Decolonizing Development Studies: Rejecting or Repurposing the Master’s Tools?

Abstract Focusing on the project of decolonizing Development Studies, this thought piece reflects on tensions between Decolonial Studies and the critical political-economy of Development, known as Critical Development Studies. It highlights the divergent approaches to addressing epistemic inequalities between these two streams of Development thinking, demonstrating that Critical Development Studies has a longer history of valorising development knowledge from the Global South, and a focus on the need to address structural as well as epistemic inequalities. The analysis challenges the palliative cultural focus of Decolonial Studies and exposes its vulnerability to neoliberal capture at the epistemic and the political levels in ways that risk perpetuating colonial subordination. With examples from the African context, this thought piece argues that Critical Development Studies advances a more transformative approach to decolonizing Development Studies through its emphasis on the role of epistemic recognition as part of the wider objective of material redistribution.