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COVID-19 | Revaluing essential workers by Karin Astrid Siegmann

By ISS Blog Bliss 1 May 202016 May 2020 5012 views

This year we are celebrating Labour Day in a very different way—the world we live in has changed dramatically over the past few months because of the COVID-19 pandemic and our collective and individual responses to it. As economies are shut down, many people are for the first time realizing that essential workers keep the cogs of societies oiled and turning. Yet many essential workers remain underpaid and underappreciated. We should realize that these workers are nurturers and deserve living dignified lives that can only be achieved if our economic system is critically examined and transformed.

A new hero has emerged in the wake of measures to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus: the essential worker. A global crisis like the one we are facing now raises our awareness about how essential care and food are for human flourishing. The underlying logic is very simple: essential workers are life-making rather than product- or profit-making. Care and food workers therefore top the list of occupations whose work is critical to the COVID-19 response that many governments have published.

Amidst collective clapping for nurses and radio spots praising the role of domestic workers for containing the coronavirus, it is easy to forget that today’s essential workers were the precariat of the old normal. Around the world, care and food workers find themselves at the bottom rung of wage and social hierarchies. In Pakistan, for instance, earning the minimum wage remains a distant dream for the vast informal workforce in agriculture and domestic service. For female workers, this income poverty is aggravated by a wide gender wage gap. Female community health workers called ‘Lady Health Workers’ have been recognised as key to the improvement in maternal and child health indicators in rural Pakistan since the 1990s. Yet, for many years, these vital medical professionals were paid ‘stipends’ at half the minimum wage and not offered regular contracts like other public employees.

This pattern is not much different in a rich country like the Netherlands where I live. Here, the majority of farmworkers are migrants from Central and Eastern Europe on zero-hour contracts. Their hard work in horticulture has turned agricultural export income in the Netherlands into the world’s second highest. Yet, their employment contracts provide neither work nor income security for themselves. Many domestic workers who raise their Dutch employers’ children and care for elderly persons are undocumented migrants whose precarious legal status prevents them from realising the few rights to social protection that they are entitled to. The status of their work is the tail lamp of common classifications of occupational prestige. Only sex workers fare worse in terms of social stigma, while their work satisfies the human ‘skin hunger’ that has turned into a veritable famine in the context of corona-preventing quarantine.

Thus, while symbolic and literal applause for essential workers reveal a level of cognisance of their importance, in fact, the coronavirus crisis even aggravates these workers’ precarity. More often than not, the additional workload for medical personnel and domestic workers to provide quality emergency care to infected persons and prevent further spread of the pandemic through cleanliness and hygiene is not balanced with overtime work compensation. Pakistan’s Lady Health Workers have even seen cuts in their anyway meagre compensation.

In addition, many migrant domestic and sex workers have lost their jobs, but their legal status and/or their occupation’s stigma imply that they are not entitled to government relief packages. Migrant food workers face a cruel choice between infection at work, in crammed transport or accommodation quarters where social distancing is impossible, or the loss of their job and livelihood. Leyva del Río and Medappa hit the nail on the head when concluding that: “The ‘heroes’ of this crisis, those who are sustaining our lives, are barely able to sustain theirs.”

While many observers now demand a revaluation of essential work in a new, post-corona ‘normal’[1], the examples above demonstrate that this is unlikely to be an automatic consequence of the new symbolic recognition of the importance of food and care for our wellbeing. In contrast, they flag that the ongoing crisis is likely to further erode life-sustaining activities. How can this revaluation be achieved, then?

Historically, higher wages, better social protection and more recognition have resulted from workers’ collective struggles. Falling through the cracks of government support in rich and poor countries alike, that’s what today’s essential workers are doing, too. In the Netherlands, for instance, organised migrant domestic workers and sex workers have set up emergency funds, called on clients to continue to support them for as long as the crisis continues, and demanded social security independent of immigration and employment status from the Dutch government.

Given the commonality of their concerns, if networked, these struggles have huge potential to shape a post-corona future that provides essential workers with the recognition they deserve. The call to listen to and take on board essential workers’ own insights in reforms towards greater labour justice and more nurturing societies is the shared starting point of many food and care workers’ organisations. They typically agree that the intersecting hierarchies of gender, race, sexuality and immigration status that condition the precarity of their work and lives need to be addressed head-on in moves towards greater rights and respect. Last but not least, a choir of diverse, yet, united essential workers’ voices is more likely to add volume to their demand for recognition, decent working conditions and inclusive social protection for all workers – and evoke positive public responses.

These suggestions are not some unworldly utopia, but reflect existing, encouraging practices. A few years back, I asked a Mexican domestic worker from Texas why she had travelled all the way to Ohio to join the rally of an organisation demanding justice for Florida’s migrant farmworkers. Her answer was: “They support our struggles, we support theirs.” The demand to value people over profit unites them.

These are some starting points for how the ongoing coronavirus crisis can teach our societies whose work matters most for nurturing humans. Let’s not waste this opportunity.

I am grateful to Thierry Schaffauser, STRASS for his thoughtful feedback on an earlier draft of this post.

[1] It is encouraging to witness that a diverse group of colleagues formulates and shares similar ideas (e.g. Ebata et al. 2020, Jaffe 2020, Koebe et al. 2020, Leyva del Río and Medappa 2020, Mezzadri 2020). The ideas outlined here are also in line with and specify the demands of broader visions for sustainable post-Corona scenarios (see e.g. https://www.degrowth.info/en/feminisms-and-degrowth-alliance-fada/collective-research-notebook/ , https://www.gndforeurope.com/covid and https://braveneweurope.com/manifesto-for-a-more-sustainable-and-fairer-netherlands-after-corona ).

This article is part of a series about the coronavirus crisis. Find more articles of this series here.

About the author:

Karin Astrid Siegmann is a senior lecturer in gender & labour economics at ISS.

COVID-19 | Is deglobalization helping or hindering the global economy during the coronavirus crisis? by Peter A.G. van Bergeijk

By ISS Blog Bliss 29 April 202030 June 2020 4281 views

We are only starting to see the economic impact of the COVID-19, but it is likely to have far-reaching effects and will result in unprecedented economic transformation. We are currently in a phase of deglobalization and the impact on livelihoods is closely linked to how we respond to the pandemic. The bad news is that we’re not yet responding very well. The silver lining is that we will nevertheless stay globally connected.

Suddenly deglobalization is no longer a hypothetical possibility, but a reality: the IMF in its April 2020 World Economic Outlook predicts a reduction of the world trade volume for this year by 11%, which pales in comparison to the 13% best-case scenario of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in which the economy is somewhat robust and its 32% worst-case scenario that sees the world economy in free fall.

What can we learn from earlier periods of deglobalization?

World openness 1880 – 2021

Source: P.A.G. van Bergeijk, Deglobalization 2.0, updated using IMF WEO April 2020

The Great Depression of the 1930s with its enormous negative impact on world openness and economic welfare was preceded by the worst pandemic of the previous century: the Spanish Flu. Estimates of its death toll vary widely from 20 to 100 million fatalities. With a world population of about two billion people, that amounts to a mortality rate of 1-5%. With COVID-19 these numbers look like a chilling possibility as well.

The pandemic that preceded the Great Depression did not cause it. Recovery of the recession triggered by the Spanish Flu was relatively quick and spontaneous. World trade did not collapse. A major difference between the context of the Spanish Flu and the economic background against which COVID-19 now is emerging is that our world was already in the downward phase of Deglobalization 2.0 when COVID-19 hit. The pandemic appeared at top of the deglobalization wave.

Pandemics are signs of the times

Indeed, in hindsight the Spanish Flu was a sign of the impact of a virus on a globalized world, in a sense a warning of a turning point in globalization. That turning point was due to the rising costs and decreasing benefits of globalization. It would bring the world what I have called Deglobalization 1.0.

COVID-19 can of course not be seen as such a sign, but the fact that preparation for pandemics was not sufficient, in addition to the breakdown of international cooperation, reflect the second underlying mechanism of deglobalization. We can observe both in the Great Depression of the 1930s and in the Great Recession that the leading power of the time (the hegemon) deserted the rules of the game that underpinned globalization and were actually designed by its interest in an open trade and investment climate. An open, stable and relatively peaceful system allows other countries to develop and grow faster, capturing a larger share of the benefits of globalization. In the early phase of globalization, a smaller share from a larger economic pie may still be an improvement. At some point, the costs of being a hegemon, however, outweigh the benefits. This is where the emergence of China as the new hegemon comes into play.

It is ironic, but sad, that the United States and the United Kingdom (the hegemons that helped to build a constellation in which trade, democracy, and peace were reinforcing aspects of the world order) are spoiling global and European governance. Proceeding with Brexit is a dangerous mistake, but it is an outright disaster that the United States, in the midst of a pandemic, has cut its support to the World Health Organization, in the same vein as it paralysed the World Trade Organization earlier this year. This attack on global governance is dangerous, but it is not unexpected—it is after all behaviour that one can expect from a declining hegemon in a period of deglobalization.

Lessons from history

The first thing is that isolationism offers no protection against a highly contagious virus. Indeed, probably the scariest thing about the Spanish Flu was its ability to reach even the most remote corners of our planet. Mind you, that was a world without mass tourism, global production networks and refugee flows. We have also learned that sound policies can counteract the negative economic forces that turned the 1930s into the Great Depression.

I do not think that the expansionary monetary policy does any good in this crisis that is essentially a negative supply shock x it is perhaps best seen as a signal – but support of effective demand is welcome especially if it can be organized more efficiently by focusing on the needs of new industries that we need to fight COVID-19—machinery and protective gear for the health sector, the testing industry (including case monitoring), distribution and logistics, and ICT. Finally, we have learned that the deglobalization virus in the 1930s spread especially in autocratically governed countries, but that it first showed up in the democratic world during the recent phase of deglobalization.

A striking difference between autocracies and democracies is the difference in death toll of the virus, and it may reflect the fragmentation and lack of solidarity in modern democracies.

Room for optimism

The first reason to be optimistic is because of the significant resilience of world trade and investment during global crises. Global firms have had a good exercise with the collapse of world trade by 20 percent in 2008. That collapse did set in motion the process of deglobalization, but the good news is that world trade and investment recovered to previous peak levels within a year. The finding that deglobalization started during the Financial Crisis is also a reason for optimism because Deglobalization 2.0 thus preceded Brexit and the “Make America Great Again” movement.

We should not confuse the symptoms and the disease. The attack on supranational governance has an underlying disease that can be cured if we fight the underlying causes that have driven the deglobalization process so far, that is greater inequality and a lackluster trickling down of the benefits of international trade and investment.

And last but not least, the outlook for openness of the world economy is still much better than in the 1930s. Yes, deglobalization exists. Yes openness will be much lower than previously expected. But as illustrated in Figure 1, it will in all likelihood remain at a level that is two to three times the level in the 1950s. Even if trade and investment flows would decrease according to the WTOs gloom and doom scenario our societies would remain much more open than in the 1950s, connected via the internet at a level never seen before in history.

This blogpost appeared April 21 on Edward Elgar blog and is reproduced with permission. Readers of Bliss can order the paperback Deglobalization 2.0 by Peter A.G. van Bergeijk at a discount (enter VANB15 in the discount code box at the basket stage of ordering here). The article is part of a series about the coronavirus crisis. Find more articles of this series here.

About the authors:

Peter van Bergeijk (www.petervanbergeijk.org) is Professor of International Economics and Macroeconomics at the ISS.

COVID-19 | Increased surveillance during the COVID-19 pandemic reveals the emergence of a new architecture of global power by Jacqueline Gaybor and Henry Chavez

By ISS Blog Bliss 24 April 202016 May 2020 4411 views

Central to efforts to fight the COVID-19 pandemic has been the monitoring and prevention of the spread of the virus. To do so, governments need to keep discipline amongst their populations and limit their movements. While new big data, artificial intelligence technologies and control mechanisms are being implemented, we are witnessing the emergence of a new global structure of power built with our digital traces. As the intertwined history of epidemics and states shows, the utility of these new trends and devices should not be solely evaluated in terms of their effectiveness in controlling the spread of the virus, but also in terms of their consequences for the global structure of power and the future functioning of states.

History is replete with deadly contagion episodes that have decimated populations. Viruses, these little “insignificant” beings (Žižek 2020), have created the conditions for the emergence of several devices and institutions that have become the very bases of modern nation states. Looking back, censuses, quarantines, hospitals, biometric registers and even punishment for disobedience were first conceived to be necessary to shorten the chains of infections and control the spread of diseases.

But once the crises were over, these devices were kept and instrumentalized by governments to better control their populations and territories and exercise their sovereignty. They became what Foucault called a disciplinary model of power (Foucault 1975). This model, based on a panoptical architecture (Bentham 1995) of societies and institutions, has been working, improving and spreading around the world since the 19^th Century. In this panoptical model, found for instance in prisons, hospitals, or schools, a watchman position creates a feeling of constant surveillance among the population, which triggers them to ‘behave themselves’ (assert self-discipline).

Marseille in quarantine. A naval officer with his family
The man who brought the plague to Milan

Source: gallica.bnf.fr / BnF (National Library of France)

The unprecedented scale and speed of responses to the COVID-19 crisis we face have unveiled a process of profound transformation in the architecture of power around the world. The panoptical disciplinary model from the 19^th and 20^th centuries seems insufficient to retain order in an increasingly interconnected and complex global system. The global lockdown we are part of is a step backward that reveals the weakening of the disciplinary model that supports modern nation states. At the same time, it reveals the emergence of new trends and devices with an unprecedented capacity to reshape, in a short period of time, human practices, imaginaries, and policies around the world. A huge transformation is taking place without a prior careful analysis, mostly based on new forms of population control and surveillance.

Mass harvesting of biometric data

An important distinction from other historical health crises is the largely unquestioned mass harvesting of biometric data—what Yuval Noah Harari (2020) has called a transition from ‘over-the-skin’ to ‘under-the-skin’ surveillance. Through this transition, largely sustained by contactless technologies, such as cameras measuring body temperature in airports, or at the entrance of Buddhist temple (as shown in the picture below), we have come to normalize images of temperature, breath, and heartrate screenings. But also, any actions that bear a resemblance to coughing, sneezing or blowing our noses can be collected and reported. This data is being used to identify possibly infected persons and control their mobility.

Buddha tooth relic temple, Singapore. 09 March 2020. Credits: Peter van Leeuwen.

The public seems to be rapidly accepting the risks involved with providing biometric data for prevention purposes, but caution is needed: While these devices may help solve urgent public health concerns, we do not know how they will be used afterwards.

Using apps to ‘manage the spread of the virus’

The emergence of mobile ‘coronavirus apps’ is another phenomenon that has become an integral part of collecting biometric data and limiting citizens’ freedom of movement during this pandemic. The Alipay HealthCode app was developed for the Chinese government to assign users three colour codes based on their health status and travel history, and a QR code that can be scanned at any time by law enforcement authorities. The app has specificities according to each city, but the three color codes[1] are a general commonality. The app relies on self-reporting by the user integrated with medical information provided by the government[2]. Yet, the app does not make clear to users what data is being stored, who can make use of it, and how it is used.

The global chaos has pushed different governments around the world to adopt approaches that have been conceived and designed under authoritarian regimes. For example, Andrus Ansip, Vice President of the European Commission, promoted Singapore’s TraceTogether Bluetooth-operating app as a key component for preventing COVID-19 spread in the EU. Countries like the Netherlands are looking at apps to trace the movements of citizens, but are facing resistance in light of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) that prioritizes anonymization and privacy. Despite a strong common legal framework, we see the EU struggling to choose between ‘giving in’ and disregarding the complexities that the technological solutions impose on privacy rights in order to contain the spread of the virus, or protecting the rights of their citizens to privacy and the future of their democracies.

As the intertwined history of epidemics and states shows, the relevance of these new trends and devices should also be evaluated regarding their future consequences in the structure of power and the functioning of the states. Which of the array of devices, technologies, and policies imposed to us during this crisis will governments or corporations keep in the aftermath to exercise control over their citizens and reinforce their power? The reality in the Global South is even more complicated, considering their limited technical capacities and lack of privacy regulations.

A new architectural power design

The current global quarantine reveals a weakened of the panoptical model, a lack of capacity of the states to keep discipline and order among their populations. However, the emergence of new trends and devices suggest that a new architectural power design is in the making: an omniopticon model. This model offers the same disciplinary advantages of the Bentham’s design, yet it is designed in a virtual space. In this model everybody can be seen, heard, localized, measured and predicted without the necessity of towers, walls, windows, or watchdogs. As in the panoptical model, it doesn’t matter who exercises power, or even if there is someone actually watching: the discipline is internalized by fear.

However, two differences can be identified. First, this new model is not limited to the actual existence of institutions or physical spaces that discipline individuals. It is diluted around us; we contribute to it every day through our digital traces, our physical movements, eye blinks, and heartbeats. It can be anywhere in the world at any time and therefore it cannot be contained or driven by limited entities as the modern states. We are facing the emergence of a global structure of power with no modern political entity capable of controlling it.

Secondly, the Bentham’s ideal model guaranteed that the watchman position is held by any individual and therefore anyone outside the panopticon could supervise the watchman. A form of accountability to prevent a tyranny. In the omniopticon, the feature of accountability is replaced by automation led by big data and artificial intelligence technologies. No human can hold the position of the watcher, neither can they supervise something they don’t understand. As in the quarantines of the 17th century, this new disciplinary model that is taking over will lock all of us (the watchdogs included) in our cells, leave the keys outside the doors, and will leave no-one to reopen them afterwards.

[1] Green allows individuals to travel relatively freely, yellow confines individuals to their homes for isolation, while red indicates individuals with a confirmed COVID-19 case who should be in quarantine.

[2] This comprises medical records, travel history records, and information regarding being in contact with someone diagnosed with COVID-19.

References

Bentham, Jeremy. 1995. Jeremy Bentham: The Panopticon Writings. Edited by Miran Bozovic. London: Verso.

Foucault, Michel. 1975. Surveiller et punir: Naissance de la prison. Paris: Gallimard.

Harari, Yuval Noah. 2020. “Yuval Noah Harari: The World after Coronavirus.” Financial Times, March 20, 2020. https://www.ft.com/content/19d90308-6858-11ea-a3c9-1fe6fedcca75.

Žižek, Slavoj. 2020. “Slavoj Žižek ‘el Coronavirus es un golpe a lo Kill Bill al sistema capitalista.’” Esferapública (blog). March 18, 2020. http://esferapublica.org/nfblog/slavoj-zizek-el-coronavirus-es-un-golpe-a-lo-kill-bill-al-sistema-capitalista/.

Title Image: The new medusa, “it’s a good thing i can’t see myself”. Credits: Richard Scott

This article is part of a series about the coronavirus crisis. Find more articles of this series here.

About the authors:

Jacqueline Gaybor is a Research Associate at the International Institute of Social Studies/Erasmus University Rotterdam, in The Netherlands. She holds a Ph.D. in development studies and has an interdisciplinary background in law, gender, social studies of science and technology, and sustainable development. She is also a lecturer at Erasmus University College.

Henry Chavez is a Research Associate at the Science, Technology and Society Lab (CTS-Lab) FLACSO, in Ecuador. He holds a Ph.D. in Social Sciences from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris, France. He has an interdisciplinary background in social sciences, economics, and politics; and is a specialist in social studies of science, technology and innovation; anthropology of global systems; public policy design and evaluation.

