Ritesh Shah
Senior Lecturer-Education and Social Practice, University of Auckland
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Ritesh’s scholarship and teaching explores the political economy of education provision in times of conflict and crisis. His work critically interrogates how the competing and varied interests of international actors/agencies, national governments, civil society, and affected communities’ shapes why, how and for whom quality, relevant education is afforded to and not in such settings.
Increasingly, Ritesh’s work has sought to challenge the global humanitarian architecture and the logics behind it, which he argues remain grounded saviourism, racial capitalism, and (neo)imperialism. Specific attention within this critique is directed at the education in emergencies (EiE) community, and he continues to work with stakeholders across the sector to imagine how their collective work can be reimagined.
Over the years, Ritesh has worked closely with a range of UN agencies, bilateral donors, and INGOs in a range of contexts across Southeast Asia, the Pacific, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Latin America. He has also contributed to global guidance and policies on education sector resilience and recovery, accelerated education programming, and higher education in times of conflict/crisis. He is viewed as a leading scholar and thought leader within the EiE community.
Within his role as co-director of the Centre for Asia Pacific Refugee Studies, Ritesh hopes to strengthen meaningful refugee participation as a practice and way of working, not only in Aotearoa, but in education responses internationally. He also acknowledges that as someone without lived experience, he too needs to shift the ways that his own expertise and knowledge are valorised over those of others.