Development's Race Problem: Post‐Black Lives Matter Erasures, Palestine and the Politics of Publishing

ABSTRACT Despite efforts by critical scholars of development to centre race in their analysis, Development Studies remains entangled in its racist history and contemporary imperialism. New troubling forms of oppression and control within the discipline's approach to race have emerged, marking the post‐Black Lives Matter era as a point of transition between old and new erasures of race. We argue that although race is no longer ignored, the discursive and material boundaries within which it can be discussed have been erected through silencing, censorship, regulation and appropriation. Drawing on our failed attempt to publish a special issue on race, (anti‐)racism and development, we focus on the specificity of Palestine as indicative of new erasures. We explore the theoretical implications this has and uncover how Palestine illuminates and unsettles the boundaries between race and development. Through this, we attempt to build a case for development's reclamation as a liberatory project of radical repoliticisation.