Aidnography

I recently shared an article by Milli Lake and Sarah E. Parkinson on political scientists ‘out-dangering’ one another in their field research in fragile states. The ‘exotic’ site of the past has turned into a ‘volatile’ one where presumably a lot of publishable and communicable ‘action’ will happen. The authors warn us academics to ‘ take the practical and ethical components of (fieldwork) planning and implementation more seriously ’. Only this week did I learn about ‘combat charities’ thanks to a short CNN video that apparently shows the Free Burma Army fighting in Mosul and an article in the Washington Post on the family behind one of its leaders who had moved to Mosul ( ‘ It was just an average day for the Eubanks, who describe their work as a calling from God ’ ).  In some ways, the two stories are connected and I wonder whether some radical humanitarians ‘ out-danger ’ one another and the international development and humanitarian community paying the price for more blurr

Hi all, Welcome to a packed Friday link review! Development news: The UN’s ‘new way of working’; political inaction and the Congo; Canada’s feminist foreign policy; Facebook roles out disaster mapping; how to fix the humanitarian system; automation will destroy jobs in Africa; can Africa’s youth ‘hustle’ their way out of unemployment? The gender digital-divide in Myanmar; climate change projects as empowerment opportunities; opinion leaders use social media for development information; a little donation will not end poverty; how can practitioners & academics come together? 220 pounds for a visa for Nigeria? Twitter responds :) Our digital lives: Design education’s lack of understanding power; mansplaining; print it out and they will change! Publications: E-Book on dependency theory; ODI on the Grand Bargain; IMS on media environment trends; anthropology of social media in South India. Academia: Can facebook become a learning platform? A poem on a university’s brand new commu

I read Platforming - what can NGOs learn from AirBnB and Amazon? by Paula Gil Baizan, World Vision ’s Global Humanitarian Director for cash based programs with interest-but also some astonishment. I disagree with a lot of her arguments and the general sense that (I)NGOs and other humanitarian actors should turn into entities similar to the giants of platform capitalism. First and foremost, I find it quite astonishing that a senior manager of an INGO does not even hint at the hidden cost, exploitation and side effects that platform capitalism comes with. It is a bit more complicated than ‘ Amazon and AirB’n’B are good with data’. From the, shall we say diplomatically , difficult conditions in Amazon ’s warehouses and its broader corporate culture to the bigger issue of precarious employment (e.g. Deliveroo in the UK ) or the challenges AirB’n ’ B is increasingly posing on urban rental markets and related service industries (e.g. in New York , Barcelona or Berlin ), a picture emer

Hi all, I spent the last three days at a great conference ! But I also managed to post a new book review and submit my link review on time-I'm definitely digitally exhausted right now... 24m-high @unicef warehouse, fully automated in #Copenhagen , great excursion as part of #2017HHLCONF pic.twitter.com/FfkCEM3Vps — Tobias Denskus (@aidnography) June 9, 2017 Development news from Yemen, UK, Ethiopia, Syria, Bangladesh & Canada-plus much more #globaldev stuff! Our digital lives with Western 'poverty hero' narratives, investors in Kenya & calling out big data BS. Publications on humanitarian challenges & impact of counter-terrorism measures on NGOs. Academia: Academics 'out-dangering' each other; decolonising development knowledge & the dreaded 'Should'... Enjoy! New from aidnography Kenneth Warren and the Great Neglected Diseases of Mankind Programme (book review) From my point of view the book was certainly an unexpecte

I stumbled across Conrad Keating’s biography of Ken Warren, a tropical medicine and philanthropic pioneer at the Rockefeller Foundation , by chance and was immediately intrigued. Kenneth Warren and the Great Neglected Diseases of Mankind Programme-The Transformation of Geographical Medicine in the US and Beyond covers many interesting aspects of my research interest in (auto)biographies and historical accounts of and from seminal figures in the context of global development. It also tells us a lot about the academic, research and international aid industries from the 1950s until his death in 1996 and invites the reader to reflect about all the changes that have happened-and the stability of some discourses that surround us today. Warren, ‘a scientific investigator ahead of his time’ (p.7) pioneered research on tropical diseases at the interface of medical and what we today what call ‘public health’ research and as program manager at the Rockefeller Foundation he was instrumental i