Aidnography

Hi all, My blogging year is coming to its end. There is still some grading and reviewing to do and the spring semester courses also deserve a little attention-so I will share some reflections early next year after a moment of rest. I am looking forward to hearing from you in 2021 and you can stay safe & reasonably sane ;)! I included some excellent long-reads and essays in this final review of 2020 which should tie you over the holidays! Happy holidays, thanks for reading & sharing-see you in 2021! My quotes of the week Foreign money also equates the commotion of democracy with risk. “We’ve seen a lot of investors going abroad, looking at places like Morocco or Egypt that are authoritarian countries and present the same cheap, skilled labour force but with less trouble, less social demands,” says Youssef Cherif, the director of Columbia University’s Tunis Centre. ('He ruined us': 10 years on, Tunisians curse man who sparked Arab spring) But are overenthusiastic hashtag...

Hi all, One thing I realized this week was how our sector likes to talk about reforms of the #globaldev & humanitarian system...and then you come across an investigation into the UN's Ebola response & all the talk about 'coordination saves lives' seems just that...this week there's even more on language, jargon & visual representations, the strange case of Portuguese returnees from Angola in 1975 & much more! Enjoy! My quotes of the week Australia will spend nearly $1.2bn on offshore processing this financial year, even though fewer than 300 people remain in detention in Papua New Guinea and Nauru. That’s roughly $4m for each person. (Budget blowouts: offshore processing costs $1.2bn for fewer than 300 people) “We need to move away from the world of people sitting behind desks, moving bits of paper around, to making the real heroes of the project the person that is really delivering the school … Strangely we've created a world where too often all the...

Hi all,  We have a full #globaldev reading schedule this week! From Plexiglass to child soldiers, from MSF to UN & FCDO, from Bolivia to Bangladesh & so much more! Enjoy! My quotes of the week These institutions were designed under colonialism and they remain in key respects colonial in character. (Apartheid in the World Bank and the IMF) The first priority of the FCDO’s strategy should be to ensure the UK lives up to its values domestically and in its relations with other countries, if it wishes to have its efforts taken seriously. (To promote open societies globally, the FCDO must be more realistic, politically savvy and self-aware) In a younger, angrier, increasingly impatient world, a distant club of men in dark suits is doomed to irrelevance. Where the UN matters is on the ground, deploying its remarkable mandate to fight for those who need it most. (Slow Death or New Direction for the UN?) As we deploy more and more plexi barriers to support our own purity and securi...

Hi all,  I am tired. I know we all are. I was fortunate to talk with great students in Edinburgh and Malmö this week about media, development, reflective practice and how important empathy is when you 'do' #globaldev. I hope you are also managing and have time to read a little bit this weekend, especially if you are tired from US  Thanksgiving & the global spread of Black Friday and need critical food for thought... My quotes of the week The event, which included performances of music, dancing and drumming, began with a reading by Cyndi Celeste, whose poem “This Space” aptly conveyed a timeline of how colonialism turned the enslaved “from human to cattle, from person to chattel” — and how Barbadians are now reclaiming the space for themselves: It is interesting how many tales the cobblestones of a place can hold How many times a space can dawn a new face, How many new stories unfold: Watch this space. Watch the way this square transforms before your very eyes […] (Barb...