Aidnography

Hi all, After a week spent mostly working from home, focusing on two research papers, I am happy to focus on 'lighter' writing in a way with the latest link review! Development news: Humanitarian access in South Sudan and Turkey/Syria; 360 degree immersion in Sudan; Sierra Leone’s unfair tax system; The struggles of Kenya’s middle-class; Garment production in capitalistic Myanmar; social relationships and evidence; responding to unsolicited feedback; #mediadev and accountability; Can Chicago learn from Bogota? Reflections on traveling, volunteering and photographing abroad. Our digital lives: Lovewashing is the new greenwashing; avoiding #allmalepanel (except when American political consultants meet); the happiness industry is a burden. Publications: Improving aid HR; studying the datafied society; the Internet as history; big data and sexual surveillance. Academia: What do Economists actually know? (It’s a long-read, not a rant!); women and scientific authorship; higher e...

Last week the UNOG Staff Coordinating Council shared the results of its 2017 Global Staff Satisfaction Survey 2017 , “in which 4,000 of you took part last week, representing ten percent of staff.” As a social science researcher I can confirm that this is a very sad case study of “how not to present survey results” and clearly not worthy of the UN system, its staff and the important issues that are raised in the report. Some of my concerns are simply about the poor presentation of findings (in the sense that most advanced undergrad students of pretty much any discipline should know better), but there are more concerning issues with the results that border on unethical (social) science research practices. First of all, sharing an unedited 200 page pdf-document that does neither list the questions that were asked in the survey nor includes basic demographic data, e.g. distribution of respondents along organizations, gender, age, country, employment level etc. makes it difficult to assess...

Hi all, Lots of great development and #ICT4D stuff this week! I am also a bit tired after a long week of meetings-so no witty introduction ;)! Development news: Global Fund’s leadership drama; how to address inequality in Indonesia? Cobalt mining in DRC; South Sudan-segregation through aid? Afghanistan, the birthplace of drone warfare; hacking development-a manifesto; messaging apps and disaster response; effective feedback mechanisms; the digital development glossary; MSF staff reflects on burn-out; re-imaging volunteerism in Australia; voluntourism in Kenya; what are good exit strategies? Aid work and capitalism.  Our digital lives: Who talks on US television? Instagramming food and perpetuating stereotypes; Zuckerberg read through the lens of anthropology.  Publications: Digital development in Africa; Gendered (in)securities in South Sudan Academia: In defense of the lecture; the Oxford degree that runs the UK  Enjoy! New from aidnography Men Engaging in the ...

Hi all, I usually don’t start the weekly review with my own stuff, but I worked quite hard on my longer essay on the state of development-there’s even a pdf-download to make it look serious ;)!  Development news : Lake Chad crisis; cash project in Lebanon challenges donor practices; rebranding health charities in Canada; Australia’s big aid conference; development & the future of work; financial journeys of refugees; gender, ICT4D & data; we need to be generous in development work.  Our digital lives : Design Thinking discovers decades-old participatory development truths; Uber is a big, bad company; can facebook fix journalism? Anthropologist researches check-cashing industry.  Publication : An interesting PhD on journalism & journalists in Kenya. Academia : Big Pharma pay s big bucks for academic expertise; a history of big data . Enjoy! New from aidnography From impact to transformation: Do-Gooders, Multicolored Saviors and development as lifestyle...