences of navigating North-based academic networks (e.g., EADI) versus demands for national relevance and national regulatory compliance (e.g., NUC/CCMAS)? What power asymmetries emerge when institutions must justify their existence using global standards, and what does successful accreditation truly signify for grassroots agency and the redistribution of knowledge power? This dual pressure creates new forms of inequality while simultaneously asserting alternative visions of progress.
We invite abstracts/papers from scholars, practitioners, doctoral researchers, specializing in curriculum studies, decolonizing knowledge, experienced in establishing, revising, or accrediting programmes across the gS. We welcome contributions from Development Studies and allied Social Sciences (-Sociology, Economics, Politics, Social Work), Education, and the Arts and Humanities (e.g., Philosophy, History, Theology). Contributions should critically examine influence of global-North networks, the demands of national quality assurance, and how local actors assert agency to redefine knowledge for collective wellbeing in an uncertain world.
Accepted papers
Session 1 Thursday 9 July, 2026, -Paper short abstract
The proposal centers on the nature of DS in Nigeria. The findings shows a splintered tradition of teaching DS in traditional Social Sciences and current trend to establish independent DS programmes. I posed a contestation between offering DS in splintered disciplines vs. creating new DS programmes.
Paper long abstract
Development Studies (DS) is a transdisciplinary discipline and became prominent during the late decolonisation period - 1940-1960s. It was established to focus on colonised nations transition to ‘modern states’ based on Western notion of progress and enlightenment and political economy of resource transfer. There is paucity of literature exploring DS curriculum, pedagogies, and the state/nature of DS in various countries. The UK, Australia, and Canada, representing the countries with the earliest DS programmes have contributed more to the available literature. There is only a handful of literature on the state-of-the-field of DS in the Global South, including South Korea, Malaysia, and Ghana. Therefore, this proposal centres on the nature of DS in Nigeria.
Based on a critical qualitative research inquiry and multiple qualitative data, including ethnographic interviews with nineteen development lecturers across eleven universities in Nigeria. The findings showed that DS is mainly offered as Postgraduate specialisations and (splintered) across various Social Science disciplines and the epistemology is usually biased towards the discipline offering the program. The main exception is the recent inclusion of DS as an undergraduate program in Nigeria’s curriculum standards - Core Curriculum Minimum Academic Standards (CCMAS). The National Open University (NOUN) also offers an undergraduate interdisciplinary DS programme. The findings poses a final question and contestation between offering DS in splintered disciplines (‘Do we need DS to understand Nigeria's developmental challenges?’) and interdisciplinary DS (‘Despite our development challenges, we do not have a state-of-the-art Development school and an undergraduate foundational programme in DS’).
Paper short abstract
This paper examines the establishment of Nigeria's first BSc Development Studies programme. It interrogates the strategic reliance on North-based standards (EADI) to secure national legitimacy (NUC), framing this not as hypocrisy but as a "structural entanglement" that shapes decolonial agency.
Paper long abstract
The global call to decolonise development studies often overlooks the "infrastructures of legitimacy" that govern academic programme establishment in the Global South. Drawing on the author’s experience as the pioneer Head of Department (2019-2025) who led the accreditation of Nigeria’s first BSc Development Studies programme at the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN), this paper interrogates the “Accreditation Paradox”. It argues that securing national regulatory approval from the National Universities Commission (NUC) necessitated a tactical reliance on Northern academic networks, specifically the European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), to define "quality".
Rather than viewing this reliance as a decolonial failure, the paper theorises it as a "structural entanglement". Using curriculum matrices and accreditation documents as primary evidence, it reveals how power operates within these administrative gatekeeping technologies. The paper examines the tension within the NUC’s Core Curriculum and Minimum Academic Standards (CCMAS), where the 70% mandated "core" often reproduces Eurocentric lineages, while the 30% institutional space offers a fragile site for epistemic innovation.
By locating decolonisation within curriculum matrices and regulatory negotiations, the paper reframes the process as institutional, negotiated, and inevitably compromised. It concludes that institutional agency in the Global South is not about rejecting Northern standards in isolation but about navigating their gatekeeping power to carve out spaces for epistemic justice. This "compromised" agency is proposed as a more honest and empirically grounded site for reimagining development futures.
Paper short abstract
This paper explores how Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) sits at the crossroads of gender, sustainability, and institutional development in the Global South. Drawing on three authors’ experience across sectors, it calls for a more integrated and locally grounded approach to evaluation.
Paper long abstract
Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) is often treated as a technical tool, but in practice, it is a complex and contested space shaped by diverse disciplines, power relations, and real-world challenges. This paper brings together three co-authors working in the fields of sustainability, peace and conflict studies, and evaluation practice to explore M&E as a deeply interdisciplinary space within Development Studies.
We reflect on field experiences from country portfolio evaluations, postgraduate studies in gender and global conflict, and leadership roles in environmental education. Each perspective shows how M&E often pulls from multiple knowledge systems—public policy, sociology, environmental science, and peacebuilding—but lacks frameworks that integrate them meaningfully.
The paper examines three key tensions: (1) how donor-driven frameworks often override local priorities; (2) how disciplinary silos prevent holistic learning in evaluation practice; and (3) how academic and institutional settings in the Global South are rarely equipped to train development professionals in this blended reality.
Using grounded examples from Nigeria and Ethiopia, we call for a rethinking of how M&E is taught, practised, and embedded into Development Studies curricula. We argue that M&E should be positioned not only as a reporting requirement but also as a space for learning, co-creation, and critical reflection.
In line with the DSA 2026 theme, we propose a shift towards more inclusive and interdisciplinary evaluation practices, ones that reflect the complexity of development challenges and elevate Southern agency in knowledge production and accountability.