Research
The network will develop a graduate programme for PhD students and provide fellowships for PhD students and post-doctoral researchers primarily from the global South. It will enable and fund research cooperations between partner universities working on global partnership in the global economy (in the fields of agriculture, finance, and energy), in development cooperation (access, accountability, deep participation) and in knowledge production (Eurocentrism and alternative knowledge). There will also be academic workshops on these topics.
GPN Research Clusters
Critical research on development cooperation has concluded that despite its commitment to partnership (manifest already before SDG 17 in the principles of the Paris Declaration of 2005 and in earlier concepts) it suffers from at least three problems: 1) Its benefits are distributed unevenly and seldom reach marginalised groups (in particular women and indigenous people) (Kabeer 1994, Townsend 1995, Young 1995, Visvanathan et al. 2011, Radcliffe 2015). 2) It sometimes has problematic or even catastrophic side-effects (e.g. development-induced displacement) on its supposed beneficiaries or other project-affected people who can do little about it because of asymmetrical relations of power (Seabrook 1993, Ferguson 1994, Fox/Brown 1998, Clark et al. 2003, de Wet 2006, Easterly 2013). 3) Its mechanisms of participation are confined by the structures of the development apparatus (Cooke/Kothari 2001, Hickey/Mohan 2004, Mosse 2005, Li 2007).
Therefore, the GPN will focus on:
- Access to development cooperation for marginalised groups (women, indigenous people, ethnic minorities, LGBTIQ persons, handicapped people)
- Accountability of development organisations towards beneficiaries or project-affected persons. Out of a concern for equal partnerships and a high level of ownership, our research also focuses on transdisciplinary outreach (Fam et al. 2017) and on a transfer of research results. We, therefore, refer to debates on co-creation and co-production of knowledge (Mauser et al. 2013) for instance with regard to creating partnerships, project design, and implementation, and transformation knowledge.
- Together with civil society development organisations we will explore possibilities for and restrictions of “deep” participation which does not only include project implementation but also project design and even the definition of the problem to be solved by the project. This multi-level form of participation will increase the experience of ownership and therefore contribute to the durability and sustainability of projects. Focusing on these three fields will significantly increase the level of partnership in development cooperation.
Research Projects
A serious pursuit of the SDGs requires partnerships in the global economy: The principle of policy coherence (also officially endorsed since the Paris Declaration and central to SDG 17 target 13 and 14) maintains that successful poverty reduction must not be confined to development cooperation, but has to go ‘beyond aid’ (Browne 1999) and include coherent global governance in the different fields of the global economy, preventing a situation where measures of development policy are thwarted by foreign economic policies of donor states (Ashoff 2005, Messner 2005, Ziai 2007, s. also BMZ 2017). Therefore global economic structures have to be taken into account when talking about a global partnership for sustainable development. The GPN will concentrate on three policy fields with particular significance for the SDGs, whose problem constellations and challenges highlight the importance of strong partnerships: agriculture, finance, and energy. For these fields it will provide policy recommendations for policy coherence and successful partnerships in the global economy, in particular regarding the following aspects:
Agriculture: Partnerships for transformation towards fair trade and organic agriculture (Raynolds 2000, Wienold 2012) and the abolition of forced labour (Gold/Trautrims/Trodd 2015). This field is particularly relevant for SDG 2 ("End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture“), 15 ("Protect, restore, and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems“) and 8 ("Decent work for all“).
Finance: debt relief initiatives and stakeholder networks (Browne 1999 ch. 5, Caliari 2014, Vaggi/ Prizzon 2014), blended finance networks and investment partnerships (Pereira 2017, Mawdsley 2018, Attridge 2018, Clark et al. 2018) and microfinance initiatives (Aslanbeigui et al. 2010, Mader 2013, Duflo et al. 2013). This field is particularly relevant for SDG 8 ("Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth“) and 10 ("Reduce inequality within and among countries“).
