An exploration of dynamics, resistances and challenges when aspirations of decolonisation inhabit the work

We think any effort at decolonisation is an invitation to begin interrogating one’s
readiness for change. Decolonisation may be easier to name than really do. The desire
for ‘de-colonisation’ may repeat the very unconscious discriminating structures it wishes to change. To remove or reverse colonising structures infers a position of power from which to do this; and may become an ‘as if’ enlightened act toward the other, who remains though positioned as the other. Power is the persistence of an unconscious dynamic that cannot be questioned.

We will explore dynamics of decolonisation based on our experience as co-consultants
to the strategic planning process of a global membership based organization in sustainable agriculture, headquartered in the Global North. Some dynamics of
decolonisation were more difficult to question: gender, corruption of task by ambition, eurocentrism, and seeking a special status. We will draw on selected critical incidents to examine some initial questions, from which others may emerge. What were the dynamics of our being hired and eventually fired? What did our own experience tell us about what hinders and what helps the process of dismantling ‘discriminatory colonial structures’? What were the unconscious motivations and payoffs in associating with the status quo of power?

Our client explicitly wished to change the north/south balance as they invited a proposal from a consultant, an Indian woman, from the South. The proposal to work with unconscious dynamics in a process consultancy was accepted by the client. The consultant invited her colleague, an Irish woman from the North, to join her. The client had perhaps not expected this and called our South/North pair ‘the dream team’. The work began with a 4-day workshop with the global board and leadership team in its HQ.

Before the next in-person workshop, they communicated their concern about the process yet still wanted us to deliver an online event that was counter to our approach and stance. “It is ok if your mind has changed, we said, you do not need to give us a decent burial”. Their relief seemed palpable; we parted ways amicably.

Our rootedness in systems psychodynamic tradition and group relations helped us
move ahead in the work and contain the client at critical junctures. As consultants, we were interested in learning from the work, with and from each other. We focused on task, authorisations, accountability of those in authority, clarity of roles in the system. A key exercise entailed listening to different contexts, and how they related with significant others in these contexts. To be used by the client system to find insights on their functioning. It broke down continents into specific contexts with the relatedness to members could be heard; the exercise was initiated but not completed.

Ambivalence, splitting and envy were present among the consultants and within the client system. There was a wish to be ‘guardians of the proper’. Our work as a creative consulting pair, South/North, held a hope for the system but one that also exposed fault lines too soon or too difficult to broach for the client. We wonder how identity begins to influence – our own in our position and relation to western empire – when such collaboration hits up against the unconscious hierarchical status quo.

References

Bachrach P., Baratz M. (1962), Two Faces of Power, The American Political Science
Review, Volume 56, Issue 4, 947-952.

Brown W. (2006), Power after Foucault, in The Oxford Handbook of Political Theory, ed. Dryzek et al, Oxford University Press, London.

Long S. (2002), Organisational Destructivity and the Perverse State of Mind, Organizational and Social Dynamics, 2002, Vol. 2, Issue 2.

Session schedule

5 MINS

Introduction

30 MINS

Paper presentation

20 MINS

Small group discussion; impressions of the paper and developing questions for the presenter

20 MINS

Discussion forum with the presenter; moderated for the speaker to elaborate their ideas

10 MINS

Discussion forum with the presenter; themes from the discussions

5 MINS

Break

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