Fleeing the farms: the devastating effect of conflict on youth involvement in small-scale agriculture in Pakistan by Hassan Turi

By ISS Blog Bliss 20 April 202029 June 2020 2966 views

[Ελληνική έκδοση παρακάτω]

Rural youth unemployment is a serious crisis facing countries of the Global South. Small-scale agriculture, which has long been the single biggest employer of the developing world, has the potential to be ecologically rational, socially just, and capable of absorbing unemployed youth. However, contemporary agrarian research has increasingly found that young people are not attracted to agricultural work. While a global urbanization trend is leading to exodus from rural areas, Hassan Turi shows the devastating impact of protracted regional and local conflicts on agricultural practices in Kurram District in Pakistan that further diminish the youth’s willingness to engage in small-scale agriculture.

With a global land rush triggered by rising food prices, the consolidation of large-scale industrial agriculture is not only dispossessing people from their lands, but also bringing energy-intensive and climate-warming practices. Small-scale agriculture, which has long been the single biggest employer of the developing world, has the potential to be ecologically rational, socially just, and capable of absorbing unemployed youth. However, contemporary agrarian research has increasingly found that young people are not attracted to agricultural work. Understanding the causes behind youth flight and unemployment is a key priority for developing a long-term youth policy and strengthening the agricultural economy.

According to a 2018 UNDP report, Pakistan currently has the largest youth population in the world, with 64% of the population less than 30 years of age. While there is a labour shortage in Pakistan and elsewhere, small-scale agriculture is no longer en vogue as youths leave their families to pursue careers in cities. But unlike the rest of Pakistan, where rural labour is migrating to cities, the rural youth from Kurram is increasingly migrating outside of Pakistan and becoming vulnerable to wider geopolitical conflicts. The conflict in the region has played a significant role in shaping Pakistan’s agricultural landscape, driving youths away from farms and changing agriculture in a way that makes it unattractive.

Conflict on the frontier

The village of Bilayamin, where I conducted my fieldwork, is located in the Kurram District of Khyber Pakthunkhwa Province that borders Afghanistan. This region has been affected by severe violence for decades. An ugly proxy war with the US lasting for years and a wider regional war have had a profound impact on people’s livelihoods, especially on agriculture, which had been the primary source of income for decades.

Before, most households employed family labour for agriculture, except during peak stages of farming. These patterns changed after the arrival of Afghan refugees in the 1980s (from the first Afghan war) to refugee camps in Kurram. With the launch of the War on Terror in 2001 and subsequent conflict in Kurram, farming practices took another hit. Land remained uncultivated during the war, and many people died, suffered injuries, or were displaced. Farmers could not bring their products to markets or buy new farming inputs. The conflict also forced many people, especially the youth, to flee from the villages in search of safety and better livelihoods. Those remaining behind were less interested in farming, seeking jobs related to their education, but without much success. Despite the sharp need for agricultural labour, young people were massively un- or underemployed and preferred to leave the country as migrant workers abroad.

Effects on farming practices

This labour shortage pushed farmers to change cropping patterns. Many have stopped growing rice. More farmers are planting plums and apricot orchards or rearing livestock. The proliferation of wild boars has stopped the cultivation of groundnuts and crops like rice or beans near the riverbanks and mountains. Young farmers are now tasked by their families with guarding their crops, often staying awake all night for the last two months of the harvest. In addition, there is an emerging trend of wage labour hired daily from villages with smaller landholdings. Remittances have also acquired increasing importance. Households with income from remittances are successfully reproducing themselves by spending money on better farming inputs and hiring labour on time. Families without remittance incomes are either decreasing the cultivation of labour-intensive crops or involving more household members to bring prices down.

Changing preferences

Farming in Kurram, as in many places in the world, used to be a familial responsibility, but preferences have changed. Children traditionally would be involved in farming practices from an early age. Accompanying the adults to farms, children would fetch water, tea, food, and farming tools when the elders are busy. They would graze cattle and cut firewood or complete tasks reserved for children, such as weeding onions. Research suggests that exposure from an early age is crucial to engage interest in farming. But rural children who go to school are not exposed to these practices and consequently begin to lose interest in farming.

After the conflict in Kurram, households foisted more farming responsibilities onto those youths who remained in the region to compensate for labour shortages due to the war. For instance, before the conflict, children were not involved in difficult labour. However, this changed after the conflict, which seems to create an aversion for farming as the youth feels overworked. Most who are still engaged in farming see it as a transitory phase before securing a future in the cities. Yet some continue to wait and never make it to the cities, wondering if this temporary phase will ever end and despising the growing burden placed on them.

The effects of the multiple conflicts facing the Kurram District in Pakistan have been profound, exacerbating a global move away from small-scale agriculture towards cities or towards industrial agriculture. Small-scale agriculture, which can address the growing youth unemployment problem, needs to be made more attractive for the youth, who should see it as a viable enterprise instead of as a familial responsibility.

This is a shortened and edited version of an article that was originally published by Jamhoor.

About the author:

Sibth ul Hassan Turi is an Orange Knowledge Programme Fellow who studies at the ISS in 2016/2017. He comes from the Kurram district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and is a member of the Awami Workers Party Islamabad/Rawalpindi.

Εγκαταλείποντας τη γη: οι καταστροφικές συνέπειες του πολέμου στην συμμετοχή των νέων στην καλλιέργεια γης στο Πακιστάν του άρθρου τoυ Hassan Turi

Τα υψηλά ποσοστά ανεργίας των νέων που ζουν στην περιφέρεια, αποτελούν ένα από τα ουσιαστικότερα προβλήματα που αντιμετωπίζουν οι χώρες του Παγκόσμιου Νότου. Η καλλιέργεια μικρών εκτάσεων γης, η οποία αποτελούσα και συνεχίζει να αποτελεί τον μεγαλύτερο παροχέας εργασίας των αναπτυσσόμενων χωρών , έχει μια δυναμική προοπτική στο να παράγει με οικολογικό τρόπο, κοινωνικά μη-άδικο και ικανό να απορροφά μεγάλο πληθυσμό αναξιοποίητου, νέου σε ηλικία, ανθρωπίνου δυναμικού που αντιμετωπίζει την ανεργία στην περιφέρεια. Παρόλο, που η σύγχρονη έρευνα στον τομέα της γεωργίας και της αναπτυξιακής οικονομικής υποδεικνύει την ολοένα και μειούμενη τάση των νέων να ασχολούνται με την καλλιέργεια γης. Την ίδια ώρα που ένα παγκόσμια -κινούμενο από τις δυνάμεις του καπιταλισμού- κύμα αστικοποίησής προωθεί την ‘’μεγάλη έξοδο’’ από την περιφέρεια στα αστικά κέντρα , Ο Hassan Turi μνημονεύει σε αυτό το άρθρο το καταστροφικό πλήγμα των παρατεταμένων περιφερειακών και τοπικών συγκρούσεων στις γεωργικές εργασίες στην περιοχή Kurram του Πακιστάν. Αυτές οι συγκρούσεις ασκούν περαιτέρω πιέσεις και μειώνουν την προθυμία των νέων να ασχοληθούν με τη μικρής-κλίμακας γεωργία.

Με μια παγκόσμια τάση προσφυγής στην καλλιέργεια γης, που έχει προκληθεί από την άνοδο των τιμών των τροφίμων και την ενοποίηση της βιομηχανικής γεωργίας μεγάλης κλίμακας , που όχι μόνο εκτοπίζει τους ανθρώπους από τη γη τους, αλλά οδηγεί επίσης στην υιοθέτηση πρακτικών αυξημένης εντάσεως-ενέργειας και πρακτικών, που οδηγούν στην περεταίρω επιδείνωση του φαινομένου της υπερθέρμανσης του πλανήτη. Η γεωργία μικρής κλίμακας, που εδώ και πολλά χρόνια είναι ο μοναδικός και ο μεγαλύτερος εργοδότης του αναπτυσσόμενου κόσμου, έχει τη δυνατότητα να παρέχει μια ορθολογικά οικολογική παραγωγή αγαθών, κοινωνικά δίκαιη και ικανή να απορροφήσει άνεργους -νέους που ζουν στην περιφέρεια- και είναι δύσκολο να βρούνε εργασία σε άλλους τομείς. Ωστόσο, η σύγχρονες έρευνες έχουν διαπιστώσει ότι όλο και περισσότερο ότι οι νέοι δεν θεωρούν τη γεωργική εργασία ως μια προτιμητέα εναλλακτική μορφή απασχόλησης. Η κατανόηση των αιτίων πίσω από τη ‘’φυγή των νέων’’ και την ‘νεανική’ ανεργία αποτελεί βασική προτεραιότητα για την ανάπτυξη μιας μακροπρόθεσμης πολιτικής για τη νεολαία και την ενίσχυση της γεωργικής οικονομίας.

Σύμφωνα με μια έκθεση του UNDP του 2018, το Πακιστάν έχει τον μεγαλύτερο πληθυσμό νέων στον κόσμο, με το 64% του πληθυσμού να σε έχει ηλικία μικρότερη των 30 ετών. Ενώ υπάρχει έλλειψη εργατικού δυναμικού στο Πακιστάν και αλλού, η γεωργία μικρής κλίμακας δεν αξιοποιείται πλέον, καθώς οι νέοι αφήνουν τις οικογένειές τους για να αναζητήσουν δουλειά στα κέντρα των πόλεων. Αλλά σε αντίθεση με το υπόλοιπο Πακιστάν, όπου η αγροτιά μεταναστεύει σε πόλεις, οι νέοι που είναι υποψήφιοι εργάτες γης από το Kurram, μεταναστεύουν όλο και περισσότερο έξω από το Πακιστάν και γίνονται ευάλωτοι σε ευρύτερες γεωπολιτικές συγκρούσεις. Η σύγκρουση στην περιοχή έχει διαδραματίσει σημαντικό ρόλο στη διαμόρφωση του γεωργικού τοπίου και της αγοράς γεωργικής εργασίας του Πακιστάν, στην απομάκρυνση των νέων από τα αγροκτήματα και στην αλλαγή της γεωργίας με τρόπο που την καθιστά πλέον μη ελκυστική εργασία.

Σύγκρουση στα σύνορα

Το χωριό Bilayamin, όπου διεξήγαγα την έρευνα μου για την πτυχιακή εργασία, βρίσκεται στην περιοχή Kurram της επαρχίας Khyber Pakthhwa που συνορεύει με το Αφγανιστάν. Αυτή η περιοχή έχει πληγεί από σοβαρά φαινόμενα βίας και συγκρούσεις εδώ και δεκαετίες. Ένας άσχημος πόλεμος «δι’ αντιπροσώπων» με τις ΗΠΑ που διήρκησε για χρόνια και ένας ευρύτερος περιφερειακός πόλεμος είχε σοβαρό αντίκτυπο στην επιβίωση των ανθρώπων, ειδικά στη γεωργία, η οποία ήταν η κύρια πηγή εισοδήματος εδώ και δεκαετίες.

Αρχικά, τα περισσότερα νοικοκυριά απασχολούσαν μέλη της οικογένειας στη γεωργία, εκτός από τις θαλερές γεωργικές περιόδους. Αυτά τα μοτίβα συνηθειών άλλαξαν σταδιακά μετά την άφιξη των Αφγανών προσφύγων τη δεκαετία του 1980 (από τον πρώτο Αφγανικό πόλεμο) σε στρατόπεδα προσφύγων στο Kurram. Με την έναρξη του Πολέμου κατά της Τρομοκρατίας το 2001 και την επακόλουθη σύγκρουση στο Kurram, οι γεωργικές πρακτικές δέχτηκαν ένα ακόμη πλήγμα. Η γη παρέμεινε ακαλλιέργητη κατά τη διάρκεια του πολέμου και πολλοί άνθρωποι πέθαναν, υπέστησαν τραυματισμούς ή εκτοπίστηκαν. Οι αγρότες δεν μπορούσαν να διοχετεύσουν τα προϊόντα τους στις αγορές ή να αγοράσουν νέες γεωργικές εισροές. Η πολεμική σύγκρουση ανάγκασε επίσης πολλούς ανθρώπους, ιδίως τους νέους, να εγκαταλείψουν τα χωριά αναζητώντας ασφάλεια και μια καλύτερη μοίρα. Όσοι έμειναν πίσω ενδιαφέρονταν λιγότερο για τη γεωργία, αναζητούσαν θέσεις εργασίας που σχετίζονται με την εκπαίδευσή τους, αλλά χωρίς μεγάλη επιτυχία. Παρά την αυξημένη ζήτηση για γεωργική εργασία, η ανεργία των νέων ήταν υψηλή σε ποσοστιαίους όρους ή οι νέοι υποαπασχολούνταν και προτιμούσαν να εγκαταλείψουν τη χώρα ως μετανάστες εργαζόμενοι στο εξωτερικό.

Επιδράσεις στις γεωργικές πρακτικές

Η έλλειψη εργασίας ώθησε τους αγρότες να αλλάξουν τα πρότυπα καλλιέργειας και τις ποικιλίες που καλλιεργούν. Πολλοί έχουν σταματήσει να καλλιεργούν ρύζι. Περισσότεροι αγρότες πλέον φυτεύουν δαμάσκηνα και οπωρώνες βερίκοκων ή εκτρέφουν ζώα. Ο πολλαπλασιασμός των αγριόχοιρων έχει εμποδίσει την καλλιέργεια αραχίδων και καλλιεργειών όπως ρύζι ή φασόλια κοντά στις όχθες του ποταμού και στα βουνά. Οι νέοι αγρότες έχουν τώρα επιφορτιστεί από τις οικογένειές τους με τη φύλαξη των καλλιεργειών τους, και συχνά μένουν ξύπνιοι όλη τη νύχτα τους τελευταίους δύο μήνες της συγκομιδής. Επιπλέον, υπάρχει μια αναδυόμενη τάση μισθωτής εργασίας με άτομα που προσλαμβάνονται καθημερινά από χωριά με μικρότερες εκτάσεις γης. Τα εμβάσματα έχουν αποκτήσει επίσης αυξανόμενη σημασία. Τα νοικοκυριά με εισόδημα από εμβάσματα αναπαράγονται επιτυχώς ξοδεύοντας χρήματα για καλύτερες γεωργικές εισροές και προσλαμβάνοντας εργασία την κατάλληλη περίοδο. Οι οικογένειες χωρίς εισόδημα από εμβάσματα, μειώνουν είτε την καλλιέργεια καλλιεργειών υψηλής έντασης εργασίας είτε εμπλέκουν περισσότερα μέλη του νοικοκυριού για μείωση των τιμών.

Αλλαγή προτιμήσεων

Η καλλιέργεια στο Kurram, όπως σε πολλά μέρη του κόσμου, αποτελούσε οικογενειακή ευθύνη, αλλά οι προτιμήσεις έχουν αλλάξει. Τα παιδιά παραδοσιακά εμπλέκονταν σε γεωργικές πρακτικές από μικρή ηλικία. Συνοδεύοντας τους ενήλικες σε αγροκτήματα, τα παιδιά συνήθιζαν να μαζεύουν νερό, τσάι, φαγητό και εργαλεία καλλιέργειας όταν οι ενήλικες ήταν απασχολημένοι. Επίσης, συνήθως θα έβοσκαν βοοειδή και θα ‘έκοβαν καυσόξυλα ή θα ολοκλήρωναν εργασίες που προορίζονται για παιδιά, όπως το ξεχορτάριασμα κρεμμυδιών. Οι έρευνες υποδεικνύουν, ότι η έκθεση των παιδιών από μικρή ηλικία σε αγροτικές δραστηριότητες είναι εξαιρετικής σημασίας παράγοντας που καθορίζει την ενασχόληση τους με τη γεωργία. Όμως τα παιδιά της υπαίθρου που πηγαίνουν στο σχολείο δεν εκτίθενται σε αυτές τις πρακτικές και κατά συνέπεια αρχίζουν να χάνουν το ενδιαφέρον τους για την αγροτική καλλιέργεια.

Μετά τη σύγκρουση στο Kurram, τα νοικοκυριά επιφορτίστηκαν με περισσότερες γεωργικές ευθύνες, εκείνους τους νέους που παρέμειναν στην περιοχή για να αντισταθμίσουν τις ελλείψεις εργατικού δυναμικού, λόγω του πολέμου. Για παράδειγμα, πριν από τη σύρραξη, τα παιδιά δεν συμμετείχαν σε επίμοχθη εργασία. Ωστόσο, αυτό άλλαξε μετά την σύγκρουση, η οποία φαίνεται να δημιούργησε μια αποστροφή για τη γεωργία καθώς η νεολαία άρχισε να αισθάνεται ότι έχει δουλέψει υπερβολικά πολύ. Οι περισσότεροι που εξακολουθούν να ασχολούνται με τη γεωργία το βλέπουν ως μεταβατική φάση πριν ένα εξασφαλισμένο μέλλον στις πόλεις. Ωστόσο, ορισμένοι συνεχίζουν να περιμένουν και να μην φτάνουν ποτέ στην ‘’γη της επαγγελίας’’ που γι’ αυτούς είναι η πόλη, και αναρωτιούνται εάν αυτή η προσωρινή φάση θα τελειώσει ποτέ έχοντας απαυδήσει από το αυξανόμενο βάρος που έχουν φορτωθεί στις πλάτες τους.

Τα αποτελέσματα των πολλαπλών συγκρούσεων που αντιμετωπίζει η περιοχή Kurram στο Πακιστάν είχαν ισχυρό αντίκτυπο στις ζωές αυτών των ανθρώπων, επιδεινώνοντας μια παγκόσμια απομάκρυνση από τη γεωργία μικρής κλίμακας προς τις πόλεις ή προς τη βιομηχανική γεωργία. Η γεωργία μικρής κλίμακας, η οποία μπορεί να αντιμετωπίσει το αυξανόμενο πρόβλημα της ανεργίας των νέων στις περιφέρειες, είναι αναγκαίο να καταστεί πιο ελκυστική για τους νέους, οι οποίοι θα πρέπει να την αντιμετωπίσουν ως μια βιώσιμη επιχειρηματική δραστηριότητα ή εργασία, ως βιώσιμο τρόπο ζωής και όχι ως οικογενειακή ευθύνη.

Το άρθρο αποτελεί συντομευμένη και τροποποιημένη έκδοση ενός άρθρου που δημοσιεύθηκε αρχικά στο Jamhoor.

Λίγα λόγια για το συγγραφέα του άρθρου:

Ο Sibth ul Hassan Turi είναι υπότροφος του προγράμματος: Orange Knowledge Programme, σπούδασε στο ISS το έτος 2016/2017. Κατάγεται από την περιφέρεια Kurram της Khyber Pakhtunkhwa και είναι μέλος του εργατικού κόμματος του Ισλαμαμπάντ (Awani Workers Party Islamabad/Rawalpindi).

Το άρθρο μεταφράστηκε από τη Χρυσάνθη Κούτρη, μεταπτυχιακή φοιτήτρια στο International Institute of Social Studies, με εξειδίκευση στα οικονομικά της ανάπτυξης και ερευνητικά ενδιαφέροντα στο πεδίο: Children and Youth in Development.

EADI/ISS Series | The Battle is on: Civic Space & Land Rights by Barbara Oosters and Saskia van Veen

By ISS Blog Bliss 16 April 202016 May 2020 2423 views

Defenders of land rights all over the world struggle with shrinking civic space. The more that space for people to peacefully claim their land rights is restricted, the more intense land disputes become. In 2017, Global witness recorded that globally an unprecedented number of 197 land rights defenders were killed. A recent Oxfam Novib learning lab identified strategies for associations working in the area of land rights to deal with an environment of shifting and shrinking civic space.

