Dr Sarah Huxley, Research Engagement Manager
“How relevant is it to re-imagine development when it’s happened so many times, and you are writing this book against the backdrop of so many disasters?” – participant at the DSA conference
Firstly, thank you for taking the time, or rather carving out time, to read this. At a period in time, when we are bombarded with messages of urgency and crises, the intention and practice to stop, listen and reflect feels like a luxury, or even subversive. That’s not to diminish the numerous political, environmental, humanitarian interlaced disasters we are all either witness to and/or directly enmeshed in, but it is also, at the same moment, to hold a space for slowing down, and not being pushed into a viewpoint or value system. This was the overwhelming reflection that I left the Development Studies Association (DSA) conference with. I had both the luxury to listen and reflect, but also an opportunity to question what values I believe in and why within the development sector?
I participated online at the Navigating crisis: dangers and opportunities in development hybrid conference (at the University of Bath), 25–27 June 2025. It was packed with sessions on all types of topics, including:
- The polycrisis and gendered health inequities
- Reversing the gaze: Global south perspectives on knowledge, power and positionality
- The role of culture and heritage in shaping solutions for development
- Youth and protests in Africa
Very important (heavy words) were used – concepts infused with research from particular contexts – and insights shared. I’d like to touch upon a few of them here, because we don’t often hear about them, apart from perhaps ‘re-imagining’ at present (or at least in my small circles). The concepts that I was struck by are dignity, false generosity, and radical humility. Actively engaging with them and thinking about how these are embodied in everyday life, can take them off an intellectual page, and help you to see how, if actively pursued (except in the case of false generosity), they can become values, and in turn attitudes, behaviours and practices i.e. cultures in homes, institutions, communities and so on. All of these are interrelated to other ideas, ways of knowing and doing connected with ‘imagination’, ‘hope’, and ‘decoloniality’, which are not static and stuck, or belonging to one academic, or one organisation, but importantly, are dynamic systems and networks of meaning.
This endeavour to connect ‘ways of knowing’ with ‘ways of doing’ is central to the Research and Insight team's work at the British Council. Where the focus of our research seeks ‘to bring UK and overseas policy makers, practitioners, researchers and communities together to collaboratively exchange insights and ideas, translating knowledge into action’. This is very important in terms of my role in research engagement, whereby communicating cross-cutting findings from British Council research in clear, emotive/creative and rigorous ways needs to be underpinned by our values of trust and connection. But also in terms of dignity, generosity and humility, how can these values be translated into sharing and embedding insights? A good provocation.
Another provocation was the question I shared at the start of this article on how relevant is it to re-imagine development in the context of the present immense pain and suffering in the world, for so many. Here, the assumption is that ‘imagining’ is a distant, intellectual and forward in time endeavour. However, this conceptualisation is increasingly less mainstream in decolonial academic circles (see Ruha Benjamin’s (2024) Imagination: A Manifesto or Chapter 3 of Peter Sutoris’s and Uma Pradhan’s book Reimagining Development - launched at the DSA conference). Instead, imagining is understood as an active, collective re-engagement and re-storying of the world in the present.
Dignity
So, within this broader re-imagining, how then can ‘dignity’ be understood? Ghanian academic and activist, Josephine Akosua Adomako Ampofo’s opening keynote, Surprising Joy in times of Crippling Fear focused on ‘joy not in a vacuum, but as planted in community’. She asked: How can intellectual and practical practices generate joy? And asked the audience to consider the ‘celebratory and interconnectedness of African cosmologies, and their therapeutic narratives.’ Akosua reminded us that ‘visionary creators of futures (for her, Afrofuturism through the eyes of several Ghanaian philosophers), re-interpret the story/history to heal, and to advance vision/purpose, and this is done through proverbs, or simply ‘the shared stomach’.
She remarked that one such Ghanaian philosopher identifies post-colonial theory as structured around the ‘theory of an accident’. Existence is organised around the accident. A whole literature around ‘the accident’. You have forgotten the house you came from. In other words, get out of that place of gripping fear.’ It is, of course, easier to do if you are not in a literal burning house, or like me, watching a conference from the safety and surety of my own home. However, this was a wonderful provocation that I connected to ‘dignity’. To be able to hold, share, and offer dignity, there seems to be an element of joy and imagination needed to challenge, and offer a plurality/alternative narratives to some of the dominant narratives around ‘colonialism’, and ‘patriarchy/paternalism’. This is a space that needs to be held and nurtured, and further opened up, for discussion and debate.
