Aidnography

The David Lammy/White Saviour versus Stacey Dooley/Comic Relief debate is an excellent opportunity to look at some of the core elements of ritual communication behind many debates in international development-especially when charities and celebrities are involved! At the time of writing the debate has already followed the first seven or eight steps and I’m pretty sure that it will go full circle between now and Red Nose Day 2020… 1. Don’t learn from past debates It is worth remembering that this is not some obscure debate a few development bloggers have pointed out. In late 2017, Comic Relief got called out for their video of sending Ed Sheeran to Liberia. A quick reminder from a December 2017 Guardian piece : The Sheeran-fronted Comic Relief video, during which the singer offers to pay hotel costs for street children in Liberia, verged on “poverty tourism”, according to the jury. (...) “Ed Sheeran has good intentions,” she said. “But the problem is the video is focuse

Hi all, Welcome back to another week of #globaldev, well, craziness & serious stuff about our favorite industry! Development news: Comic Relief pulls another White Savior stunt; something rotten with WFP food supplies; Germany sells arms to Yemen; under-reported crises; can we sue the World Bank now? Burberry pretends to learn from mistakes; what happens to left-over aid supplies? Cash transfer programms meet ground realities; women in African armies; White Savior-the movie (spoof); Sweden's first gender professor at the Defence University; Jason Hickel wants to get rid of UK aid; on hearts & hearts; a new source for female experts Our digital lives: A world designed for men (almost) breaks the Internet...   Publications: Literature review on ICT4D & jobs in Africa; how many publications do you need for a tenure track job?   Academia: UC system cancels Elsevier subscriptions; should academics fly less (again...). Enjoy! Development news Stacey Dooley trolled for

Hi all, I attended Lisa Richey's inaugural lecture yesterday, wrote a new book review & travelled to Germany this morning for a trip to see family and attend a workshop next week! So without further delay: Your #1 #globaldev link review for this week! Great to see so many familiar faces at @BrandAid_World 's inaugural lecture on "commodifying compassion"; expect some #globaldev live tweeting :) — Tobias Denskus (@aidnography) February 21, 2019 Enjoy! New from aidnography Thirst (book review) Like the pinkification of breast cancer awareness, the commodification of mindfulness or the depoliticization of Oprah’s book club, this mix of American ‘can-do-ism’, a good dose of ignoring learnings from the past and a firm neoliberal outlook that avoids any tough political questions (I don’t think ‘climate change’ or any other cause for dry wells is mentioned in the book) are bound to write a charitable success story! Water is always a source of life-never one of c

After I watched a quite terrible promotional video from charity: water and ended up buying its founder and CEO’s biography Thirst. A Story of Redemption, Compassion, and a Mission toBring Clean Water to the World  I was prepared for the worst. But despite my extensive readings of aid worker biographies and a fairly critical approach towards ‘disruptive’ charitable ideas in development Thirst surprised me in some ways. It is one of the most, for lack of a better word, schizophrenic development tales I have read in a long time, the tale of a 21 st century charity that fundraises millions and positively impacts the lives of millions-and a tale about a lot of things that are going wrong in contemporary development whenever a white American man is looking for ‘redemption’ and needs to find it in a village in Africa. Thirst is definitely a book you should read, but with a different educational trajectory in mind perhaps than the author intended; rather than seeing Harrison’s journey

Hi all,  A year after the Oxfam scandal broke & the #AidToo movement started it seems like a lot of business as usual in the #globaldev industry... Development news: Erik Solheim & the well-known story of UN leadership problems; Angelina Jolie in meme territory; after the Oxfam scandal; some Tories want to cut UK #globaldev; Belgium's racist past & present; Congo's rigged elections; is Canada's feminist foreign policy a fraud? Miss Curvy Uganda & the objectivication of women; how UNHCR want to address gender imbalances in their innovation stories; Kenya's DNA-based ID system; UNICEF innovation; how to make extractive industries more accountable?  How aid disrupts local markets for journalism; DfID media development efforts; does aid benefit the rich? German museums & their colonial past. Our digital lives: People liked the Gillette ad. Publications: Lower vaccination rates in Pakistan thanks to CIA undercover mission to capture Bin Laden. Acad