Living Decoloniality, practical examples of decolonial
re-existence through the aid sector, a podcast by Carla Vitantonio with the support of the
Center for Humanitarian Leadership.

Welcome to a new episode of Living Decoloniality. I am Carla Vitantonio and the sounds and noises
you hear in the background are from the city where I live and work. Havana, Cuba.
In my life as humanitarian, traveling and working with a passport from the global minority,
but always expressing myself in a language that is widely unknown, I have been thinking a lot
about the relationship between the use of language and coloniality in our sector.
Those of you who work on reporting know very well for example that certain institutional
donors only accept reports in their own language. Or only in English or French,
regardless of the context the project is implemented in.
The person we will hear today is focusing exactly on this topic and on the idea of
coloniality of language. Let’s hear from her directly.
My name is Ammaarah Nilafdeen and I’m a social researcher based in Colombo, Sri Lanka
I’ve been working in the research sector for about four years now. Before joining the sector,
I spent about three years studying in Delhi in India and eventually moved back to Sri Lanka during
the COVID-19 pandemic. That’s when I started working full-time in the international development sector.
My career has taken me in two primary directions. On one side, I’ve been involved in research
projects for different organisations at both the national and local levels. On the other side,
I’ve also been part of project evaluations and I’ve supported different INGOs to evaluate projects
implemented under thematic areas like strengthening reconciliation process, psychosocial interventions,
countering hate speech and improving social cohesion. My work has taken me to different parts across
the island and I’ve spent a fair amount of time in the field engaging directly with communities.
As I often do, I ask Ammaarah to tell me what coloniality is for her.
I’m really glad that there’s an opportunity to define coloniality and I appreciate that this
podcast allows to acknowledge that it can be a different experience for different people.
For me, I think I define coloniality through my lived experience and that is as a woman from a minority in
Sri Lanka, and how I’ve had to constantly navigate very invisible hierarchy
that shift a lot depending on the situation or context in which I’m present in.
So these hierarchies that I speak of are not static whatsoever, they change rapidly depending
on the context and this is something I find rarely discussed at least openly.
The story that is often told about decolonisation and even localisation, at least in the West,
tends to be problematic because it does simplify a lot of these highly complex dynamics that
are present in local settings. Srilanka as a post colonial nation does struggle a lot with
very deeply entrenched hierarchies and these hierarchies aren’t written down but they are very
well understood by the general population. It’s almost like an unspoken rule and we all know where
we stand in these hierarchies and this is not a new observation whatsoever. Many people in the
sector across the globe have discussed about this in their work in different ways.
So in many ways, we are still living within the stage that was set for us by our colonisers
and I don’t think we’ve more passed that and maybe one of the reasons why we haven’t
moved past that is because we are afraid to explore a life beyond the stage that was set for us because
then it would mean having very different conversations and these conversations are those that we
have been avoiding for years and decades and to be very honest maybe we are not ready for how
ugly things could get if we truly confronted these issues. One of the many aspects of coloniality
that I would want to touch today in the episode is the issue of language. Language in Sri Lanka
has been and continues to be one of the tools such as seeing these hierarchies and in our country
language was also a huge factor, a huge driving factor in our long civil war and yet the international
development sector does not speak about it as transparently as it should. Language has been used as a
tool of oppression for so long in Sri Lanka that it’s now still a marker of territoriality and also
defense. So imagine it’s like an open wound that was never given a chance to heal and it is constantly
being prodded and for me as someone who can speak in all three languages which are most commonly used
in Sri Lanka  that is Sinhala Tamil and English I do recognize that I carry a certain privilege
but even within the Tamil language there are so many dialectical differences and variations
that communities across the island have adapted over time according to their own histories.
