Decolonizing Knowledge Research Group (DKRG)

Global development challenges are becoming increasingly complex, yet inequalities continue to disproportionately affect many countries in the Global South. At the same time, academic knowledge on development, security and justice is still largely produced from Eurocentric perspectives. This imbalance shapes how global challenges are understood, which voices are considered authoritative, and which experiences remain underrepresented in research, policy debates, and educational curricula.

The Decolonizing Knowledge Research Group (DKRG) brings together scholars interested in critically examining how knowledge about development, security and justice is produced, validated, and circulated. The group focuses on interrogating the “coloniality of power” in knowledge production and the forms of epistemic injustice that privilege certain perspectives while marginalizing others.

Through interdisciplinary collaboration, the group explores how key concepts such as development, justice, and security are defined and operationalized in academic research and policy frameworks. Whose knowledge shapes these definitions? Who determines what constitutes a security threat, and for whom? Which forms of justice are recognized as legitimate within national and global governance systems?

Addressing these questions requires attention to lived experiences, everyday practices, and local epistemologies as important sites of theory-building. The group seeks to bring into dialogue academic knowledge with perspectives from communities, practitioners, and scholars from diverse geographical and cultural contexts.

The goal of the research group is not to reject existing academic traditions, but to enrich them by fostering more inclusive, reflexive, and globally grounded approaches to knowledge production on development, security and justice. In doing so, the group aims to contribute to more equitable research practices, more inclusive educational environments, and more context-sensitive policy discussions.

Beyond academic research, the group also aims to contribute to societal debates and practice. By engaging with civil society organizations, policy actors, and educational initiatives, the group seeks to foster dialogue on how knowledge about development, security and justice is produced and applied in practice. Activities may include public lectures and discussion series, collaborations with NGOs and development practitioners, and knowledge exchange with scholars and institutions in the Global South. Through these activities, the group aims to promote more inclusive perspectives in policy discussions, strengthen equitable research collaborations, and support broader public engagement with questions of global inequality, justice, and knowledge production.