Dip Kapoor

Area of Study / Keywords

Social Justice & International Studies in Education; Social Foundations of Education

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About

Dip received his PhD from the Faculty of Education at the U of A and subsequently took up a tenure track position at McGill University in Montreal before returning to the U of A as a professor in International Education in 2006. He is a voluntary Research Associate and Honorary Board member (since 2006) of the Center for Research and Development Solidarity (CRDS), an Adivasi (original dweller) and Dalit (“downtrodden” out-castes) small/landless peasant and forest-dweller popular research organization in Orissa, India and was President and founding member (1995-2017) of a voluntary social action organization that has worked with land, forest and food sovereignty struggles/movements in India. https://www.farmlandgrab.org/30716,

Contesting Colonial Capitalism in the Americas, Africa and Asia: Indigenous, Peasant and Migrant Worker Struggles (Kapoor, D., Ed., 2025), Research, Political Engagement & Dispossession: Indigenous, Peasant and Urban Poor Activisms in the Americas and Asia (Kapoor, D., & Jordan, S., Eds., 2019, London & NY:Zed) and Against Colonization & Rural Dispossession: Local Resistance in South & East Asia, the Pacific and Africa (Kapoor, D., Ed., 2017, London & NY:Zed) are recent contributions to the literature on neo/colonial racial capital, development dispossession, resistance and learning in social action in contexts of Indigenous, small peasant and migrant worker struggles in the neo/colonies.

Contesting Colonial Capitalism in the Americas, Africa and Asia: Indigenous, Peasant and Migrant Worker Struggles (Kapoor. D., Ed., 2025)

'If there is one word that defines the work and life of Aziz Choudry it is “struggle.” What better way to honor our fallen comrade than to assemble stories of struggle--powerful, incisive histories of the dispossessed, the colonized, the exploited, the oppressed, the insurgent laboring classes who believe another world is possible if we are willing to struggle'. Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination, UCLA, USA

The Spirit of Bandung from the 1950s and the 1960s was defined by the contours of the freedom movements in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The leaders of the national liberation governments came from mass rebellions against colonialism and had to be accountable to that sentiment and those institutions. That spirit was wiped out by the 1980s, largely through the violence against the movements by the former imperialist powers and through the debt crisis imposed on these countries by the Western financial systems (whose value itself had been created through colonial theft). Today, after many decades, we see the growth of a new mood in the Global South. This mood, however, is not the same as a spirit. It is merely a hint of a new possibility. We have to study this mood and understand it to see its democratic possibilities. Aziz Choudry (1966-2021) had a way of learning things quickly and then conveying them with clarity. He would have hated a grave. It had a finality that was against his optimism. This collection is the best way to honour his legacy. It is an opening to struggles, to more struggles, to the socialism that he worked his life to build. Vijay Prashad, author of The Darker Nations and Executive Director, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research

‘This book is a superb resource combining deep analytical insights with an abiding commitment to a better world. Contesting Colonial Capitalism rigorously tracks the worldwide assaults on Indigenous peoples, peasants and landless workers, Black women, and migrant laborers. More than this, however, it shows how all these groups are resisting colonial capitalism—from India to Brazil, from the Philippines to Palestine, and beyond. What a stunning tribute to the scholarship and radical commitments of the late Aziz Choudry and to the dreams of all in the Americas, Africa, and Asia who insist that another world really is possible’. David McNally, Director, Project on Race and Capitalism, University of Houston, USA

'This book is a testament to the collective power of Indigenous, migrant and peasant movements to change the international political horizon. Analyzing the activism of peoples' movements contesting the catastrophic power of colonial-capitalism around the world, this collection offers an inspiring vision for a just and humanizing world. This is a must read for all who are committed to ending the violence(s) and de-humanizations of the present times'. Sunera Thobani, author of Exalted Subjects: Studies in the Making of Race and Nation in Canada, University of British Colombia, Canada

'An extraordinary collection of essays in memory of Dr. Aziz Choudry and a powerful testament to his seminal work on social movements as instructive sites of knowledge production. A gem of an archive of the lessons we need to learn from contemporary struggles in Africa, Asia and the Americas'. Sangeeta Kamat, author of Development Hegemony: NGOs and the State in India, University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA

“This powerful searing tribute to the brilliant and courageous Dr. Aziz Choudry, is a must read and a much-needed call to action. Sharing lessons from myriad struggles for social, economic and environmental justice, it quilts a blueprint for cross-border and cross-issue organizing to cement global solidarity for the dispossessed. It leaves you knowing that Another World is Possible”. Anuradha Mittal, Oakland Institute, USA https://www.oaklandinstitute.org/  

 'This eclectic collection of case studies and reflections revisits core lessons from Aziz Choudry’s life and work while adding meaning from contributor’s specific geographic/movement locations and building resistance to colonising capitalism. This book will raise your spirits, stimulate your thinking, and send you back into the struggle with renewed energy'. Bob Boughton, author of Adult Literacy, Land Rights and Self Determination, University of New England, Australia.

'A remarkable tribute to Aziz Choudry, this is a collection of brilliant and insightful essays by activist-intellectuals on key communities that Aziz dedicated his life to - migrants, peasants and indigenous peoples'. Biju Mathews, author of Taxi Cabs and Capitalism in New York City, Rider University, USA

This book is a heart-warming and fitting tribute to our late friend and comrade Aziz Choudry. Reflecting the geographical breadth and depth of Aziz’s engagements with global struggles, the chapters move between critical and theoretical analysis and the grassroots insights of people on the ground. A must read. Mario Novelli, author of Laboratories of Learning: Social Movements, Education and Knowledge-making in the Global South, University of Sussex, UK 

This collection of essays is a powerful testament to the breadth and depth of Aziz Choudry's activism and research/education work. The thinking and relationships he inspired and nurtured live on! GRAIN. https://grain.org/

Against Colonization & Rural Dispossession: Local Resistance in South & East Asia, the Pacific and Africa (Kapoor, D., Ed., 2017)

Selected by the Bretton Woods Project [Critical Voices on the World Bank and IMF] in their top 10 recommended book/resource list for 2017: resource on https://www.brettonwoodsproject.org/2018/01/recommended-resources-world-bank-imf-2017/

'Peasants, indigenous people, and fisherfolk confound capitalism's best efforts to control them. This book shares the strategies that some of the planet's most inspirational groups use to stand their ground. A terrific compilation of rousing resistance for a post-capitalist world.' Raj Patel, author of Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World's Food System, University of Texas at Austin, USA

'An impressive collection of engaged researchers from around the world take us deep into some of the most important frontline struggles of our time, providing critical insights for anyone active in resisting colonization and land grabs.' Devlin Kuyek, GRAIN, Canada

'Addressing the accelerating dispossession of cultures, this timely collection reveals colonial continuities in new forms of grassroots resistance. It is a powerful cross-regional set of essays foregrounding local politics in an era of global extractivism.' Philip McMichael, author of Development and Social Change: A Global Perspective, Cornell University, USA

'An indispensable contribution to a non-Eurocentric world-view. Richly documenting the genocidal and ecocidal history of (neo)colonialism, and even more importantly the fightback, this book reveals a new social order emerging at the cutting edge of struggle.' Robert Biel, author of The Entropy of Capitalism, School of Oriental and African Studies & Birkbeck College, UK

'A smart and theoretically innovative book that belongs on the bookshelves of anyone interested in anti-colonial, indigenous scholarship on rural resistance as central to the political economy of capitalist development.' Chandra Talpade Mohanty, author of Feminism without Borders, Syracuse University, USA

'A wide-ranging, comprehensive and insightful account of dispossession and resistance from the global south ... a much-nuanced and sophisticated analysis in comparison to those who treat the land question merely as another instance of market imperfection and institutional failure.' Journal of Asian and African Studies, USA

'The diverse analytical frameworks used in the collection, from Marxist political economy to postcolonial theory, will undoubtedly enrich the debates and contribute to the vibrant fields of critical development studies and critical agrarian studies, as well as social movement theories.' Canadian Journal of Development Studies, Canada

