Remembering Thandika Mkandawire​: Decolonizing Development in Troubled Times​ by LSE Department of International Development https://padlet.com/LSEIntDev/ThandikaMkandawire_Decolonization_of_Development What does the decolonization of Development mean today?  Is it more about increasing diversity among academics, or about supporting academics from the Global South to challenge established views?  Does it require academic institutions to do more, or does it require attention to how wider pressures from the far right are penetrating academia in ways that rehabilitate racial discrimination and reactionary ideas under the guise of openness and freedom of speech?  Should it give more space to non-Western sources of knowledge, or should it draw on all manner of knowledge to expose and address deeper structures that embed inequality within global trade, production, service provision and finance? In the spirit of Thandika’s commitment to decolonizing development, we invite staff, students, and scholars and practitioners more broadly to post their thoughts on the following question [thoughts of up to 150 words]: What is the reading, experience, image or reflection that represents what the decolonization of development means to you and why? en-us 2026-10-01 15:55:55 UTC 2026-10-14 10:41:35 UTC hello@padlet.com https://padlet-uploads-usc1.storage.googleapis.com/6390335869/c69dee7d49796cc5adb38aaeca4e4ae5/padlet.png https://padlet.com/LSEIntDev/ThandikaMkandawire_Decolonization_of_Development/wish/4091443415 This is a short piece but it so sharply captures how our understanding of development is impaired through the maintenance of neo-colonial structures of knowledge production. It also glimpses, very practically and very simply, how easy it would be to engage with development research via different routes and methods. I set the reading as part of my LISS DTP Doctoral course on 'knowledge production in and about Africa' and every year it is one of the readings that students describe as the most memorable. --> Duncan Omanga & Pamela C. Mainye (2019) North-South collaborations as a way of ‘not knowing Africa’: researching digital technologies in Kenya, Journal of African

Cultural Studies, 31:3, 273-275, DOI: 10.1080/13696815.2019.1630262

]]> 2026-10-09 16:33:51 UTC https://padlet.com/LSEIntDev/ThandikaMkandawire_Decolonization_of_Development/wish/4091443415 https://padlet.com/LSEIntDev/ThandikaMkandawire_Decolonization_of_Development/wish/4092146378 Africa’s trade regimes with its international partners are critically important for its trade performance and by extension its economic development. Yet these arrangements generally fail to meet Africa’s needs. This paper co-authored with Jamie Macleod summarises the principal arguments presented in my edited book, How Africa Trades published by LSE Press in 2023.


]]> 2026-10-10 14:43:54 UTC https://padlet.com/LSEIntDev/ThandikaMkandawire_Decolonization_of_Development/wish/4092146378 https://padlet.com/LSEIntDev/ThandikaMkandawire_Decolonization_of_Development/wish/4094723410 Two articles epitomize for me the task of decolonizing Development:

  1. In the realm of informal economy research, Thandika's article 'On Tax Effort and Colonial Heritage in Africa' illuminates the role of colonialism in shaping the size and complexity of African informal economies, and offers a more decolonized approach to improving taxation in African countries.

  2. For the future, emerging research on International Financial Subordination (IFS) examines how racial and geopolitical disadvantage are embedded in the structure and operation of the global financial system. My current favourite is Ilias Alami and Vincent Guermond's 'The Color of Money at the Financial Frontier'.

]]> 2026-10-12 17:49:53 UTC https://padlet.com/LSEIntDev/ThandikaMkandawire_Decolonization_of_Development/wish/4094723410 https://padlet.com/LSEIntDev/ThandikaMkandawire_Decolonization_of_Development/wish/4097967165 I quite liked this article by David Temin, that looks at the rich history of development thinking, including as a primary idiom for contesting and reimagining anti-colonial futures. He ultimately highlights how "the freezing of developmental discourse into just another Eurocentric, racialized specter actually does a disservice to many of the intellectual inheritances that attempted to bring out these alternative notions of progress and to what might be made of them today.”

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