My (Barbara)’s fascination and interest for the issue of civic space started in Indonesia. Local organisations struggled with the introduction of a vaguely framed law for Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), warning them not to work on issues going against ‘’Indonesian’’ values. A few years later I found myself supporting initiatives in more than 15 countries spread across the globe, struggling with shifting and shrinking civic space. Although this is just a fraction of countries facing a reduced space to assemble, associate and speak up freely, it enabled me to learn from a variety of contexts on how people resist, adapt and reclaim civic space. To me the key to win this battle is exactly this: learn from and connect those who face similar challenges fast and on a wide scale. Our opponents are doing exactly the same. We need to become faster and smarter in connecting and learning.

The civic space you have as an individual or organization depends very much on the issue you want to address. Some battle grounds are fiercer than others. Land rights are such a hot potato, touching on the interests of many. Small farmers or indigenous communities who defend their century-old reliance on forests find themselves in front of large agriculture or extractive investment projects. Concerned that land disputes can fuel social disorder, local and national governments limit the space for civil society to assist affected communities. The more that space for people to peacefully claim their land rights is restricted, the more intense land disputes become. In 2017, Global witness recorded that globally an unprecedented number of 197 land rights defenders were killed.

How to tackle land rights in a complex environment?

In 2019 we at Oxfam Novib scoped the interest of some of our offices and partners working on land rights to document their strategies, successes and brilliant failures to remain influential in a shrinking civic space context. We also looked for Oxfam country offices facing a similar shrinking space while fighting for land rights and looking for inspirational ideas forward. Our vision: bringing them together in a unique participatory learning way in order for all parties to gain from this exchange. As an end-product we envisage a toolbox with actionable tactics that help to resist, adapt and reclaim civic space while working on land rights.

Oxfam country offices, partners and allies from Cambodia, Vietnam and Myanmar took part in this learning lab on land rights and civic space. Cambodian and Vietnamese Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) have had documented some successful outcomes of their land advocacy before, and are having a close look at the adaptive strategies that made these positive gains possible. Over the past number of years, Myanmar has been marked by shifting and shrinking civic space. How to tackle land rights in such a complex/changing environment? Indonesia was added as fourth country because of its exemplary way of bringing a diverse range of civil society together and bridge differences for a common cause.

Avoid naming and shaming

What were some of the successful approaches identified? Monitoring tools for robust land re-allocation and smart collaboration between local and national organisations and their combined strategies enabled change in one country. In another it was more a change of tactics (from confrontational to a more collaborative one) that enabled the participation of hundreds of communities and local CSOs in first ever consultation workshops on a land related law. Naming and shaming tactics were avoided as well as fights in the media. Direct feedback via closed-door meetings proofed more effective.

The need for alliances came out strongly in many aspects. Local organizations fighting for land rights are a fragmented group, with conflicting demands and needs as they all want to defend their rights. Uniting them in solidarity strengthens their common voice for change. It also builds their credibility and highlights their overall size as a force that needs to be acknowledged. Staying close to one’s constitution is also a key requisite for both success and resilience. Strong solidarity networks to mitigate risks to single organizations proved a successful and necessary tactic throughout.

The Myanmar team, together with partners, is at this moment experimenting with some interesting ways forward, as identified and listed above. The other participating country representatives are in the process of reflecting on their learnings. On the basis of this experience, we would like to encourage everyone who is struggling with land rights in a shrinking civic space context to join us on this exciting learning road to remain influential on land rights despite all odds. Many have proved that it is possible.

This article is part of a series launched by the EADI (European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes) and the ISS in preparation for the 2020 EADI/ISS General Conference “Solidarity, Peace and Social Justice”. It was also published on the EADI blog.

About the authors:

Barbara Oosters is Policy Advisor civil society space and strengthening at Oxfam Novib – she is supporting the learning lab on land rights and civic space from her expertise on civic space.

Saskia Veen is an Impact Measurement and Knowledge specialist at Oxfam Novib – she is supporting the learning lab in terms of methodology of documentation and learning strategy.

Image Credit: Rainforest Action Network on Flickr

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COVID-19 | Driving transformative social change through an internationalist response to COVID-19 by Lize Swartz

By ISS Blog Bliss 13 April 202027 May 2020 3219 views

A recent webinar organized by the Transnational Institute and partners brought together activists from all over the world to brainstorm how to make social justice central to our responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. The main message? Stand united instead of divided, let empathy inform context-based responses, and start thinking of changing what’s broken, including our healthcare systems. These principles should also guide our collective efforts to enact transformative social change that starts with our responses to the crisis and ends in a sustainable, just and resilient future—one in which no-one is left behind.

We find ourselves standing on the edge of a cliff with an abyss in front of us, left with three (or more?) choices: build a bridge to reach the other side, which is unknown territory; become engulfed by the darkness of the abyss and stand paralyzed; or retreat from the edge of the cliff to deceptive safety. This metaphor symbolizes the critical juncture[1] we’re currently at and the pathways we can choose: a radical transformation (the other side representing an unknown future, hopefully a sustainable and just one), paralysis (do nothing and watch the crisis run its course, whatever the consequences), or many steps in the opposite direction (further away from each other, creating a new normal that is worse than the one we had before).

Never before has the opportunity for real, comprehensive change been greater, never before has it been as necessary, and never before have the stakes been higher. But we have to start now―the window of opportunity is closing. There is some progress on this front as activists and thought leaders gather forces to fight for change. A webinar held recently by the Transnational Institute (TNI), in collaboration with the Alternative Information and Development Centre (AIDC) and Focus on the Global South, brought together roughly 600 participants to brainstorm how to build an internationalist response to COVID-19 in light of the crisis of deep global inequality.

Current responses to COVID-19 will shape future trends in how crises are tackled, and it is imperative to 1) prevent further injustices and inequalities arising from current responses that build upon already-existing inequalities and divides, and 2) start to enact radical change to prevent a return to the old normal or the adoption of a new normal that may be manifold worse. Thus, our responses show which of the pathways we choose now that we have reached the critical juncture, and responses should mirror the future we desire.

This seems like a mammoth task, but there are many energetic fighters across the world that are eager to get started. The webinar was a starting point to discussions and strategies for enacting change collectively. Discussions centered around not only humane responses to COVID-19, but also the need to critically discuss the state of our healthcare systems and to transform them. The crisis has clearly highlighted that healthcare systems in the Global North and Global South alike are woefully unprepared to deal with pandemics, not even providing universal healthcare services in non-crisis times. Mazibuko Jara, founder of the Treatment Action Campaign and currently Deputy Director of the Tshisimani Centre for Activist Education (both in South Africa), emphasized the need for healthcare to be seen as a fundamental human right—a public good, which would change how it is approached.

Many are not focusing on building up (improving health systems), however, but on breaking down (fighting the virus and fighting each other). Sonia Shah, award-winning investigative science journalist who authored the book ‘Pandemic: Tracking Contagions, from Cholera to Ebola and Beyond’ (2017), noted during the webinar that diseases and viruses are framed as external, prompting the closing of borders and the closing of minds as we distance ourselves from these ‘alien entities’^[2].

Rather, what she calls a ‘microbial xenophobia’ arises as the disease is blamed on China and cultural practices in Asian countries. This process of ‘othering’ entrenches racism and xenophobia, enacted both by individuals and countries, preventing a collective global effort to transformative change and leading to increasing isolation as countries shut their borders and global geopolitical divides are strengthened. A strong counternarrative to this militaristic imaginary of ‘being at war’ with the disease and with each other urgently needs to be created.

Several discussants highlighted the inadequacies of current responses. Even if stringent measures can prevent the spread of the virus, which has yet to be proven by evidence, the authoritarian measures lack humaneness, further threatening the survival and dignity of already vulnerable populations without access to basic human rights. A one-size-fits-all approach, such as a national lockdown, does not work in contexts where such lockdowns can hasten the spread of the virus and lead to suffering due to loss of income and hunger, for example.

Thus, keynote speakers at the seminar concluded, we need an internationalist approach that:

Is based on solidarity and empathy so that responses are context-specific and do not create new injustices or inequalities that place an additional burden on vulnerable people
Creates a strong counternarrative to the xenophobic, militaristic narrative that is driving defensive and authoritarian responses, with a central emphasis on human rights and a common humanity, shown in how we communicate and how we act
Are based on health as a human right, a public good and working toward transforming the health system to this end
Recognizes that we are facing a supercrisis, that standing crises of poverty, inequality and climate change are interacting with biological crises such as COVID-19 and cannot be viewed in isolation
Counters growing authoritarianism and fundamentalism at all levels of society that are threatening to deepen social divides and split the world apart.

Participants agreed that solidarity and empathy should drive responses to COVID-19, but I argue that we need to go further than just responding. Our recognition of the root causes of injustices and inequalities should drive a multi-pronged strategy to not only prevent the spread of the virus and prevent unjust responses to it, but also to enact radical transformation through our responses to ensure that the inequalities the crisis feasts on are eradicated and that no-one is left behind as we move on to a future we can only dream of.

Without the recognition that the crisis requires a collective global response, we will get nowhere. And central to this is questioning the underlying structures and institutions that have created the breeding ground for the virus and the disaster that it has brought along with it, and changing them through intense and enduring collaboration based on a sense of shared humanity, or what especially Buddhist monks have called interbeing.

[1] Thank you to Duncan Green for mentioning the term ‘critical juncture’ that perfectly sums up the thoughts that I’ve had since the pandemic broke out in February.

^[2]She also highlights the failure to recognize that pathogens or microbes become pandemics due to humankind’s encroachment on wildlife habitats.

This article is part of a series about the coronavirus crisis. Find more articles of this series here.

About the authors:

Lize Swartz is a PhD researcher at the ISS focusing on water user interactions with sustainability-climate crises in the water sector, in particular the role of water scarcity politics on crisis responses and adaptation processes. She is also the editor of the ISS Blog Bliss.

COVID-19 | Ecuador, COVID-19 and the IMF: how austerity exacerbated the crisis by Ana Lucía Badillo Salgado and Andrew M. Fischer

By ISS Blog Bliss 9 April 202016 May 2020 12303 views

Ecuador is currently (as of 8 April) the South American country worst affected by COVID-19 in terms of the number of confirmed cases and fatalities per capita. While even the universal health systems of Northern European countries are becoming severely frayed by the nature of this pandemic, Ecuador serves as a powerful example of how much worse the situation is for many low- and middle-income countries, particularly those whose public health systems have already been undermined by financial assistance programmes with international financial institutions (IFIs). The IMF and other IFIs such as the World Bank must acknowledge the role they have played and continue to play in undermining public health systems in ways that exacerbate the effects of the pandemic in many developing countries.

The recent IMF Extended Fund Facility (EFF) Arrangement, signed in March 2019 with the Government of Ecuador, was already the subject of massive protests in October 2019 given the austerity and ‘structural reforms’ imposed on the country (aka structural adjustment). It has also directly contributed to the severity of the pandemic in this country given that health and social security systems were among the first casualties of the austerity and reforms. In particular, the government’s COVID-19 response has been severely hindered by dramatic reductions of public health investment and by large layoffs of public health workers preceding the outbreak of the virus.

From this perspective, even though the IMF has recently moved to offer finance and debt relief to developing countries hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, a much more serious change of course is needed. For this, it is vital to understand its own role – and that of other IFIs such as the World Bank – in undermining health systems before the emergence of the pandemic in various developing countries, lest similar policy recipes are again repeated.

The baseline

It is clear that the pre-existing national healthcare system in Ecuador has been replete with problems even in ‘normal’ times. As in most of Latin America, the weaknesses of the healthcare system in Ecuador stem from its segmented and stratified character, with a distinct segregation between three main subsectors – the public, social security, and private sectors. The Ecuadorian Ministry of Health has a weak coordinating and regulatory role over these three subsectors, each of which caters to different beneficiary populations and with clearly distinct quality of services. The public system is the lowest quality and the one accessed by most poor people. Despite claims of universal health, the national system is a far cry from anything approaching genuine universalism.

Moreover, there has been a progressive privatization and commodification of healthcare since 2008. For instance, the building of capacity within the social security system has been undermined by the channelling of health funding via contracts to the private sector, where pricing is also mostly unregulated [1]. More generally, Ecuador has consistently exhibited one the highest out-of-pocket (OOP) health expenditure shares in South America, despite a government discourse and constitutional mandate to deliver free, high quality, public healthcare for all citizens. OOP payments – or direct payments by users at the point of service – reached 41.4% per total health spending in 2016 [2]. They include, for instance, payments for medicine or medical supplies by poor people in public hospitals, as well as payments by middle- and upper-class people for consultations and surgeries. The COVID-19 crisis puts pressure on precisely these aspects of healthcare provisioning, rendering the system prone to systemic failure for the majority of the population, especially in times of economic crisis when the ability of users to pay is severely curtailed.

Crisis and IFIs

These problems in the healthcare system have been exacerbated by the austerity measures of the current government of Lenín Moreno. The measures were introduced in the context of the protracted economic crisis that started in 2014 and have been endorsed by the IMF and other IFIs. Public health expenditure plateaued at 2.7% of GDP in 2017 and 2018, and then fell slightly to 2.6% in 2019, when GDP also slightly contracted (see figure). This was despite the constitutional goal that established an increase of at least 0.5% of GDP per year until 4% was to be reached, which is still far below the 6% of GDP recommended by the Pan American Health Organization [3].

Source: elaborated from the Fiscal Policy Observatory data (last accessed 7 April 2020 at https://www.observatoriofiscal.org/publicaciones/transparencia-fiscal/file/221-transparencia-fiscal-no-163-marzo-2020.html)

* The main component of this expenditure is on non-contributory social protection (social cash transfers).

** It excludes health expenditure of the social security system.

However, the collapse in public investment in the health sector has been far more dramatic, falling by 64% from 2017 to 2019, or from USD 306 million in 2017 to USD 110 million in 2019 [4]. Such reductions would have been largely borne by the public health system and constitute expenditures that are vital for a COVID-19 response, such as the construction of hospitals and the purchase of medical equipment.

It was in this context that the IMF Extended Fund Facility (EFF) was agreed and signed in March 2019. Within the framework of this programme, the government implemented a large layoff of public healthcare workers (including doctors, nurses, auxiliary nurses, stretcher-bearers, social workers, and other healthcare workers). The layoffs continued throughout 2019, despite protests by the National Syndicate of Healthcare Workers of the Ministry of Health [5], [6], [7]. It is difficult to know the exact number of layoffs because of the fragmented functioning of the health system, although within the Ministry of Public Health alone, 3,680 public health workers were laid off in 2019, representing 4.5% of total employment in this Ministry and 29% of total central government layoffs in that year [calculated from 8]. Similar reductions in the social security sector were announced in 2019 for 2020, although we have not yet been able to find any data on these reductions.

Thus, it is not a surprise that Ecuador is currently doing so poorly in handling the COVID 19 crisis. The retrenchment of the public health system together with an already weak and retrenched social protection system coupled for the perfect storm. But even more worrying is that, in the face of the pandemic, the government paid 324 million USD on the capital and interest of its sovereign ‘2020 bonds’ on 24 March instead of prioritizing the management of the health crisis. This decision was taken despite a petition on 22 March by the Ecuadorean assembly to suspend such payments, along with a chorus of civil society organizations lobbying for the same [9] [10]. The government nonetheless justified the payment as a trigger for further loans from the IMF, World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, and Andean Financial Corporation [11]. This is especially problematic given that Ecuador has been hard hit by the collapse of oil prices and, as a dollarized economy, its only control over money supply and hence hope for economic stimulus rests on preventing monetary outflows from the economy (and encouraging inflows).

The payment is also paradoxical given that the IMF and the World Bank are currently calling for the prioritization of health expenditure and social protection and for a standstill of debt service, and have announced initiatives for debt relief and emergency financing [12] [13]. Nonetheless, despite such noble rhetoric, it appears that the precondition for such measures continues to be the protection of private creditors over urgent health financing needs.

Atoning for past and present sins on the path to universalism

The COVID-19 pandemic undoubtedly exposes the inadequacies of existing social policy systems in developing countries and the urgent need of moving towards more genuinely universalistic systems. Ecuador is exemplary given that it has until recently been celebrated as a New Left social model even while its national health system has remained deeply segregated and increasingly commodified.

However, while the IMF and other IFIs have emphasised the importance of placing health expenditures in developing countries at the top of the priority list in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic [12], they have not acknowledged their own continuing roles in undermining these priorities. Indeed, their messaging is often contradictory, given that both the IMF and the World Bank have also repeatedly insisted that developing countries must persist with ‘structural reforms’ during and after the pandemic [13] [14]. In other words, there is no evidence that the course has been reset. As one way to induce a reset, it is important that they acknowledge the roles they have played and continue to play in undermining public health systems and universalistic social policy more generally, lest they continue to repeat them despite the switch to more noble rhetoric.

Sources:

[1] http://cdes.org.ec/web/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/privatizaci%C3%B3n-salud.pdf

[2] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(19)30841-4/fulltext

[3] https://www.cepal.org/es/publicaciones/45337-america-latina-caribe-la-pandemia-covid-19-efectos-economicos-sociales

[4] https://coyunturaisip.wordpress.com/2020/03/28/los-recortes-cobran-factura-al-ecuador-la-inversion-en-salud-se-redujo-un-36-en-2019/

[5] https://www.eluniverso.com/noticias/2019/03/06/nota/7219694/trabajadores-publicos-salud-denuncian-despidos-masivos

[6] https://www.elcomercio.com/actualidad/recorte-personal-contratos-ocasionales-ecuador.html

[7] https://www.elcomercio.com/actualidad/despidos-trabajadores-ministerio-salud-evaluacion.html

[8] https://www.observatoriofiscal.org/publicaciones/estudios-y-an%C3%A1lisis/file/220-n%C3%BAmero-de-servidores-p%C3%BAblicos-del-presupuesto-2018-2019.html

[9] https://www.elcomercio.com/actualidad/asamblea-suspender-pago-deuda-coronavirus.html

[10] https://ww2.elmercurio.com.ec/2020/03/24/la-conaie-pide-al-gobierno-suspender-el-pago-de-la-deuda-externa/

[11] https://www.bourse.lu/issuer/Ecuador/34619 (first link under the notices section)

[12] https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2020/04/03/vs-some-say-there-is-a-trade-off-save-lives-or-save-jobs-this-is-a-false-dilemma

[13] https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/speech/2020/03/04/joint-press-conference-on-covid-19-by-imf-managing-director-and-world-bank-group-president

[14] https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/speech/2020/03/23/remarks-by-world-bank-group-president-david-malpass-on-g20-finance-ministers-conference-call-on-covid-19

This article is part of a series about the coronavirus crisis. Read all articles of this series here.

About the authors:

Ana Lucía Badillo Salgado is a PhD researcher at the ISS focusing on the political economy of social protection reforms in Ecuador and Paraguay, in particular the role of external actors in influencing social policymaking. She is also a Lecturer at Leiden University College.

