Aidnography

Hi all, It’s Friday again-and it has been quite a busy week link-wise! Development news : In addition to the story of the week that MSF pulls out of the World Humanitarian Summit there is more food for thought on what the summit can or cannot address and achieve; how refugee situation is changing journalism; t he complexities around Gambian asylum seekers; frontline photojournalist on dilemmas of telling stories with the one picture; street children in Bangladesh; a scathing review of humanitarian failure in Nepal; the politics of inclusive development; office jargon Our digital lives on empowerment and disempowerment in the digital age; TED founder on how we all will be better off watching more TED talks Some great new readings , including IDS anniversary bulletin; a classic book on gender and sexuality is rediscovered; what ‘open’ means and how scholars look in their scholarly online profiles. Finally, Academia with 21st century reflections on ethnography and writing an...

I never planned this when I started my blog, but it is interesting how one of the themes that keeps (re-)emerging here is topic of how new forms of capitalism inform, interact with and inspire the aid industry.  Some of my posts in the last few years addressed MBAs and their limited merit for development , how precarious labor spreads through a growing volunteering sector in EU countries as well as book reviews on philanthrocapitalism , social entrepreneurship or the self-help myth . Therefore, I was not surprised when the Wall Street Journal presented Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff as a 'trailblazer' for a new generation of companies and executives who are keen on combining people's needs with profits - Silicon Valley start-up-style... Thank you @WSJ and @monicalangley for allowing us to discuss the new corporate social responsibility https://t.co/FfWu6CJXq9 — Marc Benioff (@Benioff) May 2, 2016 As important as his initiative is to speak out against North Caro...

Hi all, Your Friday and weekend deserve some new, critical reading suggestions! Development news on Thomas Friedman’s ‘just ask two people’ journalism; Barbie Savior is fun-so what? @UN is slowly catching up on social media discussions; a new short documentary to ‘Kick at the Darkness’ of aid worker stress; advocating against ‘conflict minerals’-it’s complicated; EdTech in Africa under neoliberal conditions; ICT4D and the absence of ‘the poor’; inside the development innovation machine; Nepal misses yet another opportunity to recover from crisis; Our digital lives on designing tech not just for men; the ‘polite’ open data movement is often politely ignored; video advocacy as evidence. Academia : Feminist hacking & Making and a critical look at the ‘slow professor’ manifesto. Enjoy! New from aidnography A former ‘frustrated senior aid official’ talks-and the Daily Mail is happy to spin a story of waste and lying bureaucrats But the question is whether talking to an outlet like t...

As part of my engagement with popular and public (re)presentation of development issues, I have commented throughout the years on how mainstream media, e.g. CNN , NYT , BBC , the SUN , Oprah Magazine or Globe & Mail report aid-related topics and what we can learn from these shortcomings for development communication. Kilian Kleinschmidt, a self-confessed ‘frustrated senior aid official’ recently spoke to the Daily Mail and the result is an interesting case study and teachable moment for those interested in communication for and about development: UN refugee camp chief: We wasted millions. Why? Because - reveals whistleblower in a stunning admission - we were obsessed by photos of stars in our T-shirts The headline is probably algorithmically enhanced and not meant to win a Pulitzer prize, but it creates a nice causal chain around the issues at hand; it seems to be about the ‘UN’, ‘waste’ and ‘stars’ in T-shirts , stuff conservative news media’s anti-development dreams are m...

Hi all, After a busy week of teaching, blogging and ranting about #allmalepanels let's enjoy the new week with fresh food for thought! Development news features a great think-piece on how empowerment became a product for women to buy; more input for the World Humanitarian Summit; special ICT4D section feat open data challenges, hashtag fails, challenging platform capitalism & the story behind hacking Hacking Team; Our digital lives with a new Twitter tracking app; Etsy's struggle to be a perfect marketplace; how Instagram is ruining vacations (and soon development communication?). New readings including new open access book on Africa; handbook for modern development data peeps; using useful evidence & the bottom of the data pyramid. Finally, in Academia a look at a new MOOC study on job skills and MOOC users in developing countries. Enjoy! New from aidnography Keep uploading papers to ResearchGate so its founder can pursue his beach volleyball ambitions There i...