'An empirically rich and theoretically stimulating collection of essays on the long-term and ongoing practices and forms of rural resistance to capitalist-driven and state-enforced land enclosures in the Global South.' Community Development Journal, UK

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Research

AREAS OF RESEARCH, SUPERVISION, TEACHING AND PUBLIC SERVICE

[Political-Sociology of Adult/Education & International Development Education]

• Colonial/racial capitalist development, globalization & education (anti-colonial, anti-capitalist & Neo/Marxist perspectives)
• Dispossession/resistance & learning in Indigenous, peasant & migrant worker/labor social movements [Asia, Africa, Americas/Caribbean ]
• Critical sociology of education 
• Critical social and educational research methodologies (critical case study; critical ethnography; and participatory/action research)

PROGRAM OF RESEARCH AND RELATED PROJECTS

Research endeavours to date have been built around a program of interdisciplinary (political-sociology of development & critical adult education) engaged research with the Center for Research and Development Solidarity (CRDS) and related social movement constituencies addressing: (a) critical explorations in to the politics of state-market-civil society led development-displacement and dispossession, exploitation and marginalization (pauperization) of Indigenous (Adivasi) Peoples, small/landless Dalit peasants/forest-dwellers and migrant labour; and (b) political learning and popular education work with/in Adivasi-Dalit-rural poor social movements. 

 Research projects addressing this program of research undertaken with CRDS and other social movement organizations in the region include:

1.Adivasi/Dalit/small & landless peasant & NGO-social movement politics and learning in neoliberal contexts of development dispossession (1995-current; non-funded) 

2.Learning in Adivasi (original dweller) social movements in India (Principal Investigator, Standard Research Grant, Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada) (2006-2009, $81,308)

3.Untouchability, casteism and schooling in rural India: Exploring local response and resistance (Principal Investigator, Insight Grant, Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada) (2013-2019, $268,386) [recipient of SAS grant funding, Faculty of Education & Bridge Funding from the Provost's Office, University of Alberta, 2011-12, $15,000]

4.Learning in Precarious Migrant Worker (PMW) Organizing: Global Trails to Canada (Principal Investigator, Insight Grant, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada; Co-Applicants: Dr. Gerardo Otero (Simon Fraser) and Dr. Steven Jordan (McGill) (2022-27, $300,799). [recipient of SAS grant funding, Faculty of Education & Bridge Funding from the Provost's Office, University of Alberta, 2020-21, $14,000]

5.Food sovereignty education (FSE) in Canada: Learning from social movements and agrarian advocacy in the Global South (KIAS/Faculty of Education Undergraduate Student Research Award, 2022 May-August, $5000)

Thesis students seeking supervision can generally expect to do research guided by assumptions defining critical methodologies informed by and contributing towards neo/anti-colonial, anti-capitalist and neo/Marxist perspectives pertaining to themes and topics including:

(1) International development and/or education in the Americas/Caribbean, Africa and/or Asia (e.g. NGOs & development/education)

(2) Indigenous, peasant/landless and migrant worker/labor social movements addressing capitalist neo/colonization, dispossession and displacement pertaining to territories/sovereignty, land & food, forests, water, subterranean resources, ecology, labor exploitation, cultural-knowledge-representational & educational imperialism and learning/popular education with/in these social movements (Americas/Caribbean, Africa and/or Asia)

(3) Racialized precarious migrant work/ers and education/learning in trans/national organizing/advocacy

(4) Critical sociology of education (schooling) in Canada (e.g. schooling and the reproduction of colonialism, capitalism/class, race, gender & associated resistances)

NOTE: To date graduate/supervision-related engagements have included: 13 PhDs; 16 MEd/thesis; 16 supervisory committees; external/internal examiner for 26 candidates; and programme advising for 35 students. 

 Doctoral Thesis Supervision

1.Wanda Chell (PhD candidate, 2020) (University of Alberta). A critical ethnography of refugee and immigrant literacy learning services in Canada

2.Myriam Zaidi (PhD, pre-comprehensives, 2022- ) (McGill University, co-supervision with Dr. Steven Jordan). Learning in migrant labor organizing

3.Nadhir Salahuddin (PhD, 2018-2023, discontinued) (McGill University, co-supervised with Dr. Steven Jordan). Development, participatory research and community engagement in Indonesia.