So when working in research I’ve had to engage with language in ways that has forced me to confront
my own experiences with language as well. So although I speak in Tamil my dialect also isn’t considered good enough by some communities and I’ve had multiple uncomfortable experiences
where I have been told outright that my Tamil wasn’t coherent enough and this is despite my
genuine efforts to communicate during field work and instead of being offended I have taken some
time to reflect on these experiences and I realize that this issue is actually a part of a much
larger problem that has gone unaddressed for far too long. In Sri Lanka Tamil language is mainly spoken
by two main ethnic communities and that is the Tamil and Muslims. However there are significant
variations in the way Tamil is used between and also within each of these groups and these
differences are shaped by factors like class and also geographical location. So for example
to start off there are distinct dialectical differences between the Tamil spoken between the Tamil
and Muslim communities themselves. Then the Tamil spoken in the Northern and Eastern provinces
in the country are very different. Then when you feel they’ve done more even within the Muslim
community the Tamil spoken by a Muslim like myself in Colombo differs a lot from the Tamil that is
spoken in an area like Batticaloa in the East Coast or areas like Puttalam or Beruwala in the western
side of the country. When conducting research it is quite important to remain sensitive to these
variations and what may seem like small linguistic differences can infact also speak volumes
about the deeper social and cultural nuances. So it is essential particularly for those approaching
research from urban centers like myself to understand and respect these subtleties but this
conversation does not happen in the bigger tables, at least I have been a part of. Language and
dialects often find its way into these hierarquies and dialects can be used as a marker to categorize
someone as us or other and it also sometimes nobles into other problems of regionalism or
racism within local communities itself. So while doing field work especially in predominantly
Tamil speaking areas I often ask older or younger community members how they navigate the dialect
issue and this isn’t just to understand them better but also to improve how my engagement can be
more meaningful when I engage with communities in the field. So when I was conducting research in
a Northern province around 2022 I observed that even senior translators had difficulty understanding
different dialects on the spot and that’s when it hit me that this is a serious problem that no one
talks about.
The sensitivity that you would expect from a country that has gone through a very long and difficult
process towards reconciliation after a brutal civil war is absent in many sectors and this is
especially true in the international development sector. The hiring practices to prioritize English,
and it’s almost as a prerequisite for being worthy enough to serve in certain spaces,
and what this does is it affects the filters out the voices of those who could tell their own
stories the best. This also brings me to the issue of localization. We always talk about localizing
projects but are we really ready for what that means is a huge question mark for me. Localization
without understanding the power dynamics that play can be very dangerous and Sri Lanka’s
power structures are not clearly mapped out and we are also so afraid to have open discussions about
power in general. So in this kind of a hostile environment what are we truly localizing and who
are we localizing too. We also keep seeing the same organizations doing the same projects over and
over again. It feels like and oligarchy almost for lack of a better word. We tried and tested
organizations repeating the same approaches but no one dares to question it because many people
benefit disproportionately from this cycle and sometimes even locals in positions of power.
Ironically these locals are often the same people who are preaching about localization
but are unwilling to challenge the system because they benefit from it. So in response to your
bigger question, coloniaity is everywhere. It’s an everyday experience. It’s about how we think,
how we speak, how we act and also how we choose to ignore these unwritten hierarchies. But the real
issue at hand is that we are too scared to have open conversations about it. The rules and norms
that we are so used to that has been left behind are still very much alive and we continue to
avoid confronting them because we know that it can get really uncomfortable.
After such a detailed, honest and heartfelt reflection, I really wanted to know more about how
Ammaarah tackles issues related to coloniaity, especially to coloniaity of language. Unfortunately,
there is no clear one-size-fits-all solution to the issue of coloniaity. In fact, I believe that addressing
these problems would require us to take many steps back and too many steps back that frankly,
I don’t think the sector is ready to perhaps even think about it. However, there are practical
solutions that we can begin implementing within the most smaller, close-knit circles that we work in.
And resistance against these entrenched systems has to start in our own work environments and from
there, I think it can lead to a broader call for change. So both short-term and long-term solutions do
exist, though the long-term ones may take time to document and also implement. A trickle-down effect is
needed and countries like ours must lead the way in creating the demand for  INGOs to follow.
