Aidnography

Hi all, Welcome to this week's link review! Development news: Crack-down on war-zone child abuse; MSF & #AidToo; how can aid sector communicate ethical dilemmas? AI hacks humanitarian jargon; how development graduate education should change; value for money in UK aid; Germany's colonial past in Namibia; police, violence & vengeance in Africa; can aid organizations support social movements? Memory, violence & peacebuilding in Sri Lanka; the liminal space for foreigners in Vietnam. Our digital lives: UK's growth of the 'digital compassionate industry'; clay jocks are a thing on Insta; digital PTSD is real. Publications: The limits of participatory M&E; the limits of for-profit initiatives in the humanitarian sector; the limits of crowdsourcing accountability in Uganda. Academia: Small ways to support your female colleagues. Enjoy! New on aidnography Of lofty ideals, dual careers & long-distance motherhood - guest post by Milasoa Chérel-Robson

I am very excited to host another great guest post! Milasoa Chérel-Robson works for UNCTAD and her reflections on the challenges and trade-offs of combining her international career with family duties highlight many personal insights into bigger debates in gender and development. This is a perfect long-read for the weekend after Mother's Day that spans a historical trajectory from Madagascar and the socialist aspirations of the 1970s to the limits of “leaning in ” in Geneva and contemporary Rwanda where Africa is celebrating a bright economic future. On 21 March 2018, I was in the hall of the Kigali Convention Centre with hundreds of other guests. We were all listening to “hauntingly beautiful songs” throughout the signature ceremony of the establishment of the Agreement for the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). Taking in the historical dimension of the occasion I told myself: “This is why I made those choices”. I had spent the previous months, thousands of kilom

Hi all, I'm back with another packed reading list for your weekend! Development news: #AidToo updates from African Union, UN & EU; the dirty war in Cameroon; female Afghan coders & the opportunities of digital work; peak hype for insurance & development schemes? Ethnographic documentary from Maputo; will Mayors solve the refugee crisis? Journalists of color to follow; a major conference 'did not consider gender' when planning m/panels-plus tweets & fancy UN PR. Our digital lives: Is the open plan office sexist? Does crypto repeat tech's gender inequalities? Do squatters need discipline? (Yes! to all of those questions!) Publications: RCTs produce biased results (no really!); ICT4D & digital labor; mobile phones in the Pacific. Academia: Powerful essays on depression & graduate studies, indigenizing Canadian academia & the competitive hardship of contemporary ethnographic research; plus, 10 types of meetings you love to hate! Enjoy! New f

I am honored to kick off the week with a powerful guest post by my colleague Ami V. Shah, Assistant Professor of Global Studies & Anthropology at Pacific Lutheran University . We have been discussing many issues around decolonization for a while and I am thrilled that she shares her reflections here on Aidnography ! Ami also tweets as SeenFromAfar . Dear Colonialism, I’m writing a letter to you, because I’m not sure you’ll listen when I talk. You claim that you want to come back to my house, and that in fact, your visit will be good for me. Dear colonialism, I do not agree. Especially since you have yet to leave my house. When you arrived you were uninvited. I do not need to document the tragedies that unfolded under your watch. I do not need to document the painful legacies that you created. Others have done so more eloquently, devastatingly, and, indeed, empirically than I might right now in this short letter. You might want to consult with them. You claim that you have been ign