In this episode Carla Vitantonio talks to Kenneth Amaeshi about the project he is supporting in Nigeria.While talking about ways to improve livelihood for people and community, Kenneth admits that too often solutions are brought from abroad that don’t match local needs, practices, habits and customs. Kenneth explains how his working group and himself are, on the contrary, trying to build new opportunities based on local networks and practices.Resources:Peter Ekeh, Colonialism and the two publics in Africa: a theoretical statementWalter Mignolo, Coloniality, Subalterne Knowledge, Border ThinkingSrilatha Batliwala, Taking the power out of empowerment: an experiential accountHow was it recorded? Live interview and studio for Carla’s voice re-recording

In this episode Carla Vitantonio interviews Nigerian health worker and activist Jennifer Uchendu. Jennifer is the founder of Sustyvibes, a community where young people with a passion for a just world come together to connect and design new ways of living, for themselves, the planet and the world at large. Carla and Jennifer talk about decolonial practices when linked to ecoanxiety, to narratives, but also to power relations and to how those power relations shall be unveiled, even when relations with donors are involved Resources:https://sustyvibes.org/Oyèrónkẹ́ Oyěwùmí, The Invention of Women: Making an African Sense of Western Gender Discourses Sabelo Ndlovu Gatsheni, Coloniality of Power in Development Studies and the Impact of Global Imperial Designs on AfricaHow was it recorded? Interview on zoom

In this episode of Living Decoloniality, Carla interviews Themrise Khan.Themrise is an independent professional in international development, based in Pakistan, who is working to develop what she calls “a new ecosystem for international aid”.Themrise is not interested in using the framework of coloniality, although what she says echoes very much concepts and theories discussed in this podcast so far. She aims at creating a new roadmap that each country -and she stresses the national dimension of her plan – changes the way they live, provide, and ask for international aid. Resources:Themrise’s websiteKeynote speech at the 2023 Humanitarian Leadership ConferenceHow was it recorded? zoom interview for Themrise. studio recording for Carla

This episode is focused on cooperation among universities. This kind of cooperation, fostered by programs and funds called “cooperation North-South” or “triangular cooperation”, sits on a number of unspoken colonial dynamics that Carla will start unpacking through her interview. The guests of this episode are three researchers: Adriana Moreno Cely, Kewan Mertens and Viola Nyakato. Through the story of how they personally met and decided to have open-ended transformative dialogues to iteratively unveil coloniality in their life and work, the 3 researchers share with us their decolonial practices and the methodology they are developing to tackle their own coloniality. Resources:Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Decolonization, Decoloniality, and the Future of African Studies: A Conversation (by Duncan Omanga) Morgan Ndlovu, Coloniality of Knowledge and the Challenge of Creating African Futures Kewan Mertens, Reassembling disaster risk: towards a more self reflexive and enabling geography How was it recorded? first interview through whatsapp messages, second interview on zoom

In this episode Carla Vitantonio interviews Karishma Shafi (she/her)Karishma is a program manager at One future collective. She is an activist and researcher in the field of gender, media and culture. She aims to understand and address gender-based oppression along the axes of power and privilege. Her work at OFC focuses on shifting public narrative and policy with a social justice orientation. One Future Collective is a feminist social purpose organisation with a vision of a world built on social justice, led by communities of care. We exist to nurture people’s feminist and rights-based leadership and influence their micro-communities and ecosystems to achieve social justice: through an alt school, advocacy lab and feminist justice project. Starting from a definition of coloniality, Karishma shares her lived experience as a woman grown up in India, and brings us to reflect on coloniality in several realms, insisting on coloniality of knowledge. She explains how projects are often built on knowledge and practices that are not related to the knowledge and practices of the community that participates into the project. When asked about her decolonial practices, she especially focuses on community work, and challenges concepts as “service provision”, proposing alternatives through examples from OFC’s work. Resources:One future collectiveFairshare of women leaders, on Feminist LeadershipNokuthula Hlabangane, The underside of modern knowledge: an epistemic break from western scienceNazanin Zadeh-Cummings, Through the looking glass: Coloniality and mirroring in localisation Srilatha Batliwala, All about powerHow was it recorded? whatsapp messages for Karishma, and improvised studio for Carla’s voice

In the first episode of Living Decoloniality, Carla Vitantonio shares with us the story of the podcast and the reasons that moved her to create it.She introduces us to the doubts (or, as a social scientist would say, the research questions) that animated her research and to the answers she found: She shares the reference framework used through the episodes, briefly talking about the concept of coloniality, and she suggests ways to use and enjoy the podcast.Resources: Anibal Quijano, Colonialidad Eurocentrismo y America LatinaNelson Maldonaldo Torres, On the coloniality of beingMaria Lugones, The coloniality of GenderEugene Bardach, The extrapolation problem How was it recorded? studio