The Challenges of Decolonising Sustainability and the Environment in Development Studies (DS)

This think-piece makes a case for addressing the colonial roots of sustainability. It examines how enduring colonial mechanisms and biases have led to certain forms of value and valuing, problematic views of ‘pristine nature’ and processes of extractivism. These in turn have led to dispossession and violence, especially for Indigenous and marginalised communities in the majority world. It explores how studies on the environment and sustainability have sought to implicitly or explicitly challenge these colonial biases and their impacts. Researchers working on the environment, gender and sustainability have brought together Development Studies (DS) with science technology studies (STS), (feminist) political ecology, anthropology and feminist epistemology. This has resulted in strong engagements with the politics of knowledge, the colonial roots of environmental problems and the need to lift the perspectives and voices of historically marginalised groups to promote alternative ways of doing and understanding development and nature/society relations. Researchers working in other fields of DS could do more to draw on these diverse perspectives, especially since epistemic and material inequalities and power structures are interlinked and mutually reinforcing. I also focus on the dangers of decolonisation becoming a buzzword without much change in actual practices in ways of working and collaborating.