Aidnography

One of the numerous advantages of the blog is that I do receive interesting career- and study-related questions from readers around the globe. With their permission I will publicize some of the queries and share my nuggets of wisdom from my response...comments and further questions welcome! I would be grateful if you can advise me on my dilemma. I’m (from a Middle Eastern country) 33 years old banker with excellent experiences in investment banking and credit risk. I have always been disturbed by the extreme inequality and poverty in the underdeveloped world but unfortunately I haven’t had any opportunity to join a development agency. I looked for a connecting point where my professional experience in the financial sector and my interest in development can meet. So I earned an MSc in Development Finance (…) in 2012. I enjoyed the debates on the development very much and I produced excellent essays during my study. Again, the degree hasn’t helped me to find a development career

Hello all, There's the factual (elections in Zimbabwe, innovation in Kampala & more new publications), there's the critical (Are Canadian diplomats pampered? Are charity CEOs overpaid? Are RCTs overrated? Is Qatar really a wonderful place for academics?) and there's the uplifting (Why you should be less aid-cynical and why you need to be kind in your life-great graduation speech!) -- in other words: All the things you have come to expect from the weekly link review ;)! Enjoy! Development Zimbabwe’s elections 2013: more confusion, more uncertainty The political uncertainty that these elections have delivered means that, sadly once again, the immediate future is in the balance. Whoever individual Zimbabweans voted for, the final overall outcome may not be what anyone wanted – which was peace and stability. As a friend commented on the phone from Gwanda just now: "It's trouble again". Let's hope that a spirit of accommodation and compromise prevai

Hello all, Welcome to this week's 'field edition' of the link review, including German reality TV in Africa, taking children on field research and my own reflection on 'the field' as a site/place/space of contestation and struggle; Peacekeeping and organized crime, Nepal's deadly roads and responses to Peter Buffet's article round off the development section. The anthro and academia sections feature free access to classic anthropological research articles, job interview experiences, the question whether a university would have saved Detroit & a new initiative that challenges the holy grail of journal impact factor. Enjoy! New on aidnography ‘The field’ is where inequality persists–a reply to ‘Send them to the field!’ In my understanding of 21st century aid work, development research and anthropology we need to re-caliber our understanding of ‘the field’ to understand and challenge inequalities, (hidden) power dynamics and structural issues of the aid ind

Alison Rabe wrote a thought-provoking piece on WhyDev.org last week about the virtues of exposing oneself to the rural realities of developing countries to better understand how aid works, in short: Send them to the field! . J, the blogger formerly known as Tales from the Hood , posted a more practical reflection on why he thinks  ‘the field’ is often overrated and he also reminded us what hands-on skills matter in the industry. From ‘ putting the last first ’ to putting ourselves into the picture of aid work in the 21st century Alison makes a compelling case and I do not disagree with her per se . But as a development anthropologist I feel a bit uneasy about the construction of ‘the field’ as the rural reality compared to ‘the rest’ of aid worker’s geography, attitudes and mindsets. Alison argues along the line of the, shall we say, Chambersian School of Development : Putting the rural last first , field trips by bike rather than Landcruiser and immersing yourself in the realit

Hello all, Welcome to this Thursday's double feature (book review + link review)! Amartya Sen's words of wisdom kick off this week's post and there are quite a few more stories to enjoy: From the beltway development industry to participatory video, a call to 'send them to the field!', a balanced view on Kibera slum tourism and MSF's error reporting. Some guy at Yale wants to reinvent social science and African library leadership, advice on choosing the perfect place for a PhD and the reloaded 'prisoner's dilemma' wrap up the academic part of the review. Enjoy! New on aidnography Radical Approaches to Political Science (book review) You have to be a bit of a polsci nerd to fully enjoy Radical Approaches to Political Science. Roads Less Traveled , a collection of essays by German political scientist Rainer Eisfeld. But if you choose to indulge in this eclectic collection, I can almost promise you that you will come across new and interesting insights

You have to be a bit of a polsci nerd to fully enjoy Radical Approaches to Political Science. Roads Less Traveled , a collection of essays by German political scientist Rainer Eisfeld.  But if you choose to indulge in this eclectic collection, I can almost promise you that you will come across new and interesting insights from fields of inquiry that are certainly not political science mainstream or well-covered by conventional literature. And even though Rainer Eisfeld does not explicitly talk about ‘international development’ he actually presents quite a few things that are relevant in the context of regime (changes), history and the complex shades of grey that often get lost in dominant black and white narratives. The research and writings that were part of my undergraduate degree in political science in Germany were part of the canon that Eisfeld criticizes right from the beginning as ‘political studies (that) have largely been reduced to a functionalist science of “managing” pa

Hello all, Even if it's probably quite warm at the moment for readers from the Northern hemisphere, interesting development links don't melt down...photos from Nairobi kick off this week's review; a new initiative in Brussels highlights bad internship recruiting practices and in a stark contrast a war journalist talks about his love for his work whereas Alessandra Pigni reminds us of mindful aid work in the context of Palestine; inquiring into the 'Gates Effect', a long piece engages with the foundation's education work in the USA-and there's more on Spanish underdevelopment, children as tourist attractions and using social media for disaster preparedness. Enjoy! Development Photos from today's work I'm training a youth group from Dagorretti on communication skills. Practical ones. Motivation is high. My friend Pernille shares some impressions from her work at the outskirts of Nairobi. WP/2013/068 Evaluating governance indexes: Critical and l