Andrew M. Fischer is Associate Professor of Social Policy and Development Studies at the ISS and the Scientific Director of CERES, The Dutch Research School for International Development. His latest book, Poverty as Ideology (Zed, 2018), was awarded the International Studies in Poverty Prize by the Comparative Research Programme on Poverty (CROP) and Zed Books and, as part of the award, is now fully open access (http://bora.uib.no/handle/1956/20614). Since 2015, he has been leading a European Research Council Starting Grant on the political economy of externally financing social policy in developing countries. He has been known to tweet @AndrewM_Fischer

COVID-19 | Rethinking how to respond to COVID-19 in places where humanitarian crises intersect by Rodrigo Mena

By ISS Blog Bliss 7 April 202016 May 2020 5843 views

It is widely known that COVID-19 will disproportionately affect developing countries and impoverished peoples. Many of these countries are already affected by conflict and disasters including humanitarian crises, making the contexts even more fragile and complex and the threat of COVID-19 even more serious. Some approaches to fighting the coronavirus pandemic might not be feasible in these contexts where multiple crises intersect, argues Rodrigo Mena. The responses implemented in many countries are not sufficient to minimize impacts that include the potential loss of thousands of lives in vulnerable contexts; prevention and context-specific solutions that also address the root causes of humanitarian crises are needed now more than ever.

While many are waiting for the crisis to pass, we need to remember that hazards such as conflicts, earthquakes, or droughts do not take holidays during pandemic times. When they set in, governments will have to decide where to allocate the limited funds they have. Whereas many countries already have to make hard choices, hovering between strategies to prevent an economic recession and the prevention of the spread of the virus, countries with several pre-existing and ongoing crises, particularly those dependent on humanitarian aid, have even harder choices to make. When a disaster occurs together with COVID-19, will efforts be directed toward rebuilding the country or stopping the spread of the virus? And how will these countries deal with ongoing issues such as underdevelopment in general?

After four years researching disaster responses and humanitarian aid in conflict-affected places, I summarise here some considerations to take into account on why the general approach to COVID-19 might not be viable in many situations. Most recommendations can make things worse in traditional humanitarian crisis scenarios or places where the poorest and most vulnerable live. The places I studied faced disasters, conflict, and were generally underdeveloped, making them particularly vulnerable to any shock, including pandemics such as the COVID-19, and rendering governments incapable of responding effectively.

Refugee Camp in Bangladesh. Photo: Rod Mena

Additional issues are multiple. Here are a few:

Lack of access to water. With about 780 million people in the world without access to clean water (780 million!) and in places facing conflict, ‘access to safe water is often compromised; infrastructure is damaged or goes into decline, pipelines are in disrepair, and water collection is dangerous’, as presented by UNICEF. The advice to wash your hands regularly or use disinfectant might certainly not be feasible for many. In fact, aid actors are already struggling to deliver water in many places and an extra demand for it can exacerbate or be the source of new conflicts.
Lack of space. As many have indicated, COVID-19 will disproportionately affect the most vulnerable in the world, including those depending on humanitarian aid to survive. Social distancing might be impossible for the close to 30% of the world urban population living in slums, or for the close to 7 million living in refugee camps. And with more than 6% of the world’s employed population in the informal economy, the option to stay at home or quarantine looks unfeasible for many, let alone for those whose homes have been destroyed or left behind when they had to move because of disasters and conflict.
Greater humanitarian need. In addition, less-developed countries and populations not being aided at the moment might also start needing support. For example, despite multiple difficulties in many refugee camps and crisis-affected areas, there is a system in place to support people in need, but people living out of those spaces might struggle as much or more with this pandemic. The humanitarian aid sector, thus, will face a greater number of people depending on external aid. How and whether the aid sector should assist people affected directly or indirectly by the coronavirus is still an open debate, not only in terms of the real capacities to do it beyond the funding, but also in terms of capacities to do it adequately and safely[1].
Challenges to apply response strategies. A number of challenges can also impede the World Health Organization’s Test, Treat, Track strategy in places under high levels of conflict or facing humanitarian crises[2]:

Testing. If there is zero or reduced access to testing kits (and laboratories or medical personnel to run the tests), accurate figures on the number of deaths or infected people are obscured, making it difficult to plan how to provide relief.

Treating. When it comes to treating the most severely affected by COVID-19, the main procedure is connecting them to ventilators. A global shortage of ventilators is already apparent, and in least-developed countries, we need to add reduced access to reliable sources of electricity. In fact, close 20% of the world populations do not have access to electricity, and in low-income countries that can reach up to 60% —and yes, this includes hospitals that only have electricity via petrol or diesel generators.

Tracking. Then, when it comes to tracking the virus, we know that in places affected by conflict and disasters, many people are displaced or constantly on the move (there are 70.8 million displaced people worldwide, ranging from internally displaced persons to refugees and asylum seekers). Also, the demographics or databases of these places are not always reliable. This makes tracking very cumbersome or even impossible.

Finally, the option to close borders or declare lockdowns might be detrimental in places affected by war or conflict, where many flee to safety or do not have access to goods and services to support their lives.

Vulnerability is created

These are far from all the concerns, but they are enough to show what is well known in disaster studies: that disasters are not natural but socially constructed, including the COVID-19 crisis, as a blog post from Ilan Kelman clearly shows. The pandemic that we have is much more the consequence of social and politically wrong decisions and lack of preparedness than the spreading rate or lethality of the virus. Particularly, a lack of preparedness or decision not to act based on the knowledge that we had (because multiple official reports indicated the probabilities of a pandemic like this and how to prevent it or mitigate its impacts), has greatly contributed to the severity of the crisis[3].

If we do not start thinking about how to prepare to COVID-19 in less-developed places with context-specific solutions, we will be repeating the story; we will keep choosing not to be prepared, which will keep on resulting in catastrophic impacts. If there is something that we have learnt from disasters in the past, it is that prevention is almost always better than responding. Not doing so, or expecting that measures as these reviewed above will work in the most vulnerable places, is to turn a blind eye and hope for the best.

[1] But now with a global economic recession and an aid system already with a 40% shortfall on the funds needed to assist everyone in need, as presented in the 2019 ‘Global Humanitarian Assistance Report’.

[2] And in many cases not even feasible in western countries like France or the United States.

[3] For instance, the ‘National Risk Profile 2016’ of the Netherlands indicated that ‘due to the possible destabilising impact, the main focus of the NRP [National Risk Profile] is on the risks of a large-scale outbreak of an infectious disease, such as a flu pandemic’. Similarly, in 2006, the United States developed the National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza based on the risk of this event to occur (with the following update in 2017). Also, astonishingly, a report on global preparedness for health emergencies dated September 2019, issued by the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board, co-convened by World Health Organization and the World Bank, that ‘explores and identifies the most urgent needs and actions required to accelerate preparedness for health emergencies, focusing in particular on biological risks manifesting as epidemics and pandemics’, concludes that a global pandemic ‘would be catastrophic, creating widespread havoc, instability and insecurity. The world is not prepared’.

This article is part of a series about the coronavirus crisis. Read all articles of this series here.

About the author:

Rodrigo (Rod) Mena is a socio-environmental researcher and AiO-PhD at the International Institute of Social Studies of the Erasmus University Rotterdam. His current research project focuses on disaster response and humanitarian aid governance in complex and high-intensity conflict-affected scenarios, with South Sudan, Afghanistan and Yemen as main cases. He has experience conducting fieldwork and researching in conflict and disaster zones from in Africa, Latin America, Europe, Oceania and Asia.

Image Credits: Rod Mena

COVID-19 | Europe’s far right whips out anti-migrant rhetoric to target refugees during coronavirus crisis by Haris Zargar

By ISS Blog Bliss 6 April 202016 May 2020 3801 views

The explosion of the coronavirus has dramatically brought about fresh challenges for refugees, asylum seekers and migrants. With countries adopting stringent measures to contain this pandemic, including rigid border controls, the outbreak will not only have a huge impact on those driven out of their countries by crisis situations, but may create another refugee tragedy that may be worse than what has been experienced before.

The global response to the spread of the virus formally known as COVID-19 has been shaped by the complexity of national political interests and hardened immigration policies. Xenophobic rhetoric about how migrants and refugees are potential carriers of the deadly virus and pose a health threat has already become a central theme for right-wing populists in Europe, who advocate for cracking down on immigration.

As Steven Erlanger aptly noted in an article for The New York Times, COVID-19 is not only proliferating, but is also “infecting societies with a sense of insecurity, fear and fragmentation”. The possible outcome in the aftermath of the pandemic, therefore, may be a further polarization of societies and ‘othering’ of refugees and migrants.

This will likely jeopardize their rights and future course, setting in motion a new wave of xenophobic and racial politics bolstering far-right groups in many countries as a result. And this global health emergency may allow governments to implement temporary immigration and health-related measures that could systematically target refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants on the pretext of containing the spread of the virus.

Politicians across the European Union (EU) have already begun to exploit the COVID-19 outbreak by levelling suspicion at refugees and migrants. Ultra-nationalist Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán blamed migrants for the spread of the virus in Hungary: “We are fighting a two-front war, one front is called migration and the other one belongs to the coronavirus. There is a logical connection between the two as both spread with movement.”

In Italy, currently the most affected European country with the highest death toll outside China, right-wing political leader Matteo Salvini whipped up anti-immigration rhetoric by suggesting that migrants from Africa may have brought the virus with them. Greece’s nationalist government has cited the risk of COVID-19 infection as its reason for pressing ahead with a contentious plan to build “closed” camps for asylum seekers trapped on the Aegean islands of Lesbos and Chios.

In the Balkans, Croatian Health Minister Vili Beroš said migrants represent a ‘potential’ risk of spreading the virus, while Serbia’s far-right parties have threatened to expel about 6,000 migrants who are residing in the country. Far-right groups in France, Germany and Spain have called for suspending the Schengen agreement that allows passport-free travel among 26 member states in the EU. Border closures and tighter travel restrictions have been used as preventive measures during previous public health emergencies. Following the outbreak of diseases such as the Zika virus in 2016, Ebola in 2014, and H1N1 influenza in 2009, many countries imposed tight travel restrictions.

The World Health Organization has warned that trying to tighten border security will not work and may even impede the global fight against the spread of COVID-19. “We cannot forget migrants, we cannot forget undocumented workers, we cannot forget prisoners,” said WHO executive director and public health specialist Michael Ryan. “The only way to beat [coronavirus] is to leave no one behind.”

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF, or Doctors Without Borders) has also urged Greece to immediately evacuate refugees and migrants from overcrowded camps on its islands owing to the high risk of COVID-19 spreading swiftly among people living in squalid conditions. The organization said that it would be impossible to contain an outbreak in such camp settings and that it had not yet seen a credible emergency plan in case of an outbreak.

Recent humanitarian situations such as the ongoing civil war in Syria have highlighted how the destruction of critical healthcare infrastructure in a country can contribute to the emergence of infectious and communicable diseases. With fears growing over the excessive strain on public healthcare services owing to the coronavirus outbreak and an inability to cope with the rising number of infected people, the health implications for refugees may be profound.

This article is part of a series about the coronavirus crisis. Read all articles of this series here. This is a shortened version of an article originally published by New Frame.

About the author:

Haris Zargar is a PhD researcher looking at links between land reforms, social movements and armed insurgencies in Indian-controlled Kashmir. He has been a journalist for the past nine years, writing on the intersection of politics, conflict and human security. He worked as a political correspondent based in New Delhi with leading Indian new outlets including The Press Trust of India and The Mint. He holds degrees in Journalism and Development Studies from the University of Kashmir, and the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London.

Image Credit: EYE DJ on Flickr

COVID-19 | Lessons from the COVID-19 crisis for climate change politics by Murat Arsel

By ISS Blog Bliss 2 April 202016 May 2020 5257 views

COVID-19 and climate change bear striking – and worrying – similarities and differences. Both are characterized by high uncertainty, but while COVID-19 has been identified as an immediate threat and action has been taken despite the absence of comprehensive knowledge, uncertainty has been touted as impeding concerted efforts to transform energy systems to combat climate change. The global economic system has strongly contributed to our failure to make radical changes. A different system – one that is not so fundamentally focused on maximizing profits over all other concerns – could have been better placed to make the undeniably painful economic adjustments we are forced to make, both before the emergence of COVID-19 and to prevent a catastrophe arising due to climate change. While both crises require dramatic societal transformations, we need to be aware of the potential negative political consequences of declaring them as emergencies.

One thing is certain about COVID-19: we simply do not know enough. Some aspects about it are simply unknown, on others we have conflicting information. Scientists are asked to take shortcuts from their rigorous methods and to offer their ‘best guess’ on hugely consequential questions. Policy makers then take decisions within a fog of uncertainty since experts have also argued that doing nothing is the absolute worst option. This is a terrifying situation for us all, but it is not entirely without precedent.

While the threat of COVID-19 might seem unique, there are some interesting parallels between this threat and that of climate change. At a general level, neither is simply a ‘natural’ phenomenon. This is not to suggest – as some have – that they are a ‘hoax’. Viruses exist, mutate, and infect ‘naturally’. Similarly, the climate of the earth shows variation due to various factors outside of human influence. But what imbues both COVID-19 and contemporary climate change with a catastrophic potential is the political economic context in which they are developing. More specifically, it is global capitalism that takes what is ‘natural’ and weaponizes it against humanity.

In the case of climate change, the problem is not that humans are extracting natural resources in order to secure their livelihoods. The manner in which this extraction is carried out, its continuous intensification and, most importantly, the extraction of resources not necessarily to meet the human need to exist and to thrive, but rather to fulfil the need of capitalism to continuously expand, is what transforms extraction into a planet-altering force captured in the concept of the Anthropocene.

Similarly, the astonishing spread of COVID-19 could not have been possible without the incredible powers of global capitalism. The virus has spread so quickly and so effectively on the back of a global structure that transports goods, humans and – let us not forget – ideas at almost magical speeds. But it is important to not fall into the trap of blaming connectivity and mobility for the spread of the virus but the underlying economic structures that made combatting it so difficult and painful. While such a pandemic could also occur under a different global economic order, the precarity of not just individuals or classes but even some of the richest and technologically sophisticated economies is what makes COVID-19 so dangerous. A different system – one that is not so fundamentally focused on maximizing profits over all other concerns – could have been better placed to make the undeniably painful economic adjustments we are forced to make.

The parallels between climate change and coronavirus do not end there. Climate scientists – those in the natural as well as the social sciences – have long been arguing that if drastic changes are not made to the way we produce and consume, in other words to the way we live, we can expect apocalyptic changes to global ecosystems. When these materialize, their impacts are likely to be just as and probably even more colossal than the toll that COVID-19 will have exacted. Yet scientists’ pleas for radical action have been rebuffed on two grounds – we do not know enough, and dramatic curbs to economic activities are fundamentally against public interest. The effectiveness of these arguments has been far greater in the case of climate change than in COVID-19! As the COVID-19 crisis shows, these two grounds have not prevented governments across the world from acting in response to the COVID-19 threat.

Can we expect a change in attitude to climate change politics once the COVID-19 crisis is over? That is certain though it is possible to expect two dramatically different responses which will depend on how, in the aftermath of COVID-19, societies around the world come to understand the now evolving response. If the response to COVID-19 comes to be seen as an overreaction or a form of mass delusion, this would have massively negative effects on ongoing efforts to respond to climate change. That would mean not only that scientific authorities – not just the epidemiologists or immunologists but the entire enterprise itself – will be discredited, opening the door to an ever-intensifying challenge that will dwarf the anti-vaccination movement. Worse still, such an impression will embolden the Trumps and Bolsanaros of the world (unfortunately not a rare breed!) to challenge and pull back all too necessary measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

However, if the experts as well as politicians and policy makers who follow them are vindicated in making draconian changes (and if those who do not do so are vilified), we can expect a new era in which scientific authority is once again celebrated and valorised (rather than challenged by baseless arguments as has been the case with the anti-vaccination movement). It can also be expected that the spectre of an ecological apocalypse will be taken more seriously, bringing it with it meaningful socio-economic and cultural transformations to adapt to and mitigate climate change.

Authoritarianism creeping in through the back door

Implementation of dramatic societal transformation in response to anticipated catastrophes might at first be seen as an entirely positive outcome. But it is important to remember that all appeals to emergency, such as the declaration of a state of emergency, regardless of how justified they are, contain within them the seed of authoritarianism. A call to urgent action is almost by definition a call to silence dissent, to short-circuit deliberative democracy and to privilege the opinion of a select few over all others.

While rare, the climate movement has long had an authoritarian streak as demonstrated by this statement by no less than the developer of the Gaia hypothesis, James Lovelock: “We need a more authoritative world. We’ve become a sort of cheeky, egalitarian world where everyone can have their say. It’s all very well, but there are certain circumstances – a war is a typical example – where you can’t do that. You’ve got to have a few people with authority who you trust who are running it”[1]. A few years ago, such statements could have been considered fringe opinions intended more for provocation than for actual implementation. With countless leaders and scientists comparing COVID-19 to a war, there is genuine reason to be actively worried about ending up in a situation where climate change too becomes securitized in this manner.

This brings us back to the question of uncertainty and authority. While our knowledge of climate change – how it works, what its impacts are and how we can reverse it – are incomparably better than what we know about COVID-19, the socio-economic and ecological decisions that need to be taken are far from obvious if we are to avoid an economic crisis similar to the one brewing at the moment. How can we transition towards a carbon neutral economy? Which fossil fuel reserves need to be designated as ‘unburnable’? Where do we restore ecosystems and to what state? How, if at all, do we prevent flooding of cities and towns? What are the ecological tipping points and how can we prevent them if they remain largely unseen? These and countless other questions require not only authoritative scientific input but genuine deliberative discussion as well.

No society – regardless of how extensive its education and research attainment – is ready for this challenge. This is because the model of economic development that has dominated since World War II has created a relationship with science that Ulrich Beck has brilliantly described as “organized irresponsibility”[2], in which global capitalism has powerfully capitalized on the explosion of productivity enabled by modern science and technology while brushing under the metaphorical carpet its risks and uncertainties. Debates about the safety of genetically modified foods and nuclear power were harbingers of a brewing crisis of how science and technology can be socialized. COVID-19 is a stark reminder that the challenge remains great. If it is not addressed, we can expect many more war-like situations, not least in relation to climate change.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2010/mar/29/james-lovelock

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/jan/06/ulrich-beck

This article is part of a series about the coronavirus crisis. Find more articles of this series here.

About the author:

Murat Arsel is Professor of Political Economy of Sustainable Development. His research and teaching focus on the tensions between nature, capitalism, and emancipatory socio-economic development. Additional details of his work can be found at www.marsel.me

Image Credit: Markus Spiske on Unsplash

COVID-19 | Sex workers driven further to the margins by the coronavirus crisis by Jaffer Latief Najar

By ISS Blog Bliss 31 March 202016 May 2020 3910 views

Despite inroads having been made in recent years to improve their rights and reduce precarity, sex workers are still shunned, struggling to shift negative attitudes toward this age-old occupation. The coronavirus crisis is placing further pressure on sex workers, not only leading to a loss of income, but also pushing them further to the edges of society. Jaffer Latief Najar argues that states have the responsibility to ensure the acknowledgement of sex work and its entrepreneurs so that they can enjoy the same benefits as other employees or entrepreneurs during and after the crisis.

Sex work is a centuries-old global occupation, yet sex workers have always been marginalized. The sector has historically been regulated to keep tabs on the social, racial, political, and economic mobility of its workers. The regulation of the activities and bodies of sex workers worldwide and their marginalization are predominantly a colonial legacy. In the contemporary age, sex work is approached in binaries, seen either as legal (but regulated) labour or conflated with sex trafficking, which encourages its illegalization.

