Decolonization: where and how does it fit at IOB?

This paper is part of a wider effort IOB initiated last year – under the mandate of the previous Bureau of IOB - to question its “DNA” in view of rethinking its academic activities, particularly in the field of education. We are thankful that Mollie Gleiberman, who has been working here as a research and teaching assistant and who knows the institute quite well, was able to invest time and energy in the decolonization challenges for institutes like IOB and for IOB particularly. What came out of this exercise goes clearly beyond the field of education, the author not only situates the recent “decolonization movement” in a wider set of related literatures, her recommendations also question other dimensions of what we do and how we do it. The report is openly (self-)critical and this is exactly what we need to learn from in order to (at least try to) improve current practices. This being said, the critiques and recommendations are evidently just suggestions by the author, meant as inputs into a further collective decision-making process. In this sense, the standard sentence of a Working Paper applies: “The findings and views expressed in the IOB Working Papers are those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of IOB as an institute”. This paper also accompanies one other paper on North-South partnerships (Titeca 2021), which was also discussed with a number of people from our partner institutes (July 2021), and a report (to be written) that analyses the student survey on decolonization which was carried out in August of 2021. All of these will be “inputs” into a further process of reflection we plan to carry further in the months to come.