Aidnography

Hi all, This week's review is a bit shorter-but I'm really pleased that it's packed with great content written by women & featuring women plus a lot of food for thought on 'surveillance capitalism' large & small... Development news: WFP teams up with Palantir, welcomes 'mature debate' on data; Gucci & blackface; UK's successful aid; time for a change at the World Bank; women humanitarians in Fiji; curvy women in Uganda; Amnesty's martyrdom culture; the only black woman at the philanthropy dinner table. Our digital lives: Fighting billionaires; surveillance capitalism essay; the strange case of book covers in the digital age. Academia: Are you listening to the right music to be productive? Enjoy! New from aidnography How Development Projects Persist (book review) But Beck’s book is also an important reminder how traditional and ‘innovative’ manifestations of capitalism are constantly expanding, looking for new places, subjects and c

Erin Beck’s ethnography of two Guatemalan micro-finance non-governmental organisations in the context of local development dynamics and global discourses of aid is a valuable contribution to the aidnography genre, yet also raises some important questions about the future of how anthropologists can research and write about the local manifestations of global development. Based on her extensive doctoral research in rural Guatemala, How Development Projects Persist. Everyday Negotiations with Guatemalan NGOs sets out to create a vivid and intimate account of the women ‘beneficiaries’ of two NGOs. Namaste , a traditional foreign-funded organization, and Fraternity, a grassroots organization with a more holistic vision of personal and community development. The book centres around her comparative ethnography which, perhaps less surprising for an academic audience, highlight Namaste ’s ‘successfully institutionalized audit culture’ in a professionalised context of ‘hiring procedures, (…),

Hi all, A good, rich, interesting #globaldev week is coming to its end! Development news: IMF doesn't like global consultancies (no, really!); new humanitarians; DfID's privatization; don't believe the Gates & Pinkers of the world! UNDP reform, Vol. XXVI; Scammers target Finland's development funds; menstruation myths; Pakistan's doctor bride myths; women empowerment data myths; a private security company disappeared in Afghanistan; Senegal's new museum of black civilizations; Cacao & blockchain; altruism meets voluntourism; Chiwetel Ejiofor in Malawi; humanitarian dogs; musicians in DRC. Our digital lives: Facebook sell-outs. Publications: How to be a good guest; UNDP & media engagement; a book on good data. Academia: Sleep, exhausting & being a black woman in academia; MOOCs didn't disrupt much; an autoethnography of research application writing. Enjoy! Development news IMF chief tells poor countries to cut use of global consultancy

Hi all, The first week of our new semester was busy, but the #globaldev news front was actually a bit quieter...nonetheless some interesting stuff featuring Clooney, Prendergast & the Spice Girls, a strange tale of an American missionary who seems to have practiced medicine without a license in Uganda, a harrowing story about violence & trauma in South Sudan and the extension of imperialism via women at the top of the military-industrial complex & as political ambassadors in Germany... Enjoy! New from aidnography Can you imagine a world without Think Tanks? Perhaps the answers to the title of the post are less rhetorical than the title suggests, but I have been wondering lately what the role of Thinks Tanks in the international development industry really is. (...) It’s 2019 after all and I wonder what would happen if they/many/some weren’t around anymore. Haven’t other institutional arrangements caught up to think-tanky ways of working? Development news 8 things w