Navigating Coloniality Beyond the Classroom: A Reflection Based on a North–South Entrepreneurial Education Collaborations

Abstract

This chapter examines a North–South collaboration for a short-term study abroad program focused on entrepreneurship to illuminate the persistent colonial power imbalances that can emerge—even when participants seek to adopt a decolonial approach. Drawing on a qualitative case study of a six-month minor program in International Entrepreneurship & Development (IED) at a Dutch university, we analyze a specific project within this program where students from the Global North and South collaboratively developed a board game on climate awareness for adolescents in an urban periphery in South America. Despite emphasizing participatory action research, critical reflection, and peer-to-peer co-design, post-project communications in media outlets external to the program inadvertently reinforced a “white savior” narrative, erasing local collaborators’ contributions. Our reflexive analysis—grounded in decolonial pedagogies, participatory action research, and critical media literacy—reveals a gap in students’ preparation for negotiating and challenging external, often colonial, representations of their work. We highlight how frameworks of “coloniality” persist beyond the classroom, surfacing in digital platforms, news coverage, and institutional communications that frame Global North students as primary knowledge producers and problem-solvers. We argue that decolonizing entrepreneurial education demands a curriculum design that reaches beyond the classroom to include robust training in ethical reflexivity, critical media engagement, and AI literacy. Based on this reflection, we propose a set of practical recommendations—including deeper incorporation of local knowledge systems, explicit crediting of all collaborators, and institutional policies for equitable media representation—to foster more inclusive and respectful North–South educational partnerships that dismantle rather than reproduce colonial structures.