Decentering Coloniality: Epistemic Justice, Development Studies and Structural Transformation

The debate on decolonising development studies (DS) can be more fruitful if we focus on epistemic issues. Since mainstream DS has been essentially Eurocentric, where coloniality is normalised, I suggest in this commentary that decolonising DS is best pursued by decentring coloniality. I use the epistemic justice framework to illustrate how both interpretative and testimonial injustices are common features of DS when we take the dominance of Eurocentric knowledge production in DS for granted. I adopt coloniality and empire as my analytical framework to show how current manifestations of colonialism influence the intertwined relations between knowledge, the knower and the relations of knowledge production. The piece then juxtaposes the widely accepted definitions of structural transformation (ST) with those explicitly focusing on the inherently colonial design of the global political economy. Then, I briefly discuss the “FrançAfrique” economic zone as a site of coloniality to demonstrate the limitations of the mainstream notions of ST.