Decolonial Journey: #RhodesMustFall and ‘Decolonising Development Studies’ in Ghana and Nigeria
By Luqman Muraina, Department of Politics, University of York
I completed my B.Sc. Sociology in Nigeria with little or no knowledge about alternative epistemologies, coloniality, and politics of knowledge. Like many young graduates fed by modernity’s shine, I was just determined to be successful and contribute positively to societal development and transformation.
My exposure to decoloniality started during my Master’s studies at the University of Cape Town (UCT), South Africa. Before taking up my studies, I did not know what decolonization was about. I aspired for higher education and Sociology of Development-related research. Over time, I was influenced by the dynamics of academic conversations and issues happening that time in South Africa – the decolonisation discourse based on the remnants of the #RhodesMustFall movement, which had occurred from 2015 to 2017. It finally took me to focusing on the topic of curriculum decolonisation in my Master’s dissertation.
My encounter with the debates around decolonization, combined with my continued interest in Development Studies laid the foundation for my current PhD thesis at the University of York, UK - Towards Decolonising Development Studies: Teaching Informed by Alternative Development Epistemologies in Nigerian Universities. I consider decolonisation to be ‘the resistance and reversal of coloniality’, which is the ‘discursive terrain within which many forms of domination and exploitation rest’. This domination includes racial capitalism, patriarchy, Western modernity, neocolonialism and economic imperialism, hegemony of Eurocentrism, and Westernisation/Europeanisation.
Lessons from STSM Project in Ghana
As part of my pilot studies proposal to ‘decolonise Development Studies in Nigeria’, I learned about the emphasis on decolonial and indigenous development practice at the University for Development Studies (UDS), Ghana. This practice is implemented through UDS’s community development approach called “Third Trimester Field Practical Programme (TTFPP)”. The TTFPP is an immersive, problem-based and integrated experiential learning programme designed for students to experience and learn about the realities of ‘rural’ Ghanian people.
I received generous funding for a Short-Term Scientific Mission (STSM) from the European Cost Action - Decolonising Development: Research, Teaching and Practice (DecoDEV) to understand decolonisation in practice at this Ghanaian institution and possible lessons that can be framed for my PhD’s research design and subsequent data collection in Nigeria.
My project was based on a participatory observation and qualitative interviews method. I accessed site-specific data such as documentary information including departmental handbooks and had semi-formal interviews/dialogues with faculty members. I also visited two sites where students were posted for the TTFPP programme: - Zugu and Adibo in Yendi municipality in the Northern region of Ghana.
The promises of ‘development’ had influenced the creation of UDS as a pro-poor university dedicated to the ‘total Development of Northern Ghana, in particular, and Ghana as whole’. Despite being a ‘Development Studies’ university, UDS also offers Health, Business, Education, Agriculture, and Physical and Social Sciences programmes. Through TTFPP, the university adopts a community development approach and framed to break knowledge gap with communities.
The TTFPP takes place in the third semester of a tripartite semester system for two consecutive years and is compulsory for all students. The experiential learning programme is preceded with a second semester course and pre-departure orientation. Students learn foundational lessons in community studies and development; community entry stages and approaches; agriculture and community development; participatory community action planning; priority intervention areas; qualitative and quantitative methods; project management (cycle); science, technology, and community development; and culture, politics, and community economy.
During the programme, students are expected to conduct surveys and write a faculty-based interdisciplinary and integrated report concerning the profile of the rural community (first-year) and its development challenge(s) (second-year). This is intended to become useful for government and development agencies, including NGOs. The TTFPP can be likened to the International Service Learning (ISL) usually involving Global North institution students engaging in (community) development activities in ‘poor countries’.
Reality Check: Reproducing Class Dynamics?
While the TTFPP exposed me to how a university can integrate an experiential and community learning approach with academic programs, my objective to learn about decolonisation was not met. Firstly, the programme is not decolonially--framed but rather set up as an indigenous and community experiential learning opportunity for students.
TTFPP prioritises reiterative and long-term experiential and community development learning, compared to short-term in ISL. Meanwhile, the programme is sometimes misinterpreted by university stakeholders, including student and faculty members, as a service for ‘helping others’ and reasserts elitism and upper class vs poor and lower-class power dynamics. This observation is also recorded in Mohammed’s post-TTFPP study as a TTFPP student participant promised to ‘set-up an NGO to take care of the disadvantaged people in rural areas in Ghana’.
Equally, its objectives to ‘introduce students to blend traditional knowledge with scientific knowledge’, was not prominent during the participant observations. Moreover, learning indigenous knowledge including language is usually left to chance by interested and zealous students. Instead, objectives such as data generation for problem-solving, community profiling, and developing favourable attitudes towards living and working in deprived communities were more pronounced. In my view, indigenous knowledge exchange including elementary knowledge about community’s language must be emphasised in the TTFPP.
Because of the shortcomings in meeting my STSM project objective, my PhD shifted to learning about critical development scholarship and the praxis of alternative development worldviews in Development Studies in Nigeria. While UDS adopts a community development framed experiential learning to aid development teaching, my PhD interrogates decolonial praxis adopted by Nigerian lecturers identified as Critical Development Scholars (CDS). I have learned how decolonisation is being practiced, negotiated, and contested in development teaching in Nigerian universities.
I consider my story as reflecting a scholarly transition from an empirical, positivist and Eurocentric framework to an advocacy for alternative knowledges, pluriversality, and decoloniality. It also reveals a shift from viewing ‘Development’ as a ‘hot cake’ or saviour discipline to recognizing it as a colonial-baggage. I now advocate for African-rooted and globally pluriversal models of development that challenge hegemonic paradigms and offer more inclusive, just, and humane alternatives.
Luqman Muraina is a Global Development PhD researcher at the Department of Politics, University of York. He researches decolonisation, higher education, politics of knowledge, and post-colonial African development. Luqman is a Graduate Teaching Assistant and a Research Associate and looking forward to research roles in the academia and social justice institutions.