Concerning the radical changes enacted worldwide due to the spread of the coronavirus, including lockdowns and the temporary halting of high-risk occupations, it appears that the livelihoods, financial mobility, and health situation of sex workers are at risk. Some sex workers have used social media platforms to point out the decline of clients, income, and increasing health risks following the outbreak of COVID-19. For instance, one sex worker used a chain of threads and tweeted that,

“There’s no clients! Nobody in their right mind is having sex with a stranger during a pandemic. So often we’re not even given the option of seeing clients! Which means we’re BROKE. ”

Some sex workers are even offering extra unpaid services to continue drawing clients during the crisis. For instance, a number of sex workers are offering services such as ‘pay for 12 hours and get 12 free’. Indeed, sex workers in the Global South, in India for example, are struggling to make temporary arrangements to make ends meet, even fearing possible starvation if the current crisis endures. It explicitly speaks to the severity of coronavirus crisis and the strategies for survival employed by sex workers themselves. More so, sex workers’ communities and collectives have also come forward to raise funds to support sex workers who are suffering from financial stress during the time of this coronavirus pandemic. But is it their responsibility to ensure their survival? What role should the state play in helping sex workers stay afloat financially?

The precarity of sex work

Policies and feminists have contesting views on approaches to sex work. Some view it as a form of ‘exploitation’, while others see it as a form of work, framed in relation to individuals’ agency. The contestation is further complicated by the global anti-trafficking discourse, which largely conflates sex work with sex trafficking and encourages the criminalization of sex work. The United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children (UN TIP Protocol) clearly promotes such a criminalization framework, which, after acknowledgement by the majority of nation-states, is shown to have a strong negative impact on the lives and livelihoods of sex workers. Indeed, within such a dominant frame, institutional support largely reaches sex workers when they represent themselves as victims of trafficking rather than as independent agential sex workers. My personal field engagement in India’s largest red light district in Sonagachi has provided ample evidence that the criminalization framework encourages the incarceration of sex workers who resist being framed as victims of trafficking and the dismissal of their basic human rights.

The tensions are also embedded in an intersectional system that supresses sex workers socially, politically, economically, and as individuals. During interviews conducted as part of my ongoing fieldwork on the research topic ‘Locating marginalized voices in human trafficking discourse: learning from the experiences of urban subalterns in India’ in Asia’s biggest red light district in Sonagachi, Kolkata, sex workers often noted the issue of exclusion from or discrimination in public healthcare services and in trying to access welfare benefits due to their occupation. Moreover, a majority of sex workers are working with concealed identities and are using surrogate jobs titles to deal with social stigma and tensions in the family.

The current coronavirus pandemic creates a situation of hardship for them as they avoid working in streets and brothels and lose a share of income, which they present to their families as a salary from surrogate jobs, in addition to their crucial need to earn money to support themselves and their families. During my recent telephonic conversation with sex workers in India, after the outbreak of coronavirus pandemic, it appears that some of the sex workers are migrating back to their native villages as they can’t afford the expenses and possible risks in Sonagachi. Besides, it appears that the situation has become more risky and harsh for those migrant sex workers who stay back or even can’t go back to their native villages, especially undocumented migrant sex workers from outside states and outside national boundaries. It highlights that institutional support during such crisis situations is essential.

State support essentially needed

In pandemic situations, states largely comes forward to support those who are suffering from a loss of income (for example, see how the United States is responding). But due to the illegality or precarity of the occupation in many contexts, sex workers often are not seen as entrepreneurs who qualify for government subsidies or financial assistance. In such cases, there would be no mandate or institutional responsibility to offer financial packages, healthcare services, or relief benefits to sex workers. Industries and several unorganized work sectors suffering losses due to the coronavirus pandemic have been offered financial packages or healthcare benefits by several government agencies or employing institutions. But if sex work is not a commercially acknowledged industry, sex workers will be further cornered and will suffer further marginalization. Also, being a non-acknowledged industry, sex workers have no option of benefitting from other government support systems that have made several provisions to protect employees and companies alike. Indeed, those states that regulate sex work as work have imposed a recent ban on the commercial activities related to sex work due to the coronavirus pandemic, which has the potential of encouraging financial instabilities and further precarities among sex workers if no institutional support is provided.

The system of non-acknowledgement of sex work in established policies therefore excludes sex workers from entitlements or rights and invisiblizes sex workers during a pandemic situation, as the current coronavirus pandemic has demonstrated. It also holds back the political, social, and institutional responsibility of the state and other actors, including civil society, towards marginalized communities of sex workers. The onus, on the contrary, is indeed forcefully and irresponsibly imposed on sex workers to manage their situation, survive, and take high risks for the fulfilment of their basic human needs. Changes in the global socio-political landscape due to the coronavirus pandemic are hence leading to further burdens and precarities in the lives of sex workers, whereas an institutional system is failing to show any sign of support. But it is also a learning lesson for sex workers’ collectives and their allies in preparing responses to future pandemic situations. Last but not least and importantly, the crisis also puts in the spotlight the desirability of the criminalization approach toward sex work that exists in dominant anti-trafficking models.

This article is part of a series about the coronavirus crisis. Find more articles of this series here.

About the author:

Jaffer Latief Najar currently works as a researcher in the Vital Cities and Citizen Program at International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) in The Hague, Netherlands. He can be reached on Twitter or LinkedIn.

Image Credit: Matt Zulak on Flickr. The image has been cropped.

COVID-19 | Another top priority in times of crisis: keep democratic life up and running by Isabelle Desportes

By ISS Blog Bliss 26 March 202016 May 2020 3918 views

The coronavirus crisis seems to have reduced societal functioning to the bare minimum as an increasing number of governments have limited freedom of movement in an attempt to halt the spread of the virus. The introduction of several such authoritative measures needs to be counterbalanced by active citizens who continue to uphold democratic life and question these measures themselves, argues Isabelle Desportes, who studies how humanitarian emergencies are handled in settings where this is not the case. ‘Authoritarian dangers’ are not only a concern for far-away countries long labelled as ‘hopeless pariah states’, as European attempts are showing us these very days.

It is inherent to times of crises: many decisions and emergency legislative mechanisms will be enforced in countries all over the world these coming days and weeks. While such centralistic measures are often necessary, they also bear the risk of infringing on an effective and socially just handling of the pandemic now, and will shape our societies on the long term.

My research on disaster responses in Myanmar, Ethiopia and Zimbabwe showed that while responses to the disasters (a flood in 2015 in Myanmar and crippling drought in 2016 in Ethiopia and Zimbabwe) were mostly coordinated and efficient, the political contexts in which the disaster occurred meant that discussions on disaster preparedness and the modalities of relief were ignored. Important dynamics were observed for the three contexts: as the disasters destroyed homes, disrupted livelihoods and uprooted communities, their intense impacts had to be handled in the midst of ongoing marginalization of certain population groups at the hands of other groups and/or the state. Disaster responders were highly mobilized, but with little space to openly debate the modalities of relief, to have full insight into the extent of needs, and to raise concerns.

Following the disasters, a number of longer-term changes could be observed, according to the 271 disasters responders that I interviewed and who were active in organizations ranging from community groups to United Nations bodies:

The already marginalized were impacted most strongly by the disasters, being the most vulnerable to start with (with limited coping capacities and safety nets, fewer rights, a lack of voice and bargaining power);
Disaster responses were not always carried out in the common interest of societies at large and in accordance with humanitarian principles, but could serve as a conduit for violence, and to further enforce the interests of a few[i];
This was mostly achieved not via bold announcements and clear restrictions, but through everyday acts. This includes how data is collected, analysed and shared as part of disaster needs assessments, or which seemingly bureaucratic conditions are tied to response mechanisms. The manner in which certain topics are routinely framed in public discourse also bears importance. When certain issues are not discussed transparently or not discussed at all, they cannot be taken care of[ii].

Myanmar seems to have embarked on a dubious handling of the coronavirus crisis already, denying cases of COVID-19 infections so far. But, crucially, the above described is not only a matter of concern for faraway countries long labelled as ‘hopeless pariah states’. In a 2019 article, political scientist Marlies Glasius highlights how authoritarianism applies not to entire regimes in an ‘all or nothing’ fashion, but to patterns of action that sabotage accountability between the people and their political representatives “by means of secrecy, disinformation and disabling voice”. Such practices can be applied everywhere, including in democratic settings.

The risk of this happening is especially high in situations of crisis, which, quite rightly so, call for urgent and extraordinary measures. Political leaders from France to Spain recently proclaimed that they were ‘waging wars’—rhetoric that bears the risk of stifling criticism and pluralistic views in the name of ‘national unity and security’. In academic jargon, such moves are termed ‘securitization’[iii]. In Israel, the transitional government just pushed through the use of mass surveillance techniques on civilians to ‘monitor the virus’. This move is not approved nor overseen by the Knesset, to the dismay of many lawyers and human rights organizations. The Hungarian parliament might have to enter a phase of imposed hibernation, and journalists could be fined for propagating ‘fake news’. In several European countries, governments are currently negotiating with telecommunication companies to track population movements. One of the advanced arguments? ‘This was effective in China’. Yet, these privacy-invading practices can also be difficult to unwind, and can set precedents.

A key democratic concern is not only how decisions are taken, but also whether they are taken in the common interest of societies at large. Our political representatives, the media, but also every one of us have a crucial role to play in this. Social and environmental issues must be kept central, not only serve as adjustment variables to the economic or political interests of a few. To take one example even closer to home: in the Netherlands, the government is currently likely to financially support airline company KLM, which would quickly go back to launching its climate-destroying 500,000 flights a year. If such an action really is in the collective long-term interest in our times of climate breakdown deserves to be discussed.

So yes: stay home, wash your hands. But also, depending on your possibilities and preferences, and picking your fights such as to not enter into senseless clicktivism: keep our democracies alive and ensure that institutions are held accountable for the decisions they take now. This crisis can be a political turning point, and it is for all of us to make that future a desirable one.

Follow parliamentary debates and news on government decisions, interact with your political representatives, check whether political and technical institutions act in line with their mandates, keep informed about social realities different from your own, send in reader letters and challenge the media to relay these different social realities and issues, financially support independent media and civil society advocacy groups, join ‘online demonstrations’ (see for instance the alternatives proposed for the Belgian march against racism last weekend), keep mobilized within your party, union or civil society collectives, or even create your own. And any other basic to creative means you might come up with, and would like to share in the comments?

[i] In Myanmar for instance, the government has long aimed to homogenise its multi-ethnic and religious peoples into a unified Buddhist and Bamar entity. During the response to 2015 cyclone Komen, state aid was biased against religious and ethnic minority groups, and self-help and non-state aid initiatives to help those groups were grossly hampered. Muslim communities were forcibly relocated in military vehicles following the floods, state aid was distributed from monasteries not accessible to non-Buddhist groups, and the Rohingya minority was framed in public discourse as not worthy of support.

[ii] This is linked to self-censorship practices, which I discussed with colleague Roanne van Voorst in another blog.

[iii] The term is generally associated with the Copenhagen School.

This article is part of a series about the coronavirus crisis. Find more articles of this series here.

About the author:

Isabelle Desportes is a PhD researcher involved in the research project ”When disaster meets conflict” at the ISS.

Donor-driven agendas and the need to move beyond a capacity building focus in Myanmar’s research ecosystem by Jana Rué Glutting and Anders Lee

By ISS Blog Bliss 23 March 202016 May 2020 2751 views

Localization has become a buzzword among promoters of development aid following a recent shift in focus to the sustainability of development projects after the withdrawal of donors from contexts where projects have been initiated. But why don’t aid interventions also focus on the localization of research? This blog post intends to stress the importance of critically assessing the localization strategies of the international community in the research space in Myanmar, requiring an honest introspection in how social science research is being conducted and funded, and who are the actors at play and its implications.

The localization of aid has gained considerable attention in both the humanitarian and development spaces over the last few years (Kumar 2015). The conventional definition has been criticized for being too narrow, centred on channelling more aid directly to local state and non-state actors without a focus on supporting their capacity to effectively absorb and manage more aid. While donor and UN agencies have been pursuing greater localization of their funding, in practice, it has merely been operationalized as a set of best practices for them to better engage with local stakeholders.

With the renewed engagement of the international community since its 2010 democratic transition, Myanmar research actors have been catering to the rising demand for donor-driven knowledge production. Recently, we completed a study with the Global Development Network, funded by the International Development Research Centre, to assess the social science research ecosystem in Myanmar. The study found that the vast majority of donor-funded research places little decision-making power in the hands of local research actors, where local researchers are often relegated to liaisons or assistant roles in research projects. It is mainly justified on the grounds of allocating roles based on current levels of expertise, and few Myanmar researchers have experience to match the required level of expertise or experience.

The need to critically assess localization efforts in the development industry is important and urgent. Similar to the debate within humanitarian aid, more direct funding from donors into local research systems can contribute to increased capacity, promote independent research that produces longer-term research studies, and shape ‘big ideas’ of the country. At present, the research ecosystem in Myanmar can only be optimistically described as nascent. Its current state is the result of deliberate actions undertaken by the successive socialist government and military rule (following the 1988 Uprising, initiated by university students) to dismantle the higher education system.

Universities today are severely under-resourced – teaching is based on top-down rote learning, while professors are poorly paid and have little financial support or incentives to undertake independent and high-quality research. What further compounds the issue is ‘anade’, a sociocultural value still prevalent in Myanmar that prevents students from speaking out or raising questions to their professors in fear of offending them. These factors severely limit the development of analytical and critical thinking skills among young graduates.

The gap left by universities in research production is then filled by international NGOs, think tanks, development consultancies, and market research firms, which are largely funded by donors. In fact, donors have been very successful in controlling the ‘value chain’, guiding what is problematized and which research is commodified in the marketplace of ideas (McCombs & Shaw 1993). While the abovementioned dynamics could be considered successful localization practices, understood in the conventional sense as practices to channel direct aid to local actors and a focus on capacity building, this reality also shines light on the complexity of these collaborations.

In Myanmar, we have found that funding is often concentrated on specific areas that are in line with the priority areas that donors deem important for the country’s development. During our in-depth interviews, local researchers frequently complained about the lack of power in deciding the research topic and research design. They stressed that they were often relegated to positions of boots-on-the-ground or local partners, typically as data collectors, translators, or liaison officers. On the other hand, analytical tasks and report writing were assigned to bigger international NGOs or international consultants.

Amid the lack of supply of experienced researchers in Myanmar^[1], donors have focused on building capacity to meet the standards required for the localization of aid, mainly by adding short-term capacity building workshops in their projects. However, such an approach is myopic because it merely focuses on enhancing research skills sufficient to contribute to their commissioned studies. Moreover, power dynamics inherent in the aid-donor relations accord considerable leverage for the uptake of these donor-driven research studies, which can reduce the space for local researchers to explore thematic and methodological options in their pursuit of their research endeavours. Instead, local researchers are constrained in providing single-minded policy responses to overstretched policymakers. As aid practitioners, we have to critically assess these approaches and ask, how “local” is “the local”?

At present, social science research continues to be driven by the international community who sets its own agenda, with localization merely a tick on the checklist to ensure that the local context and participation are acknowledged. Such research is not co-developed or nationally owned, nor does it incentivize the government to pursue a longer-term strategy to build up the research system.

The discussion presented here does not suggest that donor-funded research cannot contribute to the development of a stronger research and policy-making environment. Rather, we argue that the narrow definition and application of the localization principle when it comes to pursuing research agendas is overly focused on achieving targeted narrow programmatic outcomes. This has been justified through partnerships with and training of local researchers to contribute to the strengthening of overall research capacities of Myanmar.

^[1] According to UNESCO UIS, Myanmar had 29.07 full-time equivalent researchers (per million inhabitants) in 2017 (UNESCO UIS n.d.)

References

Capie, D. (2012). The Responsibility to Protect Norm in Southeast Asia: Framing, Resistance and the Localization Myth. The Pacific Review, 25(1), 75–93.

Kumar, R. (2015). What’s new with localization. [online] Devex. Available at: https://www.devex.com/news/what-s-new-with-localization-86094 [Accessed 17 Jan. 2020].

McCombs, M. E., & Shaw, D. L. (1993). The evolution of agenda-setting research: Twenty-five years in the marketplace of ideas. Journal of communication, 43(2), 58-67.

UNESCO UIS. (n.d.). Data for Sustainable Development Goals – Myanmar. Available at: http://uis.unesco.org/en/country/mm?theme=science-technology-and-innovation [Accessed 16 Mar. 2020].

About the authors:

Jana-Chin Rué Glutting is a Research Associate at the Centre for Economic and Social Development. She is an MA graduate in Economics of Development Studies at The Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University. She is interested in industry policy research in Myanmar, and currently engaged in various projects related to the garment sector, trade and macroeconomic research, and social research systems.

Anders Lee is a researcher at the Centre for Economic and Social Development, and Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project. He is currently working on research projects looking at political violence in China and Hong Kong, and internal and international migration in Myanmar. He holds a Master’s degree in Development Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London.

COVID-19 | Radio silence during the crisis: how our imperial gaze threatens to sharpen global divides by Lize Swartz and Josephine Valeske

By ISS Blog Bliss 20 March 202016 May 2020 4346 views

The spread of coronavirus COVID-19 across the world has been accompanied by an explosion of activity on social media as people have tried to make sense of the implications of the virus and the speed of change. But the story that is emerging amid the chaos has failed to draw attention to the effect of the virus on low-income groups, making visible a radio silence on the plight of those in the Global South in particular. We need to break the silence to ensure the implementation of inclusive responses and a widening of the narrative beyond that of the privileged, write Lize Swartz and Josephine Valeske.

Following the progression of the coronavirus on news and social media from within the Netherlands, we have witnessed a worrying parallel development: a focus on the immediate economic effects of the crisis, including financial losses; reports of panic buying that have fueled further panic and anxiety; and the effects of quarantining on personal life. In the higher income households of Europe, social distancing and isolation are no more than an inconvenience for many, and one of the biggest concerns among young adults seems to be the boredom that will hit when being forced to stay at home for two weeks. For others it will be the lack of freedom of movement, the inability to travel for leisure and business or do things for pleasure.

Thus, two sides of the virus have become highlighted: either inconvenience through social distancing leading to eventual recovery, or death of the vulnerable as an impact of the virus itself. The ‘middle’—the physical suffering the virus will bring, rooted in pervasive structural socio-economic inequalities, has not sufficiently been discussed. The pandemic uncovers the effects of decades of neoliberalism undermining the welfare and healthcare systems all across the world. But in the Global South as well as in intentionally forgotten places in the Global North like the refugee camp Moria on Lesbos, the suffering will assume another dimension altogether.

There is still hope that low-income countries can avoid the pandemic, with Africa having put travel bans on Europe, China, and the US in a powerful twist of the discriminatory global visa regime. But if the coronavirus hits impoverished countries with high levels of social inequality and inadequate public health systems that still suffer the effects of (neo-)colonialism, that inequality will increase. For the vulnerable, the coronavirus will not be just an inconvenience, leading to loneliness or a temporary loss of income—it will likely cause untold suffering. The virus may result in the death of the physically vulnerable, including undernourished children and adults, or those with tuberculosis or Aids.

While it is true that the elderly across all income groups are experiencing the highest mortality rates, it is likely that young people in low-income groups will experience higher mortality than those that are wealthy, as is the case with influenza. A study by the University of Edinburgh found that the level of access to healthcare is associated with <65 year-olds’ influenza mortality rates. Deaths are not just numbers, but real experiences resulting in trauma and emotional distress.

