Development as anthropological object

Links & Content I liked 13

2012-02-23T09:03:00.000-04:00

Hello all,

I guess the tagline for this week's post could be 'pictures say more than a thousand words' and very often in the development context this is not a good thing...so quite a few links will lead you to stories where the picture says indeed more than a thousand words of warning and education.

Still, enjoy the links!

New on aidnography

A picture says more than...what development in Nepal looks like

I love the fact that it offers me fascinating anthropological encounters of the visual kind or, in short, with moments of clarity that are difficult to express with words alone. Last year I had a great 'what the UN looks like' moment and this week it's a picture from Gulariya, a few miles away from Nepalganj one of the hubs in central Nepal.

Development
Footwear collection to makes its way abroad

To be clear, Warkentin’s collection of 40,000 sets of shoes does not belong to him; he has been collecting them for two years and will send them to Haiti and Africa.
“When I was in Africa, I noticed that a lot of people were walking around barefoot,” Warkentin said yesterday as a group of volunteers helped to empty two large storage units and put the shoes in a tractor trailer. Those countries are high-risk areas for HIV and a simple cut on a foot can lead to severe infections, amputations, and possibly even death.

Yes, there is a typo in the headline. Yes, it has been there since Monday and yes again that it's indicative of the quality of Metronews, a thinly-disguised advertisement outlet dressed as 'free newspaper'. You also have to excuse my brief capital letters rant that is going to follow: STOP SENDING STUFF TO AFRICA!!! THINK AND GOOGLE BEFORE YOU WASTE VOLUNTEER'S TIME, STORAGE SPACE AND SHIP THOUSANDS OF UNWANTED ITEMS TO 'AFRICA'. There is a reason why Saundra Schimmelpfenning called her blog 'Good Intentions Are Not Enough'-because in-kind donations, e.g. shoes or T-Shirts are problematic at least and there are better ways to deal with footwear issues. And if you like a good metaphor, there are indeed shoestrings attached to the idea. The whole idea is a waste of time and effort, unfortunately. Frankly, I find it more amazing that in a small place like Halifax and surrounding areas people actually donated 80,000 shoes which says more about North American consumerism than about the seemingly charitable effort...

2011 Photo Contest Winners

Les barracks de liberté VI—Intercultural Interactions Winner

As the University of Minnesota (and probably many other universities around the world...) prepares for another photo contest hosted by the Learning Abroad Center it's worthwhile to check out one the last year's winners...yes, it's the 'white student in sandals being surrounded by smiling black kids' shot. Students and staff should really pay more attention to these kind of contests, because it promotes a notion of voluntourism and paternalism that probably doesn't do justice to the experiences and learnings of most students. But let that be reflected by the pictures as well...

just do it (better)

Because whatever we’re doing, I bet you a hundred bucks to a bottle of Nile lager, that both our donors and our beneficiaries would love it if we just had our shit together a bit more. Didn’t arse about so much we delivered the tools and seeds a month after prime planting period and whined about how (all too predictably) the grant disbursement was late or (like it always is) recruitment was harrrd. Didn’t pat ourselves on the back when we finally got around to scaling up for the food crisis as it was plateauing or winding down, but attributing the credit where the marketers felt it was due. Didn’t blame the donors, the rains, the roads – though those can be real problems – but instead managed that risk and structurally addressed our utterly addressable internal halfarsedness.

Ok, this is the final contribution to the 'ranting I liked' section this week. But Cyan makes a great point in the end:

I’m blogging today because I want to show you the faces of the focused, diligent, and hard working people up here in Kotido, learning about project management. Because these are the real faces of professionalization of the sector, not more white westerners with slightly more relevant Masters degrees.

In 'failed state' Somalia, instability is lucrative for some

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon will attend the meeting London hopes will refocus and better coordinate the international response to Somalia.
One reason for the lack of political progress is that war and instability are lucrative. Somalia's power brokers, pirate kingpins and business tycoons are reluctant to give up the status quo.
Diplomats say many players in Somalia's turmoil find that by spoiling reform they can continue to reap the spoils of war. Talk of peace and reform unsettles bribe-seeking politicians, traders smuggling arms and contraband, militants making deals with pirates and aid contractors taking cuts.

I still think many policy-makers and aid workers underestimate the lucrativeness of instability, conflict and/or war. I always recommend Carolyn Nordstrom's book 'Shadows of war' (published in 2004) as one of the best anthropological studies on this topic to better understand the grey value-chains that go alongside of instability and conflict.

Making money in Somaliland: meeting Abdirashid Duale, CEO, Dahabshiil

Dahabshiil is an example of how the entrepreneurial strata in Somali society has survived the country’s long-running upheaval. It combines diaspora expertise and money with a particularly strong desire to support communities back home, and in doing so to make a healthy profit in an underdeveloped business environment. Duale tells me that the diaspora are the biggest source of investment in Somalia where, particularly in the more stable regions, the housing and construction sectors are booming. Flights back to Hargeisa, and even to Mogadishu, are frequently booked out, as diasporans, and globe-trotting Somali businessmen fly in to visit extended families and check up on their investments – not the image we normally get of the country.

Literally a few hours after I stumbled across the Somalia article, a friend posted this interesting link about the diaspora business community of Somali/Somaliland and how they are investing in the country/countries-but as Magnus Taylor observes, such stories rarely make it into the mainstream news.

Why did Maji Matone fail? 3. Citizens' engagement, risk and apathy?

Perhaps we were too ambitious in trying to go straight to rural communities to create this culture of citizens' agency. After all, cultural change of any kind tends to be driven by urban society, with more conservative rural communities playing catch up. But that's not a satisfactory answer either, as it is in rural communities where the culture of apathy is strongest and in greatest need of being challenged.

Third post with reflections from rural Tanzania and why a programme failed.

Failure Reports

EWB believes that success in development is not possible without taking risks and innovating – which inevitably means failing sometimes. We also believe that it’s important to publicly celebrate these failures, which allows us to share the lessons more broadly and create a culture that encourages creativity and calculated risk taking. This is a culture we value within EWB, and also try to work with our partners in Africa to create in their organizations.

It's fair to say that Engineers Without Borders Canada has become a bit of a trend-setter with their annual 'failure reports'.

The Failure Report is about conversion, not about momentary defeat. It is about the story of human capacity. It is fueled by the desire to ignite change within the field of international development. The model EWB presents is the critical idea that success is only possible if we include a rigorous analysis of its seeming opposite.

And this message is still absolutely impossible to get through to 'the taxpayer' or 'the donor'? I find this more and more difficult to believe. If any large bilateral or multilateral agency would come forward with a simialr report it would receive a lot of praise and yes, the same right-leaning tabloid newspaper readers who are already hating foreign aid will still hate it-but that's a small group of taxpayers you could relatively easily ignore.

Benchlearning: jugling with figures for deeper learning

The goal of bench learning is creating a better government without making a judgment about what is right and wrong. In the case of bench learning we want to create a new vision, rather than a strategy in place. Benchlearning helps to discover: are we moving in the right direction? The traditional way of working with statistics and benchmarking worked like looking in a mirror. In benchlearning you do not you look back, but you monitor what is happening around you, with no hypothesis, and without predetermined indicators. Having predetermined indicators restricts your vision. In benchlearning you have a look at information available and arrange in in new ways, but without a set first hypothesis. You go looking for patterns. This leads to a deeper form of learning than through indicators or other means.

Talking about learning and changing perceptions...it sounds a bit like a nightmare for quantitative researchers and the opposite of RCTs, so in a word: fascinating and interesting ;)!

Civil society at a new frontier: new dynamics, challenges and opportunities

It was from this rather unpromising start that INTRAC was born. It was seen as a completely new sustainable venture geared to supporting and servicing the needs of development NGOs in the North and the South, but one which was not to be a charge or financial burden on the sector. The rationale on which INTRAC was based, and which a process of participative needs analysis confirmed, was that there was a need for such a support organisation because of the increased demands on NGOs arising from the rapid expansion of the scope of NGO development work through the 1980s.

I still receive INTRAC's newsletter by email which seems rather 'old-school' these days, but that shouldn't divert the attention from the contents. The 16-page document offers some interesting, although not exactly new or groundbreaking, insights into the future of development NGOs and is a good reference point for the current debates.

The Role of Brand in the Nonprofit Sector

Many nonprofits continue to use their brands primarily as a fundraising tool, but a growing number of nonprofits are developing a broader and more strategic approach, managing their brands to create greater social impact and tighter organizational cohesion.

There is a specific Harvard business school-feel to the article that probably deserves more unpacking and discussions-especially in the context of international development.

The role of brand within nonprofit organizations is therefore cyclical and can be captured in a model we call the Role of Brand Cycle. In this model, brand is nested within organizational strategy, which in turn is nested within the mission and values of the organization. Brand plays a variety of roles that, when performed well, link together in a virtuous cycle. A well-aligned identity and image position the organization to build internal cohesion and trust with external constituents. Organizations can leverage these to strengthen internal capacity and achieve impact in the world. The resulting reputation then enhances the identity and image of the brand with which the cycle began.

The article also engages with WWF and its brand, although WWF's relationships with various extractive industries and take on 'social responsibility' probably deserve more attention-especially in the context of how much 'branding' and 'corporatisation' is desirable for the sector.

The Reform-Reality Gap in Colombia: A View from Magdalena Medio Region

The vulnerability of peasants, the labour movement and human right defenders not only reflects the legacy of the particularly deep paramilitary penetration of the Middle Magdalena region, but is also the outcome of a particular state-formation process which, as in other regions of the country, gave rise to a local state unable or unwilling to protect and advance the interests of its inhabitants. State forces and institutions were not absent, but rather paramilitaries thrived on the partial complicity of legal sectors with illegal forces. It is this privatised governance that now causes difficulties for the Santos reforms.

It's great that the analysts of the Crisis Group have started to blog in addition to releasing their excellent longer reports. The vignette from rural Colombia is another interesting/sad example of how instability and violence benefit certain elitist groups.

Anthropology
Human Trafficking - A Survivor's Story

Returning home to shame, alienation and insufficient legal support, female victims often find themselves living alone and in poverty, struggling within the margins of a society that emphasizes the collective and abandons the individual. With little possibility of reintegration and the almost impossible prospect of making it alone, many of them go back into trafficking, though this time not as victims but as perpetrators. UN statistics estimate that as many as 70% of traffickers are women and that the majority of these are former victims.

‘The reception of victims on their return into Vietnam is a major problem’ says Thuy.’ When girls come back to a family that rejects them and a society that judges them unclean it has both personal and practical consequences. They often lose faith in themselves and in need of money they fall into crime, most commonly trafficking.’
Even for those who don’t go into the trafficking industry, the social stigma they face normally stops them talking about their experience and raising the awareness that is so crucial in putting a stop to the trade. Without a victim there is no crime and until the wrongs that these people face are recognized the self perpetuating cycle will go on and the industry will continue to grow.

A very interesting story from the 'frontlines' of human trafficking in the context of Vietnam and China and the role that (foreign) organisations can play to assist and empower victims.

Spring uprisings calling spring academics: #bring books out to the streets!