4.Hasriadi Masalam (PhD, awarded 2018) (University of Alberta). Participatory action research (PAR), learning in small peasant resistance and the politics of rural dispossession in Indonesia.

5.Lily Han (PhD candidate 2014-17, discontinued) (McGill University, co-supervised with Dr. Aziz Choudry). Beyond multiculturalism: Race, decoloniality and the politics of knowledge

6.Jie Zheng (PhD, awarded 2016) (McGill University, co-supervised with Dr. Steven Jordan). Exploring internationalization of higher education (IHE) policy and reality in China: Neoliberal globalization, state formation and higher education

7.Tajud Din Sharar (PhD, awarded 2014) (Aga Khan University, Pakistan, co-supervision with Dr. M. Memon and Dr. Al-Karim Datoo). Global education in the national curriculum: A case study of developing student’s global perspectives in Chitral, Pakistan

8.Munyaradzi Hwami (PhD, awarded 2012) (University of Alberta). Towards a critical colonial analysis of the crisis in higher education in Zimbabwe: A case study of the University of Zimbabwe

9.Tejwant Chana (PhD, awarded 2011) (University of Alberta). Colonial reproductions and anti-colonial pedagogical propositions for educating about “the global” in urban schools in India

10.Al-Karim Datoo (PhD, awarded 2009) (McGill University). Critical ethnography, local-global cultural dynamics and student identity: Perspectives from an urban school in Pakistan

11.Jonathan Langdon (PhD, awarded 2009) (McGill University). Democracy and social movement learning in Ghana: Reflections on 15 years of learning in the democratic terrain by Ghanain activist-educators

12.Blane Harvey (PhD, awarded 2009) (McGill University)(supervised until post-candidacy prior to accepting new position at UofA). Speaking to power: The discursive shaping of Southern Communities and institutions in international development cooperation (Senegal)

13.Samuel Veissiere (PhD, awarded 2008) (McGill University)(supervised until post-candidacy prior to accepting new position at UofA). Hookers, hustlers and gringos in Brazil: The transnational political economy and cultural politics of violence, desire and suffering in the streets of Salvador da Bahia

Masters Thesis Supervision

1.Christopher Balthazar Avelar (MEd, 2022- ) (University of Alberta). A critical ethnography of EDI and antiracism initiatives in higher education

2.Rebecca Jansen (MEd, awarded 2025) (University of Alberta). Food sovereignty education: Learning from critical agrarian social movements in the South

3.Guadalupe Rodriguez Cornejo (MEd, awarded 2025) (University of Alberta, co- supervised with Dr. Yvonne Lam, Department of Linguistics & Department of Modern Languages and Cultural Studies). Mexican Intercultural Bilingual Education program as decolonization? Listening to Wixaritari educator’s perspectives.

4.Belen Samuel (MEd, awarded 2024) (University of Alberta). Skin in the game: Black Participatory Research (BPR) and Black anarchist coalition building for anti-racist Black organizing

5.Simone Brown-McLaughlin (MEd, awarded 2020) (University of Alberta). Temporary foreign work, precarious migrant labor and advocacy in Canada: A critical exploratory case study

6.Taylor Witiw (MEd, awarded 2020) (University of Alberta). Learning in social action in contexts of mining dispossession: A critical case study of Rosia Montana, Romania

7.Maria Margarita Jaraba (MEd, 2018-22, discontinued) (University of Alberta). Migrant worker advocacy in Canada: Case studies of labor activism and human rights- based approaches

8.Kyla Fisher (MEd, awarded 2017) (University of Alberta). International Non-Governmental Organizations (INGOs) and human rights-based approaches to dam development and dispossession in Asia, Africa and the Americas: A critical case study of International Rivers

9.Sheineen Nathoo (MEd, awarded 2017) (University of Alberta). Development NGOs, colonialism, gender and poverty in Tanzania: A critical case study of microcredit as a neoliberal poverty alleviation initiative

10.Naomi Gordon (MEd, awarded 2017) (University of Alberta). A critical ethnography of dispossession, indigenous sovereignty and knowledge production in resistance in Samoa

11.Navjot Thind (MEd, 2015, discontinued).  Colonial capital, development NGOs and public education programs in Canada.

