Aidnography

Hello all!

As the year is coming to its end, a special period of reflection for many of us seems to be setting in over the final stretch of 'the holidays'.
So I started combing through my every-increasing list of interesting and noteworthy links and decided to compile a slightly more special link review before the regular one will resume on Thursday. My aim is to share new links, but being selective in as much as I think that many of these issues have been part of bigger issues and/or are likely to 'stick around' in forthcoming debates in 2013.

This review features thoughts on participation, the value of global summits, politics in the 'post-2015' age, the future of philanthropy and Afghanistan, higher education funding, abolishing academic tenure as well as book recommendations.

Looking forward to a share-ful and networked new year!

New on aidnography
My development blogging review 2012

Development
Participation for development: a good time to be alive
The 1990s were …

Sometimes it's not that bad if you are proven wrong...I wrote almost a year ago in my last annual development blogging review‘The development blogging year of 2012 will most likely be similar to 2011-or 2010’ and in some ways that has turned out not be entirely the case. What is still true this year is that ‘I will also try to stick to the topics I know best – blogging at the interface of anthropology and development research with a primarily academic hat on’ so this is naturally a subjective review mainly driven by ‘development blogging’ and social media. But enough with the introduction!

Kony 2012
Let’s deal with the big Kony 2012-elephant right away so I can focus on other areas ;)...
In both quantity and quality, the Kony 2012/Invisible Children debate has been a great example of ‘virtual development’ debates and new forms of engagement that go beyond any traditional offline campaigning or media reporting. But in other ways it also confirmed that development blogging is mostly…

Hello all!

It turns out that this week's link review focuses on academic debates and a few 'meta' discussions of what it means to engage with 'development'. The discussions around J.'s reflections on a 'collective humanitarian consciousness' and a piece on the dilemmas around 'being there' for journalists and diplomats are highly recommended readings. Although filed under Academia, 'Trusting your creative self' is not just limited to the processes of academic writing and asks broader questions on how the powerful institutions that surround us everyday have an impact on creativity. There's more good stuff on opening up anthropology as well as the promises, challenges and pitfalls on virtual education on humanities and social sciences - just to name a few highlights ;)!

An interesting observation on engaging with the material that does or does not make into my link review: I came across a few interesting-looking pieces this week-and by t…