Aidnography

Hello all, This week, the highlights of the link re v iew are distributed evenly across the three sections: In Development there are intere sting debates on 'Generation Z' & HR, the ethics and value of 'bi g d ata' and why policy-makers like to emb race 'uncertainty' unless they actually have to make a decision... This month's Himal Mag feat ures a n article from Sri Lanka that reminds peace resear chers that violence often affects 'post- con flic t' societies in many different ways than the actual war; in Anthropology there's a very interesting essay on Napoleon Chagnon and the long-lasting debat es around his research on the Yanomami tribe and how it has kept the discipli n e busy over many years; and in Academia the Th esis Whisperer asks the provocative question whether 'academic assholes' are calling the shots and w hether 'ci rcles of niceness' can be a coun terweight. Enjoy! New on aidnography WhyDev guest

Last week, Brendan Rigby and I publ ished a post tog ether over at Wh yDev.org , reflecting on People in A id ’ s annual report ‘ The State of HR in International Humanitarian and Development Organisations’. I a m highligh ting a few key excerpts below, especially on making sense of ‘ Generat ion Z ’ and that new HR challenges in the aid industry need to be discussed further in the context of academic institutions and development studies courses. You can read t he full post here: Bringing sexy back: the state of HR in development work 2013 (...) One of the biggest challenges that the report tries to address is that it shares best HR practices and presents humanitarian HR as a professional managerial discipline within the aid industry. When it comes to teaching, training and mentoring (see for example the case study on Save The Children’s cooperation with executive management coaches for new country directors, p.15) humanitarian HR certainly tries to look at ideas from other sec

Dear all, Due to a longer post o n The Global Journal 's Top 100 NGO ranking (see below) and another forthcoming piece co-written with WhyDev 's Brendan Rigby, this week's link review is a bit shorter than usual. That doesn't mean that there aren't some interesting, thoughtful pieces included, of course. Jemima Sherpa 's reflections on gr owing up as an upper-middle class girl in Kathmandu raises some interesting questions about old and new 'elites', the limits and dark sides of global cosmopolitanism, (post-)modernity and how live is different and at the same time the similar for many girls and women around t he globe -all written in a much more thoughtful and poetic style. In some ways almost the opposite is Enrique Mendizabal 's long essay on Think Tanks in Latin America and how they have been changing over time. And in the academic department, Eunice Williams describes her 'Life as a Job-Market Captive', with an interesting discussion

It is probably fair to say that T he Global Journal ’ s Top 100 NGO r anking had a bit of a bumpy start. When it launched th e first edition in 2012, Dave Algoso’s critical post and editor Jean-Chr istophe Nothias ’ harsh critique quickly dominated the virtual perception in the aid blogosphere. So when the second edition was published in January 2013, vaguely hinting at ‘innovation, impact and sustainability’ as key new criteria to assess NGOs, I was sceptical and mentally preparing for more critical comments. Luckily, the researcher in me won over the potentially ranting aid blogger and I sent out some messages to a variety of organizations featured in the ranking as well as the editorial team asking for more details on process and methodology. I received open and positive feedback all around and one 20 page methodology paper, a couple of email exchanges and a 25 minute phone c onversation with one NGO later, a much more nuanced picture had emerged about the ranking, learning pr

Hello all, One of the things I like about my weekly link review is that's it's always a bit unpredictable. So this week's list is much more eclectic and there isn't really a 'theme' , well, that's not entirely true I guess. There are some interesting links 'working in development', e.g. getting 'hands-on' experience or the power of internal organizational referrals. There are also some interesting links dealing with the changing nature of academic reputation building, including Academia.edu's story and a new software to assess you 'impact' differently. But there are also many more interesting stories. Do check out Durham University's 'Writing on Writing' archive featuring short contributions from established social scientists on the nature of, well, writing in academia; and in case you are still stuck in a meeting, why not try out the 'DevCliche' bingo...and just as I was wrapping up the review Ed Carr posted a