12.Wanda Chell (MEd, awarded 2014) (University of Alberta). Race regimes and racialization: Participatory research explorations in im/migrant service NGOs in Alberta

13.Jie Zheng (MEd, awarded 2010) (University of Alberta). Exploring international student mobility: Neoliberal globalization, higher education policies and Chinese graduate student perspectives on pursuing higher education in Canada

14.Natasha Goudar (MEd, awarded 2010) (University of Alberta). Third World feminist perspectives on development, NGOs, the depoliticization of Palestinian women’s movements and learning in struggle

15.Valerie Kwaipun (MA, awarded 2008) (McGill University). Mining displacement and learning in struggle in Ghana

16.Amy Stuart (MA, awarded 2008) (McGill University). Moment of silence: Constructions of race and nation in narratives of Canadian history

 

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Teaching

UNDER/GRADUATE COURSES (University of Alberta)

EDPS 506: Critical Sociologies and Participatory Action Research

EDPS 520: Adult Education, Popular Movements & NGOs in the Global South (graduate elective)

EDPS 525: Globalization, Global Education & Social Change (graduate elective)

EDPS 526: Race, Racialization & Education (graduate elective)

EDPS 591: Foundations of Education: International Perspectives & Issues (SJI graduate core)

EDPS 425: Global Education (elective)

EDPS 422: International Development Education (elective)

EDPS 360: Society & Education (elective)

UNDER/GRADUATE COURSES (McGill University, 2003-2006)

EDER 600: Globalization, Education & Change (graduate elective)

EDER 609: Educational Implications of Social Theory (graduate core)

EDER 639: Education & Development (graduate elective)

EDER 643: Gender, Education & Development (graduate elective)

EDEC 301: Global Education (undergraduate elective)

 

 



EDPS 422 - International Development Education

This course examines the interplay of education and international development in diverse contexts of our world. Theoretical analysis and discussions will focus on different types of education, the histories of international development and globalization, as well as citizenship, social justice and human rights education. These topical foci will be complemented by specialized regional perspectives on the state of education and social development in Africa, Asia, Latin America, Eastern Europe, the Caribbean region and Oceania.

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EDPS 525 - Globalization, Global Education and Change

This course will develop a critical understanding of select perspectives on globalization and the associated implications for: (a) formal, non-formal and informal education in local, national, and international contexts; and (b) pedagogical possibilities for critical global education in schools and communities addressing global issues pertaining to international development (poverty and inequality in North-South trajectories), ecology, human rights and improved prospects for peace.

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EDPS 591 - Foundations of Education: Perspectives on International Issues

Critically examines the role of education in the problems and prospects of international development. As an inclusive construct, development comprises enhancements in the economic, social, political, cultural and technological well-being of people's lives. Examines contemporary societal issues that influence and/or are influenced by educational policies and programs. Perspectives from regions and groups such as Africa, Asia, Latin America, Europe, the Oceania-Pacific, the Caribbean, the Middle East, and communities indigenous to different parts of the world will be included.

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Browse more courses taught by Dip Kapoor

Dip Kapoor

2025 March;

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Dip Kapoor & Steven Jordan

2019 November;

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Dip Kapoor

2017 August;

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Dominique Caouette & Dip Kapoor

2015 December;

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Aziz Choudry & Dip Kapoor

2013 July;

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Dip Kapoor, Bijoy Barua & Al-Karim Datoo

2012 September;

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Dip Kapoor

2011 March;

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Aziz Choudry & Dip Kapoor

2010 October;

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Dip Kapoor & Edward Shizha

2010 October;

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Dip Kapoor & Steven Jordan

2009 September;

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Dip Kapoor

2009 April;

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Ali Abdi & Dip Kapoor

2009 January;