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2020 Janina Bauman Prize Winner Announced

Date

We are delighted to announce the winner of the 2020 Janina Bauman Prize (a prize for the best MA Dissertation in one of our supported programmes) to be André Dallas, for his thesis “Development as I-nity: Rastafari Philosophy as a Decolonial Alternative to Orthodox Development Paradigms in Jamaica”

André's thesis abstract describes the work:

In pursuit of an appropriate conception of the ends of social change for Jamaica, I evaluate three putatively competing theories of development, revealing all to be underpinned by common assumptions of ethical individualism, consumerism and maximising behaviour such that they constitute the same neo-colonial, neoliberal Development as Accumulation approach. The relevance of this paradigm for Jamaica is then assessed through a decolonial lens, privileging the situated knowledge of the sufferer. Informed by Rastafari philosophy, I argue a conception of Development as I-nity is more appropriate for the Jamaican masses in its recognition of the fundamental interdependence of all beings. Guided by such a target, development policy support only those innovations which facilitate a socially- and naturally-rooted livity