Sumários

Mapping decolonial struggle and thought in a colonised world

7 Outubro 2025, 16:30 Thomas Gerhard Erich Muhr


Student presentations. Presentation texts:

1. Baumann, H. (2023). Avatars of Eurocentrism in international political economy textbooks: The case of the Middle East and North Africa. Politics, 43(3), 439-453.
2. Harwood, J. (2023). Reflecting upon the past? Development Studies’ ambivalent relation to history. Progress in Development Studies, 23(2), 203–210.

Mapping decolonial struggle and thought in a colonised world

6 Outubro 2025, 16:30 Thomas Gerhard Erich Muhr


Development of a more systematic understanding of global South liberation struggle and thought over space:time, in their anti-colonial, post-colonial and decolonial manifestations. Centred around the conceptual difference between de/colonisation and de/coloniality, we discussed the decolonial school of thought as a broad, cross- or transdisciplinary movement that bridges (has the potential to bridge) the divisions between the materialist and culturalist paradigms towards understanding and acting upon the world.

The global South and global development: histories, conceptions, methodologies, representations.

30 Setembro 2025, 16:30 Thomas Gerhard Erich Muhr


Student presentations and plenary discussion. Presentation texts:

Macleod, A. (2020). Manufacturing consent in Venezuela: Media misreporting of a country, 1998–2014. Critical Sociology, 46(2), 273–290.

Obeng-Odoom, F. (2024). China–Africa Relations in The Economist, 2019–2021. Journal of Asian and African Studies, 59(3), 1000–1017.

The global South and global development: histories, conceptions, methodologies, representations.

29 Setembro 2025, 16:30 Thomas Gerhard Erich Muhr


Interrogation of the notions of the global South (contrasted with, inter alia, ‘the South’ and ‘Third World’) and global Development (contrasted with ‘international development’), through theoretical, methodological, empirical and political lenses. On this basis, North/West colonialist representations of the South/East in word and image over time were examined – from colonial map-making and art to contemporary media and academia.

What is ‘Development’, and what’s wrong with it? A brief history of ideas

23 Setembro 2025, 16:30 Thomas Gerhard Erich Muhr


This session established the ‘bottom line’ for the discussions to follow: it introduced fundamental theoretical ideas, concepts and approaches to Development as a cross-disciplinary field of study, as a basis for understanding the decolonial critiques and the need for a historical approach that goes back further in time than 1949, when USA President Truman defined the majority world as under-developed (which is commonly taken as the inception of Development Studies). Beyond such substantive knowledge, we talked about challenges and contradictions involved in decolonising the self while embedded within colonial structures in our everyday lives.