Relocate

Eva (U.K.)

[Writing experiment]

The prompt: “Picture yourself as a tour guide leading your readers through an unfamiliar landscape on a voyage of discovery.”

I – the tour guide: Welcome to Benin, today, a relatively small country in West Africa, but previously know as the kingdom Dahomey. We start our tour in the town centre of Ouidah, walking on the dusty, brown-red, sand road ‘Route de pêche’ for around three kilometers to the ‘Porte de non-retour’ where we will pause. After a minute of silence, I will share Benin’s colonial history and, related to that, slave trade. Indeed, this door presents a crucial artifact in the history of Benin as it is the place where slaves from all over West Africa were sold and deported to South America for working on the plantations.

I = the researcher: Benin's past can be categorised into three historical periods, which are determinants for the conception of trust: pre-colonial rule until 1890, colonial rule until 1960 and the post-war era of decolonisation from 1960 onwards (Gifford & Weiskel 1971). In pre-colonial rule, local kingdoms organised the living-together of citizens in city-states (cités-États) (Gouvernement de la République du Bénin, 2018). In this period, the kings of Dahomey sold their captives to transatlantic slavery- a source of mistrust pertaining until today among Beninese citizens, as argued by Bulgrin & Vankpinmede (upcoming). By the middle of the 19th century, the Dahomey region lost influence, whereas France, as the upcoming colonial power, became stronger until they took over the area in 1892. Under France, the colonial period centralised the governance and education system, with some concessions to devolving authority to a few municipalities in the late 50s (Bulgrin, 2020).

Indeed, in this article I will show how the Beninese governance system and, in particular, its education system, materialised through its decentralisation policy from 2010, has historical and contemporary features from the French governance system. To trace and understand these similarities, I will guide you to another place in Benin.

I – the tour guide: We find ourselves now in Cotonou- the economic capital of Benin, the biggest and possibly busiest city in Benin. We find ourselves precisely in the 1506 boulevard de France, where the French development agency (AFD) is located. As you can see on the map, the agency is located at the prestigious boulevard de Marina with the five star hotel holding the same name and next to the economically-important port. Still, Benin is dependent on development funds with a total of 1.049.130.005 US$ in 2020, according to the World Bank collection of development indicators , and the French development agency is a powerful player within it. Please have a seat at the bistro of the Marina Hotel, have a cup of tea or coffee, and I will take you back to the early 90s when Benin became a democracy and opted for decentralizing its governance system.

I = the researcher: In this article, I will argue that the current decentralisation reform has been shaped by development agencies and consulting firms, narrowing down the decentralisation policy to narrow concerns of economic development, framed by modernist ideas and human capital.