Furthermore, often it is the suffering before possible death that strikes us hardest. Wealthier residents in the Global South, as many people in the Global North, will be able to self-isolate by withdrawing into their own lives, surrounded by high walls—properties where they can live in relative comfort for a few weeks, waiting for the storm to pass. Their place of safety is others’ place of danger. In informal settlements, isolation is not possible, where toilets and taps, where and if they are available, are shared. It is here where several people are crowded into a single room, sharing beds, utensils, space. It is here where diseases including tuberculosis spread more quickly. The suffering of those who cannot distance themselves socially, whose houses are not necessarily homes, or who do not have a house with a door and four walls, needs to be emphasized. The suffering of those who usually wander the streets during the day and now have to be confined into what might become a death trap.

When the time for isolation comes, not only will it be impossible in densely populated areas, it will become devastating. Many workers survive from their daily wage, living hand to mouth. Those without a choice will have to go to work, and the virus will spread. The dependence on public transport, particularly buses and trains, in developing countries should not be negated. Wearing a mask won’t help if you’re crowded into a small space. And as horrible as working with a fever and breathing troubles sounds, it might still be better than what will happen if the governments declare shutdown and sentence the extremely poor to go hungry for days or even weeks.

In addition, school feeding programmes for many children provide the only nutritious meal that they get each day—or the only meal they may get. Staying away from school can be devastating for families who cannot afford to feed their children, both in the Global South as also in places like New York City, which hosts 114,000 homeless children. And impoverished people who cannot afford private healthcare will have to wait in queues in clinics and at hospitals for free medicine—to the extent that they are accessible or proximate—increasing their risk of exposure to sickness.

Perhaps the worst of it all, however, is that for many low-income groups in the Global South, the physical effects of the pandemic and the sudden confrontation with death by illness are not at all as novel as they are for us in the rich countries. Death and suffering from communicable diseases is much more common in the Global South than in the North (see figure below). The daily death count of “poor people’s diseases” such as tuberculosis and malaria are at present much higher than those of the coronavirus, but these illnesses, often easier to fight than the novel virus, are usually forgotten―as are their victims.

Source: https://informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/covid-19-coronavirus-infographic-datapack/

The coronavirus is threatening to sharpen divides both intra- and internationally, not only revealing differences in adaptive capacity based primarily on socio-economic circumstances that affect individual responses to the virus, but also highlighting ignorance regarding the constant high level of exposure of vulnerable groups to communicable diseases. The very silence about these inequalities perpetuates them. Strong responses are sorely needed, including ongoing pressure to ensure that interventions are inclusive and target vulnerable groups first instead of focusing on the business sector.

Moreover, individuals need to break the silence by directing their gaze outward, away from their own societies, to reshape the narrative of the crisis by driving the focus away from the privileged who continue to dominate sense-making processes and who are dampening or silencing the voices of others in the process. And finally, it should not be forgotten that what wealthy societies are facing now has been the daily reality for many around the world, and that our imperial gaze often prevents us from recognizing this.

This article is part of a series about the coronavirus crisis. Find more articles of this series here.

About the authors:

Lize Swartz is a PhD researcher at the ISS focusing on water user interactions with sustainability-climate crises in the water sector, in particular the role of water scarcity politics on crisis responses and adaptation processes. She is also the editor of the ISS Blog Bliss.

Josephine Valeske holds a MA degree in development studies from the ISS. She is currently an intern at the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam and the blog manager of the ISS Blog Bliss. Her reseach interests lie in the areas of aid, corporate accountability, and social and economic justice.

In search of a new social contract in the Middle East and North Africa – what role for social policy? by Mahmood Messkoub

By ISS Blog Bliss 17 March 202016 May 2020 3361 views

Social policy in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is in urgent need of reform. Critiques of current social policy models point out their deficiencies in terms of coverage of population, entitlement to services, fragmentation of support for different groups and inadequacy of services provided, and above all a wasteful generalized/untargeted subsidy structure. The answer to these shortcomings not only lies in the redirection of resources from generalized subsidies towards targeted sectors and populations, but also in a broad rethinking and democratic dialogue on a new social contract and social policy models in order to improve coverage, entitlement, and the quality of services.

In 2019, mass popular protests shook several countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) as protesters demanded an end to authoritarian rule and corruption and called for democracy and a decent life. The call for a decent life was not just a protest against the failure of states to alleviate poverty and improve living conditions, but was also seen as an opportunity for a change in the social contract. The protests illuminated a desire to move away from patronage and clientelism that eroded post-independence universalist ideals and social policies.

Some of these protests were triggered by a sudden jump in the price of basic goods (e.g. of bread in Sudan or petrol in Iran) that released the pent-up frustration with repression, corruption, a lack of accountability and deep-seated economic and social problems that have simply been cracked over by the ruling elite. People all over the MENA could easily identify with the Sudanese slogan of ‘freedom, peace and justice’ used in the protests, which would eventually topple the dictatorship of President Omar al-Bashir. Freedom, peace and justice are not only important for their own sake, but are also needed for a national debate on social policies that could meet people’s aspirations for better education, health, social protection, etc.

In MENA, social policies have been developed mainly as an integral part of the broad social and economic development agenda in the post-colonial period. Oil income provided resources to pay for healthcare, education, and extensive subsidies for the provision of food, fuel and energy to consumers. Non-oil producers also benefited from the oil income through labour remittances, foreign aid, and investment by the oil-rich countries. But in the 1980s, a low growth rate and the decline in oil revenues put the finances of the MENA countries to test. The region was ill equipped in terms of a skilled labour force and social insurance policies to compete internationally and diversify its economy. The existing social programmes mostly covered formal sector employees including those in the civil service. Large numbers of informal sector workers, rural residents, and agricultural workers had to rely on poor publicly provided services or fall back on meager family resources and charitable handouts of non-state providers in an informal security regime. The formal and informal social provisioning were based on a male-breadwinner household with negative implications for gender equality in law and in relation to entitlement to welfare and social support that was exacerbated by the low labour force participation rate of women.

In addition, state expenditures on social policy programmes are constrained by expenditures on generalized indirect subsidies, inter alia, to fuel, public utilities, water, and staple food sources. According to one estimate, fuel subsidies account for nearly 75% of the total subsidy spending in MENA (Silva et al 2013). The higher income groups in general benefit most from these indirect subsidies except staple food, since the latter takes a larger share of consumption expenditure of lower income groups.

The existing social policy model of generalized indirect subsidies has failed to provide a solution to increasing poverty and vulnerability in the region, especially in periods of social and economic crisis. The reform of the subsidy structure should not only take note of differential impact of the indirect subsidies, but also has to be part of a broad social policy agenda.

The current debate on social policy in the region is about the reform and reduction of the indirect subsidy structure and moving away from a universal rights-based approach to social provisioning towards targeting poverty and improving social protection. Whilst cuts in indirect subsidies and strengthening of social protection are needed, it is essential that any targeting and social protection do not undermine the broad rights-based social policy agenda of public provisioning of health and education and rules governing the labour market to support employment that will improve the economic foundation of household economy.

There is also the all-important concern with the role of households and families to support themselves. In the absence of adequate family resources, there is a need for social policy measures that would supplement family resources and support the broad developmental agenda and ensure societal and macro-level inter-generational support. In this context, the most basic objective of any state intervention is to maintain and increase the resource base of households. This is particularly important if we take into account the changing demographics of the region: the lowering of fertility and ageing of the population. The MENA societies and families are ill prepared for an ageing population.

The Arab Spring and its counterparts in Turkey and Iran have been much more than a cry for freedom and democracy. It has also been a cry for social justice and against corruption that has aggravated capitalist inequality. The use of and access to public office for private accumulation, lack of accountability, and poor governance have all contributed to a sense of desperation and alienation of the population, especially the young. The region is in need of a new social contract. Social policy should play an important role in the design and implementation of this social contract.

What MENA needs is a return to the universalist social policy ideals of a developmental state but within a democratic political environment that promotes genuine popular engagement and participation, as well as transparency and accountability, in order to arrive at an inclusive and new social contract. The details and boundaries of this new social contract would be country specific and depend on the national political and economic developments.

This blog is based on the author’s recent publications:

Messkoub, M. (2017). ‘Population ageing and inter-generational relation in the MENA: what role for social policy?’ Population Horizons, 14(2): 61-72.

Jawad, R., Jones, N. and Messkoub, M. (eds) (2019) Social policy in the Middle East and North Africa: the new social protection paradigm and universal coverage. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar publishers.

Messkoub, M. (2020) ‘Social Policy in the MENA’ in Hakimian, H. (2020) Routledge Handbook on Middle East Economy. London: Routledge.

References:

Silva, J., Levin, V. and M. Morgandi (2013) ‘Inclusion and Resilience: The Way Forward for Social Safety Nets in the Middle East and North Africa’. Washington DC: World Bank.

About the author:

Mahmoud Meskoub is senior lecturer at the International Institute of Social Studies (Erasmus University of Rotterdam), teaching and researching in areas of social policy and population studies. As an economist he taught for many years in the UK (at the universities of Leeds and London). His current research interests are in the area of economics of social policy and population ageing, migration and universal approach to social provisioning. His recent publications on MENA are related to social policy, the impact of recent financial crisis on the region, poverty and employment policies. He has acted as a consultant to ESCWA, ILO, UNFPA and the World Bank.

Image Credit: AK Rockefeller on Flickr

EADI/ISS Series | Resource Grabbing in a Changing Environment

By ISS Blog Bliss 16 March 202016 May 2020 2680 views

By Adwoa Yeboah Gyapong, Amod Shah, Corinne Lamain, Elyse Mills, Natacha Bruna, Sergio Coronado and Yukari Sekine

We are living in an era where people’s daily lives are deeply intertwined with the impacts of global markets and the threats of climate change. Even good intentions for mitigating and adapting to climate change can jeopardise natural resources and rural livelihoods. These seemingly abstract issues are becoming increasingly clear through both research and the role of the media, sparking questions such as: How do attempts to address climate change prevent farmers from working their lands, or negatively affect the livelihoods of forest users? Why are fishers organising themselves to resist interventions intended to protect marine areas? How do human rights groups and indigenous communities resist the state and powerful companies despite civil society space being increasingly limited?

The rapid rise in the scale and scope of the commodification and exploitation of natural resources can be linked to four broad, interlinked drivers: the expansion of the industrial food system; increasing privatisation of the commons; changes in governance mechanisms; and the growing prominence of climate mitigation and adaptation responses. Both local and global issues shape and complicate the dynamics of contemporary resource grabbing, many of which are still not fully understood – and will be explored further in our workshop on “Resource grabbing: impacts and responses in an era of climate change” at the EADI/ISS General Conference 2020.

The social and environmental impacts of resource grabbing

Resource grabbing impacts can include limited access to resources, insecure livelihoods, diminishing ecological sustainability, and restricted participation and political incorporation, all of which are embedded in broader power dynamics. In some cases, governance instruments (e.g. labour laws) can further exacerbate the impacts of resource grabbing. Four examples illustrate these diverse impacts.

Conservation in global fisheries

Small-scale fishers globally are facing an overlap of existing and newer processes of exclusion. Existing forms of exclusion caused by industrialisation and privatisation in fisheries have more recently overlapped with exclusionary processes stemming from climate change mitigation and adaptation initiatives. Prominent examples include the increasing establishment of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) and blue carbon initiatives, which are presented as approaches to conserve and protect marine ecosystems. Such initiatives are often established close to the shallow coastal domains of small-scale fishers and involve the banning of fishing activities, leaving them with limited access to fisheries resources, territories and markets to sustain their livelihoods.

Climate funds in Mozambique

With 25% of its territory designated as conservation areas, Mozambique is the third-largest recipient of climate funds in Sub-Saharan Africa, having received approximately US$ 147.3 million in 2016. Most of these funds are directed to land-based conservation and climate change mitigation and adaptation projects. The Gilé National Reserve, a decade-old REDD+ project, combines such policies with the implementation of Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) in the reserve’s buffer zone. This has limited rural livelihood strategies and local people’s control over land and decision-making processes, due to restrictions placed on fishing, hunting, cattle rearing and gathering forest resources (e.g. charcoal, medicinal plants).

Mining in Colombia

Since the 2008 commodity-boom, open-pit coal mining in the Colombian Caribbean region of La Guajira has expanded rapidly, leading to intensified land and environmental conflicts between mining companies, the state, and the affected communities. Land previously used for agriculture and grazing livestock is no longer accessible. Both the landscape and the local economy are now dominated by mining, which has consumed more than 12,000 hectares of land and displaced 16 local villages.

Hydropower dams in the Eastern Himalayas

In the Eastern Himalayas (North-East India and Nepal), numerous hydropower dams are being planned or are already being constructed. Many of these are funded through the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), an internationally developed climate finance initiative aiming to stimulate the development of renewable energies. However, evidence suggests that dams contribute significantly to greenhouse gas emissions through the creation of reservoirs and changes in land-use. Large dams particularly disturb ecological systems, upstream and downstream river flows, and limit people’s access to riverside lands.

Political responses generated by resource grabs

Local people and communities affected by resource grabbing engage in both overt and covert responses against dispossession and exploitation. Overt responses include formal, organised actions, often by social movements. In contrast, covert responses may include everyday acts of resistance and adaptation through different livelihood strategies, such as migration or incorporation into projects. The dynamics of such political responses have implications for solidarity with and building alliances between affected groups, particularly those seeking social and environmental justice. Three examples illustrate these diverse responses.

Using legal tools in India and Colombia

Indigenous communities facing displacement stemming from hydropower and mining in India have effectively stalled land acquisition processes through court action. These rulings have enforced existing laws mandating their prior consultation and consent. Similarly, in Colombia, more than ten popular consultation processes have been carried out at the provincial level since 2010. In each of them, large numbers of local people voted against the installation and expansion of mining or oil extraction projects. Legal battles have also taken place between companies, the state, and human rights defenders over the implementation of consultation results.

Scaling-up ‘agrarian climate justice’ struggles in Myanmar

The recent re-emergence of overt, organised resistance related to land, environment and climate mitigation issues in Myanmar has ranged from advocacy aiming to influence national-level land laws and policies that facilitate privatisation and concentration, to more localised resistance against large-scale oil palm concessions, mines and forest conservation initiatives that exclude small-scale farmers and forest users. Scaling up across struggles for agrarian climate justice has become imperative to counter elite power at national and regional levels. However, it sometimes triggers external threats, like repression, and ‘divide-and-rule’ strategies from above. Fault-lines within movements may also emerge, particularly due to competing political tendencies and legacies of ethnic conflicts.

Everyday strategies in Ghana

Farmworkers on an oil palm plantation in Ghana have engaged in covert strategies such as absenteeism, non-compliance to rules, and continuous production to resist exploitation. Workers on farms near the plantation occasionally use company vehicles on their own farms, while they absent themselves from plantation work. Casual workers use various tactics to obtain paid medical leave, while others do shoddy work, knowing there are few monitoring supervisors. Through these everyday individual responses, workers can maintain a small supply of staple foods (e.g. corn and cassava), earn extra income, and rest. However, their everyday actions also restrict their upward workplace mobility, such as moving from casual to permanent contracts, and productive autonomy on their own farms in terms of scale and crop choices.

About the authors:

Adwoa Yeboah Gyapong, Amod Shah, Corinne Lamain, Elyse Mills, Natacha Bruna, Sergio Coronado and Yukari Sekine are all PhD researchers in the Political Ecology research group at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS).

Image Credit: Maarten van den Heuvel on Unsplash

Love in a time of internet shutdown: heartache and hope in Kashmir by Haris Zargar

By ISS Blog Bliss 12 March 202016 May 2020 2664 views

Our dependence on the Internet as a way to build, strengthen, and maintain personal relationships has grown along with global advances in digital technologies. A prolonged Internet blackout has taken a heavy toll on residents of India’s disputed Kashmir region, showing how the sudden absence of connectivity affects the dynamics of personal relationships. With authoritarian regimes blocking access to the Internet more often, it is time to ensure unhindered Internet access under international law.

The Internet has become an inseparable part of our daily lives, to the extent that our dependence on it goes largely unnoticed. Access to this cyber infrastructure is almost deemed a fundamental right. But what happens when a community is forced offline at a time when almost every aspect of life is managed by internet-based tools? How does the absence of the internet reshape individual attitudes, social interaction, or reconfigure intimate personal relationships?

For months, residents of the Indian-controlled Kashmir region were cut off from the outside world after the Indian government on 5 August 2019 scrapped Article 370 of the Indian constitution, which until then had granted this state’s population a certain degree of autonomy. The communications blackout turned this Himalayan valley into a virtual information black hole.

The impact of the Internet clampdown on Kashmir’s economy, governance, healthcare system and educational institutions, as well as on the mental wellbeing of its people, were widely reported. In addition, a report by the Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industry estimated that the months of shutdown cost the valley’s economy $2.4 billion and resulted in thousands of job losses.

Amidst this, little attention has been paid to how the absence of the Internet affects personal relationships, considering that technology now functions as a third element in these bonds. The nature of daily human interaction has been reshaped by video calls, chatting apps and social media platforms, effectively mediating the exchange of intimate information and expressions of love, concern, and care.

Anxiety and distress

A childhood friend pursuing his higher education in Germany was gripped with anxiety for weeks following the internet shutdown in Kashmir. He kept reaching out, almost frantically, to ask how we could communicate with his family, particularly to get information about whether his brother with epilepsy was still able to get his chronic medication.

Another Indian friend whose estranged Kashmiri partner was in the state during this blackout period had to contact her ex-partner’s sibling based outside of the country, “risking all the embarrassment”, to ask about his wellbeing. For another acquaintance, it was counting down the days until she could hear from her fiancé, regularly urging me to send some someone in person to his house to ask about him and his family.

A news report in Indian national daily The Telegraph captured the intimate moments of a teenage couple following the partial restoration of mobile connections in mid-October last year. When the lines were opened, the first call made by Faesal Ahmad, a college student, was to his sweetheart. “Are you still mine?” he asked, voice quivering in excitement at being able to speak to her for the first time in months. “Always yours,” came the reply, as Faesal later told the paper.

Away from the public gaze

In a traditionally conservative place like Kashmir, premarital relationships are still frowned upon and even though attitudes towards such relationships have eased over the years, couples avoid being seen together in public. The internet thus played a significant role in romantic relationships in the valley, making it easier for couples to interact using smartphones rather than having to find comfortable public spaces such as parks or cafés, which also remained inaccessible in the wake of the political turmoil. Online dating platforms have reportedly also provided safe spaces for the valley’s LGBTQIA+ residents.

Another news report by VICE India detailed how the internet shutdown and restrictions on public movements wrecked relationships and marriages in the valley. For many couples, the report underlined, the lockdown meant no calls, no WhatsApp messages, and no exchange of romantic voice notes.

Days after the restrictions were imposed, local newspapers in Kashmir were filled with announcements cancelling marriage functions that usually span several days. Couples who had made elaborate arrangements were either forced to reschedule or curtail their marriage programme. Instead, ceremonies were conducted in an austere manner with family members having to queue outside government offices to get curfew passes for guests.

Given the scale of our digital dependence, it’s difficult to truly comprehend the impact of the Internet being down for a prolonged period. Authoritarian regimes are now regularly shutting down the Internet to curb dissent, and as such, this undemocratic exercise must be made illegal under international law.

