Alternatives to the White Saviour Complex - recognising the real experts

It is amazing how my post on the White Saviour Complex of Development Consultancy reached so many people once I included  it on LinkedIn  and tagged it appropriately.  Over a 1000 reads.. a bit overwhelmed by it all.  Also, given that right now it is at the forefront of my mind, I was pleased to see drop into my inbox an initiative that provides an alternative.  Maybe there is a case to be made for a collection of such alternatives - so here goes.

The first paragraph of Kristen Cheney's ISS blog on Children as Experts could be easily paraphrased to present the problematic of the white saviour way of doing development, or in this instance, development research.  Here's my modified version. My changes in italics.

" It is often assumed that social research is the domain of experts - and that those experts are necessarily researchers from the global north. Most development research is northern-led and northern-centric, not only ignoring southern voices but denying diversity amongst southern people.  Information about the global south therefore often remains insulated within their peer groups, preventing innovation in development programming.  This too often leads to a deficit or a pathological perspective on development in development research and intervention."

However, Cheney goes on to describe how their project addressed these issues through a very different point of departure.  They recognised that 'young people are the experts on their own lives'.  How difficult would it be for development consultants to recognise the same in their work with global south communities?

For Cheney et al that recognition led to a methodology of co-creation of knowledge that had many positive outcomes - better research outputs, exceptional personal growth among participants, group cohesion, and immediate advocacy.

Priyanthi Fernando

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