Towards Decolonising Development Studies Teaching & Learning: Teaching Informed by Alternative Development Epistemologies in Nigerian Universities

Western modernity, coloniality, and Eurocentric culture are the dominant perspectives and academic culture in Nigerian universities (Olutayo, Olutayo and Liadi, 2021). This has association with the history and expansion of higher education (HE) in Nigeria. For instance, Nigeria’s first university, University College Ibadan (UCI) now University of Ibadan, was established in 1948 on ‘imperial frames of development’ - development conceived and implemented in Western outlook (Livsey, 2017). Like other (West) African universities, UCI maintained ‘special relations’ with a British university and served as an extension of the British university design. Academic programs, examinations, and degrees awarded required approval from the London University and staff were recruited from ‘white Commonwealth nations’. Aderinto (2020) argued that university establishment symbolised Nigeria’s ‘recolonisation’, whereby staffing, student life and experiences, knowledge relationships and teaching, research, and evaluation methods are centred on the British and Western model. Similarly, Development studies (DS) was established on the Western notion of progress and enlightenment to facilitate the ‘third world’ transition from native communities to ‘modernity’ (Patel, 2020). Since the 1950 when DS was first established, development conceptions have shifted concerning theorising, policy making, and practise in relation to structural adjustment, (neo)Marxist and structural theories, (neo)liberalism, and currently, global development planning – MDGs and SDGs (Veltmeyer and Bowles, 2018). Equally, there are variety of perspectives critical of ‘development (study)’ and interrogating its Euromodernity and colonial backgrounds. This includes postcolonial, feminist, Afrocentric, indigenous, African-centred, decolonial, and post-development frameworks. Furthermore, pressures such as the #RhodesMustFall and #WhyIsMyCurriculumWhite protests have influenced the global reimagination of ‘knowledge production’ and relations in HE and introducing a decolonial turn in colonial-established disciplines such as DS. While DS has significantly shifted and conversations on decolonising (development) are popular in Western universities, discouragingly, the situation is not the same in some Global South countries, including Nigeria. Therefore, this study investigated development teaching informed by alternative and non-Eurocentric perspectives in Nigerian universities, through the perspective of academics, referred to as critical development scholars (CDS). The project contribute to rethinking development teaching in Nigeria and globally and fill a (practical-)knowledge gap concerning DS decolonisation and the employment of alternative epistemologies including African-based perspectives. It also contribute to arguments to change DS field ‘from within’ (Kapoor, 2023) and coordinate DS for global social change (Cornwall, 2020). The study’s methodological outlook is based on a critical qualitative research inquiry and I collected multiple qualitative data, such as ethnographic interviews, observations, and documentary information from nineteen CDS across eleven universities in Nigeria. The findings provided a contextual interpretation of ‘difference’ in relation to decolonial option for alternatives. Participants advocate for reenacting Africa’s agency and epistemic freedom and re-linking Africa (different from decolonial delinking) in the globe. In addition, CDS performs and acts on alternative development worldviews/epistemologies in liminal spaces. This includes adapting/reproducing colonial knowledge in new forms, including contesting Eurocentric biases while adopting Eurocentered methods and curriculum.