Decolonising the international development sector requires a disruption (part 2): Engaging with faith actors to transform colonial power structures
By Dr Amjad Mohamed Saleem
International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC); Leadership Council of the Joint Learning Initiative on Faith and Local Communities (JLI)
This blog post is the fourth one in a series that captures some of the learning that took place during the roundtables that we organised at the Annual Conference of the Development Studies Association in the summer of 2021 and 2022. The roundtables brought together researchers, practitioners and theologians from Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East and North America who work at the intersection of decolonisation, development and faith. Our work also builds on the Fair and Equitable Initiative of the Joint Learning Initiative on Faith and Local Communities.
The colonial, Western and Christian legacy of the global aid industry
Given how secular the humanitarian and development sector presents itself these days, It is easy to forget that the global aid industry can be considered a result of the hangover of colonialism, shaped by Western and Christian values. Decolonisation did not start in 2020 following the murder of George Floyd but when people in the Global South, often led by faith leaders and institutions, began organising to counter the ideologies and practices of their colonial oppressors who sought to enforce power and to seize land. This colonial legacy lives on in the systems and structures that the ‘civilising missions’ of development and humanitarian agencies from the colonial powers still perpetuate. Many contemporary policies and actions instituted in and by humanitarian and development organisations re-enforce these colonial power dynamics, where people and institutions from the Global North systematically oppress and exercise domination over those from the Global South. These legacies influence humanitarian assistance and development activities in ways that make affected people feel that the services provided for them are not programmed for them, nor taking account of their input or designed according to their needs. It is these legacies that influence how affected people are treated and described, essentialising their dependency and lack of agency, where they are depicted as ‘vulnerable’, ‘powerless’, ‘helpless’, ‘disempowered’, or as ‘victims’.
Decolonisation debates in the development sector need to engage with religion
While religion, has played a role in establishing and maintaining or fighting against colonial structures, the contemporary aid industry has not only tended to ignore this legacy, but it has also often overlooked the importance of religion for the majority of the world’s poor today. In a twist of irony, the assumption that secularisation will accompany development and modernisation has itself become an element of colonisation ignoring the lived experience of people in the Global South. This strikes at the heart of the decolonial debate, as it is a denial of agency, of representation and, ultimately, of power. Religion matters for people! Therefore, enforcing the post-enlightenment proposition that religion belongs in the private sphere, while all public matters ought to be treated as purely secular, does not make sense given the reality of millions of lived experiences. There is, thus, a need to disrupt and reframe the decolonisation narrative to include and engage with the influence of religious systems and structures on people’s social, political and economic lives, as well as the contribution of faith actors of different types, which provide support to individuals and communities facing poverty, inequality and injustice.
The significance, and limitations, of faith-based development actors
Faith actors in general, and faith-based organisations in particular, are often seen to have advantages over secular organisations. This includes an ability to leverage wide-reaching networks to raise funds, and to mobilise volunteers. Many faith-based groups operate with a spirit of selflessness, zeal and passion, encouraging a ‘volunteerism’ that gives them credibility and the capacity to demonstrate, through practice, the very ideas of self-help and self-reliance. Also, long standing connections with communities, bolstered via a shared faith identity, can earn them a position of trust to ensure important social benefits such as the uptake of vaccines during the COVID pandemic. In their connection to local communities, faith actors are also ideally placed to understand and address the local injustices that the poor experience. In addition, since many faith actors also have international links, especially when they are organised as formal faith-based organisations or networks, they can act as an effective bridge between communities on the ground and international actors. Despite these attributes and advantages in some settings, faith is not a panacea for addressing poverty, inequality, and justice. International faith-based organisations which are not rooted in a given community can sometimes be justly accused of parachuting in, at times literally, and leaving no sustainable footprint. In that regard, they do not act in significantly different ways to their secular international counterparts. Moreover, within faith communities (whether they are numerous and powerful, a minority struggling for a voice or an influential cadre), there is often as strong a history of internecine strife and struggle as there is of cooperation and collaboration.
Engaging with faith communities to transform Eurocentric power structures
It is against a framework of potential disagreement and division, as much as cooperation and collaboration, that a process of engagement must occur with faith-based organisations and other faith actors, breaking away from perpetuating a Eurocentric knowledge system that marginalises the significance of religion. This is an essential part of dismantling the ways that we, as international development and humanitarian actors, construct the communities we work in as “other”, i.e. places overseas with problems and needs, rather than places where solutions are generated and capabilities are in place. Most importantly, it involves transforming power structures so that those holding a seat of power start to look more like the communities where the work is taking place. This includes faith-based organisations which sometimes replicate the global secular system rather than challenge it.
Disrupting the existing system, developing a new paradigm
A genuine disruption of the system needs to entail the development of a new paradigm that critically interrogates the localisation agenda, identifies where it currently replicates colonial structures, and instead works with local voices, cultures and traditions to strengthen and make space for their agency. Decolonial development thinkers and doers need to facilitate a pedagogy of liberation and freedom that works in partnership with the affected community. It is about taking the risk and having the right actors at the table, to hear their voices, including faith actors and people of no faith. This is where the thinking on decolonisation within the humanitarian and development sector has to start and be explored in ways that are intersectional, intergenerational and operationally rooted. This means understanding that manifestations of oppression, such as racism, are rooted in power hierarchies that often do not operate alone. They intersect with gender, religion, age, socio-economic status, geography, sexual orientation, and numerous other social markers, creating layers of oppression that are inextricably intertwined. Thus, addressing one facet of inequity is never enough, and ignoring or overly focusing on any of them, as many in the humanitarian and development sector have done with religion for many years, is wrong and counterproductive.