So essentially, INGOs won’t bring about any change unless we on the ground show the
interest or urgency. The way this system is going in benefits our donors and funders, so they would
not potentially call or see the need for a change unless we ask for it. One issue that needs
immediate attention is, I think, the current pattern of funding distribution. There’s an over-dependency
on a small pool of about 20 to 30 organizations that continuously rotate through the same funding
cycles. These organizations align with donated deliverables and commitments, which is easier.
But it also stifles the fair distribution of support to more smaller, potentially more meaningful
organizations, especially those that face language barriers. This has created an oligarchy
of sorts, like I mentioned before, where new ideas and knowledge are often sidelined because they
come from outside this established group of organizations. More informal collectives who are doing
more meaningful work on the ground level are unable to tap into the radar of these donors and
simply do not know how to approach them for many reasons. And language is one of them.
Another issue is having to revisit and potentially revisiting budget allocations for translation
services. Many organizations are forced to compromise on giving a very fair compensation for
translators due to restricted budgeting. Translation is a highly skilled task and it is often treated
as an afterthought when budget summit. I personally experienced situations where hiring local
translators were discouraged either due to inexperience or high costs or the inability to justify
to donors. But in my view, justifying the need for more accurate localized language skills should
not be that difficult or a difficult case to make. So without proper understanding of the
committee’s language, the data that we collect in research can be factually incorrect.
And I think that in itself is a simple and powerful argument enough to present who are donors
and ask for a better budgeting towards translation. Looking towards long term, we need a shift in
attitude within the INGO sector. INGIs must learn to be listeners and not just delegators or
instructors. And so when I say listeners, I don’t mean to say listeners just to the English speaking
locals were already in positions of power in the hierarchy of locals. I mean truly listening to
committees in their own languages and without having a filter in between to their voices through
other local intermediaries. And INGOs need to get more uncomfortable and in fact learn to become
more uncomfortable and engage directly with communities rather than relying on the more
filtered versions of community realities. As Themrise Khan has argued now for years,
the terms localization and also decolonization have become buzzwords. And these words and the
loose meaning it carries serves INGOs more than the communities they claim to support. We need
to deconstruct and critically analyze these words. These words are being overused in so many ways
and that does not serve anyone and it does not actually address the deeper issues.
The more we challenge the flaws within these terms, the better reforms and actions we can push for
and it can go beyond just a mere rhetoric. Finally, I think we all need to come together across
generations to address these concerns. Both younger and older people, those who have been in this sector
for far long period of time and those who are newer need to have these difficult conversations.
I think change can only happen when we challenge the status quo we were either born into or placed into.
And there are many of us who are with privilege whether its in terms of our linguistic abilities
or in terms of our positioning these hierarchies, we carry the responsibility to speak out against
these systems that we observe and live through. And I strongly think that sometimes the change
that we seek doesn’t have to be massive. It can always start with the small changes that we make
in our own workspaces and I think most importantly in our own practices. And hopefully we time that
we’ll create a larger force to break away from the hierarchies that bind us. One of the things I
appreciated most about Ammaarah intervention is her capacity to be at the same time very rooted
in the post-colonial reality of her country and in the global issues related to coloniality in the
sector. Issues that I am sure many of us are facing. Can Ammaarah’s word is higher sum of our practice
when it comes to language?

 Living decoloniality will participate life to the humanitarian
leadership conference in Doha in April 2025. Do you also want to participate? Registrations are still open. Check on the website of the Center for Humanitarian Leadership.
You listened to Living Decoloniality. Practical examples of decolonial
re-existence through the aid sector. I am Carla Vitantonio and you can reach me through my Spotify
and speaker channels or through my Instagram Carla Vitantonio. This podcast was deliberately
recorded with minimum technical equipment trying to preserve as much as possible the feelings
and intentions of those who participated. If you liked it, please subscribe and share it through
your network. Living the coloniality was produced in partnership with the Center for Humanitarian
Leadership. The logo is a present from Eugenio Nittolo.