Author(s)
Taela, KatiaEditor(s)
Ghosh, AnanditaPublication date
2023-12-12Subject
GenderKeywords
South-South cooperationDevelopment workers
Authoritative knowledge
Knowledge hierarchies
Identity
Decolonisation
Metadata
Show full item recordJournal
Gender & DevelopmentDocument type
Journal articleLanguage
EnglishDescription
<html> <head> <title></title> </head> <body> <p>South–South Co-operation (SSC) has become increasingly important in international development policy and practice as both alternative and complementary to North–South Co-operation. Crafted through the acceptance, appropriation, and instrumentalisation of a colonialist idea of an underdeveloped world, SSC has been historically defined as an expression of Southern solidarity, through which developing countries collaborate to achieve progress, modernity, and development. It is often claimed to involve mutually beneficial, horizontal exchange of resources between developing countries – particularly knowledge – and to foster decolonising practices. In this paper, I argue that while one of the starting points for SSC was opposition to North–South knowledge hierarchies, its legitimisation has been constructed through postcolonial power inequalities and new forms of authoritative knowledge that reiterate old hierarchies. Drawing on in-depth ethnographic research conducted as part of my doctoral studies, I show how the building and international legitimatisation of Brazilian ‘best practices’ – in the gender equality field – has produced a political economy of opportunities and mobility for these professionals; their professional pathways to Mozambique are indicative of the processes of production of Southern expertise and new knowledge hierarchies. I also discuss Brazilian development workers’ discourses about the relevance of Brazilian experiences to Mozambique. Theoretically, the paper is inspired by critical development theory with a feminist and postcolonial approach. It uses postcolonial literature, usually applied to relations between colonisers and former colonies, to look at how colonial discourses and discourses about Africa, the ‘Third World’, and the West historically intervened in the encounters between people from former colonies and continue to be activated. Specifically, I analyse imaginaries of ‘Southern’ and ‘developing country’ identity embedded in expertise claims.</p> </body> </html>Pages
19ISSN
1355-2074EISSN
1364-9221ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1080/13552074.2023.2256581