Giving and receiving, or denying knowledge? Aspects of knowledge production in development studies seen through a perspective of decoloniality.

Abstract: This essay is a critique of modern/colonial knowledge production, with particular reference to development studies, based on thinking about decoloniality, and illustrated by experiences from a bachelor's programme in development studies at Lund university and a field study done in South- Western Benin as a part of those studies. The purpose of this essay is more to discuss issues that I have come to see as problems with knowledge production in development studies, through the experience of doing the field study and reading on decoloniality. The purpose of this essay is less to convince anybody of solutions to the problems I have discussed, but rather to show what decoloniality as a project might be seen as working towards.