Dignity is such a wonderful word because, as the welfare reform academic and entrepreneur, Vibhor Mathur stated at the conference, ‘to try to understand all ways in which the concept of dignity is applied and practiced is so difficult. As a concept, it becomes other worldly, or restricted to legal definitions – either way, it is not useful. It’s also used to define opposing sides of the argument, for example, debates on euthanasia, both sides use ‘dignity’.’ The social anthropologist in me wonders what other languages/cultural terms are used with their nuances. It’s easier to say what it is not in many ways.
As Sasmita Sinha, an academic editor, pointed out, it is not coercion, which is becoming ‘more opaque in the current neo liberal world’. She went on to reference Amartya Sen’s capabilities approach and the Gandhi-inspired ‘Development with Dignity: Self-determination, Localization, and the End to Poverty’ (2022) book by Tom Palmer and Matt Warner. For Sasmita, dignity (for the masses) is being undermined because ‘the discourse of development is a discourse of competitiveness, mirroring economic model/structures. There is power over – we are told of ‘great prosperity’, but we are not just rational, calculating actors. Social capital is being undermined, and a psychological poverty is being created: people must compete in all areas of their life, not just at work.’ I wonder if you agree with this based on your life experiences?
In terms of the work at the British Council, can a cultural relations approach (grounded in the idea of mutuality, reciprocity, trust, people-to-people connections) be part of the pushback against discourses of competitiveness? Possibly yes, and the report A Cultural Relations Approach to Development: Why and how the British Council approach to development works speaks to some of this, as does our IASH Fellow, Dr Anthea Moy’s current work challenging research/practice and discourses of competitiveness. However, there is much further to go!
False generosity
Dignified development and challenging ultra competitiveness also aligns with many understandings of decolonial research. One approach to decolonial research was shared in the ‘Participatory methods in times of crises’ panel by an IDS academic, Sofya Shahab, who is developing a toolkit for embodied research methodologies. Her work draws on collaborative research undertaken with 13 auto-ethnographic youth researchers across Iraq, Syria and Jordan, and considers how research practices themselves can further peace, justice and agency. She previously held an AHRC/DCMS Policy Fellowship in International Cultural Heritage Protection to further understandings of how the British Council’s Cultural Protection Fund projects have contributed to human rights and development.
Liberty Smith reminded participants that ‘decolonial’ research is ‘not just in the field, it’s also how we live in universities, which are also complicit through/as institutions. We need to get rid of the performativity and move beyond what ‘happens in the field’. As an arts-based researcher myself, I am wary sometimes of how ‘performativity’ can be used only in a derogatory sense. However, leaving that aside, her questions are pertinent to our work here at the British Council: what forms of knowledge are recognised and which are erased? Is otherness something we study or something we unlearn? How we do research and who with invariably is inclusive of certain ideologies and people, and exclusive of others. The very act of being a researcher can create huge power imbalances, and there is no easy solution or answer, but it’s really encouraging to see more research that directly looks at these issues, such as the Human-Nature programme and research in Malaysia.
This questioning of what knowledge is acknowledged and what is left hidden, also emerged in the panel, ‘Towards a meaningful practice of reparative development: bridging crises and reimagining opportunities for decolonisation’. I really appreciated the scholar, Owasim Akram’s use of Paulo Freire term, ‘false generosity,’ where NGOs in the name of supporting the marginalised, subscribe to and perpetuate existing oppressive power structures. Owasim’s research suggests that NGO operations in Bangladesh have succumbed to a ‘false generosity’. The concept of generosity is a value so intricately embedded in development discourses, and at times intertwined with paternalism, but the idea ‘that I know or have more, so follow me/be like me’, continues to be needed to be challenged. At the British Council this is a constant learning/reflection with many colleagues asking and seeking ways for ‘mutuality’ – how can we integrate in our practices and cultures, those aspects outside of the organisation that attract/inspire? In my role in research engagement, I will intentionally now be more aware of false generosity.