This video entitled Three stories and a glass of milk [in Spanish] is an example of interconnected local places in the global soya system. Tekojoja (Paraguay) and Cantabria (Spain) are the local producing places in the suffering end and the harbour of Barcelona the localised, global space. Analysis can help find those globalised locals. And the glocal can help development analysis get more politicised and to the roots of things. And many other concepts waiting for us in the streets. As for each library book on the shelf, ten newer versions are awaiting outside!

It's great to see that the IDS PhD students have started their own blog! Maria-Josep Cascant's piece on street protests in Spain is a great example of how 'development' topics and concepts can be applied to the 'real world' of European post (?) financial crisis 'reforms'!

Academia
On Sort Of Keeping Up

As my inbox was recently filling up with alerts that I did not have time to look at right away, I realized I had not quantified my journal-reading in a while. Hence my questions:

How many journals do you read (look at) routinely?
How likely are you to find a paper that you want to (and do) read in one or more of them, each time there is a new issue? And some qualitative questions:

Do you enjoy reading the literature of your field? That is, do you feel a sense of happy anticipation when looking at new titles, or do you feel oppressed? Do you hope that there will be a paper of interest, or are you glad when there is not?

Female Science Professor asks really interesting questions...and I probably need another week to think about my own reading habits and feelings.

How Hopeful. How Naive.

In addition to my experiments with e-mail, I’m considering doing some tests with the real-time chat function on the Internet (known as IRC) or with any of the chat channels on the commercial servers (...). This chat capability enables you to conference and/or workshop with students and writers in virtually the same way as in class. By letting students know when I’m online, I can make myself available to them over a much wider space of time. Oftentimes we can’t all be in the same place, but if I’m at home or on my computer at school, and they are with their own hookup (either campus, work or home), we can connect and deal with whatever concerns need addressing. It’s a vast and convenient extension of office hours, making me far more accessible to my students than
I’ve ever been in ten years of teaching.

All of this is just an experiment for me right now, because I can’t assure that each of my students can have his/her own access. But once the school gets completely wired (like many colleges and universities nationwide), our students are going to have the most immediate access to professors possible. We have to be prepared for the exciting onslaught
of new challenges and new discoveries. I’m very excited about being a part of this new cyber-education. It can’t do anything but help.

A fascinating note from the days when electronic communication was about to change higher education (1993/1994). It's probably worthwhile to reflect on what this revolution has really changed in those 20 years and what promises haven't been delivered-or weren't taken up by students.

As a Freshman I Had No Car. Sophomore, a Ten Speed. Junior and Senior Year, a 1975 Dodge Dart.

Students at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. don't just complain about easy grades, they also drive cars so nice you'd think their campus was the parking lot of the Mall of the Emirates in Dubai. In the photo composite above is about $1.2 million worth of automobiles allegedly belonging to college students.
Do your best not to hate them.

Just to round off the 'a picture says more than...' theme of this week!

A picture says more than...what development in Nepal looks like

2012-02-17T10:32:00.003-04:00

I love my facebook newsfeed. I love the fact that it offers me fascinating anthropological encounters of the visual kind or, in short, with moments of clarity that are difficult to express with words alone.
Last year I had a great 'what the UN looks like' moment and this week it's a picture from Gulariya, a few miles away from Nepalganj one of the hubs in central Nepal.

The picture was taken at a workshop on 'Enhancing Access to Aid Information in Rural Nepal' organised by the Alliance for Aid Monitor Nepal, an organisation that works on aid transparency and foreign aid debates in Nepal. There are quite a few things about this picture that make me hopeful: The equal number of women and men participating in the workshop and one of the women standing up during the dicussion to make a contribution. The fact that aid transparency and access to aid information is discussed in rural Nepal. The use of technology and the power of 'the laptop' in facilitating change without being a barrier to discussions or intimidating participants.
But the picture also highlights some of the challenges development faces in Nepal: It's great to have a laptop and projector - but the building, the physical infrastructure, still needs improvement. One of the reasons why most of the participants are wearing their coats is that it's probably freezing cold inside the room. Rural life is still tough and development is still behind Kathmandu levels. And there is also the question of the limits of technology. The laptop and projector seem a bit out of place in this setting. A few months ago I wrote about why having a laptop is not enough in the context of aid transparency and that's probably true in this context, too. But in the end, the picture leaves me more hopeful than sceptical and once again I'm glad to have connections on facebook to so many friends who do great things around the world!

Links & Content I liked 12

2012-02-16T15:37:00.001-04:00

Hello all,

Before I'll continue with my brief weekly link and content review I have to say that one of the items that showed up in my facebook newsfeed the most this week were variations of the picture-meme on 'what parents/friends think I do and what I really do'. As a friend remarked: 'All the final pictures are in front of a computer-it's a bit sad really, isn't it?' Rest assured most of the memes got it wrong! Whether you work in development or happen to be an anthropologist wild (expat) parties, meetings and workshops in fancy hotels/resorts & hanging out in aiports (or, for global civil civil servants in aiport lounges) is what's really awaiting you! Nobody wants to waste you talent and dedication in front of a laptop! There are always rides in (white) 4WD vehicles as a final get-away from the office-but that mostly applies to humanitarian people, you know, the ones who do the 'real-real' work ;)!

Enjoy the links!

New on aidnography
New publication I like: Lies, White Lies, and Accounting Practices-Why nonprofit overheads don’t mean what you think they mean

A great primer on the topic of non-profit accounting and an excellent gift for parents, siblings and friends who have ‘good intentions’, but want to learn more about the realities of the non-profit ‘industry’.

Development
Integrating KM in the Ukrainian Public Administration – Some Lessons Learnt

Important results of the assessment show on the one hand, that KM as a concept is still unknown by representatives of the local authorities of Ukraine: 65% of survey participants were not familiar with the concept of KM. On the other hand, results show that current ICT tools, innovative methods and approaches in collecting, analyzing and using existing information, experiences and practices are considered as key in the process of developing and launching public sector reforms in Ukraine.

There may not be that many, but I'm a fan of the SDC's Learning and Networking blog. It's an unspectacular, but worthwhile attempt to share field realities in an accessible format. Although the post from the Ukraine is a bit technocratic, I found it an important reminder of the digital and discursive divide that exists between uber-connected individuals like myself and friends from the blogosphere and, say, the Ukrainian civil service. In an earlier life I studied public administration and management and some of the initiatives in the post read like examples from introductory textbooks written in the mid-1990s. I don't mean this disrespectively-it's just a reminder that we need to connect with different realties once in a while before we think about 'innovations', the newest ideas or the latest technologies.

There’s more than one way to expand your knowledge

A common thread in these approaches is the idea that there is more to knowledge than what you can get from only looking at research and evaluation. There is a whole area of tacit knowledge from experience that lies beneath the surface

Ian Thorpe's latest post connects really well to the previous post...

State fragility as a wicked problem?

The key message from Menkhaus is that the way in which aid agencies work needs to undergo a major rethink if we want to see improved results from our efforts. This is consistent with recent mainstream thinking – as the Busan New Deal document states: “the current ways of working in fragile states need serious improvement.” Myself and others with an interest in complex systems have been doing some initial work on what this new approach might look like. Last year I attended a roundtable at the Santa Fe Institute (SFI), organised by Bill Frej, a USAID Minister and former Mission Chief in Afghanistan. The focus of the event was how complex systems thinking could be used to improve foreign policy efforts, especially in fragile states.

I really like Ben Ramalingam's work, but I'm not entirely convinced about 'wicked problems'. From fragile states to complexity thinking and now 'wicked problems' it seems to me more about new labels and discursive changes, rather than changes practical terms. If you look at some the characteristics of 'wicked problems' (difficult to clearly define, unforeseen consequences, no clear solution, chronic policy failure) it appears like a list of things every policy-maker should dislike and avoid at all cost. To address at least a few of these wicked challenges aid agencies would need to change in ways that my German mindset with still a bit of Weber lingering in the back of the mind is almost unable to grasp. I'm looking forward to reading more of Ben's findings, but until then I'll be a bit skeptical about the concept and its use for the development industry.

Why did Maji Matone fail? 2. The world of water supply?

But what does all this have to do with Maji Matone? Well, one effect of this division of responsibilities is that it is used by government officials at both national and local to claim that sustainability isn't their problem. And Maji Matone was designed to mobilise citizens' voices, amplified by the media, to put pressure on District Water Departments to fix broken down waterpoints. So if our programme did what it was designed to do, and put pressure on a District Water Engineer, they could (and often did) simply turn around and say "not my problem".

From 'wicked problems' to interesting reflections from rural Tanzania and an important discussion on why a project failed.

Development Education Information toolkit now available online!

CARDET and its partners have recently published an information toolkit on “Raising Awareness on Development Cooperation” in the context of the aforementioned EuropeAid project. The information toolkit has two main objectives. Firstly, by presenting the successful outcomes of the project, it aims to raise awareness on development cooperation and endorse the build-up of such partnerships among relevant stakeholders for further expansion of development cooperation. Secondly, the information toolkit aims to provide a theoretical framework, basic guidelines, and case studies for the integration of the proposed curriculum in the regular activities of NGOs and universities.

The quote above probably says more about language, linguistics and discourses in the context of EU-funded development projects than about context, but the actual toolkit may be wortha quick glance. It offers a very basic introduction to MDG-related topics and issues and is slightly conservative in its approaches to social change-but then again what do you expect from the EU?! But some ideas may indeed be suitable for high school students or first-years undergrads.

CIDA chops Mennonite Central Committee

One is left to wonder who is next. Elizabeth Payne, who writes for the Ottawa Citizen reports that dozens of groups, told to expect word on funding by last September, were still waiting in December. Some of those organizations quietly began putting their programs on hold and releasing staff. While they were waiting, CIDA announced $26 million in other projects, including partnerships with several Canadian mining companies and other NGOs to promote “corporate social responsibility projects” in Burkina Faso, Peru and Tanzania.

Stephen Harper's Conservative government is certainly bad news for many organisations who have been involved long-time in development issues. And CIDA teaming up with mining corporations to work on CSR may not be the most innovative idea to bring about sustainable social change (to be very diplomatic...

Gender WDR-Limits, gaps, and fudges

Key questions:
How will this report influence Bank policy, and where is the money?
What space (if any) is available to make intersectional, anti-racist, post-colonial perspectives central to the Bank’s understanding of gender and development?
Given that many gender activists and experts know that free markets do not empower women in the simplistic way portrayed here, how do we best counter the pro-market message of the WDR?
Can the Bank define households without sounding like the Vatican? If it cannot, should households be so central to the definition of gender empowerment used in the report?

Kate Bedford dissects the 2012 World Development Report for the Bretton Woods project. A very interesting read-and on a discursive level there seem to be some relevant links to my analsysis of the 2011 WDR: World Development Report 2011 – creating a ‘non-place’ for development debates?

