Global Development and Social Justice in Practice
Over the years, discourses and research on development and social justice tend to focus on broad ideals of development such as poverty alleviation and combating inequality, whereas societies’ lived experiences in relation to development interventions have not sufficiently been engaged with. This sometimes conceals competing and conflicting local contexts of development interventions and the underlying conditions for which they are accepted, rejected or ignored. Moreover, dominant global discourses on ‘global development’ and ‘social justice’ arising from certain schools of thought are recognized as increasingly problematic when placed alongside questions such as who benefits from ‘global development’, who decides how social justice is reached for whom and on what grounds, and related questions on the ‘best’ paths to reach social justice.
Often, discourses about development and social justice remain confined within the closed quarters of academia, rarely reflecting the translation of ideas into practice, and rarely including discourses on lived experiences of affected people in instances where ideas are put into practice. Despite an increased focus on the decolonization of research, in developmental research, developing countries are often still viewed as the recipients of development aid and on the receiving end of global development-related programs. However, such interventions for the sake of ‘development’ are not always wanted, or can be detrimental to existing efforts coming from within local contexts.
The engagement of PhD researchers in concrete studies, and their creation of empirically sound and applicable research, often through case studies embodying people’s lived experiences, sets such research apart from that done ‘in ivory towers’. With this in mind, the 15th Development Dialogue makes an attempt to initiate a conversation among PhD researchers on the vital issue of ‘praxis’: What unique contribution can PhD researchers make to research in order to challenge fashionable discourses and research practices in ways that contribute to social justice?
Pertinent questions to be raised through this dialogue would be: How do we as researchers situate the developmental discourses taking place in academic settings within the everyday realities of people from varying backgrounds, thereby making their voices heard and taking into account their expectations regarding development research? What has been the scope for scholar activism and the responsibilities of PhD researchers in contexts where social justice considerations are paramount? How are thoughts on social justice experienced ‘on the ground’ – what does social justice mean for actors forming part of the research process? How should researchers approach local knowledges and lived experiences when conducting research?
From an economic point of view, the conference could explore relations between global markets and national or local economic development, and the influence of economic development efforts across scales and borders, particularly on evolving class-society-gender intersections.
The discussions during this conference will not be limited to studies on specific local contexts, but will span governance scales and borders, and will also take into account different identities and issues related to intersectionality, both among researchers and actors who are researched. As such, the dialogue invites discussions on research reflexivity and research ethics, also focusing on concrete examples of how researchers’ expectations and assumptions interact with ‘ground’ realities. The overall goal of the conference is to create a dialogue in which concepts such as ‘global development and social justice’ are critically examined from the perspective of PhD researchers, and we hope to have a fruitful discussion on the unique contribution that PhD research can make in challenging dominant perspectives and research practices.