Renewable energy: energy transition processes and local adaption of energy technologies in postcolonial contexts (Parthan 2010, Müller 2017, Barthel 2019). This field is particularly relevant for SDG 7 ("Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all“) and 13 ("Take urgent action to combat climate change and its Impacts“).
In all three areas, the GPN will investigate practical examples of partnerships and explore the reasons for success and failure, providing analysis and policy recommendations for policy coherence and partnerships in the global economy. This complements cluster 1 by including policy fields beyond development cooperation which are crucial to realizing the Sustainable Development Goals.
Research Projects
Knowledge sharing between partners is also a part of SDG 17 (targets 6 and 16), but whose knowledge is envisioned to be shared? The Post-Development critique (Sachs 2010, Escobar 2012, Rahnema 1997, Rist 2014) has pointed out the Eurocentrism prevalent in development knowledge: Eurocentric ontologies assume a linear scale of social evolution, at the top of which we find the ‘developed’ (i.e. industrialised, secular, capitalist, democratic) European societies (including the European settler colonies in North America and Australia). This assumption, implying e.g. that knowledge about progressive social change which helps the global South to advance along this universal scale can be found in the North and that development experts possess this knowledge (Nandy 1988, Apffel-Marglin/Marglin 1990 and 1996, Mitchell 2002, Eriksson Baaz 2005, Ziai 2016), has been challenged by postcolonial theorists stressing mutual learning; alternative, local, non- Western (to be precise: non-hegemonic, because they can also be found in the West) knowledges; and pluriversal epistemologies (Connell 2007, Comaroff and Comaroff 2015, Santos 2007 and 2014, Bhambra 2014, Ndlovu 2014, Reiter 2018, Kothari et al. 2019) and alternative, participatory and decolonised pathways to knowledge production and co-construction (Smith 2013, Bendix et al. 2019).
The GPN will investigate these alternative knowledge, their generation, diffusion and translation, and the possibilities they provide for progressive social change from the bottom up. Through providing fora and encouraging inter-cultural dialogue including marginalised peoples, it will contribute to mutual learning and foster partnerships in knowledge production. In this way, cluster 3 can also cross-fertilise and enhance the partnerships in development cooperation and global economic structures.
Research Projects
Apffel-Marglin, Frédérique/Marglin, Stephen (eds) (1990): Dominating Knowledge. Development, Culture, and Resistance. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Apffel-Marglin, Frédérique/Marglin, Stephen (eds) (1996): Decolonizing Knowledge. From Development to Dialogue. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Aslanbeigui, Nahid/Oakes, Guy/Uddin, Nancy (2010): 'Assessing Microcredit in Bangladesh: A Critique of the Concept of Empowerment', Review of Political Economy, 22: 2, 181-204.
Attridge, Samantha (2018): Can blended finance work for the poorest countries? ODI Insights https:// www.odi.org/blogs/10650-can-blended-finance-work-poorest-countries (Aug 1, 2019)
Ashoff, Guido (2005): Enhancing policy coherence for development : justification, recognition and approaches to achievement. Bonn: DIE.
Barthel, Bettina (2019): Erneuerbare und dezentrale Energien aus postkolonialer Perspektive. Ethnografische Analysen deutsch-tansanischer Partnerschaften. Baden-Baden: Nomos.
Bendix, Daniel/Müller, Franziska/Ziai, Aram (eds) (2019): Beyond the Master‘s Tools? Decolonizing Knowledge Orders, Resarch and Teaching. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.
Bhambra, Gurminder (2014): Knowledge production in global context: Power and coloniality. Current Sociology 62 (4), 451-456.
BMZ (2017): Afrika und Europa – Neue Partnerschaft für Entwicklung, Frieden und Zukunft.
Eckpunkte für einen Marshallplan mit Afrika. Berlin: BMZ.
Browne, Stephen (1999): Beyond Aid. From Patronage to Partnership. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Caliari, Aldo (2014) Analysis of Millennium Development Goal 8: A Global Partnership for Development, Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, 15:2-3, 275-287.
Clark, Dana/Fox, Jonathan/Treakle, Kay (eds) (2003): Demanding Accountability. Civil-Society Claims and the World Bank Inspection Panel. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.