This is a shortened version of an article originally published by New Frame.

About the author:

Haris Zargar is a PhD researcher looking at links between land reforms, social movements and armed insurgencies in Indian-controlled Kashmir. He has been a journalist for the past nine years, writing on the intersection of politics, conflict and human security. He worked as a political correspondent based in New Delhi with leading Indian new outlets including The Press Trust of India and The Mint. He holds degrees in Journalism and Development Studies from the University of Kashmir, and the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London.

Image Credit: Mike Licht on Flickr

EADI/ISS Series | Re-Politizing the European Aid Debate by Iliana Olivié and Aitor Pérez

By ISS Blog Bliss 6 March 202016 May 2020 2759 views

Aid or, at least, its narrative, is increasingly politicised. This is happening in a period of emerging populist and/or nationalist movements in Europe. Maybe counter-intuitively, nationalism or populism does not necessarily lead to decreasing aid budgets or a lower profile for international assistance. The explanation lies in the fact that aid, when used politically, can be a useful tool for fulfilling donors’ interests.

The economic, social and political crises that have erupted in Europe in the last decade might be shifting the academic debate on the drivers of aid from the more traditional selfish vs. solidary divide to a―somehow related―new divide on Nationalism vs. Liberalism-Cosmopolitanism. Recent examples are the Brexit process, or the rise of populist movements in Europe.

Most analyses of the drivers of Northern donors published in the last two decades have pointedly explored the extent to which countries contribute aid according to ‘good’ or altruistic motives (based on recipient needs and/or merits and driven by solidarity), or ‘bad’ or selfish reasons (essentially the donors’ national interests). A great deal of these studies concludes that, indeed, Northern countries give aid out of selfish motives, often related to security or wealth, which is seen as something morally reprehensible. According to this literature, donors should shift to a more altruistic view of aid, that should be grounded in the principle of solidarity.

Currently, a new divide between Nationalism and Liberalism-Cosmopolitanism is emerging in the academic debate on aid. To counter the ‘cultural backlash’ of either lobbying against aid, or for using aid to shut ‘the other’ out in many European countries and sectors, some academics and activists point out the need for aid as a tool for the promotion of democracy, civil and human rights and a liberal ideal of world society. In this sense, aid can be used selfishly, but for the promotion of one’s values, not interests.

Aid to support political priorities

This new divide is one of the factors behind the current trend towards a ‘re-politization’ of aid, and signs of such trend manifest in the European aid narrative. For instance, the European Commission’s President-elect Ursula Von der Leyen’s mission letter to the new EU Commissioner for International Partnerships, Jutta Urpilainen, states that it is necessary to ensure that “the European model of development evolves in line with new global realities […] and should contribute to our wider political priorities”. This is followed by more specific objectives, such as a comprehensive strategy for Africa, a post-Cotonou agreement, working towards the achievement of the SDGs, the promotion of gender equality and the support of civil society.

The ‘re-politization’ of aid, ‘politization’ or merely ‘politics’ is one of the driving ideas of our book “Aid power and politics”, recently published by Routledge. For instance, a sense of Liberalism and/or Cosmopolitanism lay behind the British former role as an aid super-power. In the late 90s and the beginning of this century, the UK played a strong leadership role in aid and development, building a strong capacity to influence the international aid community and, particularly, EU development cooperation policy. In a similar vein, the Scandinavian approach to aid―depicted as humane―responds to cosmopolitan and moral considerations. These values may be found among the policy drivers in this policy area, along with enlightened self-interest related to international common goods.

This perspective also applies in the case of Brazil. This country has been one of the most active countries in South-South cooperation over the past two decades. A significant feature of Brazilian cooperation policy has been its wide coverage, in geographical, sectorial as well as instrumental terms. Moreover, Brazil has channelled a large part of its cooperation policy through multilateral organisations and has established relevant alliances with other emerging countries. In this context, the purpose of reforming the major multilateral organisations and the search for greater international projection have led Brazil to establish South-South coalitions, in its search of regional and global leadership.

Aid as a tool for shaping global governance

In other cases, it would be difficult to argue that Liberalism and/or Cosmopolitanism is the vision behind the donor’s aid program. For instance, under the constitution adopted after the Second World War, Japan was prevented from sending its Defence Forces abroad, or from solving international conflicts by military means. This is what has made development assistance an important tool in its international relations. Economic diplomacy is a key concept for Japan when dealing with developing countries. At the domestic level, development assistance is also a tool to stimulate the Japanese economy, assisting small- and medium-sized companies, in particular to establish themselves in less developed parts of the world. Also, in Hungary, the aid system was reformed in the mid 2010s, when the government took stronger political ownership of the policy area with a view of using foreign aid to support Hungarian business interests.

From this perspective, it could be argued that, when used politically, aid can be a tool for donors’ aiming at shaping global governance. This explains the evolving nature of ‘donorship’ as a result of the increasing weight of non-Western donors. It is also the reason why health objectives have shifted due to the appearance of private stakeholders in the global health system.

….Or the other way round?

However, this could also go the other way around: specific agendas, set in the aid universe, can shape the behaviour of countries or other agents.

These mechanics can be better understood with the study of specific agendas such as gender equality or democracy and good governance. In this latter case, this agenda, which became central in the aid regime in the late 1980s and 1990s, also faced difficulties in its implementation due to the confrontation of the international liberal consensus with domestic politics in recipient countries. As for gender equality, donor organisations cannot avoid addressing it in their development cooperation, but they can do so in substantially different ways. In the end, organisational origins, priorities and pressures, as well as normative environments, tend to bias and dilute global norms on gender equality.

Aid or, at least, its narrative, is increasingly politicised. In addition, this is happening in a period of emerging populist and/or nationalist movements or political parties in Europe. Maybe counter-intuitively, nationalism or populism does not necessarily lead to decreasing aid budgets or a lower profile for international assistance. The explanation lies in the fact that aid – eventually, re-shaped – can be a useful tool for fulfilling donors’ interests.

About the authors:

Iliana Olivié is senior analyst at the Elcano Royal Institute and associate professor at the Complutense University of Madrid. At the upcoming EADI ISS Conference “Solidarity, Peace and Social Justice”, Iliana Olivié will be hosting the roundtable session “What values and goals drive international assistance? Solidarity, self-interest, democracy and security in European aid”.

Aitor Pérez is senior research fellow at the Elcano Royal Institute.

Image Credit: Defence Images, Flickr, CC BY-NC 2.0. The image was cropped.

Rethinking how we communicate on Bliss – a contribution to the decolonization of science by Lize Swartz

By ISS Blog Bliss 2 March 202016 May 2020 2632 views

Research institutes are not only spaces in which research and education take place—they play a political role in sharing knowledge that is intended to benefit society directly or indirectly. Who the knowledge is shared with and in which ways is of extreme importance; publishing research findings and learnings in English limits who can benefit from the research. In an effort to contribute to the decolonization of science, ISS Blog Bliss has decided to encourage the publication of blog articles in the native languages of the authors or the communities participating in the research.

The Editorial Board of ISS Blog Bliss meets at quarterly intervals to discuss numerous aspects relating to the blog, including its functioning, successes, and future directions. At such meetings, we always discuss the statistics of the blog, including which articles have the most reads and where the readers come from.

At our recent Board meeting, we noticed that of the top 10 countries in terms of readership, only two are outside the Global North. Moreover, these two countries—South Africa and India—were former British colonies where English is the lingua franca, understood and spoken by a large part of the population. The top 3 countries were the Netherlands, the UK, and the USA, while other countries included Germany and Switzerland. As all blog articles have been published in English, this inevitably means that people who are able to read English texts and do research in English have been able to access our blog site.

In an effort to increase the readership of our blog, we have decided to encourage blog authors to translate their blog articles to their native languages, or to the native language of the communities participating in the research. In the future, English texts will be encouraged to be accompanied by texts in native languages. We hope that in so doing, our audience can be diversified, moving beyond scholars, practitioners and research participants in the Global North to include those in the Global South as well.

Something we also found at Bliss is the importance of researchers sharing their blog articles on social networks. While Google helps to find blog articles, research dissemination on social media is also a form of scholar activism. Our research finds that Facebook is particularly important for finding blog articles, followed by Twitter and Google. We are therefore encouraging authors to share their blog articles on social media (in their native languages) as well.

The good news are that blogs remain a wonderful way to communicate what we are discussing or researching at ISS. The content is more accessible, both in terms of style and in terms of open access, than scientific theses or journal articles. We therefore encourage researchers to make use of this communication channel. If we really wish to live the scholar-activism many of us subscribe to—if we truly want to be scholar activists—we must also think of how and to whom we are disseminating the knowledge we have generated through our research.

Are you also committed to changing academia? Join us by writing for Bliss in your native language and then share it as widely as you can!

About the author:

Lize Swartz is a PhD researcher at the ISS focusing on water user interactions with sustainability-climate crises in the water sector, in particular the role of water scarcity politics on crisis responses and adaptation processes. She is also the editor of the ISS Blog Bliss.

Image Credit: Chris JL on Flickr

“Whose responsibility is it anyway”? Questioning the role of UN peacekeeping mission MONUSCO in stabilizing the eastern DRC by Delphin Ntanyoma

By ISS Blog Bliss 24 February 202016 May 2020 3840 views

In the highly volatile eastern DRC, where over the past decades violent conflict and political instability have claimed the lives of thousands of civilians, UN peacekeeping mission MONUSCO has intervened to help security services including the national army and the police regain control of the region. After twenty years of intervention, MONUSCO is blamed for what should be the DRC government’s responsibility—the failure to de-escalate the situation and find long-term solutions that will bring peace. What role can and should it play in eastern DRC, then? As Delphin Ntanyoma explains, the power and responsibility to enact real and long-lasting change lies with the DRC government.

Thousands of civilians have been killed in Beni[1] in the eastern DRC since 2014, when a jihadist-oriented group known as the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) first occupied the region. Recent statistics indicate that between early November 2019 and mid-February 2020, approximately 350 civilians have been brutally killed in Beni by ADF militants[2]. Countless attacks have been carried out by ADF in different villages, where local populations have been slaughtered with guns and machetes. Since 2014, military operations have been executed in an attempt to halt these attacks, but it is not known when the situation will stabilise.

Despite ‘assurances’ from the Congolese government, the national army and UN peacekeeping mission MONUSCO, doubts remain about how the ongoing tragedy created by the ADF will be addressed. A few weeks ago, local populations across DRC and in Beni in particular demonstrated against the killing of civilians, desperately marching across cities with the hope that their plea to end the ongoing conflict and violence against civilians would be heard. More specifically, demonstrators protested against MONUSCO’s inability to protect civilians, as Chapter VII of the UN Charter compels it to do. Whilst avoiding pointing a finger directly at the national army, demonstrators have largely blamed MONUSCO for its failure to protect civilians.

Amid these tensions, the UN Under-Secretary General for Peace Operations Jean Pierre Lacroix visited the DRC between 30 November and 2 December last year to assess the situation. During his visit to Beni, Goma and Kinshasa to show support for the UN peacekeeping mission and discuss the situation with officials, Lacroix claimed that demonstrations against MONUSCO were likely manipulated and funded from ‘somewhere’[3]. This statement is hardly verifiable, but an independent observer would unlikely rule out this possibility due to ongoing debates on the UN’s role in creating stability in eastern DRC; some Congolese political figures have openly called for the UN to end its peacekeeping mission or to provide a plan for its gradual withdrawal.

The question thus arises from this debate: why is MONUSCO in a ‘hot seat’ for something that is essentially the responsibility of the state? Why is MONUSCO being held responsible by Congolese civilians for the killings taking place in Beni instead of the army and police, who are particularly responsible for preventing this? Therefore, the essentiality of MONUSCO’s presence in the region should be better examined: is the UN peacekeeping mission technically constrained in executing its mandate to protect civilians, or are there other reasons for its perceived inaction? And at what point will the mission be considered successful and finally withdraw from the DRC?

Besides some challenges related to its internal functioning (heavy bureaucracies, unlikely familiar with complexities and diversities of local contexts, culturally limited for some military forces, missions operating in the mostly inaccessible eastern Congo), MONUSCO has been only slightly involved during the preparation of military operations in Beni. Hence, its success seems to be challenged by institutions such as the security sector that are unwilling to tackle structural challenges. Meanwhile, MONUSCO is obliged to work with them while having limited power to influence their decisions.

In Beni, for instance, MONUSCO has expressed concerns over the national army launching unilateral military operations without sufficiently engaging the UN peacekeeping. The reasons for the army’s decision to operate unilaterally remain unclear. Under the name of sovereignty or the national army’s unwillingness to co-operate, military operations against ADF were carried out with limited support of the UN peacekeeping mission. Hence, these military operations were largely ineffective due to lacking strong coordination among main stakeholders. Moreover, grounded reports indicate that some military commanders have directly or remotely been supporting local armed groups and foreign militias[4]. In addition, one of the main sources of misery in Congo is the level of embezzlement and corruption within the public arena (including the army and police), which in turn affects the delivery of public services and goods. Consequently, state’s authority is largely absent in remote regions of the eastern Congo, creating a security vacuum exploited by armed groups to perpetuate violence.

These are some of the challenges linked to the extended conflict that MONUSCO cannot address. These and other internal and external challenges facing MONUSCO call for the redefinition of its mandate in relation to local contexts. Failing to do so, it may spend another decade trying, but failing to contribute to long-lasting peace and a corresponding shift of attention toward the development in the region.

[1] From Ituri to Maniema via North-Kivu and South-Kivu provinces, extreme violence has re-emerged. Although similar contexts characterize Djugu (Ituri), Masisi-Rutshuru (North-Kivu), Minembwe-Itombwe (South-Kivu) and Kabambale (Maniema), the blog post takes Beni’s tragedy as an illustration.

[2] See for instance one of the Radio Télévision Belge Francophone : https://www.rtbf.be/info/monde/detail_rdc-huit-morts-et-plusieurs-disparu-apres-un-nouveau-massacre-a-beni?id=10427684

[3] For details on Jean Pierre Lacroix’s declarations, see: https://monusco.unmissions.org/en/jean-pierre-lacroix-everyone-should-learn-lessons-what-has-happened; and Kivu Security Tracker: https://blog.kivusecurity.org/fr/. Jean-Pierre Lacroix points a finger to those undermining MONUSCO efforts to support local population.

[4] Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (2019) “Assessing the Effectiveness of the United Nations Mission in the DRC – MONUSCO” https://www.ssrc.org/publications/view/assessing-the-effectiveness-of-the-united-nations-mission-in-the-drc-monusco/

About the author:

Delphin Ntanyoma is a PhD candidate at the ISS. His research falls within Conflict Economics and is part of the Economics of Development & Emerging Markets (EDEM) Program. With a background of Economics and Masters’ of Art in Economics of Development from ISS, the researcher runs an online blog that shares personal views on socio-economic and political landscape of the Democratic Republic of Congo but also that of the African Great Lakes Region. The Eastern Congo Tribune Blog can be found on the following link: www.easterncongotribune.com.

Image Credit: MONUSCO Photos on Flickr.

EADI/ISS Series | Rethinking Empowerment and Accountability in ‘Difficult Settings’ by John Gaventa

By ISS Blog Bliss 19 February 202016 May 2020 2608 views

Over the last two decades, development has been replete with theories and interventions focusing on ‘empowerment and accountability’, and how these could contribute to a range of outcomes, be they good governance, social inclusion, and social justice. Much of the early thinking on these approaches emerged from examples in countries which were then relatively open, enjoying perhaps an opening of democratic spaces and opportunities. But what about empowerment and accountability in more difficult spaces – characterised by shrinking civic space, strong legacies of authoritarianism, violence and repression, and fragmented forms of authority?

Over the last two decades, development has been replete with theories and interventions focusing on ‘empowerment and accountability’, and how these could contribute to a range of outcomes, be they good governance, social inclusion, and social justice. Much of the early thinking on these approaches emerged from examples in countries which were then relative open, enjoying perhaps an opening of democratic spaces and opportunities, and a flourishing of civil society – one thinks for instance of Brazil, Philippines, Indonesia, India, South Africa and more?

But what about empowerment and accountability in more difficult spaces – characterised by shrinking civic space, strong legacies of authoritarianism, violence and repression, and fragmented forms of authority? It’s these settings in which the Action for Empowerment and Accountability Research programme (A4EA) set out to investigate over three years ago.

“Difficult Settings”: From the Exception to the Norm

When we started this project, we thought of such ‘fragile, conflict, violence affected settings (FCVAS)’ as perhaps the exceptions, in which we needed to adapt our existing theories of change drawn largely from more stable and democratic settings. But in the last few years, the flourishing of civic and democratic space that we have seen in many places of the world since the 1990s has been receding. The 2019 report published by Civicus, People Power Under Attack, found that 40% of the world’s population live in repressed settings (double from the previous year), and that in fact only 3% of the world’s population live in settings which are ‘open’ – those plural and stable democracies from which so much of our development thinking seems to evolve.

So how do we achieve empowerment and accountability in these more difficult settings? The A4EA programme recently published a synthesis of the first round of its research, which involved over 15 projects in Myanmar, Egypt, Mozambique, Pakistan and Nigeria. A number of lessons emerge:

Message 1:
In these settings, factors like closing civic space, legacies of fear, and distrust challenge fundamental assumptions about the conditions necessary for many processes of empowerment and accountability, which assume that ‘voice’ on the one hand and ‘responsiveness’ on the other will underpin the formation of a social contract between citizens and the state. So how do we work with fear and legacies of internalised powerlessness?
Message 2:
Theories of change often assume the existence of ‘accountable and responsive institutions’, towards which voice may be directed, but in many less democratic and open settings, we need to re-understand the nature of authority and question our assumptions of who is to be held to account, and by whom. In the A4EA, we have used a novel governance diaries approach, to understand how authority is seen and navigated from below.
Message 3:
Spaces for civic action are constantly shifting. Opportunities for empowerment and accountability may present themselves at particular moments and in particular places, even while other places remain closed or difficult. Few societies are totally ‘closed’ or ‘open’ but may vary a great deal across subnational levels, and over time.
Message 4:
Even in difficult contexts, action for empowerment and accountability may be present, but not always in ways we see or recognise, implying different entry points for thinking and working politically, beyond business as usual. In particular, we have found even in the most challenging spaces, the emergence of popular protests, the challenging of authority though musical and cultural expressions, and sophisticated ways of solidarity and voice floating ‘under the radar’.
Message 5:
Though patriarchy and authoritarianism often go together, in these settings women’s collective action is an important driver of empowerment and accountability, through greater political empowerment in formal processes, as well as through more informal channels, social movements, and local actions which challenge gender norms. In Pakistan, for instance, while formal political participation often remains low, women have been at the forefront of struggling for new rights and social justice for decades.
Message 6:
Donors, policy makers and external actors can make important contributions in these settings, but more careful and grounded approaches are needed, with more appropriate expectations and measurements of outcomes. In particular, attention must be paid to measuring the intangibles, building trust, overcoming fear, strengthening solidarity, and appreciating small scale steps towards change. Donors themselves must also learn to work differently, to avoid the risk of discrediting or undermining local efforts.
Message 7:
Working in difficult settings, perhaps more than elsewhere, requires an approach that is adaptive and flexible. This means giving front line staff autonomy, recruiting entrepreneurial and politically savvy staff, and sometimes ‘going against the grain’, not only with it. While adaptive learning and management are the flavours of the month, those at the front line often need more space to be responsive and agile in seizing opportunities for change.
Message 8:
Understanding complex and highly political issues of empowerment and accountability in these settings requires new tools for political economy analysis and ways of sharing research that are sensitive to local dynamics, and which themselves can contribute to building spaces for dialogue Traditional forms of institutional analysis may do little to pick up the dynamics of gender, power, fear and exclusion as seen ‘from below’.

