Aidnography

Hi all, From #globaldev plastic words to inclusive conferencing and McDonald's & race there's quite a nice, eclectic mix of weekend readings ready for you!  Enjoy!   My quotes of the week The term ‘empowerment’ embodies a lot of wishful thinking (Confessions of a gender advisor: Why I avoid the word “empowerment”) When fast food gets into black communities and poor black communities in particular, however, it once again becomes this place with all these negative associations. Part of what gets lost in that frame is what is happening in the rest of the community. Why do people have to congregate there? Why is this the place where kids can hang out? Why is this one of the few places that’s open all night? The crime has already been done—the structural crimes, the chaos has happened. An uprising happens, and that is when there’s scrutiny on these places. It’s interesting that there are these negative associations with fast food because, in fact, what allows fast food to em

Hi all, Last week's review focused more on #globaldev professionalism; this week ICT4D, tech & researching, doing & reflecting on development in 'difficult places' are key themes! Enjoy! My quotes of the week They are recurring and systemic acts which affect society as a whole and involve us all. They emanate from historically unequal relations of power between men and women, which have established relations of domination and discrimination (...). One should, therefore, draw the coverage of these violences out of the miscellaneous news or «news in brief» columns where they are too often confined and approach them as societal phenomenons which deserve to be reported on the frontpage or in prime time in order to highlight their structural character. (“The coverage of violence against women fluctuates between silence and sensationalism”) In order to change that, for the past two semesters now, I have made it a practice of together with my students sending positive

Hi all,  Happy Valentine's, happy #globaldev reading & thanks for all your great birthday wishes! My quotes of the week Is civil society a means of providing service provision alternatives to the Government of Syria? Is civil society a means of improving local development in specific communities? Is civil society empowered as a means of politically transforming the Government of Syria? Is civil society support to be based on Western development theories and objectives, or on a more ‘community defined’ series of objectives? Is civil society being empowered for its own sake? ( Function Over Form: Rethinking Civil Society in Government-held Syria) The Academy has a huge way to go. I don’t even know if it wants to decolonize. Universities are bureaucracies, increasingly corporatized, we are hiring vice chancellors to be like CEOs, paying them huge salaries to get research grants. This is true in Ghana just like in the UK (How to Decolonize Academia. Interview with Prof.

Hi all, We just wrapped up to great days of teaching & it's late Friday afternoon-so I'll keep the introduction short ;)! Have a great weekend! My quotes of the week “They ignore us but without Rohingya involvement they can’t do anything in the camps, they can’t even understand us properly. They don’t know our language,” he says. “We are the nuts and bolts.” (Stop ignoring us: Rohingya refugees demand role in running camps) Which means moving from a pure documentary space to an editorial space, to ethical representation, where the goal is to help the world see the person we are photographing as someone who is worthy of respect and admiration despite their circumstances. Ethical representation is beyond obtaining consent to take the photo, and beyond making sure the subject understands how the photo will be used. Ethical representation is going beyond what the subject of the photo understands and working to represent and portray them in the best way possible, taking into ac