Clark, Robyn/Reed, James/Sunderland, Terry (2018): Bridging funding gaps for climate and sustainable development: Pitfalls, progress and potential of private finance, in: Land Use Policy, Volume 71, 335-346
Comaroff, J., & Comaroff, J. L. (2015). Theory from the South: Or, how Euro-America is evolving toward Africa. Routledge.
Connell, Raewyn (2007): Southern Theory. The global dynamics of knowledge in social science.Cambridge: Polity Press.
Cooke, Bill/Kothari, Uma (2001): Participation: The New Tyranny? London: Zed Books.
De Wet, Chris (ed.) (2006): Development-Induced Displacement. Problems, Policies, and People. New York: Berghahn.
Duflo, Esther/Banerjee, Abhijit/Glennerster, Rachel/Kinnan, Cynthia G. (2013): The miracle of microfinance? National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper 18950.
Easterly, William (2013): The Tyranny of Experts. Economists, Dictators, and the Forgotten Rights of the Poor. New York: Basic Books.
Eriksson Baaz, Maria (2005): The Paternalism of Partnership. A Postcolonial Reading of Identity in Development Aid. London: Zed books.
Escobar, Arturo (2012): Encountering Development. The Making and Unmaking of the Third World. 2nd ed. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Fam, Dena/Palmer, Jane/Riedy, Chris/Mitchell, Cynthia (eds) (2017): Transdisciplinary Resarch and Practice for Sustainability Outcomes. London: Routledge.
Ferguson, James (1994): The Anti-Politics Machine. ‚Development‘, Depoliticization and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho. Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press.
Fox, Jonathan/Brown, L. David (eds) (1998): The Struggle for Accountability. The World Bank, NGOs, and Grassroots Movements. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Gold, S., Trautrims, A., Trodd, Z. (2015) Modern slavery challenges to supply chain management. Supply Chain Management: An International Journal, 20 (5), 485-494.
Hirsch Hadorn, Gertrude/Hoffmann-Riem, Holger/Biber-Klemm, Susette/Grossenbacher-Mansuy, Walter/Joye, Dominique/Pohl, Christian/Wiesmann, Urs/Zemp, Elisabeth (eds) (2008): Handbook of Transdisciplinary Research. Springer.
Hickey, Samuel/Mohan, Giles (eds) (2004): Participation: from tyranny to transformation? Exploring new approaches to participation in development. London: Zed Books.
Kabeer, Naila (1994): Reversed Realities. Gender Hierarchies in Development Thought. London: Verso.
Kothari, Ashish/Salleh, Ariel/Escobar, Arturo/Demaria, Federico/Acosta, Alberto (eds) (2019): Pluriverse: A Post-Development Dictionary. New Delhi: Tulika Books.
Li, Tania Murray (2007): The Will to Improve. Governmentality, Development, and the Practice of Politics. Durham: Duke University Press.
Mader, Philip (2013) Explaining and Quantifiying the Extractive Success of Financial Systems: Microfinance and the Financialisation of Poverty, Economic Research, 26 (s1), 13-28.
Mauser, Wolfram/Klepper, Gernot/Rice, Martin/Schmalzbauer, Bettina Susanne/Hackmann, Heide/Leemans, Rik/Moore, Howard (2013): Transdisciplinary global change research: the co- creation of knowledge for sustainability, in: Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, Vol 5/3-4, S. 420-431.
Mawdsley, Emma (2018): ‘From billions to trillions’: Financing the SDGs in a world ‘beyond aid’ , in: Dialogues in Human Geography 8 (2), 191-195.
Melber, H. (2018). Knowledge Production and Decolonisation-Not only African challenges. Strategic Review for Southern Africa, 40(1), 4-15.
Messner, Dirk/Maxwell, Simon/Nuscheler, Franz/Siegle, Joseph (2005): Governance Reform of the Bretton Woods Institutions and the UN Development System. Dialogue on Globalization, Occasional Papers No. 18. Washington: FES.