Hit record

We've also -- completely against the trend -- slowed down our process. We've tried to work longer on stories for greater impact, and publish fewer quick-takes that we know you can consume elsewhere. We're actually publishing, on average, roughly one-third fewer posts on Salon than we were a year ago [...]. So: 33 percent fewer posts; 40 percent greater traffic. It sounds simple, maybe obvious, but: We've gone back to our primary mission and have been focusing on originality. And it's working.

Ok, this is not strictly development-related, but I found this piece from The Salon relevant for other contexts as well. It's more a 'not to myself' and the (development) blogosphere that 'less' really can mean 'more' and that focussing on your core mission eventually pays off...

Anthropology
Mr. Kristof, I presume?

Against her better judgment, Kathryn Mathers turns her attention to America's most popular reporter on Africa, and comes down with a serious case of colonial déjà vu.

Shameless Self Promotion

I do not want to write about Nicholas Kristof. The sheer banality of his representations of Africa paralyses me. His columns and blogs about Africa in the New York Times are repeatedly under fire for their poor research, careless reading of studies on Africa and blatant generalizations. This allows him to repeat troubling and problematic tropes about Africa and about how Africans need foreign help. Yet student bodies across the country culture frequently invite him to speak on their campuses. Saving Africa has become a favorite hobby for celebrities and ordinary Americans alike. And journalists like Nicholas Kristof who write endless stories about Americans doing good in Africa are central to this shift. Kristof even got to bunk down with actor George Clooney in Chad so that they could report back about the conflict in Darfur across the border.

Mr. Kristof and the narrative of “Americans saving Africans”

One thing I will say though – how do we strike the balance? I believe it is important to bring important issues to light, such as domestic/gender-based violence, human rights violations, poverty, lack of access to health care, maternal mortality, clean water, and many other issues. Not just in Africa – but everywhere. I think the answer lies in not limiting ourselves to that. Nick Kristof writes primarily about women’s rights violations and poverty — to the point that we might think there is nothing else in Africa. I have not personally been to Africa, but I will say that I bet there is a lot more happening. Just like in India, there is a growing middle class, malls and businesses, gleaming new buildings, new jobs, and economic growth. Why doesn’t he write about any of the progress happening? The dynamism? If we go by Kristof’s articles, we may never imagine urban Nairobi – only rural landscapes with giraffes, elephants and yes– poverty. And this is truly a shame.

Wow...a great, long article on Nick Kristof and his engagement with Africa and a few great reflections on the piece. I actually wrote a post myself some time ago (DIY aid: A report on a 'revolution' or merely an indication of how development journalism is changing?) on his representation of 'DIY aid', but as much as I agree with the critique and enjoy the article from an intellectual, academic point of view, I'm starting to wonder on how 'useful' the critique is. Nick Kristof is unlikely to change and being critiqued and controversial probably adds in some strange ways to his 'brand power' (a bit like the Sachs-Easterly debate). And as important as the NYT is, I'm also wondering on how powerful his writing really is - given that there are so many wonderful alternative sources (the two blogs engaging with the article are great examples). It may be a 'middle class' thing to like Kristof, but I hope that many of those who actually end up doing development will do more/better research and quickly realise that Africa is more than a short-term reporting gig.

Big Dogs of Tibet and the Himalayas
Don Messerschmidt, a familar name for those who engage in anthropology of the Himalayas, was awarded with the Maxwell Medallion of the Dog Writers Association of America! I remember quite a few meetings with him in his house in Kathmandu and my astonished face when he first told me that the cute puppies in his house were his latest 'research project'!

Academia
Universities in a State of Exception

Under these circumstances and within the context of this new scale of assessment (impact) many of us are left to believe that anthropology is not important enough because as it is, it cannot score very well in reference to impact to business and policy-makers. This is very true, because most of anthropological research thankfully has little contribution to the unjust world of exploitation that sovereignty shapes today. However, if there is something that the social sciences -including social anthropology- can be proud of nowadays it is their links and their impact to several social movements that fought and fight repression causing problems to various authorities and making the world a better place: From Franz Boas' anti-racism and the contribution of feminist scholars to anti-sexism to the critique to global capitalism, (neo-)colonialism or other nexuses of power that so many of our colleagues have managed so exceptionally. The increase of people who have access to HE-learning also has helped to disseminate this kind of knowledge to many thousands of people, who approach the world through the eyes of the proverbial Other, including the Other to the power. This is a perspective that seems to annoy the various agents of sovereignty the most.

An interesting view from European social anthropology on the current challenges facing higher education.

Making a Public Ph.D.

How, then, do you put together a program that will prepare graduate students for nonacademic careers? History will again serve as my case-study discipline. It's "ethical and practical" to prepare history Ph.D.'s for careers outside the academy, says Julian E. Zelizer, a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University, "but it's not as easy as it sounds." Consider the possibility of training history graduate students to enter Zelizer's own field, public policy. First, it would be practical to equip them with a recognizable credential, such as a certificate that they could earn by taking a certain number of courses. It's likewise practical to steer those interested toward a public-policy-friendly dissertation topic. But "if we really want graduate students to do that," Zelizer says, "we'll need a different curriculum," because the study of public policy "is extraordinarily different from what you do to get a doctorate in history." Public-policy students, he notes, receive more quantitative training in both economics and statistics than history students do, which gives them the tools to do budgeting, among other skills.

I think this relates well to the previous post. Ph.D. training in the US has been criticised recently and some radical ideas include reducing the number of universities that accept Ph.D. students which basically means only a selected group of top universities will be able to educate the next generation of academics. As admirable as the idea is to prepare graduate students for careers outside academia, the question remains: Why do a Ph.D. in history in the first place if you want to work in public policy? My feeling is that quite a few institutions will have to ask very tough questions about their Ph.D. programs - and maybe not accepting new students/accepting fewer students could be part of the solution as well...

'Academically Adrift': The News Gets Worse and Worse

Now Arum and his colleagues have revealed what happened to those two groups after they left college and entered the unforgiving post-recession economy. Despite a barren job market, only 3.1 percent of students who scored in the top 20 percent of the Collegiate Learning Assessment, which measures critical-thinking skills, were unemployed. Not infrequently, their colleges helped them land the jobs they had. Many struck out on their own and were engaged in civic affairs. Those who got married or cohabitated often did so with someone they met in college. For students like these, the college-driven job and mating markets are functioning as advertised. Graduates who scored poorly on the CLA, by contrast, are leading very different lives. It's true that business majors, who were singled out for low CLA scores in Academically Adrift, did better than most in finding jobs. But over all, students with poor CLA results are more likely to be living at home with their parents, burdened by credit-card debt, unmarried, and unemployed.

More bad news from (American) higher education...I wonder, though, whether this is a uniquely American problem and how other OECD countries deal with the challenge of having more and more university graduates for an economy that doesn't really need them...

Ask the Administrator: Friending Students on Facebook

I've been told by one of my employers that I am not allowed to accept friend requests from students on Facebook or any other social media site save Linkedin. In my field (probably in most fields) networking is really important and therefore this is a serious bummer.

Since I read about litigation and application letters/refusals on Community College Dean's blog, I wonder whether there is a particular North-American fear that prevents a 'use your discretationary power' approach from emerging in this area. I wouldn't be surprised if a student sues a college/professor after s/he read on his/her facebook something like 'I have a terrible migraine, but luckily my [name of medication] kicked in' and received a bad mark later that day/the morning after. The student may suggest that the professor was incapacitated while marking his/her assignment and I would even be less surprised if you would be able to find a lawyer in the US to pursue this case. The debate focusses too much on 'party pictures' and silly YouTube videos. I could imagine similar scenarios on certain religious/political issues in certain States, say a professor sharing an article from anything from gay marriage/rights to abortion or basic comments about political parties, policies or politicians. Again, I wouldn't be surprised if disgruntled students share these things with the admin and next thing you know you are asked in your tenure review why you hold certain beliefs etc. In a 'normal world' using your brain/gut instinct may be enough, but in a spiteful, litigatious, politicised higher education environment I would think at least twice before befriending a student if I taught at an American institution-or maybe I'm just paranoid?!

New publication I like: Lies, White Lies, and Accounting Practices-Why nonprofit overheads don’t mean what you think they mean

2012-02-14T11:19:00.002-04:00

Chris Blattman’s recent post on Who is to blame forexcessive administration costs in humanitarian aid? or Bottom Up Thinking’slatest post on Accountability and Overheads or just two examples of how alivethe debate on organisational overheads is.
However, as valuable as theanecdotes, examples and comments are they are often written by insiders for theinsider’s (blogging) community. The main reason why I enjoyed SaundraSchimmelpfennig’s new e-publication on the subject so much is that it is an accessible,practical and relevant publication that can be read by the whole family. Giventhe growing size of the philanthropic sector, the fact that many donors tocharities are not development- or non-profit-experts and the complexity of thesubject Saundra’s publication really speaks to the ‘99%’ of non-experts:

If you are like 80% of Americans, the number one thing youlook at before giving to a nonprofit is the percent they spend on “overhead” which areadministration costs such as salaries, rent, and computers. You do this because itmakes intuitive sense - the less a nonprofit spends on administration the more it spendshelping people. You do this because it’s what many experts tell you to do. And youscrutinize overheads because you want your donation to do the most good possible. Unfortunately, the intense focus on overheads is makingnonprofits less effective, not more so.

The publication’s core part on Lies, white lies, andaccounting practices explores a range of strategies of how non-profits keepoverheads low from Manipulatingstaff time, Changing where administrative work is done, Manipulating who pays for what to, Valuing donated goods and Valuing medicine –two apparently very common practices I have not been aware of so far.
Thepublication also contains a brief historical background of the debate and alsotackles the topic of ‘waste’ and alternative indicators and initiatives thataddress transparency issues and learning from mistakes. But her core message isvery clear throughout the publication:

Whilethere is waste and fraud in the nonprofit world, these problems are notuncovered by looking at an organization’s administration ratio. In fact littlecan be learned by the administration ratio as it’s often more a reflection ofthe organization’s accounting practices than anything else.

Theonly theme that may have deserved more attention is the changing nature ofprofessionalism in the sector. Saundra does write about director’s salaries,but I would have liked to read more on the fact that many young, well-educatedand highly qualified women and men enter the sector (often with a significant studentloan burdern) and that paying decent salaries is important – for thecommunities at home as much as for those who benefit from the non-profit’sprojects.

Oneinteresting aspect for me as a ‘development writer’ is that Saundra’spublication defies neat categorisations – it’s much longer and more detailedthan a blog post, but yet it’s not a ‘book’. It’s also more insightful than anewspaper article, yet the publication is easy to read and understand.

To sumit up: A great primer on the topic and an excellent gift for parents, siblingsand friends who have ‘good intentions’, but want to learn more about therealities of the non-profit ‘industry’.

Full disclousre: I received a free review copy from Saundra at the beginning of February 2012.

Links & Content I liked 11

2012-02-09T16:09:00.002-04:00

Hello all,

After last week's round-up of interesting links focussed more on development, this week's list contains a few more anthropology- and research-related items.

Enjoy!

