Decolonize This
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“It was important for me to start a feminist, intersectional woman-led organization. It was to make a point, as I was sick and tired of being told by men what to do.”
These words speak to Emilie Palamy Pradichit’s years of frustration in international development and human rights work, informed by her upbringing in a low-income suburb of Paris where her family migrated from Laos as political refugees.
Living among other refugees and migrants, Pradichit was directly exposed to racism and inequities in French society from an early age. As she articulates, her upbringing as “a woman from a marginalized community - not only a woman from the working class, but from a refugee/migrant background faced with discrimination and inequality,” instilled in her a deep-seated awareness of injustice and the need for solidarity within vulnerable communities, particularly women. This formative period laid the groundwork for her later, life-long trajectory in the human rights field. For Pradichit, the personal became professional.
Over the course of her career, Pradichit has worked for the United Nations, Transparency International, UPR-Asia, and the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She is also a human rights lawyer, holding a Master of Laws in Public International Law and a Postgraduate Law Degree in International Administration from Sorbonne University.
Reflecting on her early professional journey, Pradichit describes how some of the frustrating experiences she encountered developed in her a desire to create an alternative model for human rights work. Despite her lack of formal qualifications, she was accepted for an internship at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs; the experience was life-changing. It was here that Pradichit began to translate her understanding of “dignity” and “equity” from lived experience into technical language, learning about human rights law, international humanitarian law, and legal frameworks. The gift of the book “Citizens Without Borders” from her supervisor served as an early affirmation of her emerging perspective, informed by her multilayered identity.
However, her subsequent engagement with international organizations such as the United Nations revealed the limitations of a hierarchical system that, to her, mirrored global power imbalances. Pradichit felt that her presence, while intended to bring diverse perspectives, was often reduced to tokenism, creating the facade of inclusivity without genuine change. She saw these institutions as perpetuating colonial power dynamics, hindering meaningful engagement with grassroots activists, and failing to adequately address the specific needs and agency of marginalized communities.
“I was learning a lot. But I was surrounded by people with privileges! I was sitting at headquarters and I didn’t know what it was like on the ground,” she says. “I was disgusted by how as the UN, we have to fundraise so much. We are receiving so much money from governments, we are writing proposals saying that we’re going to build the capacities of local groups on the ground. Yet, once you get the money, you’re being told, ‘Change the proposal,’ and you need to explain that they actually don’t have the capacity. Why are we doing that?”
This disillusionment extended to her experiences within the INGO world. At UPR-Asia, where she served as Regional Director, she worked closely with Burmese communities to promote human rights and raise awareness about the UN Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review in Asia. Pradichit says she met “amazing Burmese activists,” but continued to witness persistent patriarchal and colonial ways of operating in international human rights organizations. “At the end of the day, it is a mini-UN.”
These experiences proved instrumental in shaping Pradichit’s vision for the Manushya Foundation, a women-led non-governmental organization that works with local communities in Asia. The NGO strives to ensure underrepresented voices are central in creating solutions to human rights challenges that affect them.
“I opened Manushya Foundation in 2017 as a feminist, intersectional human rights organization using a decolonial lens by working closely with marginalized communities on the ground,” she says. “Manushya means 'human being' in Sanskrit.” The name of the organization, signifying the fundamental humanity of all, points to Pradichit’s intention to center the experiences and agency of those often rendered invisible within traditional human rights discourse.
And as noted above, Pradichit’s upbringing provided her with an understanding of intersectionality long before she encountered the formal academic concept. “It’s because I grew up in a very intersectional environment, right? You are a woman from a marginalized community, so you’re living the struggle within the struggle. And you are not only a woman from the working class, but from a refugee/migrant background faced with discrimination, inequality, and racism,” she says. “So [I decided] to organize, to create an organization that will be intersectional, where we will embrace people coming from everywhere.” Founding the organization was a declaration of refusing to be relegated to the margins, to be told what to do, or to have her experiences and perspectives deemed secondary.
The concept of decolonization is central to Manushya Foundation’s work. Pradichit embraces this not as an abstract academic theory, but as a practical imperative for dismantling power imbalances. “I use the word ‘decolonial’ in a way that talks about power, and it’s how we are going to shift the power by giving power back to the people with lived experiences, as they are the ones who need to lead the work,” she says. “I also come from a lived experience. In the global majority work, it’s very important for the people from lived experience to be the ones leading the human rights work.”
This approach confronts what she critiques as “white feminism,” where women from the Global North often dominate the discourse and set the agenda for feminist movements, marginalizing the experiences and perspectives of women from the Global South. “White feminism means that you will have white women talking about feminism and women’s issues and being the voice of other women and feminists from the Global South. They are the ones deciding who gets to speak and creating the spaces for women from the global majority to speak. There is a power imbalance.”
In the context of Myanmar, Pradichit’s decolonial lens has led to a strong focus on the Rohingya community. In particular, she recognizes the exclusion of the Rohingya from mainstream human rights narratives and challenges the power dynamics that have perpetuated this exclusion. “How can you be a human rights activist and exclude Rohingya people?” she asks rhetorically. This question, raised years ago during her early years at Manushya but just as relevant today, remains lodged in Pradichit’s mind as she continues to grapple with how any genuine human rights work can selectively ignore the suffering and marginalization of any group.
For Pradichit, genuine solidarity transcends rhetoric; it requires a fundamental shift in how international actors engage with communities. “I think when we stand in solidarity with people, we don’t impose what solidarity means, but we have to defer our power to those on the front line. It’s not for us to define the agenda for them, because we suffer so much from foreign agendas or foreign donors telling us what to do.”
This principle of deferring power is a cornerstone of Manushya Foundation’s approach, focusing on the importance of respecting diverse perspectives and supporting the disruption of existing power structures. “I understand Myanmar was closed for so many years that there was a reliance on NGOs to lobby. So I can understand how it’s difficult for NGOs to let go of power! At the end of the day, it is always a power struggle.”
The recent cut of 75% of Manushya Foundation’s funding, following the recent radical restructuring of USAID, is relevant to the critical discussion around decolonizing aid and development, recognizing the inherent dependencies created by neocolonial structures and advocating for a shift towards more equitable and locally-led approaches.
As Pradichit navigates the choppy waters of dwindling resources in this precarious moment while also working towards decolonizing international aid, her rhetoric carries the weight of this struggle: “Why don’t you understand it’s time for you to let go? Why don’t you understand that it’s time for you to stand back and create the space for those who returned to change things inside the country, to build the capacity of the new generation, to build that revolution inside, to understand that others need to lead?”
Those questions hang in the air. Their implications stretch far beyond the immediate crisis, with Pradichit’s call for a deeper reckoning of the power dynamics of international aid.