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Links & Contents I Liked 402

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Hi all, It feels good to be back after a short break (actually, I managed to write two new posts since my last review); the decolonized, diversified & localized 'future of aid' has not happened in the meantime as this week's articles remind us...but we are working on it :) ! Enjoy! My quotes of the week When I look at the work of the UNDP I no longer see a project aimed at changing the world and ending underdevelopment. Instead, I now see a political project aimed at perpetuating an evolutionist, Eurocentric and liberal way of understanding the world, showing as natural and universal something that is rooted in British liberal thought of the apogee of the colonial period. (Looking at the UNDP with different eyes) Amid all these flaws in efforts to promote governance, the result is something like “governance theater”. Tellingly, “governance” is always someone else’s problem to solve, never the speaker’s responsibility. The elites in Paris, Washington, Niamey, Ouagadoug

Celebrating the International Humanitarian Studies Association's first newsletter anniversary-A few reflections on curating humanitarian content

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A few reflections on curating humanitarian content & the limits of virtual knowledge repositories My colleagues of the International Humanitarian Studies Association (IHSA) encouraged me to share a few thoughts on the occasion of their first anniversary of IHSA's curated newsletter .   Blogging and curating international development and humanitarian content have played an important part in my digital life for almost ten years now and I recently shared my 400 th weekly development content review here on the blog and started to experiment with my own newsletter . But as tempting as positive metrics are, they cannot capture some of the bigger issues in our otherwise small community and we need to stay humble and realize that we are communicating in a very small bubble… One of the big challenges I have found throughout my years of communicating on social media is that expanding readership and engagement into any ‘popular’ arena is difficult and most nuanced content, often f

What a comedian in blackface says about German media, prevailing racism & ignoring colonial histories

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It all started with a Tweet... German public broadcaster from Bavaria aired a comedian who impersonated an African dictator (including blackface/white gloves) to “satirically” address recent cases of corruption within Christian Democratic Party CDU...it’s painfully offensive & financed through TV license fee https://t.co/Bd5Klf9rpr — Tobias Denskus (@aidnography) April 2, 2021 On the surface this is just another incident of “satire” gone wrong: Helmut Schleich, a German comedian with a monthly show on Bavarian public broadcaster BR (part of the ARD network of publicly funded broadcaster in Germany) recently showed up in blackface. As his alter ego Maxwell Strauss he portrayed the illegitimate son of Franz Josef Strauss who had turned into an African dictator of the fictitious “People's Republic of Mbongalo ” . So far, so Chinese state television bad. Playing with a lot of stereotypes associated with “Africa”, including corruption and strange diseases, the punchline centers

Links & Contents I Liked 401

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Hi all, For many of us these will be a few quieter Easter holiday days. Before I'm logging off & take a proper break (so no newsletter next Tuesday or link review on Friday!) I'm as happy as every week with my new discoveries of great writing, critical reflections on #globaldev & plenty of open access books + articles that should keep us reading & thinking for a while ;)! Enjoy! My quotes of the week As more and more African podcasts flourish, creators are not only using them as an avenue to tell stories, provoke discussions, and complicate narratives, but they are also choosing their audience; more often than not, listeners from the West are intentionally not at the forefront. (Podcasters Are Reclaiming Storytelling in Africa) I recently listened to a podcast from an international NGO about this — again, it was all about offering mentorship, speaking up a little less in meetings, hiring a Black or brown woman on your team, and offering speaking slots to women of

Links & Contents I Liked 400

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Hi all, I wish I had more energy & the right mindset to celebrate my 400th #globaldev link review properly, but for the time being I am just grateful for all the great, critical, sometimes uplifting & inspiring content that my project encourages me to engage with every week-so a big THANK YOU to all the readers, writers, sharers & lurkers that will probably keep me motivated for a while! Enjoy! My quotes of the week If you look at American workplaces at the moment I wouldn’t blame you for thinking that antiracism was quite easy. The speed at which diversity training programs mushroomed in the aftermath of the anti-police uprisings of the past summer, along with specialist gurus leading them, could easily lead you to think that antiracism was a set of politics best practiced in the bowels of HR departments. No Black bodies left dying on streets, no police stations to burn, just a stack of Robin D’Angelo books and late afternoon management-led sensitivity training sessions.