Aidnography

This post is based on my first six months of working and teaching at Malmö University in Sweden. Even though I do not want to and cannot claim universal application of the emergence of the ‘blended professor ’ I still believe that some emerging trends may be interesting to share-explicitly not in the listicle style of ‘the four things that will change academia forever and ever ’. What we will likely see more of is a generation of academics that will use (or forced to use) a mix of blended technology, pedagogy and skills – from TA-ing as a professor in a MOOC to adopting teaching from near-high school levels to PhD supervision. This may not be as ‘radical’, ‘revolutionary’ or ‘disruptive’ as fancy op-ed writers claim regularly, but especially for those at the beginning of their academic careers or post-graduate studies it will be important to think about some of the changes of academia as a profession in the nearer rather than further future. To keep it readable I will focus on four...

Hello all, A busy week with a full plate of interesting links! New literature on conflict prevention and ICT and the limitations of 'trickling down/up' accountability through technology; more on ICT pilotitis; goodwill ambassadors and good ideas gone big and bad... My reading recommendation for this week is Natalia P. Hule's essay on the pros & cons of being a development professional in India and beyond. Two anthropologists ask challenging questions about the afterlife of generals in Sierra Leone and life under democracy in Mongolia. Lastly, a look at redefining MOOCs, CaSs & POOCs and a great essay on the birth of social media science. I am on my way to Berlin, but there will be new content on aidnography next week; however there will probably be no link review as we are busy with our ComDev retreat and teaching seminar at the European Liberal Arts College. Enjoy! New from aidnography Online lecture on development, fiction & development fiction As part of ...

Hello all, As we are approaching the 100th link review we have another great week with great pieces written by some great friends! This week features IDS' new digital repository; a new report violence and suffering of Nepali migrants; Oxfam, USAID & the difficulties of really listening to stakeholders; the futile 15 seconds of fame that come with post-2015 MDG exercises; NGOs, M&As and the business of aid; German TV & refugee p€rn; would you tell an energized crowd the truth about development? Behavioral economics-what are they good for? Why the revolution will not be open datazised; and a look at an ideal college. Enjoy! New on aidnography Popular Representations of Development (book recommendation) This collection highlights how if we look beyond conventional academic studies and policy reports - for example to films, posters, or fiction - then we may learn something new. For example, we may find forms of knowledge and representation that humanise development proces...

David Lewis, Dennis Rodgers & Michael Woolcock recently contributed a piece to the Guardian on Why dry academic journals are not the only source on development. Their reflections are part of a larger project that has now been published in a great new book Popular Representations of Development-Insights from novels, films, television and social media . Together with my colleague Daniel E. Esser we contributed a chapter to the book on social media, Twitter and global policy summits, based on earlier work on the topic . Even without the self-promotion the book is a very timely and interesting contribution to the debate on how 'development' is presented, represented & discussed outside the narrow confines of academia and the odd mainstream news article: Although the academic study of development is well established, as is also its policy implementation, less considered are the broader, more popular understandings of development that often shape agendas and priorities,...

Hello all, My own reflections on 'posh white blokes' in development kick off this week's review. But there is more, of course: On inequality & the World Bank, the new modern slavery index, slow peacebuilding & high housing prices in Nepal, Female Engagement Teams in Afghanistan (sigh...), talking to/with armed groups, gold smuggling in DRC, young girls & ICT, poor multinationals that need to kick out smallholder farmers & development-relevant reflections from Teaching for America; plus something on MOOCs along the lines of 'you have to spend money, to maybe save money later'... Enjoy! New on aidnography You (They) wanted an aid industry – you (they) got posh white blokes So academia, journalism and the start-up sector - all under different pressures to perform well in the capitalist market place - are having similar problems that the current state of continuous transformations favors posh white professors, bloggers and IT gurus. And then there are t...

In a detailed and well written piece for opendemocracy, Guppi Bola reflects ‘ On posh white blokes ’ and her discussion she had with Ben Phillips, the original writer on ‘ Posh white blokes-holding back the struggle for a fairer world? ’ in development and NGOs. But what is very interesting in Guppi ’ s list of key enabling factors of PWBs (Internships, pay inequality, rights of short-term contract workers, decision making & hierarchy, all male panels, training for solidarity and equal opportunities) is that many of these areas of the aid industry are discussed along very similar argumentative lines elsewhere: Sarah Kendzior just asked in an excellent piece ‘ Should academics write for free? ’ , the launch of the German edition of Huffington Post started a widespread debate about the future of journalism ( ‘ Huffington Post's German edition launches to mixed reception ’ ) and Mother Jones recently presented ‘ Silicon Valley ’ s Awful Race and Gender Problem in 3 Mind-Blow...

Hello all, Welcome to another weekly link review! This week's development section is focusing on a really broad range of topics-from news reporting in Philadelphia to why the ICRC does not like computer games, UNICEF's image archive, a new book on media & the 1984 famine, Sri Lanka's fragile post-conflict boom, unpaid care work plus Bill Easterly declaring the big aid debate over. And do not miss a great new organizational ethnography on UN's Human Rights periodic review process and why 'creative writing' is really just GYAOTC.   Enjoy! New on aidnography Rebuilding the News: Metropolitan Journalism in the Digital Age (book review) C.W. Anderson’s Rebuilding the News: Metropolitan Journalism in the Digital Age, a media ethnography about news reporting in Philadelphia raises some interesting questions not just about news in the digital age, but also about organizations, adaptation and how to engage with different audiences. (...) “My old medium is dying, a...