New on aidnography

Book Review: Democracy under stress-The global crisis and beyond

In the end, the questions outlined in the official summary are not sufficiently addressed. But what sounds primarily as a shortcoming of the book is actually more a shortcoming of the authors and their disciplinary rituals. They neither add any self-reflective insights into their profession, their theories and the shortcomings of keeping up with real-life developments nor do they provide bold, critical comments on the origins of the crisis and how democratic institutions and systems have been hallowed out to a box-ticking exercise of theoretical phrases such as ‘free and fair elections’. Almost all of the contributors stick to their ‘theoretical guns’, models that have been discussed for 15, 20 or more years – 15 or 20 years in which many people, communities and states have lost important battles against transnational corporations, the ‘markets’ and those seemingly unchanged social, cultural and political institutions that have always been putting private profits before public goods. From a development perspective the book is an indication of how the ‘West’ has really lost its case and how traditional political science seems unable to offer meaningful interactions with emerging or ‘poor’ countries.

Development

Book Review: Damned Nations, by Samantha Nutt

I’m going to recommend this book to pretty much everyone who writes to me wanting to know more about aid, and I’m going to give it to my entire extended family next Christmas. Professors should be assigning this to their undergrads.

A short recommendation on an introductory book to development by Alanna Shaikh

More than just hot air

My fellow aid and development bloggers have a lot going on. Somewhere in between blogging and full-time jobs, many of them squeeze in some fascinating side projects. Here are a few new ones and a few old that you might find interesting.

This is a neat overview from Dave Algoso over some development blogger's side projects. As an academic development blogger, I feel a bit compelled to add that in addition to practical projects the intellectual work shouldn't be dismissed. Discussions with students, feedback on papers or dissertations and many other, often virtual, encounters do often take place in the 'spare time'. But then again, true academics don't really have spare time anyway...

Africa Does Not Need More Orphanages

When we measure services offered to at-risk families in the U.S. against what we fund and promote in Uganda there is a disparaging gap that should upset all of us. I don’t believe in satisfactory care. I believe in researching and educating ourselves before starting NGO’s in cultures SO vastly different from our own. I believe in offering the best care possible, whether it is in North Philadelphia or East Africa. Performing needs based assessments, studying evidence based/best practice models, and determining the cultural appropriateness of potential services and aid programs is critical. Because if you are not doing this, you are committing a serious disservice to the population you are serving. And you just might be doing more harm than good

The title alone is already a good summary. But I do like the thoughtful reflections of a social work college major on best and not so good practices in social care between the United States and Uganda and how insights gained from research and practice in the US are ignored by the 'orphanage industry':

There has been a clear movement away from institutional care in the United States, with a movement toward family preservation. However, we insist on offering the developed world this sub-par level of care that countless studies have proven damaging not only to children and families, but to entire communities and cultures.

Pathways of Women's empowerment presentations

Last week I mentioned the summary report of the IDS project. You can now listen to a few presentations of key researchers such as Andrea Cornwall, Naila Kabeer and Susie Jolly during the official launch of the report in London.

Anthropology

Capoeira and security: the view from upside-down

Through an account of capoeira, the Brazilian dance-fight-game, we uncover two simultaneous stories of security: first, the gradual monopolisation of violence by the state; second, a somatic, lyrical representation of a history of violence, oppression and liberation.

Zoe Marriage's post was shared widely last week, but what I found almost more interesting than the contents and what made me put it under 'anthropology' is that it also says a lot of how academic publication, transnational professionalism and multi-sited research work in practice. Similar to Tango, Italian food and quite a few other Stuff Expat Aid Workers Like, Capoeira has entered the global scene of development- and researcher-lifestyles relatively recently. If London-based Zoe Marriage with her background of research in (post-) war societies writes about the Capoeira-development/security nexus, we can assume that it has entered a transnational space of work, research and (expat) living. Still a very interesting article, but also a good starting point to reflect on how research topics 'get discovered'.

Taking Anthropology, Introduction

I am hoping in these guest posts to examine episodes of how anthropology gets taken–starting with a follow-up to Kerim’s archive on Jared Diamond, and then tackling the Anthropologie Store, the TV series Community, and other instances where anthropology either gives stuff away or gets hijacked. But I’d also like to write about taking anthropology back

Savage Minds is one of the best anthropology blogs out there. In his introduction Jason Antrosio points out a great trajectory of anthropology in the public sphere and its shortcomings as a self-critical and reflective discipline. However, similar to many development debates, anthropology is at least trying to be more self-critical and reflexsive, compared to, say banking or natural sciences.

Academia as Music Industry

For music listeners, rather than publishers, an issue of ‘importance’ arises — how can you tell that the assistant musician in your department is ‘important’ and deserves tenure in an era when platinum hits are getting rarer and rarer? What counts as importance is itself shifting. I can see a number of ways out of this dilemma but whatever route departments chose will require a choice. And standing up and deciding for yourself how to handle something as important as the professional credentialing of the professoriate is a big challenge which requires a lot of confidence in one’s own academic judgement.

This is a great segue to the academic section below...I get the idea behind the comparison, but a core challenge in academia is not how to sell the most units, but how to get into journals whose 'impact' is measured by a third party. So in theory, an article in a top journal, even if nobody is ever going to read or cite it, is much more poweful than 1,000 views of the same article in a open-access journal. So the commercial interest, even of for-profit publishers is limited for as long as they can sell expensive subscription to universities. But in the end the article asks an important question about active decisions by departments and universities as to how they accept and define 'impact' or success.

Academia

Occupy Elsevier? A boycott of the publishing giant swells, but is the criticism warranted?

But academics who’ve signed on to the boycott are thinking about their futures in a future without Elsevier journals. “It’s really frustrating because it’s so much extra work now to figure out alternatively where to submit my papers,” Abrahams said. The Albert Einstein College of Medicine geneticist noted that he’d have to balance his own stance on Elsevier with the good of his students and collaborators. He admitted that if he’s in a collaborative situation in which the decision of where to publish findings is not his to make, he’ll likely voice his opinion but ultimately yield to the consensus, even if that means publishing in an Elsevier title. “At that point, that’s going to be a very hard decision for me,” Abrahams said. “Then, I don’t think it’s in my students, or my institution’s interest to walk away.”

Despite its catchy title, this is an interesting and balanced post on the challenges of engaging with academic publishers such as Elsevier. It's also a supplment to the previous post on academia as music industry. At the end of the day, publishing remains a contested subject, but it may take another generation of researchers and adminstrators in universities before some of the fundamentals are likey to change.

Bipartisan Politics and Higher Education: Two Roads to Nowhere?

The failure of our leaders to work together responsively and responsibly grows more tiring as our problems increase. What many Americans may not realize is that the same fruitless grid-lock has long plagued higher education, although perhaps less visibly.
Academics are charged with teaching the next generation and conducting research on issues of import— roles that impact all Americans. Academics often hear that we are in ‘ivory towers’ disconnected from the real-world we aim to understand—implying we are useless. Unfortunately, the structure of higher education makes this somewhat true.

I agree. Despite better knowledge of the contrary, many elite institutions stick to old-fashioned party-, or disciplinary lines. The biggest challenge is that there is still only a binary way to engage: Either play to some extent by the rules (see post on academic publishing below) or disengage from the system, because starting your own party or university is unlikely to be a sustainable model in the current socio-political climate...

Whither the weather? Climate change and conflict

Overall, the research reported here offers only limited support for viewing climate change as an important influence on armed conflict. However, framing the climate issue as a security problem could possibly influence the perceptions of the actors and contribute to a self-fulfilling prophecy.

A special issue of the Journal of Peace Research (open-access until the end of February!) on climate change and violent conflict.

The Great PhD Hunt 2012

I am now starting the arduous, but intellectually more interesting, task of reading the latest two or three publications from each potential faculty member in the yellow and green schools. This will allow me to narrow the list down to people I want to contact and be prepared to discuss how their work intersects with my interests.

Angela Van Den Broek takes the search for the right place to do her US-PhD in anthropology to a new level with Google maps and all...This is definitely a thorough approach and for those in a simialar situation it may be worthwhile to connect with Angela.

Weave for visualization development

Weave (BETA 1.0) is a new web-based visualization platform designed to enable visualization of any available data by anyone for any purpose. Weave is an application development platform supporting multiple levels of user proficiency — novice to advanced — as well as the ability to integrate, disseminate and visualize data at "nested" levels of geography.

This looks like a great way to play around with data and becoming the next Hans Rosling ;)...

Book Review: Democracy under stress-The global crisis and beyond

2012-02-06T09:16:00.000-04:00

This book focuses on the globalfinancial crisis of 2008-2009 and its implications for democracy. Why and howdid the crisis come about? Are there any instructive lessons to be drawn from comparisonswith the Great Depression of the 1930s? What are the democratic responsemechanisms to cope with serious crises? Do they work? Is China a new trendsetter? Do values matter? Are global democratic rules a possibility? These aresome of the key questions addressed in the volume.

As more academic literature islikely to emerge on the global financial crisis, Democracy under stress is an interesting edited volume on the topicthat at the same time is even more elucidative on the current state ofpolitical science. I really liked the range of contributors from 7 countriesand 3 continents and the fact that this isn’t just a range of essays written by‘usual suspects’. Although established social and political science academics,many don’t have a track record of English-language publications or a well-knowndigital presence. But once I started to read the contributions I really felt asense of disappointment, at some points even frustration. To be very clear:There is absolutely nothing ‘wrong’ with the contributions. They are relativelyeasy to understand for academic publications, they cover a broad range oftopics from history, liberal democratic theory, case studies from China or questionsof popular culture and transnational governance. The book is well-edited and EdmundWnuk-Lipinski, one of the editors provides an excellent conclusion to thevolume in which he links the different contributions together – something thatis often poorly done in edited books. Hence, my disappointment doesn’t stem somuch from the ‘factual’ aspects of the book, but from the ‘discursive’dimension that actually made me lamnet for the contemporary state ofestablished political science academia.

As the chapters unfold, manyauthors cling to old-fashioned, abstract and oftentimes naive theoreticalconceptions of democracy that are shared without qualifications andreflections. Ursula J. Van Beek, the co-editor of the book, sets the tone inher introduction The crisis that shookthe world. Right from the beginning we are told that there was a financial‘earthquake’ (p.11) in 2008 and that the nature of the crisis is marked by theevents in 2008. All the other contributors buy into the ‘event-ness’ of thecrisis, rather than asking whether the ‘crisis of democracy’ may have startedyears, maybe even decades, earlier when the socio-political, financial andlegal foundations were laid for the crisis. But the weakness of manycontributions is that they are hiding behind well-known and often repeatedphrases: What does it mean that ‘the deregulation of the 1990s’ contributed tothe crisis or ‘capital market liberalisation in the 1990s opened up markets tothe free flow of short-term, hot, speculative money’ (p.187)? Many processesare masked in abstract terms, often without subjects. No mentioning oflobbyists, politician’s close ties with the financial industry (I’m pretty sure the words ‘Goldman Sachs’ don’t appear in the whole book) or a socialclimate, often supported by tabloid journalism and underfunded academics, that‘reforms’ that had to be made to appease ‘the markets’ were inevitable in aglobalised world. Dirk Berg-Schlosser’s concluding remarks that ‘what we knowso far is that the global financial crisis of 2008-2009 did not have any serious politicalrepercussions’ (p.57) can only be justified by a strict theoretical politicalscience analysis: Yes, compared to the world in the 1930s and given the factthat civil wars in the EU have not yet broken out, the crisis did not have animpact. But that really requires a very conservative belief in the theory of‘liberal democracy’.

