Reforming or Restating of the Status Quo: Perceptions of Foreign Aid Professionals on Decoloniality

• In Event: Multiculturalism, refugee education and educational policies reforms

Proposal

Historically, the dominant approach to U.S.-funded foreign aid efforts has been to support U.S. foreign policy interests such as spreading democratic governance, economic investments and, least prioritized, promoting human rights. Due to the historical development of the field, foreign aid is deeply rooted in a dichotomous system that resembles the colonizer and the colonized, reinforcing an old system with a new framework called neocolonialism. While there are severe barriers to removing these colonial legacies, U.S.-based foreign aid professionals have had some weight in interrupting the system during the designing, hiring, partnering, and implementation phases of these foreign aid efforts. Additionally, with increasing diversity, equity, and inclusion offices in international development organizations, foreign aid professionals are being encouraged to reflect and analyze their own work to deconstruct structures and practices that reinforce colonialism. To better understand and support decolonial efforts, this research study explored how colonialism underpins foreign aid, how foreign aid professionals understand and conceptualize colonialism, and the critical role of higher education programs to prepare foreign aid professionals to work towards decoloniality within the field.

The start of every paper, report, and article discussing decolonization starts with acknowledging the overuse, and often misuse, of the term. Colonization and decolonization, are terms that have very specific legal definitions. Yet now, terms and phrases such as colonial legacies, neocolonialism, decoloniality, and many more are being used with multiple meanings and purposes. This research began with a literature review of scholarly work, novels from Global South writers, podcasts, poetry, and news articles to draw similarities of definitions to land on one meaning to be used for the conceptual framework.

Once the conceptual framework was established around the meaning of decoloniality (decolonization), the following primary research questions were developed.

What is the ecosystem the foreign aid professionals work within?
How do foreign aid professionals working on U.S. government-funded activities/projects understand their role in the funding, staffing, design, implementation, and evaluation of foreign aid practices and in what ways can they work towards decolonizing the process?
In what ways do Western ways of knowing influence the role of foreign aid professionals in the funding, staffing, design, implementation, and evaluation stage of the U.S. foreign aid process?
What type of relationship do the foreign aid professionals have with their in-country counterparts and how much influence do they believe their partners have in the designing of the program?
How do higher education programs prepare or lack in preparing individuals to be anti-racist and decolonial in the field of foreign aid?
What types of changes (incremental or major reforms) are feasible for international development professionals to make within their positions that would enable movement toward the decolonization of the U.S. foreign aid system?

This study used a mixed methods approach, with a rigorous three-step data collection process. An initial survey was sent to foreign aid networks to gain insight into how foreign aid experts recognize and reproduce issues of neocolonialism within the field. There were 98 foreign aid professionals that completed the survey. The second phase of the data collection included 15 interviews conducted with survey participants that stated their interest in further participating in this research. The interviews further collected data on the foreign aid professionals' perspective on issues of neocolonialism in the field, as well as any interest or challenges they face in decolonizing their work. Lastly, a final questionnaire was sent to the 15 participants 1-year after their initial interview to gain information on how social unrest in the United States and the pandemic have impacted the field, specifically on decolonial efforts.

This research is meant to spark discussions on how to apply these decolonial frameworks and terminology to the policies and practices of foreign aid professionals and researchers alike. There is limited literature that explores the role of the foreign aid professional in neocolonial practices and decolonial efforts in foreign aid. The participants of this study shared their honest opinions on their work in the field of foreign aid, and the data collected provides a deeper understanding of the barriers the foreign aid professionals face when trying to decolonize their work. Lastly, this research can be useful for faculty of foreign aid higher education programs to better understand how to support their students in critically analyzing neocolonial policies and practices in the field of foreign aid.

The literature review and research proposal for this study was presented at the CIES 2022 conference. I am now interested in sharing the findings after the completion of the study. This timely discussion on decoloniality is critical to education improvement, the CIES 2023 conference theme. We are all in this lifelong journey together to fight internal biases, stereotypes, and racism that contribute to colonial-like structures and practices, and as educators this journey is vital to the betterment of the education system.

Author

• Heidi Bloom, University of Maryland, College Park