Robtel Neajai Pailey
Biographic Data
| ID | 266731 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Robtel Neajai Pailey |
| GIVEN NAMES | Robtel Neajai |
| FAMILY NAME | Pailey |
| SIGNATURE | PAILEY R N |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Oxford |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-9584-6524 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 11 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 64 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 11 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2016 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Alternative development in a post-aid world
In 2020, Liberian scholar-activist and author Robtel Neajai Pailey re-invigorated a debate about the colonial underpinnings of mainstream development and their racist logics with an influential journal article entitled ‘De-centering the “White Gaze” of Development’. She has since distinguished herself as a critical public voice on decoloniality. In this ‘keynote conversation’ with Finnish Society for Development Research (FSDR) member Eija Ranta …
Development's Race Problem
Despite efforts by critical scholars of development to centre race in their analysis, Development Studies remains entangled in its racist history and contemporary imperialism. New troubling forms of oppression and control within the discipline's approach to race have emerged, marking the post‐Black Lives Matter era as a point of transition between old and new erasures of race. We argue that although race is no longer ignored, the discursive and m…
Liberia’s electoral exceptionalism as democratic consolidation and how West Africa compares
Liberia’s 2023 elections broadcast this West African country as a marvel. While previous post-war races set precedents for competitive elections – with no party winning a majority in the Legislature, victories of independents and candidates from smaller parties, and no clean presidential or legislative sweeps across any sub-political division – 2023 amplified these trends. Using detailed analysis of elections data and pre-elections interviews wit…
Stopping Firestone and starting a citizen ‘revolution from below’
Attempting to reduce America’s dependence on foreign-sourced rubber, Firestone established in 1926 the world’s largest industrial plantation in Liberia under a controversial 99-year-lease agreement. Nearly a century later, backlash against the exploitative nature of corporate hegemony and economic globalisation crystallised in a transnational campaign, Stop Firestone, and class action suit to hold the multinational accountable. I argue in this ar…
Development, Citizenship and Its Discontents in Africa
Drawing on rich oral histories from over two hundred in-depth interviews in West Africa, Europe, and North America, Robtel Neajai Pailey examines socio-economic change in Liberia, Africa's first black republic, through the prism of citizenship. Marking how historical policy changes on citizenship and contemporary public discourse on dual citizenship have impacted development policy and practice, she reveals that as Liberia transformed from a coun…
We don’t know who be who
Liberia’s 2017 elections represented a watershed moment in the country’s political history. In addition to completing the first democratic transfer of power from one president to another since 1944, it resulted in wide representation across many different parties and independents as well as high levels of legislative turn-overs. Additionally, these polls brought forward unprecedented numbers of party reconfigurations, increased levels of defectio…
De-centring the 'White Gaze' of Development
In its crudest form, development has traditionally been about dissecting the political, socio-economic and cultural processes of black, brown and other subjects of colour in the so-called global South and finding them regressive, particularly in comparison to the so-called progressive global North. However, in the midst of a 21st century, de-colonial scholarly pivot, 'opening up development' fundamentally demands turning the colonial, 'white gaze…
Between rootedness and rootlessness
Within the last decade alone, large-scale emigration has emboldened approximately half of all African states to adopt constitutional reforms granting dual citizenship, with some provisions more limited than others. Given Liberia’s post-war prominence in the African Union (AU), Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and Mano River Union (MRU), it remains an important case study on the challenges of consolidating extraterritorial citize…
Liberia’s run-up to 2017
If successfully orchestrated, the October 2017 elections in Liberia will mark the first time in recent memory when a democratically elected Liberian president – Ellen Johnson Sirleaf – will hand over power to a similarly elected head of state. This is very likely to be a close election and our Briefing investigates changes and continuities in the candidates, political parties, electoral processes and the workings of the Liberian state at a waters…
Liberia, Ebola and the pitfalls of state-building
Using the Ebola outbreak of 2014/2015 in Liberia as a case study, this article demonstrates that by converting ‘private activities and resources’ for public health service delivery, Liberian domestic and diasporic non-government actors effectively broadcasted public authority at meso- and micro-levels previously assumed to be the exclusive domain of government and international institutions. Moving beyond the structural violence and state-buildin…
Birthplace, bloodline and beyond
As a twenty-first century post-war, emigrant-sending country, Liberia reflects global citizenship norms while simultaneously departing from them, and this unique positioning offers new opportunities to theorise citizenship across spatial and temporal landscapes. In this article, I examine ‘Liberian citizenship’ construction through a historical prism, arguing that as Liberia transformed from a country of immigration to one of emigration, so too d…
De-centring the 'White Gaze' of Development
In its crudest form, development has traditionally been about dissecting the political, socio-economic and cultural processes of black, brown and other subjects of colour in the so-called global South and finding them regressive, particularly in comparison to the so-called progressive global North. However, in the midst of a 21st century, de-colonial scholarly pivot, 'opening up development' fundamentally demands turning the colonial, 'white gaze…
Birthplace, bloodline and beyond
As a twenty-first century post-war, emigrant-sending country, Liberia reflects global citizenship norms while simultaneously departing from them, and this unique positioning offers new opportunities to theorise citizenship across spatial and temporal landscapes. In this article, I examine ‘Liberian citizenship’ construction through a historical prism, arguing that as Liberia transformed from a country of immigration to one of emigration, so too d…
Between rootedness and rootlessness