Laurence Whitehead’s chapter onDemocracy, error correction and theglobal economy is one of the few chapters that provides a more criticalaccount of the democratic system, although he shies away from anyrecommendation:

‘Thus, on the evidence available so far, it could be concluded thatdemocratic procedures have offered a safety valve for citizen discontent, anopportunity for the peaceful renewal of political authorities, and perhaps evenmore some scope for the termination of failed strategies of economic managementand their replacement by more promising approaches’ (p.84-85).

So are theBush-Obama and the Blair/Brown-Cameron transition good examples of how well thedemocratic systems are still working? Even Whitehead is sceptical:

‘neither ofthese [US and UK] democratic processes unfolded in a manner favourable to theeffective redress of past errors, of the holding account of failedofficeholders, or the subsequent improvement of economic policymaking to guardagainst further relapses of the same kind in the future’ (p.86).

So let’s putthis in non-academese: Voting doesn’t make a difference! But in a true academicstyle Whitehead only suggests fiddling with the edges: He suggests better‘feedback’ mechanisms because ‘one clear lesson of the 2008 crisis is thatpoliticians who rely uncritically on a narrow set of orthodox indicators andadvisers will not escape blame when their errors are exposed’ (p.94). Hedoesn’t provide examples and even if some politicians lose office and might beblamed there is not a sentence about their ‘afterlife’ in lucrative board jobsor other private sector engagements. Everything seems to take place in apolitical science seminar sponsored by Max Weber, where perfectly informedcitizens make perfectly rational choices that are implemented by a leadership whoput the public good over their short-term ‘results’ in a media-driven society.Although Whitehead warns that ‘there could be a high cost for persisting with astandard electoralist approach arising from its error-compounding and sociallyde-legitimising properties’ (p.95) he neither outlines high cost noralternatives to standard approaches that seem to be working well regardless ofwhether 60, 50 or 30% show up at elections.

Maybe this stretches thelimits of this review, but as I will mention later on, there are someinteresting lessons for the international development context hidden somewhere:One of the key themes of the book is a firm belief in the Western liberaldemocratic model – the kind of model that peace- and nation-builders havetried, with various degrees of unsuccessfulness, to export to post-war andfragile societies. Through scholarship like the one of the book, these abstractnotions are repeated time and again and generalised to the point ofmeaninglessness.

Ursula Hoffmann-Lange’s chapteron The model of liberal democracy andvarieties of capitalism reminds me a lot of texts I read during myundergraduate political science degree almost 15 years ago. Robert Dahl, SamuelHuntington, second and third wave democracies – a long list of well-knownprototypes and political science theories are outlined, but none of this reallyhelps to shed light on the 2008 crisis. Yes, I know that central banks orsupreme courts are supposed to be independent, but what about the discursiveneoliberal framework in which their decision-making has been taken place in thepast 20 or so years? How did it become accepted wisdom that ‘we’ need to ‘cutspending’, tighten our belts, accept working poor, reduce welfare to a bareminimum, accept widening income- and wealth gaps or produce a growinguniversity-educated underemployed young generation? And how come the Italianelectorate couldn’t or wouldn’t get rid of Berlusconi, but the EU could forcehim out without much resistance? Instead, standard, and nowadays almost imperialideas about stability are repeated:

‘While the wealthy consolidated democraciescan be considered strong enough to cope with even major political and economicchallenges, the poor Third Wave democracies are much more vulnerable becausetheir political institutions and party systems are not well established,democratic value orientations are not deeply rooted in their political cultureand they have fewer economic resources to cope with income losses’ (p.114).

Or,to quote an African friend from facebook:‘What are all these Portuguese doing in Angola looking for jobs?!’.

Pierre du Toit’s chapter on The Great Recession and its potential impacton popular culture in liberal democracies assures us that based on the‘liberal peace theory’ hypothesis (Rummel 1997) Europe’s liberal values maybecome under stress because of the economic decline, but by and large pacificpopular culture should be a safeguard against aggression. NATO’s involvement inAfghanistan or Libya, the war in Iraq or the effects of the EU bordermanagement and its huge cost and other impacts on popular culture are omitted –as they are throughout the entire book.

Christer Jönsson’s chapter on Searching for democratic approaches to a newworld order could have been more relevant for the development context, butagain, simply repeats well-known ideas around ‘globalisation’, building onCastells 1996 research on ‘flows’, and the difficulties of transnationalgovernance. I just don’t find it enough to conclude after two decades of academicinterest in ‘governance’ that

‘global governance arrangements in general, andthose in global finance in particular, rate low on basic democratic criteria.The best we can hope for in the short to medium run seems to be incrementalsteps in a democratising direction’ (p.197).

That’s it? That’s the visionacademics have for global governance? And why is Jönsson not more precise,mentioning that it’s intentional thatdemocratic principles should not be applied to global (financial) governance?The least he could have done was to mention the current debate around the‘Robin Hood Tax’ even if this is unlikely to be introduced.

Unfortunately, the lastchapter before the conclusion continues in this way. Bernard Lategen (Values, interests, power and democracy at atime of crisis) introduces another ‘usual suspect’ thinker: Arend Lijphartand his research from the late 1990s.

‘The concept of consensus democracyproposed by Lijphart has retained its relevance. Whether in the form ofelectoral systems aimed at proportional representation [UK anyone?!],bipartisan parliamentary and public committees [USA anyone?!], coalitions,governments of national unity [...] – all practical possibilities should beharnessed’ (p.212-213).

So that’s the state of the art in political sciencethinking after the 2008 economic crisis.

There are three chapters onChina as well, which aim at exploring whether the ‘Chinese way’ provides anyanswers as to how to respond to the crisis. These chapters tend to be a bitgeneral, too, but at least summarize some key developments. However, the‘unique combination of state control and rampant free-market capitalism’(p.219) can hardly be copied elsewhere – and the high price with regards tocultural or environmental aspects is only touched upon briefly.

In the end, the questionsoutlined in the official summary are not sufficiently addressed. But whatsounds primarily as a shortcoming of the book is actually more a shortcoming ofthe authors and their disciplinary rituals. They neither add any self-reflective insights into theirprofession, their theories and the shortcomings of keeping up with real-lifedevelopments nor do they provide bold, critical comments on the origins of thecrisis and how democratic institutions and systems have been hallowed out to abox-ticking exercise of theoretical phrases such as ‘free and fair elections’.Almost all of the contributors stick to their ‘theoretical guns’, models thathave been discussed for 15, 20 or more years – 15 or 20 years in which manypeople, communities and states have lost important battles againsttransnational corporations, the ‘markets’ and those seemingly unchanged social,cultural and political institutions that have always been putting privateprofits before public goods. From a development perspective the book is anindication of how the ‘West’ has really lost its case and how traditionalpolitical science seems unable to offer meaningful interactions with emergingor ‘poor’ countries.

van Beek, Ursula J./ Wnuk-Lipinski, Edmund (eds.):
Democracy under stress. The global crisis and beyond.
ISBN 978-3-86649-453-4, 244 pages, 29,90 €, Barbara Budrich Publishers, Farmington Hills, MI.

Full disclosure: I received a free review copy from Barbara Budrich Publishers in December 2011.

Links & Content I liked 10

2012-02-02T16:14:00.000-04:00

Hello all!

This week's over- and review has turned out to be a bit of a 'voting issue'-but for interesting and relevant projects! For the academically-inclined reader there are fewer items in this week's digest, but I do recommend a look at my latest post on the PhD process and maintaining a professional development identity.

Enjoy!

New on aidnography
The challenges of maintaining a professional identity as a Ph.D. student

When you sign-up for a Ph.D. in most cases you are for all practical and technical purposes a ‘student’ again. Most institutions don’t really know what to do with your professional life before the Ph.D. and that often leads to finding validation elsewhere – with the potential negative side effect that the Ph.D. process takes longer and becomes more tiresome.

Development
Vote for DAWNS Grant Recipient

The voting lines are open for the 9 finalists for our pilot grants. Check them out and vote today

Tom Murphy and Mark Goldberg have not only selected a great group of finalists, but their detailed presentation of their previous work and proposed project for the DAWNS grant are also a really interesting read, great way to update your blog and Twitter list and, most importantly, present very interesting candidates with even more interesting projects. I also like the transparency of the project. I you only have time to read one longer piece from the development blogosphere this week, make this your priority!

Vote for the Best Aid Blogs of 2011

After collecting your responses, it is now time to vote for the best in aid blogging across 12 different categories

I know...Tom *again* ;)?! The ABBAs have already become an institution in the annual development blogging cycle and this is another great way to get a great overview over interesting people, topics and developments in the blogosphere.

Peer coaching: is that something we can interest you in?

Whether you are studying, beginning your career in aid and development, or a seasoned professional, it’s great to work one-on-one with a coach who can help you identify blind spots, gain clarity on your priorities, and help you design actions that will bring about desired changes.

The guys at WhyDev.org are asking for your input to a great new initiative to connect and learn...a potentially great way to take 'mindful' aidwork further.

AlertNet AidWatch - The global aid system: better the devil we know?

The most common proposal - mentioned by eight agencies - was to reform the United Nations in some way, including reducing the amount of funds channelled through it and cutting its bureaucracy, overheads and transaction costs.
"More and more money has gone into the U.N. system over the last ten years with little being subsequently available for projects to serve the people for whom it was intended," said one humanitarian director.

Disaster Relief: Climate Change And Urbanization Will Impact Humanitarian Aid, Poll Shows

"We need to increase competition and create an aid 'market', where donors don't need a budget breakdown but rather a set of outcomes they will pay for based on how many are achieved," said Francesco Paganini, director of disaster response for World Relief. Another U.S.-based agency echoed the need for a hard-nosed, performance- based approach. "If our industry could find a way to create a compensation system that provides personal financial reward for results -- as is found in for-profit businesses -- it could radically alter the approach to delivering value to beneficiaries," said one programme manager, who declined to be identified.

To round off the survey- and number-crunching part, I found the AlertNet survey on the future of the aid system - and the two different foci that AlertNet and the HuffPost chose - quite interesting, but not very widely discussed so far. I haven't read the detailed survey results yet, but it's interesting that UN reform was mentioned as the most common proposal to reform the system. I don't disagree in principle, but isn't it a bit cheap to point the finger at the 'bad UN'? Why not be more modest and critical with the humanitarian system and talk about admitting to and learning from failures, for example? The HuffPost focuses on creating a better 'market' for donors and, gulp, personal financial rewards - things that are working so well in the famous 'private sector'! I doubt that 'more of the same' performance- and results-based management approaches will really 'improve' the system. The humanitarian system is likely to remain an imperfect offer, but more modest approaches to openness, learning and admission to failure have clearly not entered the mainstream of big INGOs yet.

