UK Aid, Migration, and Neo Colonial Extraction A Comparative Study of Social Representation in India and Nigeria

In an era defined by the Global Britain strategy and post pandemic recovery efforts, the United Kingdoms engagement with former colonies through aid and migration frameworks continues to be portrayed as mutually beneficial development partnerships. This research demonstrates that these frameworks operate as sophisticated mechanisms of neo colonial extraction, systematically transferring both financial and human capital from postcolonial states to the metropole. Through comparative analysis of India and Nigeria, this study examines how contemporary UK aid and migration policies reshape social representations, collective identity constructs, and indigenous knowledge systems. Employing a mixed methods approach, including surveys N = 800 and 80 in depth interviews conducted in 2024, we investigate how aid discourses and migration aspirations interact to produce culturally hybrid but psychologically destabilized identities. Quantitative analysis reveals a strong correlation between the escalating financial burdens of migration including the 66 IHS surcharge increase in 2024 and perceptions of extractive UK relationships r = 0.67, p .01 . Qualitative findings further demonstrate that migration and aid collectively reorient youth futurity toward external validation while systematically marginalizing indigenous knowledge systems. We argue that UK development and migration policies sustain a form of cultural dependency that reproduces colonial hierarchies under the veneer of mutual benefit, with significant implications for both source countries and the UKs ethical standing in a multipolar world. Izuchukwu Precious Obani | Theresa Ojevwe Akroh | Zino Izu-Obani | Chinwe Sheila Nwachukwu "UK Aid, Migration, and Neo-Colonial Extraction: A Comparative Study of Social Representation in India and Nigeria" Published in International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (ijtsrd), ISSN: 2456-6470, Volume-9 | Issue-5 , October 2025, URL: https://www.ijtsrd.com/papers/ijtsrd98713.pdf Paper URL: https://www.ijtsrd.com/humanities-and-the-arts/education/98713/uk-aid-migration-and-neocolonial-extraction-a-comparative-study-of-social-representation-in-india-and-nigeria/izuchukwu-precious-obani