Yet I did come away from some of the discussion wondering if some of the speakers had sought to contextualise/nuance the types of ‘colonialisms’ they refer to (or are in opposition to)? This seems particularly important in the context of AI colonialism (extraction, surveillance and so on) on the rise in the world at present. Otherwise, the analytical framings presented were in danger of slipping into the binary/essentialist narratives that they are critiquing? Some decolonial narratives convey great nuance/context of 'lived experiences', yet don't afford this nuance to the types of 'capitalisms' or 'colonialisms' that are being critiqued. Almost a slippage into the very binaries/othering, the very values being critiqued/resisted. For me, it's rather how to hold a space for the different understandings of decoloniality itself, without coercion/aggression. Whilst I might be attracted to some over others, the value (action) of dismissing without seeing, or hearing in the first instance, seems so destructive. It's a work in progress, but the intention is there.
It comes back to what values I, you, we want to bring to our lives and the work we do. And what are the caring and receptive ways of hearing difference? Whilst I disagreed with a scholar exclaim that ‘English is the language of coloniality’. I could acknowledge our very different experiences with this verbal mode of communication. I’d respectfully suggest English in and of itself is not colonial. It is a form of communication that can be used in many varied ways, and was adopted as ONE of the colonial languages. I’d suggest it’s rather the particular underlying forms of human relations (i.e. specific values, structures, power relations etc.) that intentionally use it for ‘othering, extraction etc.’ As a mode of communication/expression, English is not intrinsically based in values of extraction or othering – just see the many types of Englishes in the world today (and discussed in our David Crystal podcast episode) as well as Oral history reflections from Mike Solly and Amol Padwad, and these recent insights: Decolonising English language teaching: what does it mean and how can it be approached? and Widening Participation: Decolonising English in higher education.
Radical humility
Finally, the concept of ‘radical humility’ from Peter Sutoris’s and Uma Pradhan’s really resonated. Just thinking about ‘knowledge production’, in one way, as the processes of producing books generating blogs, reports, and insights, which are all imbued with different power dynamics and their own socio-political cultures/dynamics. How can we share diverse views and insights and reach places of connection and trust? One way we are seeking this is through the medium of podcasting (see Our World, Connected), but we have a long way to go!
Peter and Uma’s book is great in setting up the assumptions that are persistent in many development corners, for example ‘if you can’t measure it, it’s not development’. Or, ‘to achieve social justice, we must pursue development’. Their concept of radical humility is based on four concepts: collective wisdom, agonism (conflict is a necessary and potentially positive aspect of democratic societies), deep time (geological time) and postgrowth. Peter Sutoris’s and Uma Pradhan’s view of radical humility is one in which ‘what is needed is a recognition that finding a path forward which avoids past mistakes of elitism will be a messy process – one that will greatly benefit from a much expanded imaginative space of development.’ The importance of working with both ‘collective wisdom’ (as shared knowledge arrived at by individuals and groups with collaboration) and ‘agonism’, as intentionally holding a space for differences of viewpoints, is important at the British Council in how some of us understand knowledge production: it has to be applied to be of use for better programming, policy and strategy. And for me it has to build in ways for deep learning – that directly acknowledges the messiness of research, and our lived experiences as researchers in particular contexts (organisations, cultures and so forth).
Work across disciplines and networks
I left the conference feeling grateful for these values of dignity, false generosity, and radical humility being brought to our attention. And for the reminder by Jayati Ghosh to engage deeply with other disciplines, and who critiques mainstream economics. She says it is ‘increasingly irrelevant to the real problems of our times…pushing abstract models (subject to a modelling treatment) that leave out things that are very relevant, but don't fit the model…reality as a form of lab, which is the wrong ethics: humans as lab rats, whereby there is a lack of awareness of history/context, leaving out inconvenient things termed ‘unrealistic assumptions’. The biggest assumption is that people don’t only respond to monetary incentives.’ This is a challenge working in a large cultural relations organisation, at a time when funding is scarce, and increasingly, the commodification of everything in around us is bolstered by a rise in misinformation and knee-jerk reactions. Holding a course for iterations of what contextualised understandings of ‘soft powers’ is and can be, is precarious, and we have more to tell.
Finally, I was also reminded while listening to the panel my colleague Ian Thomas, Head of Arts Research and Inisght, on the role of culture and heritage in shaping development solutions/opportunities, that some of these values may already be in play. The seminal research and insights crafted from the Missing Pillar (2020) and Missing Foundation (2023) reports, and the networks built up with and through them are in conversation with elements of dignity, a deeper generosity and perhaps even radical humility. Ian’s forthcoming insights article, will pick up on unpacking some of this.
So I come away from this conference, not with fixed viewpoints, but rather with important questions still lingering, and a deeper understanding of practical values, I simply haven’t paid enough attention to. I also have no intention of being a lab rat.