Aidnography

Hi all, A busy week with #LintonLies going viral is coming to an end...but other interesting things happened as well, for example Madonna visiting an orphanage in Malawi ;)... Development news: BBC on humanitarian broadcasting; the complexities of Nepalis working in Afghanistan; cash-transfers in humanitarian situations; more fundraising is the best capacity building; Some evidence why ‘Rationalia’ may not be our dream state. Our digital lives: Recent U.S. police killings and powerlessness of social media; add to your critical dictionary: ‘empathy-washing’; Twiplomacy also works offline; analyzing Instagram images    Publications: Development by Numbers & technology for evaluations in fragile states Academia: A reflective essay on a writer’s year on the road; theorizing academic identity in the digital age.    Enjoy! New from aidnography #LintonLies: How Zambians Are Using Social Media To Talk Back I spoke to Zambian writers about Louise Linton's boo...

Hi all, Welcome to an almost Brexit-free link review that focuses on the mundane absurdities, LOLs, but also thoughtful insights that a week in development communication has to offer. Development: A celebrity travels to ‘Africa’-and there are pics and Tweets to prove it; the role of documentaries in development story telling; a new book on orphanages in Cambodia and the power of ‘failure’; managing UN bureaucracy; ‘sophisticated programming’-between complexity and overwhelming local capacity; supporting media innovations in West Africa; poetry and poetic reflections on writing ‘development’. Digital culture: Bengali click farming; @sree lost his job-a contemporary story of self-branding; how L.A. wants to make open data meaningful Academia: Dean Dad listens to new community college students. Enjoy! New from aidnography New research article on ritualized conference spaces & the evolution of peace research professionalism in Germany It is important to engage with community prac...

As it often happens in academic journal publishing my latest article From Social Movement to Ritualized Conference Spaces: The Evolution of Peace Research Professionalism in Germany has been work in progress for quite some time. This is the final product based on my doctoral research project . The article takes a qualitative-historical approach to investigate how discussions, gatherings and discourses of peace research in Germany have been transformed over time into ritualized events. Over time, traditional ideas of open and inclusive debates within a social movement have been replaced with the rituals of the academic conference industry. In proper academic language The article employs anthropological ritual theory and the concepts of symbolism and liminality to provide a theoretical framework for analyzing ethnographic insights into the academic peace research community in Germany. Using secondary sources for a broader historical outline, I analyze the evolution of peace resear...

Hi all, It's Friday and you deserve a break from #Brexit news! So enjoy some critical development reading and explore what shapes our digital lives! Development news: NGO ranking behind paywall; UN’s ethical failure; Bolivia rejects Gates’ chickens; Connecting the unconnected in Bangladesh? Pakistan’s low tech Uber; how can ODI communicate better? Virtual Reality is kind of hot right now; Public-Private partnerships in foster care & the transformation of the poverty industry; small stories and ownership of big data in Liberia; reviewing MacAskills’ book on transforming giving. Out digital lives: A cynical app is rewarded; what true crime addicts and development amateurs have in common; the first-ever Snapchat movie Publication: New IDS Bulletin on ruptures in the Middle East. Enjoy! New from aidnography Disrupted (book review) Even though my review tries to link core themes of Disrupted to my own professional world and broader questions of the aid industry, I can recomm...

I picked up Dan Lyons’ book Disrupted-My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble because of my general interest in insights from other sectors and industries that may help us to understand the future of ‘our’ aid industry better. My first book reviews dealt with the ‘outside world’ and historical developments elsewhere and Disrupted is a good book to take up my reflections again on the future of work, corporate culture and the changing nature of what professions and careers might look like in the near future. After being laid off from Newsweek , 52-year old tech journalist Dan Lyons joins HubSpot , a tech start-up on the brink of becoming a big software and digital service company. Lyons turns his version of media industry ‘quit lit’ into entertaining insights from inside the start-up bubble, contemporary office culture and a marketing discourse that seems to have become a parody of itself. Everyone works in vast, open spaces, crammed next to one another like seamstresses in Banglade...

Hi all, Time flies…it’s Friday again and you expecting your fix of interesting links and readings for the weekend… Development news: Save The Children’s Saudi connection; the dark side of development communication; USAID shows a sense of humor; more futures of humanitarianism; child labor; UK spends aid money to support private schools; can RCTs become political?; poverty is not a lack of character; new aid work(er) movie. Our Digital Lives: Spoof TED talk on thought leadership; are fast food restaurants the new community centers? Newsletters for community building; a lot of media people to avoid #allmalepanels. Academia: Sounds like an experiment: How husband and wife started in academia and how their careers were impacted by gendered assumptions of the industry; PhD students and critical thinking; despair fatigue. Enjoy! New from aidnography Angus Deaton does not like aid-but he likes the World Bank of 1996 "I think the World Bank should become a huge consultancy firm that...