Neocolonialism in medical education research Zacharias, Antony P; Ismail, Abdul Karim; Aitken, Debbie
The Lancet (British edition),
08/2024, Volume:
404, Issue:
10454
Journal Article
Over the last two decades, research on professional service firms has developed into an important subfield of management studies. In this article, I offer a postcolonial critique of this subfield. I ...show that it is not only built almost exclusively on studies conducted in the West but also generally presents its theorizing as though it were universal. This is despite the field being mostly focused on transnational firms. It is also despite professional service firm scholars generally being distinctly sensitive to (organizational) difference and having no steadfast commitment to positivism. Importantly, I also contend that professional service firm scholarship tends to construct an image of Western professionals as bearers of universal experience, knowledge and ‘professional’ culture while overlooking, if not obscuring, their role in neo-colonialism. Thus, what started as a useful effort to study an unusual – ‘professional’ – type of organization appears to have evolved into a West-centric scholarly enterprise. I urge scholars to recognize and interrogate the problem and work self-reflexively to address it in their own research – and I offer suggestions to that end. My contribution also has implications for the postcolonial critique in management studies and related efforts to decolonize the field.
El contexto está contribuyendo a construir un sentido común para que determinadas realidades injustas no se perciban, y sirvan de justificación a los grupos dominantes para la selección y la ...imposición de los contenidos culturales que se consideran que deben ser el objeto de atención preferente por parte del sistema escolar. En el primer capítulo se analiza la educación como tarea compleja que va más allá de transmitir un determinado bagaje cultural y de potenciar unas determinadas capacidades, según la clase social, género, etnia, nacionalidad, edad, lugar de residencia, capacidad, etc. Un libro muy necesario, aquí y ahora, recomendado a todas las personas que apuesten por una sociedad más justa y solidaria, en la que el motor principal de su construcción sea la educación.
This paper examines the knowledge politics and cultures that shape data relations between international aid organisations and Global South public institutions, taking African libraries as an example. ...International organisations increasingly rely on data from the Global South, purportedly as a resource for development, which has raised valid concerns about the emergence of new practices of data colonialism. One proposed solution is to expand the capacity of Global South institutions to control their own data processes, so they can likewise control the politico-economic relationships that draw on their data. A pan-African library organisation representing 34 countries is exploring this possibility though a multiyear research project to increase library capacity to use data to partner with development aid organisations. However, this work revealed that data colonialism precedes practices of value extraction. In focus groups, a survey of library systems and interviews with aid organisations, aspects of the data cycle are epistemically framed by aid organisations to undercut Global South control, and subtle neocolonial mechanisms encourage libraries to shape their own data cultures according to desires of aid organisations. This underscores the need to expand data neocolonialism as a frame for confronting epistemic injustice by highlighting Western rationalities embedded in data relations.
Through evaluating dominant MOOC platforms created by Western universities, I argue that MOOCs on such platforms tend to embed Western-centric epistemologies and propagate this without questioning ...their global relevance. Consequently, such MOOCs can be detrimental when educating diverse and complex participants as they erode local and indigenous knowledge systems. Arguing that the digital divide is an exacerbation of historical inequalities, I draw parallels between colonial education, specifically across Sub-Saharan Africa, and 'digital neocolonialism' through Western MOOC platforms. I analyse similarities in ideology, assumptions, and methods of control. Highlighting evolving forms of coloniality, I include contemporary problems created by neoliberal techno-capitalist agendas, such as the commodification of education. Balance is needed between the opportunities offered through MOOCs and the harms they cause through overshadowing marginalised knowledges and framing disruptive technologies as the saviour. While recommending solutions for inclusion of marginalised voices, further problems such as adverse incorporation are raised.
Kashwan et al show that the effects of colonialism and racism are etched in the dominant philosophy, models, and institutional apparatus of global conservation. While some scholars and practitioners ...have offered significant critiques of the dominant approaches to global conservation, the institutional apparatus that upholds the colonial and racist legacies of conservation continues to hold tight. We show that in recent decades global conservation nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have contributed to further strengthening of this exclusionary and repressive institutional apparatus, especially with the emergence of the phenomenon of "militarized conservation." Moreover, the arguments about the rights of indigenous peoples and rights-based approaches to conservation are increasingly being appropriated to serve exclusionary protected-area-based approaches to conservation.
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