Theorizing the persistence of local–foreign inequality in international development organizations through the analytic of coloniality

Abstract

AbstractThis paper theorizes the persistence of inequality between “local” and “foreign” staff in international development organizations. This is a perplexing phenomenon given these organizations' aims of equality and improving lives. The paper draws on qualitative empirical material generated over a three‐month period at an American‐founded development organization in Nairobi, Kenya, including 33 interviews, observation, and organizational documents. Working with the analytic of coloniality, the analysis illustrates how unequal relations persist through the naturalization of racial difference that valorizes Western epistemic perspectives and legitimizes foreign–local difference. The onto‐epistemic grounding of this difference is obscured by organizational discourses of equality, meritocracy, and unity, which enable their persistence. In this paper, I explicate “foreign”–“local” inequality as an effect of the coloniality of development management. By demonstrating how colonial relations of domination enable contemporary inequality, this paper advances an understanding of colonial continuities in development organizations, and contributes to efforts to foreground issues of race in both organizations and international development.