Within the last decade alone, large-scale emigration has emboldened approximately half of all African states to adopt constitutional reforms granting dual citizenship, with some provisions more limited than others. Given Liberia’s post-war prominence in the African Union (AU), Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and Mano River Union (MRU), it remains an important case study on the challenges of consolidating extraterritorial citize…
Liberia’s run-up to 2017
If successfully orchestrated, the October 2017 elections in Liberia will mark the first time in recent memory when a democratically elected Liberian president – Ellen Johnson Sirleaf – will hand over power to a similarly elected head of state. This is very likely to be a close election and our Briefing investigates changes and continuities in the candidates, political parties, electoral processes and the workings of the Liberian state at a waters…
We don’t know who be who
Liberia’s 2017 elections represented a watershed moment in the country’s political history. In addition to completing the first democratic transfer of power from one president to another since 1944, it resulted in wide representation across many different parties and independents as well as high levels of legislative turn-overs. Additionally, these polls brought forward unprecedented numbers of party reconfigurations, increased levels of defectio…
Birthplace, bloodline and beyond
As a twenty-first century post-war, emigrant-sending country, Liberia reflects global citizenship norms while simultaneously departing from them, and this unique positioning offers new opportunities to theorise citizenship across spatial and temporal landscapes. In this article, I examine ‘Liberian citizenship’ construction through a historical prism, arguing that as Liberia transformed from a country of immigration to one of emigration, so too d…
Between rootedness and rootlessness
Within the last decade alone, large-scale emigration has emboldened approximately half of all African states to adopt constitutional reforms granting dual citizenship, with some provisions more limited than others. Given Liberia’s post-war prominence in the African Union (AU), Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and Mano River Union (MRU), it remains an important case study on the challenges of consolidating extraterritorial citize…
Liberia’s run-up to 2017
If successfully orchestrated, the October 2017 elections in Liberia will mark the first time in recent memory when a democratically elected Liberian president – Ellen Johnson Sirleaf – will hand over power to a similarly elected head of state. This is very likely to be a close election and our Briefing investigates changes and continuities in the candidates, political parties, electoral processes and the workings of the Liberian state at a waters…
Liberia, Ebola and the pitfalls of state-building
Using the Ebola outbreak of 2014/2015 in Liberia as a case study, this article demonstrates that by converting ‘private activities and resources’ for public health service delivery, Liberian domestic and diasporic non-government actors effectively broadcasted public authority at meso- and micro-levels previously assumed to be the exclusive domain of government and international institutions. Moving beyond the structural violence and state-buildin…
We don’t know who be who
Liberia’s 2017 elections represented a watershed moment in the country’s political history. In addition to completing the first democratic transfer of power from one president to another since 1944, it resulted in wide representation across many different parties and independents as well as high levels of legislative turn-overs. Additionally, these polls brought forward unprecedented numbers of party reconfigurations, increased levels of defectio…
De-centring the 'White Gaze' of Development
In its crudest form, development has traditionally been about dissecting the political, socio-economic and cultural processes of black, brown and other subjects of colour in the so-called global South and finding them regressive, particularly in comparison to the so-called progressive global North. However, in the midst of a 21st century, de-colonial scholarly pivot, 'opening up development' fundamentally demands turning the colonial, 'white gaze…
Development, Citizenship and Its Discontents in Africa
Drawing on rich oral histories from over two hundred in-depth interviews in West Africa, Europe, and North America, Robtel Neajai Pailey examines socio-economic change in Liberia, Africa's first black republic, through the prism of citizenship. Marking how historical policy changes on citizenship and contemporary public discourse on dual citizenship have impacted development policy and practice, she reveals that as Liberia transformed from a coun…
Stopping Firestone and starting a citizen ‘revolution from below’
Attempting to reduce America’s dependence on foreign-sourced rubber, Firestone established in 1926 the world’s largest industrial plantation in Liberia under a controversial 99-year-lease agreement. Nearly a century later, backlash against the exploitative nature of corporate hegemony and economic globalisation crystallised in a transnational campaign, Stop Firestone, and class action suit to hold the multinational accountable. I argue in this ar…
Alternative development in a post-aid world
In 2020, Liberian scholar-activist and author Robtel Neajai Pailey re-invigorated a debate about the colonial underpinnings of mainstream development and their racist logics with an influential journal article entitled ‘De-centering the “White Gaze” of Development’. She has since distinguished herself as a critical public voice on decoloniality. In this ‘keynote conversation’ with Finnish Society for Development Research (FSDR) member Eija Ranta …
Development's Race Problem
Despite efforts by critical scholars of development to centre race in their analysis, Development Studies remains entangled in its racist history and contemporary imperialism. New troubling forms of oppression and control within the discipline's approach to race have emerged, marking the post‐Black Lives Matter era as a point of transition between old and new erasures of race. We argue that although race is no longer ignored, the discursive and m…
Liberia’s electoral exceptionalism as democratic consolidation and how West Africa compares
Liberia’s 2023 elections broadcast this West African country as a marvel. While previous post-war races set precedents for competitive elections – with no party winning a majority in the Legislature, victories of independents and candidates from smaller parties, and no clean presidential or legislative sweeps across any sub-political division – 2023 amplified these trends. Using detailed analysis of elections data and pre-elections interviews wit…
Political science (7 works) · Sociology (7 works) · Politics (6 works) · Law (5 works) · Political economy (5 works) · International Development and Aid (4 works) · Law (4 works) · Peacebuilding and International Security (4 works) · Citizenship (3 works) · Democracy (3 works)