Digital mapping and governance: the stories behind the maps

The importance of telling the stories behind the maps
One important component to mapping work is to tell the stories behind the map. The three groups in Kwale are working to build platforms to amplify their grassroots level work in order to share stories and lessons learned. The information documented on the various platforms will develop over time and contribute to a greater understanding of the processes at a local level where youth as young leaders can intervene to begin to change the dynamics of community development.

Linda Raftree's guest post shares some detailed, practical insights into digital mapping and governance that PLAN Kenya undertook with youths from communities. After all those surverys and data, I really liked the notion of 'telling the stories behind the maps' or any other aggregated data source.

Oprah Winfrey’s expensive South African education

There are many other questions about the school and many other reasons to celebrate the various accomplishments of its students, alumnae, and staff. But where does OWLAG fit, or sit, in the landscape of South African education? You won’t get that answer from The Daily Beast, The Washington Post, ABC News, or CNN.
Their story is more or less the following. Once upon a time a woman named Oprah Winfrey had tea with a man named Nelson Mandela. He persuaded her to care. She invested money, lots of it, in a school for ‘underprivileged’ girls, girls who had suffered terrible hardships, in particular sexual violence. The school had its ups and downs. Now, the class is graduating, Oprah beams, cries and is really a very “proud mama”. The end.
Context is not that much work. Why couldn’t we get some?
(...)
Al Jazeera’s coverage was spot on. Here’s their version of the story: The school has much to celebrate. South Africa, on the other hand, has much to worry about. Even though matric passage rates this past year were at a record high, the passing grade is quite low. Many schools are without water, electricity, books, teachers, buildings. Yoliswa Dwane, of Equal Education, explains that the situation in rural and township schools is catastrophic, and that it’s the fault of the State, that has persistently refused to address inequality in education … or anywhere else.

Celebrities and development-a never-ending story. Last year I wrote a piece about Oprah (What The Oprah Magazine can teach us about development) and this more detailed piece from South Africa confirms some of my more general problems I have with Oprah's approach: It's never political. She doesn't get involved with 'the system', e.g. education in South Africa, but would probably argue that 'her girls' one day may rise to powerful and influential positions and then change the system from within...which is not impossible, but as always moves the responsibility from 'the society' to an individual level with a consumerist twist: Pay for a good school and the sky's the limit...

Psychologically Equipped?

Over the last months I have been collecting stories, reflections and suggestions from humanitarian professionals on the importance of staff-care, pre-deployment psychological preparation, burnout prevention training, field support, coaching and mentoring and post-deployment care. HQ and field-staff have lent their voice to this white paper series, which provides an analysis of the needs in the field, as well as the types of interventions that could be of help, including mindfulness training. Encouraged by my dear friend Jennifer Lentfer at how-matters.org the first chapter of the White Paper Series on the psychological health of the precious people who work in aid is now out! It provides the background and purpose of the whole series. I have chosen to release the twelve papers over several weeks, in order to give readers the time and space to process the material and reflect upon it.

This is definitely an important subject and I look forward to reading more on working on the psychological health of aid professionals. A great space to watch!

To My Old Master

In August of 1865, a Colonel P.H. Anderson of Big Spring, Tennessee, wrote to his former slave, Jourdan Anderson, and requested that he come back to work on his farm. Jourdan — who, since being emancipated, had moved to Ohio, found paid work, and was now supporting his family — responded spectacularly by way of the letter seen below (a letter which, according to newspapers at the time, he dictated).

A fantastic read (- although this is the Internet and there is small chance that the letter isn't really authentic)

Academia
Empowerment: A Journey not a Destination

We are pleased to announce the launch of 'Empowerment: A Journey not a Destination'. This Pathways synthesis report presents the findings and key messages from our research from 59 projects in 15 countries over 5 years.

Great new work from IDS. Some of the 'key findings' seem a bit general, but the links to the papers and stories behind them really give you an idea about the full-scale of the project and the context of the findings.

Forum: Qualitative Social Research - Participatory Qualitative Research
FQS is a great open-access journal and the latest issue is rich in theory, but also contains a fascinating range of case-studies from health, education, researcher-relationships in practice, gender and the emergence of non-Anglo-Saxon approaches to participatory research.

The challenges of maintaining a professional identity as a Ph.D. student

2012-02-01T11:59:00.001-04:00

As my (British) Ph.D. is, finally,luckily, coming to its end, I was reminded the other day of a conversion with a colleagueabout one particular challenge as a (development studies) Ph.D. student which oftenhas a significant impact on your academic, professional and personaldevelopment: When you sign-up for a Ph.D. in most cases you are for allpractical and technical purposes a ‘student’ again. Most institutions don’treally know what to do with your professional life before the Ph.D. and thatoften leads to finding validation elsewhere – with the potential negative sideeffect that the Ph.D. process takes longer and becomes more tiresome.

The nature of developmentstudies attracts many mid-career professionals. I had colleagues who wereprofessors/teachers at universities, directors of NGOs, country representatives ofINGOs and worked in ministries, multilateral organisations or Think Tanks - one even was a MP in his home country – inshort: they had a professional identity, institutional affiliation, a work plan, an office of sortsand sometimes tedious meetings about minor institutional issues to attend.There’s an argument that one of the reason for ‘going back to school’ is aboutgetting away from the stress, the routines, short-term-ness of the work oreven dangerous countries they worked/lived in. Students enjoy no longer having ademanding boss, not having to attend weekly meetings and not being responsiblefor a project/budget etc. But that’s a minority and the feeling of relief andfreedom rarely lasts for the 3-5 years that you will have to engage with thePh.D. Although I was relatively lucky that institutions like IDS include theirPh.D. students in their research teams, within the broader context of the highereducation student experience you are pretty much on the same level as a firstyear undergrad. You are not part of formal decision-making and nobody is likely toapproach you to ask ‘aren’t you that expert on [country]/[topic]?’. Even if youcan ‘upgrade’ to a teaching or research assistant, you are still unlikely toengage with the institution beyond your class or literature overview. Many proposalsdon’t include space/funding for Ph.Ds., decisions are made without priorconsultation and interesting meetings take place without you – because youdon’t work in the institute/department/university. Universities wouldprobably argue that there is a governance system for consultations and feedbackin place, but they also know full well that students, especially those whoconduct field research, will ‘disappear’ after a year or so. That outspoken andcritical student representative will last for an academic year and then s/he isoff to her fieldwork and upon return mounting pressure, changing personalcircumstances and new academic interests will deter him/her for gettinginvolved in university politics. In short, there is no risk for universitiesfor not taking advantage of their students’ potential and previous experiences.Students are supposed to pay fees and want to get done with their thesis.

‘Your proposal sounds so interesting’ – the dangers of shallow academicvalidation

One of the biggest challengesis that after the first enthusiasm and two conferences where people approachedyou and said ‘your proposal sounds so interesting and I look forward to readingyour articles’ there is little to no validation as part of the academicexperience. Engaging with students is great – but the routines of markingpapers and the ridiculously low pay make it difficult to get positive feedbackand self-esteem from the process. In all fairness, teaching often has more todo with the fact of who came forward and was willing to do it, rather than aselection process where academics other than your supervisor(s) looked at yourCV and said ‘we really want this person to teach this tedious “introduction to [something]”class that everybody hates’. In short, there are very few incentives foruniversities to engage with mid-career, professional students. But the questionis whether this is a good strategy. As (British) universities come under moreand more pressure to present the ‘right’ statistics of completion, studentsatisfaction and academic outputs, Ph.D. students should become betterintegrated into ‘the system’ - because otherwise they will seek validationelsewhere. It’s part of human nature to seek approval and appreciation and thePh.D.- and university-experience offers little of that. That’s when aconsultancy, a trip to a distant conference venue or speaking at anotheruniversity become attractive alternatives even if they add little to theoverall progress and professional development of the student. I’m aware thatone key element of the supervisor’s job is to keep you on track with thethesis, but that doesn’t solve issues around validation of expertise andexperiences. However, universities are unlikely to change anytime soon. Theyare not losing anything by excluding professional, and potentially critical,knowledge from their institution. Student numbers are high and growing and gettinga degree is the main purpose of the exercise anyway.

Future Ph.D. students: Be prepared to be sidelined - regardless of your non-studentidentity

So I guess this is also acautious warning to potential Ph.D. students: Be prepared that your journey maynot be built on your previous career, professional experience and personalinsights. You will be a ‘student’, getting discounts at the swimming pool andbeing eligible for a UK Railcard.
But you either have to work hard to berecognised as ‘colleague’ on the same level as formally employed colleagues oryou disengage from institutional politics which seems difficult in a‘politicised’, applied field like development studies. Participation, poweranalysis and good governance are well-known development buzzwords – but theyoften do not apply in your immediate context of ‘studying for a Ph.D.’.

But this is only my experience and I wonder if some of my wise readers have different experiences or tips they want to share on how to manage the identity challenge?
As always, any feedback is most welcome and much appreciated!

P.S.: In case you are contemplating to embark on your own PhD journey, I can recommend my 'classic' post
Should I consider a PhD in International Development Studies?

Links & Content I liked 09

2012-01-26T15:39:00.003-04:00

Hello all!

I really enjoyed teaching a class on The lives of aid workers –
Between transnational identities, local realities and conference rooms in 5-star hotels this week and this morning's new post is closely related to the question that many students have on how to engage critically and in a meaningful way with your first field experiences. But, as always, there are also a few other stories that have captured my attention this week.

Enjoy!

New on aidnography
Student question: How to use this experience to come as a sort of self-reflective practice of auto-evaluation and awareness-raising?
A recently graduated development studies student wonder how to use his DRC plans as a sort of self reflective practice of auto-evaluation. My reply is dealing with the power of the everyday, saying 'No' and enjoying small successes!

Development
Strength, Creativity and Livelihoods of Karimojong Youth

"We lost our cows and we resorted to hard and risky work in mines, quarries and murram pits. But we have not left the culture of livestock keeping behind. We are working hard to buy animals."
This is one of the findings of a group of young Karimojong men and women who spent November and December investigating the livelihoods of Karimojong youth through action research. The full findings have now been published in an image-rich book, "Strength, Creativity and Livelihoods of Karimojong Youth".
The team plan to give the book to those interested to learn about how life is today for young people in Karamoja and what has caused this to be. It illustrates the strength of the young Karimojong: their respect for others, strength of mind, flexibility, carefulness and knowledge and respect for law and tradition. The team suggests that when 'outsiders' come to work in the region they should read the book and find out what young people have to say.

A really interesting example of participatory action-research with young people with a pastoralist background in Uganda. In addition to their book there is also a short paper with methodological reflections available.

Sudan facts & figures

Since 2006 the Small Arms Survey's Sudan Human Security Baseline Assessment (HSBA) project has produced more than three dozen in-depth reports on aspects of armed violence, small arms, and insecurity in Sudan.

Great resources on different aspects of human security. Recent updates include the Lord's Resistance Army, the Justice and Equality movement and a Darfur peace process chronology.