Mignolo, Walter (2007): Delinking: The rhetoric of modernity, the logic of coloniality and the grammar of decoloniality. Cultural Studies 21 (2-3), 449-514.
Mitchell, Timothy (2002): Rule of Experts. Egypt, Techno-Politics, Modernity. Berkeley, University of California Press.
Mkandawire, T. (2011). Running while others walk: Knowledge and the challenge of Africa’s development. Africa Development, 36(2), 1-36.
Mosse, David (2005): Cultivating Development. A Ethnography of Aid Policy and Practice. London: Pluto Press.
Müller, Franziska (2017): IRENA as glocal actor: pathways towards energy governmentality. Innovation: The European Journal of Social Science Research. 30 (3), 306-322.
Nandy, Ashish (ed) (1988): Sciecne, Hegemony and Violence. A Reqiuem for Modernity. Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Ndlovu, Morgan (2014): Why indigenous knowledge in the 21st century? A decolonial turn. Yesterday and Today 11, 84-98.
Ndhlovu, F (2017), “Southern development discourse for Southern Africa: linguistic and cultural imperatives”, Journal of Multicultural Discourses. (Available at: DOI: 10.1080/17447143.2016.1277733.)
Parthan, Binu/Osterkorn, Marianne/Kennedy, Matthew/Hoskyns, St. John/Bazilian, Morgan/Monga, Pradeep (2010): Lessons for low-carbon energy transition: Experience from the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership (REEEP). Energy for Sustainable Development, doi:10.1016/j.esd.2010.04.003
Pereira, Javier (2017): Blended Finance: What it is, how it works and how it is used, Oxfam.https://oxfamilibrary.openrepository.com/handle/10546/620186 (Aug 1, 2019)
Radcliffe, Sarah (2015): Dilemmas of Difference. Indigenous Women and the Limits of Postcolonial Development Policy. Durham: Duke University Press.
Rahnema, Majid with Bawtree, Victoria (eds.) (1997): The Post-Development Reader. London: Zed Books.
Raynolds, Laura (2000): Re-embedding global agriculture: The international organic and fair trade movements, Agriculture and Human Values 17: 297-309.
Reiter, Bernd (ed.) (2018): Constructing the Pluriverse. The Geopolitics of Knowledge. Durham: Duke University Press.
Rist, Gilbert (2014): The History of Development. From Western Origins to Global Faith. 4th ed. London: Zed Books.
Sachs, Wolfgang (ed) (2010): The Development Dictionary. A Guide to Knowledge as Power. 2Nd ed. London: Zed Books.
Santos, Boaventura de Sousa (ed.) (2007): Another Knowledge is Possible. Beyond Northern Epistemologies. London: Verso.
Santos, Boaventura de Sousa (2014): Epistemologies of the South. Justice against Epistemicide. Boulder: Paradigm.
Seabrook, Jeremy (1993): Victims of Development. Resistance and Alternatives. London: Verso.
Smith, L. T. (2013). Decolonizing methodologies: Research and indigenous peoples. Zed Books Ltd.. Townsend, Janet Gabriel (1995): Women‘s Voices from the Rainforest. London: Routledge.
Vaggi, Gianni/Prizzon, Annalisa (2014): On the sustainability of external debt: is debt relief enough? Cambridge Journal of Economics 38: 1155-1169.
Visvanathan, Nalini/Duggan, Lynn/Wiegersma, Nan/Nisonoff, Laurie (eds.) (2011): The Women, Gender and Development Reader. 2nd edition. London: Zed Books.
Wienold, Hanns (2012): Fair Trade: Moralische Ökonomie oder Äquivalententausch? Peripherie Nr. 128, 500-508.
Young, Elspeth (1995): Third World in the First. Development and Indigenous Peoples. London:Routledge.
Ziai, Aram (2007): Globale Strukturpolitik? Die Nord-Süd Politik der BRD und das Dispositiv der Entwicklung. Münster: Westfälisches Dampfboot.
Ziai, Aram (2016): Development Discourse and Global History. London: Routledge.