DECOLONIZING DEVELOPMENT: A STUDY OF VANDANA SHIVA'S CRITIQUE OF WESTERN DEVELOPMENT PARADIGM IN STAYING ALIVE

ABSTRACT This study looks into a particular criticism of Vandana Shiva, focusing on her work "Staying Alive." The work portrays her critique regarding the Western development paradigm and policies using postcolonial ecofeminist and decolonial lenses. It analyzes how Shiva interrogates and responds to the Western narratives of progress, growth, and modernization. In a close reading of her text, the paper tries to demonstrate her arguments that explain how development, as crafted and executed by the West, is overtly patriarchal and ecologically suicidal while waged as colonialistic subjugation against the South. The analysis also considers Shiva's argument for an ecological vision of development suggesting that such a construct should be based on the biodiversity, indigenous knowledge, and women's socio-ecological dominion. This research examines the sustainable development discourse, focusing on understanding sustainability in the context of postcolonial theory while exploring ecofeminism Keywords: Decolonization, Ecofeminism, Development Paradigm, Indigenous Knowledge, Sustainability