The Top 10 Books on the Economics of Poverty

I asked for recommendations of books that would provide a foundation for my understanding of development, aid, and poverty. I recently revisited these recommendations as a member of the Opportunity Collaboration, and the following is a suggested reading list to provide a foundation for your adventures.

Interesting list without many surprises. My all time favourite when it comes to understanding development theory and history is Peter Preston's 'Development Theory'.

Fellow Ilaria Allegrozzi reflects on the aid industry.

I am convinced that many humanitarian workers are belonging to the “I-can-be-anywhere-and-I-don’t- care”-category of people, which are those who will conduct the same type of life no matter where they are. Goma, Nairobi, Ndjamena, Dadaab, Haiti, they will keep drinking beer under bomb attacks or post-tsunami affected areas without asking themselves a single question about why they are delivering tents and food to war refugees and IDPs. Many aid workers prefer meeting in fancy restaurants (always available in conflict zones) rather than reflecting on why they’re getting paid 3 or 4 times more their “local staff”. I’ve been told this is a psychological surviving strategy, a way to cope with suffering that people who are not used to it put in place. I don’t necessarily agree with this justification. I tend to blame the lack of curiosity and commitment of human beings. I also believe that many humanitarian workers go to underdeveloped countries, such are some in Africa, to try an exotic experience, to flee from their problems back home or to have living standards they will not be able to afford where they come from. Once they start, they love the money and find the lifestyle cool and fascinating, and they keep on rolling.

An Echenberg Human Rights Fellow writes about her experiences with 'the aid industry' in DRC. I always enjoy detailed, unfiltered, contemporary insights into the realities of aid work and the lifestyles that come with it. Ilaria experienced a reality that often seemed to be many miles away from the 'reflective practice' I and others write about (see my latest post from this morning for example). Her post is a good example of reflective writing - but also at times a testimonial of the helplessness of those who think against the flow and want to change things. It's still a long way until humanitarian aid is changing - if that is at all possible...

The great Nairobi guesthouse swimming pool dilemma – cast your vote now……

So what do you think? Should Oxfam open the pool and take any bad publicity on the chin, or should we stop whining? It would probably cost about $200-300 a month to keep the pool open – if we could find a way to do it without creating an accounting nightmare, we could probably raise that from contributions from guests, and even have money to spare to plough back into Oxfam programmes.

A very practical and honest post by Duncan Green on the related matter of guest house swimming pools (in Nairobi this time). Do check out the comments-they are definitely worth the click & scroll!

Anthropology
Nick Laird: Nepal

In this piece from our Writers Bloc project, our collection of essays about education systems around the world, Nick Laird explores education in Maoist-controlled Nepal.
The West has so absorbed the idea of the individual, that the advertising signs in Nepal are, to Western eyes, funny and crude (A billboard for Royal Stag Whiskey reads, Carve your identity. Make it large. Another nearby, for coffee I think, says, Express your attitude). The Nepalese people are still learning about capitalism, consumerism, and brands, even as the system that underpins these things in the West is shown to be fragile, false, and failing. Private education, with its similarly clumsy branding (New West Point), is part of that drive to Occidentalism. All the private schools I encountered, for example, insist on being “English-medium,” meaning everything—except Nepali classes—is taught in English. It is hard not to come away with a sense that the children are being reared for export. Nepal’s twin oppositional loves—communism and capitalism (and that mock individualism that underpins the latter)—are played out in the arguments over educational systems, and as usual it’s children from the poorer backgrounds who suffer.

A great piece on Nepal's education system. I always enjoy it when non-development experts and writers engage with development-related topics. And his observations are spot-on!

Academia
2011 Global Go To Think Tank Index Rankings

The Think Tanks and Civil Society Program produces the annual Global Go-To Think Tank Index that ranks world’s leading think tanks with the help of a panel of over 1500 peer institutions and experts from the print and electronic media, academia, public and private donor institutions and policymakers.

There are many interesting rankings in the report-and as always there are immeditately questions about methodology or the US-focus of global rankings conducted by American institutions. The top ten (20 more in the report on page 50) International Development Think Tanks are:

1. Brookings Institution – United States
2. Center for Global Development – United States
3. Overseas Development Institute (ODI) – UK
4. Harvard Center for International Development – USA
5. German Development Institute, Deutches Institut fuer Entwicklungspolitik (DIE) –Germany
6. United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research(UNU-WIDER) – FIN
7. Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars – USA
8. Institute of Development Studies – United Kingdom
9. International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) – United Kingdom
10. Konrad Adenauer Foundation (KAS) – Germany

I don't disagree with the ranking per se, but there are also quite a few institutions included that probably qualify for a separate list of 'Top Think Tanks you have not heard about'. I'm not suggesting that these institutions don't do quality work, but at least for the German institutions I'm not sure how global their impact really is. Good/close relationships with their home governments may be one indicator, but that contradicts the idea of 'global' knowledge and institutions...

Media Practice for International Development

Sussex University is launching an exciting new MA in Media Practice for International Development. With a part-time pathway that focuses teaching in an intensive one day a week, it is perfect for practitioners looking to update or extend their skills in digital media production and for those wishing to immerse themselves in theory and practice for a year in order to learn and apply new skills in a range of digital media for international development and social change.

A new course at Sussex. Almost a year ago I wrote about the idea of teaching social media in the context of development studies and I still hope that this will be part of the course!

Social media for trainers: think differently!

Why is social media so intriguing? I'm convinced social media puts online learning in the hands of the trainer. The traditional e-learning or e-learning1.0 was alienated from the trainings. With social media you can brew a powerful mix. However, the mindset of the trainer is still geared towards the 'trainer in front of the roon' model.

I also recommend Joitske's presentation on the role of facilitators and trainers as 'amphibians' who should move between online and offline worlds.

Rejection

Some methods of rejection are certainly worse than others, but at some level, there’s no way to make rejection not suck. With many qualified applicants for each position, it has to happen. And with the legal climate we have today, meaningful candor from the institution isn’t going to happen. That leaves boilerplate. I don’t like it either, but it’s a rational response to the incentives that actually exist. The best I can offer is that none of it is designed to be offensive or demeaning, even when it feels that way.

A very honest post on academic hiring and rejection (letters). Maybe I'm a bit naive or haven't been exposed enough to the American academic job market, but I was surprised that litigation seems to be a growing problem. Is it about the money (asking for, say, $10,000 which equals temporary teaching work for two years)? Or do applicants really think that this is a way to get a job (as in: 'Everybody, let's welcome John who threatened to sue us so we gave him a post')? We live in brutal times when it comes to finding employment...

Student question: How to use this experience to come as a sort of self-reflective practice of auto-evaluation and awareness-raising?

2012-01-26T09:21:00.001-04:00

A few days ago I received a message from a recent graduate from a well-known development studies programme who I should call 'Julian'. He is about to travel to DRC for his first experience in an African developing country. And he wonders about his potential engagement - especially with his recently acquired critical knowledge of 'reflective aid work' in the back of his mind. Because his questions seem to become more important for a growing number of students and graduates I will reply to his message publicly. I will try to be constructive in my reply, rather than taking a short-cut as in 'maybe this is all about you and your self-indulgent mission to "help" people', because I honestly don't believe that this is what Julian's message is about. So instead, I will focus on three themes: The power of the everyday, the power of saying 'No' and the power of small successes. Here's Julian's message that I have slightly edited to keep it as generic and anonymous as possible:

Hello Tobias:

My name is Julian, and I just finished my MA.

After [...] I had a look at your webpage 'aidnography' and read some articles (which I found really good, especially that on voluntourism.. by the way, thanks for sharing the tips on the free download of the 'deconstructing development discourse' book), I am here writing you to share with you and ask your perspective-advise on what I will be doing starting next month. I will go straight to the point, in order not to take much of your time, and with the risk of minimizing what has been a long-term personal idea. Before that however, I must say that I am a Mexican.

As I said, I just finished my MA, and in the next month I will be leaving for the Democratic Republic of Congo, hoping to be able to stay there for at least a couple of years, as this is something I have been wanting to do for a while (it was behind my idea of studying this MA) since I have been really interested on all the conflict and humanitarian situation of DRC.

In that sense, I will be staying the first few months with a friend that has been living there for more than 4 years, and is working for an NGO [...], and my idea is to get there and get involved and work with an organization in some way that, although I would like to say is meaningful (which would be having to much expectations of my background and formal ´education´), at least does the least harm possible.

The reason I decided to do this is, first, because I do not want to do this sort of ´voluntourism´ you talk about in your articles. I also think this kind of tourism is a way of feeding one own´s ego and the pocket of the indstry behind it. However, at the same time, I do not have the necessary work experience in the field in order to be selected in a formal international job application process, and I did wanted to go there and face the reality that DRC lives.

In that sense, and that is why I have decided to write you, during my MA I had the chance of having this lecture on ethnography of aid, which was very mind-opening and made me thing a lot of things, also by reading some ethnography as Mosse´s Cultivating Development and Crewe´s Whose Development.

I just say that because their ideas, and the whole critique of post-modernists and about aidland, is something I am really conscious and aware about, and which I will bring with me to DRC and is mostly present as an internal alarm against all pretention of believing I will go there ´to save the world´.

Therefore, Tobias, what I basically wanted to ask you with this long email, is how not to fall in the mistakes longly criticized by Mosse and Crewe (and many others), and how to use this experience to come as a sort of self-reflective practice of auto-evaluation and awareness-raising?

Thank you very much Tobias, I really look forward to hear about you soon.

Kind regards,

Julian

The power of the everyday
As wrote in the introduction, Julian is already aware of some of the main complexities of the 'aid industry', but his study experience has also raised some expectations about how to put his knowledge and skills to good use.
In the Introduction to a very interesting book on 'Encountering the Everyday-An Introduction to the Sociologies of the Unnoticed' sociologist Michael Hviid Jacobsen writes about the 'macro illusion' of much sociological research to capture big-scale developments, groups and societal shifts. For him, reclaiming the importance of 'everyday life' in research and writing is a key factor for publishing the book. In similar ways, I have the feeling that many students have been trained for 'macro' encounters and will almost certainly be disappointed if they seem to fail in living and working to these expectations. One of my all-time favourite social anthropological articles is Jerzy Kociatkiewicz and Monika Kostera's 'The Anthropology of Empty Spaces'. Without going too much into detail it's a powerful reminder to look beyond 'the action' and 'the crowd' and think outside the box-even if that means engaging with an empty space in a building. It's a reminder that 'understanding the conflict in DRC' may be a frustrating, futile exercise. I remember from my own experiences how many conflict advisors ended up running after breaking news or small political moves and thereby getting lost in a 'macro experience' that rarely produced any lasting impressions or meaningful insights. A self-reflective approach should embrace one's own everyday experience-and that includes the non-places, the non-events and the days when 'nothing' seems to be happening. 'Being there', listening, asking questions can be a powerful entry point for other forms of engagement. However, there's also a risk that the balance tips from 'reflective practice' to 'self-absorbedness', as Morgan Brigg writes in the conclusion to his article:

But his reflective task is not without dangers for there is an assumption, heavily relied upon and promoted by the self-help industry, that self-reflection and self-awareness are unequivocally valuable practice.

