Workshop: "Decolonizing Graduate Careers"

Part of an online workshop series in relation to the annual conference "Decolonizing Swiss Research Collaborations" by KFPE

Decolonizing existing structures challenges us to find new ways of thinking and acting decolonially in academia. In this workshop, a concrete decolonizing strategy framework from Olivia U. Rutazibwa (2018) as a working tool will be discussed. Along empirical data from the "IGS North-South Tracer Study 2022 - Decolonizing Graduate Careers" three steps will be discussed:

1. De-mythologize: reflecting on new starting points for narratives. The first step in the study was to challenge the brain gain/drain narrative as a Eurocentric narrative of Europe as a place where one would want to stay after graduation. The study shows new narratives that assign value to home countries as a place to live and produce knowledge and highlights neo-colonial barriers to the free circulation of knowledge.

2. De-silence: Understanding the barriers and power structures of silence. As a second step, the study aimed to identify how alumni with different social positions and identities, and with different kinds of knowledge, are perceived and how hegemonic white-patriarchal frameworks can influence alumni work position, publication opportunities and movement in academia.

3. De-colonize: Questioning the goals and strategies of the own programme. The third step analyses and reflects the structures and aims of the graduate programme itself by asking which and whose knowledge production it serves and what knowledge it cultivates. 

By sharing the implementation of Rutazibwas framework, the presenters aim to a) demonstrate a starting point for decolonizing structures and b) create learning moments for themselves and the guests of the workshop. Each of the three blocks will contain a very brief presentation of the results from the study as well as a reflection phase. 

Organised by Lilian Trechsel, Laurenzia Karrer and Camilla Steinböck, Centre for Development and Environment (CDE), University of Bern.

Register now for the workshop to participate and receive the Zoom-Link.

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