Lived experience.

After so many years working in the humanitarian and development sector it genuinely feels like the more time I spend here the more tired I become. I suppose this feeling is exacerbated by being a person of colour who works in the sector, who carries along the baggage of lived experience of both colonisation and racism in general. It feels like we have been speaking about localisation for more than a decade. With voices of those in power continuing to utter the regular trope about ensuring more localised ways of operating. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; we can speak about localisation until we are blue in the face but if it is not accompanied by a conversation about decolonisation then it is meaningless.

When we speak of decolonisation we refer to an intentional process of decolonising structural systems as opposed to just localised ways of working. Within this power dynamics need to shift from being centred in the minority world (or ‘Global North’) to the majority world (or ‘Global South’). This includes decision making and access to resources. The importance of yielding power and influence seems to be the concept that will not shift in the process. If we’re to be honest it’s due to a system which has been set up to extract and plunder in order to build and retain wealth in the ‘Global North’.

Recently, I was involved in an internal conversation about localisation and how to further this within the work that we do. For a second I forgot that I have made it a practice to not be actively involved in these conversations because of how personal it all is to me. It’s hard enough for those of us who are BIPOC to be involved within the sector, with its neocolonial remnants; let alone to be involved in discussions about localisation. At times it feels like we are screaming into a void, digging deep into our lived experience to offer up our trauma and perspective, only for it to not be taken into account or deprioritised in general. We are all too often tapped on the shoulder to lead these conversations or give our takes, do all of the work for a tokenistic tick box but in reality have zero power or influence to make real change. 

As people of colour in the sector when it comes to conversations about localisation or decolonisation it is all incredibly personal. The effects of colonisation sit deep within the blood that runs through our veins. It has affected our ancestors, our people, our land and our psyches. Most times for those of us that have long worked within the sector, we can ignore colonialist language or microaggressions that are built into the infrastructure of the humanitarian and development realm. But sometimes it is impossible to ignore and we are triggered in a way that surprises us. The concept of cultural safety is therefore one which becomes incredibly important, however in these spaces it remains mainly non-existent. This is because it takes commitment and effort to build cultural safety. It means listening to the voices of those with lived experience and taking tangible actions towards actual change.

For me personally I feel like I am constantly speaking about the importance of lived experience and the difference that taking this into decision making can make in real time. The humanitarian and development world has a bad habit of overconsultation in terms of extracting snippets of trauma and experiences of oppression of those of us who are people of colour in the sector. What it does not seem to do is go the extra mile in terms of shifting the elements that centralise power and continue to oppress, minimise and victimise people that look like us. The concept of lived experience of people of colour explains itself in which refers to our personal insights and first hand knowledge navigating systemic racism, discrimination and oppression. The truth is in this industry we appear to centre the voices of marginalised perspectives but are unwilling to yield power, resources and decision making to see real change take shape.

I’d also like to not have to always be that person in the room that calls out language such as ‘saving lives’, ‘beneficiaries’ and ‘capacity building’. I’d love to not always be tapped on the shoulder for localisation working groups and have my lived experience be tapped in a way which is extractive, retraumatising and tokenistic. It shouldn’t be up to me as a person of colour to offer up my lived experiences on a platter to be eaten up by those who should be educating themselves and driving systemic change; which means shifting power to people that look like me. I shouldn’t have to consistently remind humanitarian and development agencies that their conversations about localisation lack authenticity due to a lack of representation in their senior management teams. 

I really shouldn’t have to do any of these things anymore. But yet, year by year, organisation by organisation, it always seems to be the same things. Surely by now the sector should have moved us forward and at the very least I would really like to not be responsible for educating people who have innate privilege on what it’s like to not hold that.