Racism, precariousness and resistance : development-aid-funded PhD training in Sweden

Abstract

There is a growing interest from states in the global north and NGOs worldwide in building research capacity in countries of the global south through development-aid-funded research training (United Nations, 2015). In this context, little is known on the social and intellectual positioning of development aid-funded students in relation to other groups of students that are studying in the global north under other social and economic conditions. This article deals directly with this issue by focusing on how Tanzanian and Mozambican students and Swedish supervisors participating in Swedish development-aid-funded programmes for building research capacity through postgraduate training in low-income countries make representations of academic work relations, compared to other students and supervisors in Sweden. In particular, the article focuses on the complex, shifting and sometimes dual layers of precariousness and resistance that are (re)produced and the lessons that can be learned from the perspective of policy development. In total, 91 interviews were collected, with those with women representing 26 per cent of the sample. The result show that the positionalities made available to students are constructed at the complex intersection between predefined parameters such as contractual agreements and how supervisors and departmental colleagues in Sweden manage and negotiate power structures relating to ‘competition’, ‘production’ or ‘development’. For Tanzanian and Mozambican development-aid funded students, this means that their precariousness and resistance differs from Swedish students and other international students, particularly Asian students, and is constructed along a lack of recognition of their work as academic work. Their resistance is articulated through opposing the subject position of a passive object of capacity building. The lessons learned for policy is ‘Situated policy development’, ‘Policy development from below’ and ‘Policy development through institutional responsibility’.