Aidnography

I think it was the moment the elections in Afghanistan got ‘buzzfeeded’ ( 30 Powerful Photos From Afghanistan ’s Historic 2014 Election ) that I decided to write a short comment around the issues of representation, rituals, liberal peacebuilding and how elections have become one of the most powerful contemporary signifiers of ‘development’ and ‘democracy’ . Media meet governmentality The changing (social) media landscape plays an important part in the spectacular rise of election coverage and its overstated representational role. Long gone are the good old days when all you saw was a guy emptying a ballot box in the back offices of the election commission in the capital city. Just enough for a BBC/CNN 60-second clip. Today, the state and international peacebuilding/development apparatus becomes visible in many more forms. I remember the ‘highest’ polling station in Nepal, ballot boxes being transported by helicopter, queues in front of polling stations and a 90 year-old lady who was p

I am back from Stellenbosch and Cape Town. The Glocal Classroom conference and ComDev seminar provided interesting food for thought for a researcher who is a relatively new professional in the field of ICT and global education. As always, these are my personal reflections, by no means trying to summarize the conference or to provide a comprehensive picture of all the presentations or discussions. My reflections will be focusing on three particular issues for the sake of keeping within the limits of a reasonably short and readable blog post: First, the admin-teacher gap in the ICT and education discourses, second, the powerful presence of multinational companies and third, challenges of designing a digital learning infrastructure beyond university-wide learning platforms or blogs. Assumptions and incentives, or: Dear administrators, please talk to the teachers! Most participants of the conference were actually not teaching staff of universities. Administrators from student or IT

Hi all, This week is a more essential and shorter link review as I am getting ready for my trip to South Africa. Great food for thought from MSF, WhyDev , on funding the revolution, aid in Kenya & 'studying up' in design anthropology! Enjoy! New from aidnography Aidnography in Stellenbosch & Cape Town I will be part of our ComDev/Glocal Classroom team that is going to travel to South Africa for a conference on ICT and education organized by Stellenbosch University as well as a seminar with colleagues in Cape Town. Two exciting and different events and you are most welcome to join us online or in person! Development Opinion and Debate: Either… Or - Building resilience is still not compatible with humanitarian aid Humanitarian aid does not offer a transformative agenda; it is a way of standing in solidarity with people in crisis as opposed to people in the West (still) trying to help ‘them’ bounce back. When I told colleagues and friends in Beirut that I was engag

Hi all, I will be part of our ComDev/Glocal Classroom team that is going to travel to South Africa for a conference on ICT and education organized by Stellenbosch University as well as a seminar with colleagues in Cape Town. Two exciting and different events and you are most welcome to join us online or in person! Stellenbosch Seboka 'Transforming education through technological innovation', 25 & 26 March The first day will be focusing on the experiences of the global network of partner universities which will lead to the second with a diverse range of presentations and discussants: • Keynote speakers focusing on examples of innovation and transformation of various industries through the utilization of Information and Communication Technologies. • Panels consisting of university senior management members as respondents focusing on how the integration of ICTs has potential for innovation and transformation of their particular universities. • Case studies focusing on be

Hello all, A packed weekly review with a special 'Development +' section that focuses on tech & digital issues...but let's start with a great photo essay on Western people doing mundane things followed by a new study on how Africa tweets, Nepal's slow and difficult transformation to improve women's lives, a great essay on labour-centred development as empowerment, new research that revisits large dams, a new book that challenges 'Protest Inc'; tech talent in Kenya, big data & resilience, new tools vs. old mindsets and essays on 'mindful' consumerism and 'digital Turks' round off the Development part. Two posts on 'digital pedagogy' in the Academia section and your bookmarks for weekend reading is complete! Enjoy! Development Unprecedented images of Western people looking just like you and me We have all wondered how Western people look like in everyday situations, behind the veil of exoticism that surrounds their myster

Hello all, Finally a weekly link review that's pretty much on time ;)! New research on peacebuilding rituals, old insights into Nepal development politics and how the ADB is only 'open' when it suits. There's more on the relationship between NGOs and journalists, a PhD thesis on OLPC, the limits of collaborative technology and 'hacking' as a life motto. In Academia , we look at whether African PhD education will be repeating OECD mistakes, mental well-being and innovations in collaborative learning! Enjoy! New on aidnography Performing Peace-building: Conferences, Rituals and the Role of Ethnographic Research The basic idea is to apply classic anthropological concepts such as 'ritual' and 'performance' to the expanding spaces where peacebuilding is non-happening, i.e. indoor events, workshops and conferences. As the excerpt from the conclusion indicates, the emerging 'ritual economy' of organizations and experts has become an important

Hi all, It is always great to see a final product after a long and winding publication process! As part of a special double issue of the IDS Bulletin entitled ' New Perspectives from PhD Field Research' , my latest article 'Performing Peace-building - Conferences, Rituals and the Role of Ethnographic Research' is finally available! As always, an un-gated pre-print version of the paper is available from Academia.edu as well. My article is based on my PhD research and the advantage of revising, shortening and rethinking some of the theoretical and empirical issues behind it is that the outcome should be a reasonably readable article-in line with the mission of the IDS Bulletin to publish scholarship in an accessible way. Abstract This article explores performance and ritual theory in the context of anthropological research on peace-building institutions and knowledge discourses, as well as the process of writing up an ethnographic PhD thesis. Based on fieldw