The power of saying 'No'
Ideally, engaging with the 'everyday' will bring you closer to a meaningful engagement with an organisation. The biggest risk is not that 'nobody wants you', but that real or imagined mounting pressure to find an affiliation leads to unsustainable engagments. My hope is that in the future potential employers, academic supervisors etc. will be less impressed by the 'gap year voluntourism' experience in your CV and more by your explanation why you did not spend time in an East Asian orphanage. This is also true for certain organisations, locations and missions. Reflective practice means knowing your limits, doing your research and keeping safe and sound. I would be more impressed if a young development professional told me that s/he was offered an engagement with a dodgy humanitarian NGO which s/he declined than any bragging about 14-hour days in war zones. Personal resourcefulness is as important as field experience-the two actually go together.

The power of small successes
Saying 'No' is also an important aspect when you realise that the country/organisation/project may not need you. Despite good intentions and preparations there is hopefully a moment where you realise that local professionals and organisations can do most of the work themselves-including their own mistakes (within 'do no harm' reason...). Maybe a local organisation will ask you to translate a document for a funding application even though you realise that this may not be the best donor. You can bring it up, but ultimately you are 'just' the translator...But I generally wouldn't underestimate small successes. Sending a reference on reflective practice to a colleague, listening to their stories and problems and showing empathy is all part of a reflective engagment in today's complex and often paradox realities of the aid industry.

These are some of my thoughts, but I'm also sure that some readers may have additional/different/contradicting experiences and as always, your comments are much appreciated!

In the end, I want to thank you Julian for coming forward and writing the message. I hope you will have a great time in DRC - even if it turns out to be less exciting (in a good way...), I think it will be a powerful and empowering experience for those around you-even if you are not 'needed' directly in ways you imagined in university.

Links & Content I liked 08

2012-01-18T15:09:00.000-04:00

Hello all!

Quite a few interesting, profound and quirky development-related things have caught my eye since my post last week - especially in the context of media & development - and there is also a new book review available! Enjoyment, comments & sharing welcome!

New on aidnography
Book review: Eleanor O’Gorman’s ‘Conflict and Development’

If you are looking for a concise introduction to the complex field of 'Conflict and Development', I can recommend Eleanor O'Gorman's book. Great for undergrad teaching and learning or for trainings!

Development

Seeing Beyond the River

In the video, Richard Kavuma of Uganda's newspaper The Observer describes the way Africa is portrayed to a river. This river is full of blood, guns, starvation and disease. These are the stories. However, he says, there is beauty growing right on the banks of that very river of reporting. If there ever was a strong simile for Western media's reporting on the global south, this is it.
Teasing it out a bit further, the proximity of the banks are important. They are impossible to miss, but easy to ignore when concentrating on the flowing river. Furthermore, it is the banks that are a major determinant of how the river flows. A narrowing pass forces the water through more quickly while wider portions slow it down and dams can completely control the flow. There are times when the river overflows, touching all that surround, but that is the exception rather than the rule.

Tom Murphy's summary of the video on the British Media in the Global South is among a range of postings on this video and topic. Actually, there are not many surprises in this video. 'Media' is mainly used as a synonym for 'newspapers' and 'television' and the stories about newspapers cutting cost and staff or the ever-increasing speed of 24/7 news is part of an often heard story of 'what can you really do?'. First, the knowledge and reporting gap will stay with us in the future. As television channels and newspapers are losing their young audience, they will continue in their ways for the remaining core audience for which a printed daily tabloid newspaper or a 15 minute 'news of the day' broadcast at a certain time in the evening will be the primary encounter with news and in this process with the 'Global South'. I am not sure how much time and energy should really be spent on engaging with outlets that are unwilling to go beyond the headline and the soundbite. Second, big, often publicly-funded, broadcasting already knows better - they are just unable or unwilling to bring this knowledge into the news mainstream. On the same evening when CBC Radio's 'As it happens' has a long story on the Haiti earthquake anniversary, including a critical speech by former Governor General Michaelle Jean, the television news have a 90 second piece of which I remember a reconstructed school and something about cholera. No depth at all. Same CBC in a way. Third, as some of the other links will show below, there is already an interesting and growing alternative media landscape 'out there'. Just because some old-fashioned journalist does not believe in blogging or local journalism does not mean it is not relevant. I like Jon Snow - he's just not an authoritative voice when it comes to development issues...

Running a hybrid - NGO and media cultures combine

Well, as an NGO running newspapers we are subject to the pressures of both. We can't afford to miss deadlines, to put out papers that readers won't buy, or to upset our donors too much by straying from our main objective - to make local government more responsive and accountable. Our donor support means we're under less financial pressure than a newspaper that's funded only by sales and advertising, but unless we get readers and advertisers, the papers won't survive long. All this can make life complicated, creating some tensions that are not easy to resolve.

Nice coincidence to read a story from the 'frontline' of local journalism, media development and NGO work in rural Tanzania.

The Rise and Fall of Poverty Porn

But in the last decade, there has been a fundamental shift in the way NGOs tell their stories. More and more, nonprofits are replacing misery with opportunity, making a bet on inspiring a sense of human connection rather than tapping into reserves of white or wealthy guilt. Part of this is strategic; it supposes that after decades of being battered over the head by relief organizations flaunting horror images, there’s not much left but table scraps in the guilt bucket.

The article highlights some interesting points, but fails in my view in putting it into the larger context of the evolution of the 'development industry'. PP still exists and is used widely, e.g. in the area of child sponsorship or for 'emergency appeals' - mainly on TV. Similar to my comment on news media above, PP is targeted at a specific group of people who have very simplified assumptions about 'development' - and who are unlikey to change soon. My second point is that 'bad news' are not automatically the equivalent of PP. Wars, poverty, displacement or working conditions - you name it - are still 'responsible' for grim pictures and stories. Yes, there are also hope, joy and dignity, but exploitation, the results of arms deals or many aspects of injustice are not easy on the eye. The really big challenge is to find a balance: Do not go for PP - but also do not go for a neoliberal version of entrepreneurial p@rn, maybe even promoted by foreign volunteers with good intentions. Nathaniel talks about a new 'generational sensibility' and new organisations that did not start as 'academic exercises', but by listening to local people. That's great. But the root causes of poverty and underdevelopment should still leave you uneasy, puzzled, maybe even shocked sometimes - so focussing on 'good news' will not be enough to 'end poverty'.

Let's not look for the Holy Grail

Development NGOs can no longer pretend to fight ‘poverty’ in a generic way, as if the same intervention strategy is applicable in today’s different poverty realities. They need to be targeted strategies that make choices and sharpen their focus and the knowledge base of their interventions. Although development NGOs are looking for a new answer in a time of identity crisis, they will discover that there is not a single new answer but several. There is no holy grail that will buttress NGOs’ future development work.

To be blunt, I did not find many of the 'Future Calling' contributions to The Broker's blog on the future of NGOs particularly inspiring. However, CORDAID director René Grotenhuis' contribution is a good summary of the debates with a balanced view for the chances and limitations of NGO in the future.

Metric Mania: The Growing Corporatization of U.S. Philantrophy

The fact, for example, that strategic philanthropies see no conflict of interest in having their staff serve on the boards of grantees just helps to underscore this observation. Strategic philanthropy thus shifts the focus from the grantee’s goals to the foundation’s agenda. This inevitably requires the grantee to be accountable for meeting certain benchmarks and outcomes predetermined by the donor. The fact that the donor determines what the metrics are is just the tip of the iceberg. The problem lurking underneath is, as the former president of the Ford Foundation, Susan Berresford, put it, “Most strategic philanthropy planning exercises involve using benchmarks to measure progress. But sometimes data miniaturizes ambition because they focus on what can be measured in the near-term, not what might be the most important long-term goals.”

This is a long, detailed and very interesting article, although it does not focus on 'development' directly (however, many of the large foundations cited in the article are active in international development). As 'setting up your own philantrophy' seems to be becoming more and more attractive in the U.S., one of the future trends that deserves more attention will be in how far the 'third sector' will start to look like the 'second' sector. The article is not condemning the corporate sector per se, but with more 'social enterprises', NGOs and other charitable activities mushrooming in the 'Generation Y' that Nathaniel mentions in the PP article above, it will be more important than ever to remind donors that complexity and development are difficult to measure and benchmark...

What do the poor deserve?
The first post on the new blog hosted by Tales from the Hood, Alanna Shaikh and Shotgun Shack. Definitely one to watch in 2012!

Anthropology

Shooting Freetown

A decade since Sierra Leone's devastating civil war, from the ashes rises a new dawn of creativity in audio-visual media. Inspired by Jean Rouch's ‘shared anthropology’ and ‘ethno-fiction’, Shooting Freetown follows three people forging their way in film and music in the nation's capital, facing the constant struggles with vision and resourcefulness. By incorporating collaborative video projects, their stories give a fresh image of post-war Freetown - presented to the world through their own lens.

Great documentary with lots of 'alternative' views from Freetown!

My Prishtina

Prishtina, where being famous is the same as having many friends. Where the nicest park is fenced to be reserved for politicians. Where Muslims celebrate Christmas, and one of the largest new buildings in the city is a cathedral. Where you work six days a week in a coffee bar, just to be able to pay for your coffees on the seventh day. Prishtina, where it is both a curse and a blessing to be an international. Prishtina, where friendship is everything.

A great poetic answer from Prishtina to the question 'What is development?'

Academia

Evolving Relationships: Universities, Researchers and Communities:: Special Issue: Journal of Community Informatics: University — Community Relationships

It is only through a critical examination of the broader context in which the community finds itself (and including such things as externally funded projects and programs) that the community can achieve the degree of self-understanding sufficient for it to undertake effective action both in the context of specific initiatives and in larger environments. Only in this larger sense would it become possible to design and evaluate strategies for self-development which, by recognizing the range of forces and interests within which the community is enclosed, would allow for some possibility of successful implementation at the community level and the broad achievement of the goals for implementation and collaborative action. It is through providing support in this latter relationship that the researcher/academic becomes not simply a source of “technical” support to the community but through the contribution of their analytical skills that the most dynamic and powerful relationships can be developed.

Behind a slightly confusing post title hides a fascinating collection of open-access published papers. As far as I can see none of them addresses the context of developing countries, but they should be interesting nonetheless to answer important questions about community and research-involvement.

The Value Gap

For the vast majority of colleges, however, the time has come to prove their worth if they have any plans to continue the price increases of the past several years. In the face of several stinging reports about the limited learning that goes on during the undergraduate years, prospective parents and students want to know if their experience will be rigorous enough to justify the cost and reap the rewards in the job market.

Sure, the climbing walls, the new dorms, the fancy food in the dining hall, and the sports teams will continue to be a sales tool employed by many colleges to reel in students. But academic rigor will play a greater role in the value proposition, as a simple credential will no longer cut it in some employment circles. And on that front, many colleges just don’t measure up.

The debates about the long-term value of college education and degrees is certainly not new, but I wonder whether there should and will be a debate in the context of development studies degrees, employment 'in development' and alternative paths to contribute to social justice.