At the EADI conference in June at ISS, we will pick up these themes further in two sessions organised by the A4EA programme, with several other sessions focusing on similar themes of building solidarity in the context of closing civic spaces. See you there!

About the author:

John Gaventa is a Professor and Research Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies, and director of the Action for Empowerment and Accountability Research Programme. This blog was drawn from the recent publication with Katie Oswald, Research Officer at IDS, ‘Empowerment and Accountability in Difficult Settings: What are we learning?’

Image Credit: Wole Oladapo and Abayomi Kolapo: Bring Back Our Girls protestors, still marching for protest in 2018.

When should you ‘Call It What It Is’? Enabling disclosure of sexual violence by Chris Dolan and Onen David

By ISS Blog Bliss 13 February 202016 May 2020 3449 views

The international criminal law (ICL) system can only hear and describe a tiny fraction of what people experience, particularly when it comes to sexual violence. The ICL system not only makes it difficult for victims to disclose their experiences, but often misplaces, deprioritises and erases the sexual elements of violence under other headings such as ‘torture’ and ‘inhumane treatment’. This is what inspired ‘Call It What It Is’, a campaign designed to enable victims to freely testify in a system where sexual violence is better articulated.

Back in 2009, when the Refugee Law Project at Makerere University in Uganda ran its first-ever workshop for male refugees on the topic of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV), a male Congolese workshop participant commented at the close of the day that ‘it has happened to all of us’, referring to having been subjected to conflict-related sexual violence. Similarly, a Somali participant reported that ‘if it happened to me, I would have to commit suicide’.

Their use of the word ‘it’, and their assumption that we (as social workers and refugee rights advocates) would somehow understand which of the many forms that ‘it’ (sexual violence) can take they had experienced, epitomises the yawning gap between people’s lived experiences, how they talk about those experiences, and definitions and the language available in legal systems intended to bring justice to victims. At present, the international criminal law (ICL) system for prosecuting perpetrators specifies only a handful of the multiple forms that sexual violence can take. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court refers to “rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization, or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity”[1].

It is the need to specify further the forms that might be considered under the catch-all “any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity” that gave rise to the ‘Call It What It Is’ campaign, launched in 2019 by The Hague-based Women’s Initiatives for Gender Justice. The key premise of the campaign is that, if survivors of SGBV are to get the support they need, it is imperative to call and describe a range of forms of violence as ‘sexual’. Second, and related to the first, for each victim/survivor, it is important to be able to name which of the numerous possible forms of sexual violence they have actually experienced. This is in order to allow correspondingly informed and appropriate responses that consciously sidestep the hierarchy of forms of sexual violence. Assumptions that rape is both the most important and most prevalent form of sexual violence are reflected in legal frameworks and service providers alike and are at the heart of this hierarchy.

The campaign is catalysed and coordinated by the Women’s Initiatives for Gender Justice, with varied contributions from more than 500 survivors. The collection of these was supported by dozens of organisations, including the Refugee Law Project which ran focus-group discussions. The campaign is raising the definitional bar for international criminal lawyers in general and the International Criminal Court in particular. The Civil Society Declaration developed as part of the campaign gives survivors and allies a new tool to deploy in the search for justice, calls for an end to impunity of perpetrators and an end to the inaction that is characteristic of many self-styled ‘responders’ in the fields of sexual violence.

Calling ‘it’ what it is cannot be a politically neutral process, however, and this raises particular challenges for institutions. ‘Rape’ as a ‘weapon of war’, laden as it is with a range of unevidenced assumptions about prevalence and gendered distribution of harms, is not an adequate descriptor of the complex universe of sexual harms that people, whether male, female, or gender non-conforming, experience in conflict settings. Establishing a more comprehensive understanding also demands a corresponding diversification of medical, psychosocial and legal services for the survivors and use of broader terminology to encompass ‘sexual violence [rather than only rape] as a weapon of war’.

The Refugee Law Project’s experience is that this diversification is possible. Back in 2009, no individual male refugee whom we were working with would identify himself in public as a survivor of conflict-related sexual violence. Ten years later, the male survivor support group Men of Hope was able to pull together 310 male refugee survivors in Kampala alone for the International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict. Just two months earlier, their leader, Mr Aimé Moninga, addressed the UN Trust Fund for Victims of Torture in Geneva.

These successes have also taught us a lot about when not to call it what it is. The ‘When’, ‘Where’, ‘Who’ and even ‘Why’ of enabling disclosure of sexual violence—of making it possible for survivors accurately to call it what it is—has to be viewed as a complex process. Disclosure cannot be scripted or predicted. For some, the ‘When’ may be months after the incident. For others, it may take decades. For very few will it be within the 72 hours that Post-Exposure Prophylaxis demands to try and prevent the transmission of HIV.

The ‘Where’ of disclosure can also be a difficult choice: how do you balance the needs for access to support with the demands for privacy? In many refugee settlements in Uganda, for example, there are no spaces purpose-built to receive survivors needing help; meeting in a survivor’s home is rarely advisable as (s)he generally has not disclosed their exposure to SGBV to family members. Transporting a person to a supposedly neutral space, such as a hotel, carries further risks, as observers (which could include security forces or family members) are likely identify the vehicle and draw their own (sometimes dangerous) conclusions about what the survivor is doing sharing information with the institution associated with a particular vehicle.

‘Who’ should be asking such questions can be yet another conundrum when developing inclusive services for a broad spectrum of survivors. While it is often assumed that women wish to talk to women and men to men, it is rarely that simple. Ethnicity, age, prior reputation, or familiarity built through prior interactions can be even more important determinants of whether someone feels comfortable to talk to a particular person.

Last but not least, ‘Why’ would a person choose to ‘Call It What It Is’? Naming and disclosure are high-risk actions, the more so for people made vulnerable by their experiences and the context in which they seek to survive. In our work with forced migrants living in Uganda, the tangible benefits that make the biggest difference are the availability of high-quality medical referrals, treatment, and related psychosocial support. Without that, even after years of trust building, the risks that can arise from calling it what it is may continue to outweigh the benefits.

These considerations help us to see that, while for policy and law makers it is essential to start from a position of articulation, such as the Declaration, for survivors themselves, and for practitioners working to support them, calling it what it is may often be the end-point of a lengthy process.

[1] The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, Article 7.1 (g)

The ideas presented in this article were originally presented in the seminar “Call it what it is: when should we talk about conflict-related sexual violence?” at the ISS in cooperation with the Refugee Law Project.

About the authors:

Chris Dolan is Director of the Refugee Law Project and Visiting Professor at the Transitional Justice Institute and INCORE at Ulster University. Onen David manages the Gender & Sexuality Programme of the Refugee Law Project. They are both based in Kampala, Uganda. They can be contacted directly on dir@refugeelawproject.org and gender@refugeelawproject.org

Onen David is the Programme Manager of the Gender and Sexuality Programme of Refugee Law Project, Makerere University. He has ten years of experience in working with Persons with Special Needs, identifying and offering inclusive physical and psychosocial support to survivors of conflict-related violence. Subsequently, he has significantly contributed to national and international advocacy and training of Police, Military, Health workers, UN agencies, and Civil Society Organisation on inclusive response to and prevention of conflict-related sexual violence, and on the International Protocol on the Documentation and Investigation of Sexual Violence in Conflict (First & Second Edition), including the annex on men and boys. Currently, Mr Onen is coordinating a Dutch funded project titled “Securing Refugee-Host Relations in northern Uganda through Enhanced Protection” .

EADI/ISS Series | Bridging EU- & Postdevelopment Studies: Four Avenues by Sarah Delputte and Jan Orbie

By ISS Blog Bliss 10 February 202016 May 2020 2634 views

Postdevelopment debates are relatively new to scholars studying the EU’s Development Policy. However, bridging EU development and post-development can help us to think about (normative) alternatives to EU development, both generally and concretely, argue Sarah Delputte and Jan Orbie. The EU provides a relevant and practical setting within which concrete alternatives to development aid can be considered. In line with Julia Schöneberg’s plea for practical postdevelopment, the focus on the EU can contribute to making more concrete how policies and approaches should be changed.

In February 2019, we pushed ourselves out of our comfort zones to participate in a panel on “Re-thinking, Re-defining, Re-positioning: “Development” and the Question of “Alternatives”, convened by Julia Schöneberg at the Development Days Conference in Helsinki, in a first attempt to look at EU development policy from a postdevelopment perspective. As scholars studying the EU’s Development Policy we usually try to take a critical approach towards EU Development. However, and perhaps embarrassingly, postdevelopment debates were new to us.

Back home from this very interesting experience, discussions in our research center’s reading group on postdevelopment continued for some months until we found it was time to invite Julia Schöneberg to our university for a full-day workshop on bridging EU- & Postdevelopment. For this occasion, we structured our insights into four potential avenues for bridging EU- & Postdevelopment Studies, departing from our own EU Development perspective:

1. Munition

EU development scholars know the EU’s development policies very well. We are aware of the EU’s development history and evolutions, its complex institutional setting, its ideational and internal divisions and debates, various programmes, different budgetary instruments, trends in aid flows etc. In sum: we know EU development inside-out. Moreover, we have already problematized various aspects of it, e.g. securitization, marketization, incoherencies, coordination fetish, bodybuilder image, from different empirical and theoretical perspectives. We also have access to experts and scholars working on EU development policy. Our expertise can enrich the perspectives of postdevelopment scholars for whom EU development policy could be considered a ‘goldmine’. Hence the idea of providing postdevelopment scholars with ‘extra munition’ for their critiques. It can strengthen and substantiate postdevelopment critiques.

2. Infusion

Postdevelopment ideas have been floating around since at least the mid-1990s. However, they seem not to have reached the EU development studies community. Via EADI and other networks, postdevelopment thinking can get ‘infused’ within the EU development studies community. We can at least provoke a debate on whether development policy should be necessary. In doing so, we can make clear that radical arguments against development policy are not necessarily ‘reactionary populist’ but can also be skeptical and geared to ‘radical democracy’. We can clarify that the real challenge – underlying many more superficial challenges that are often noted in EU development studies – lays in the problematic conception of development (aid) itself. This opens up a new research agenda that should interest scholars currently working on EU development/aid, because it provides a novel way to analyze changes and challenges to EU development policy and to link this with current debates such as the rise of populism. It also allows to do more comparative and detailed research on different visions in development policy within Europe (PlEUriverse).

3. Another Europe is possible

Bridging EU development and post-development can help us to think about (normative) alternatives to EU development, both generally and concretely. In general, it can foster thinking about different imaginaries of ‘another Europe’ and about which role(s) the EU could/should play towards the so-called ‘developing countries’. This would be in line with a 2016 call by Ian Manners, Richard Whitman and others to allow for more dissident voices in theorising Europe.

There have been longstanding debates on the EU’s role in the world, not only from mainstream and policy- oriented corners (e.g. civilian power Europe) but also from critical Scholars (e.g. Galtung in 1973) which can (and should) be updated taking a postdevelopment context into account. Although there is a broad recognition within scholarship and policy circles that the EU is a ‘post-modern’ construct, this has not coincided with pleas for a ‘postdevelopment’ policy. More concretely, the interaction between EU and postdevelopment studies could involve a translation of ‘alternatives to development’ in the EU’s institutional context and policy making.

While postdevelopment has given much thought to such alternatives, Aram Ziai’s statement of 2004 still seems to hold true: “Admittedly, little thought is given to how development institutions could contribute to the flourishing of these alternatives, but to expect that from postdevelopment would certainly go too far.” In line with Julia Schöneberg’s plea for practical postdevelopment, the focus on the EU can thus contribute to making more concrete how policies and approaches should be changed. The EU provides a relevant and practical setting within which concrete alternatives to development aid can be considered. Because of the EU’s nature as a multi-level, fragmented and compartmentalized thing, policymaking in the EU arguably contains many access points for critical debates –– including discussions on general postdevelopment roles and on practical alternatives. The EU also provides a relevant platform to discuss solutions for injustices in the global governance framework such as the World Bank and the WTO.

4. PlEUriverse

Taking postdevelopment thinking seriously, we should also acknowledge the diversity of views on ‘development’ within Europe. Whereas the underlying Eurocentric, modernist and colonial paradigm may be the same, there are various ways in which member states and civil society actors have conceived development (policy). For instance, the ‘Nordics’ or ‘like-minded’ have always played an interesting role in development debates. The rejection of monolithical thinking on ‘EU development’ should allow for more detailed and complexity-sensitive research that delves into the different cultural, historical and political economy backgrounds of different EU views on development.

Beyond the diversity in view on ‘development policy’ narrowly speaking, this also connects to wider critiques of development within the EU which have gained more traction since the Euro-crisis and austerity policies, such as commons and degrowth. Whereas the postdevelopment literature has pointed to this ‘bridge’, many studies seem to generalise the ‘western’ and ‘European’ thinking to such an extent that 2^nd order differences remain unnoticed. Paying more attention to the ‘PlEUriverse’ is not only academically interesting but also normatively important, as it will point to spaces and agents where change may be possible.

With sharing these reflections on bridging EU- and postdevelopment we also hope to inspire and encourage EU Development, Postdevelopment and all other interested scholars to join the seed panel on “Views on the EU as a development actor in conversation with postdevelopment” that the EADI Working Groups on “The European Union as a Development Actor” and “Post- and Decolonial Perspectives on Development” are organizing at the EADI General Conference in The Hague (29 June-2 July 2020).

About the authors:

Sarah Delputte is Post-Doctoral Assistant at the Centre for EU Studies (CEUS), and a lecturer at the Department of Political Science at Ghent University. Her teaching and research interest concerns the EU’s development policies and its interlinkages with other external policy fields, as well as its interregional relations with Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific (ACP). She is a co-convener of the of the EADI working group on the EU as a development actor.

Jan Orbie is an Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science and Director of the Centre for EU Studies (CEUS) at Ghent University (Belgium). His research focuses on EU external relations, in particular the external trade, social, development, humanitarian aid and democracy promotion policies of the EU.

Image Credit: Nicolas Raymond

EADI/ISS Series | Empowering African Universities to have an impact by Liisa Laakso

By ISS Blog Bliss 6 February 202016 May 2020 1752 views

Discussions on the impact of higher education and research have increased, together with the rise of strategic thinking in the management of universities during the last decade. Governments, taxpayers and private funders want to know which benefits they get from universities. Academic Institutions, in turn, want to prove how their work is beneficial to society in multiple ways. This tells us much about the global management culture in public services – and about a new pressure against the academic authority and standing of universities.

For example, the government of Zimbabwe’s new plan for higher education, the so-called 5.0-University vision, stipulates that universities must also include innovation and industrialisation in their activities – in addition to their three academic tasks education, research and community service.

The stated purpose of this plan is to reconfigure the education system of the country to create jobs and economic growth along with the fourth revolution “to transform the country’s economy into an upper-middle income by the year 2030”. Simultaneously, however, political turmoil and rampant corruption have created an economic crisis that is dramatically weakening the previously good working conditions at the universities in terms of resources, infrastructure and salaries.

Zimbabwe might be an extreme case, but it is not alone. The rhetoric of the importance of industry and ‘value for money’ invested in universities and the simultaneous cuts in their public funding resonates both with the technocratic and populistic views of higher education, if not reactionary voices against educated elites all over the world.

What does this rhetoric mean for the production of scientific knowledge in different disciplinary fields and in governance and development studies in particular? For medical sciences or engineering, identifying and measuring their impact and relevance can be quite straightforward. But for sciences focusing on policies and their critiques, such a task is complex, as their impacts are diverse, often indirect, slow and long-term.

Making disciplinary knowledge on governance and development relevant again

Research-based disciplinary knowledge on governance and development is not directly connected to innovation or industrialisation, but it has very much to do with the legitimacy and functioning of the social, political and economic organisations and structures that enable them. In a context of political transitions or struggles for democratisation happening in large parts of the Global South, one could assume that such a role is very important. But how to show that? Judgments about the importance of particular degree programs and research fields are also judgments about the marginalization of others. It is easy to give concrete examples of the usefulness of administrative studies, but not of political theory. The whole exercise relates to very fundamental values and epistemological premises of university disciplines.

Much of this epistemological discussion has centered on the necessity of state-led development or on decolonisation. The first one formed an important part of the expansion of higher education after the independence of African states and again in late 1970s and 1980s with the heyday of the dependency school. It resulted in the establishment of institutes or university departments of development studies, often with a political economy or an explicitly stated socialist orientation. One of the forerunners was the University of Dar es Salaam. In Zimbabwe, the Institute of Development studies ZIDS was first established under the government and later integrated into the University of Zimbabwe. But ZIDS does not exist anymore. In order to respond to today’s demands of the government, the profile of development studies apparently is no longer as relevant for the university as it used to be.

Do University curricula respond to the societal needs in the Global South?

Calls for decolonisation in the aftermath of ‘Rhodes Must Fall’ and ‘Fees Must Fall” student uprisings at the University of Cape Town have drawn attention to the fact that a decades-long evolution of higher education in the independent South has not abolished global asymmetries in knowledge production. Western traditions and theorizing still dominate much of the academic literature, including that on governance and development. Thus the concern that imported content of university curricula or models of analysis do not grasp the real problems of societies in the Global South. One example of how to respond to it, again from the University of Zimbabwe, is to bring a module of local inheritance into all degree programs.

New demands and pressures provide unique constraints but also unique opportunities for universities and scholars to develop university teaching and research. Research funders and development cooperation agencies should react to this looming backlash for development studies in social sciences in the South. It requires close interaction with public authorities from the local level to intergovernmental organizations, private stakeholders and academic associations. What is certain is that there are plenty of issues that can be clarified by development knowledge: the widening inequalities, international corruption, discontent amongst marginalized groups, simultaneous political apathy and new modes of radical mobilization by social media. This alone should be enough to justify the role of universities in these fields.

About the author:

Liisa Laakso is a senior researcher at the Nordic Africa Institute in Uppsala, Sweden. She is an expert on world politics and international development cooperation. Her research interests include political science, African studies, democratisation of Africa, world politics, crisis management, foreign policy, EU-Africa policy and the global role of the European Union.

Together with Godon Crawford from Coventry University, UK, she will be convening the panel ”Production and use of knowledge on governance and development: its role and contribution to struggles for peace, equality and social justice” at the 2020 EADI/ISS Conference.

Image Credit: Tony Carr on Flickr.

Using youth-led peer research to break the silence on adolescent sexuality in Bulgaria by Rutger van Oudenhoven, Kristen Cheney, and Kristina Nenova

By ISS Blog Bliss 3 February 202016 May 2020 3041 views

In Bulgarian schools, the topic of sex education is contentious and often even avoided, leading to a lack of proper knowledge and understanding of sexuality among young people. An innovative research project tried to address this gap by training adolescents as peer researchers to gather information on how young Bulgarians perceived their relationships with others in their community. This led to a study revealing that young Bulgarians felt the need for better sexual education and the creation of ‘safe spaces’ where young people can discuss sex, sexuality, and relationships. The youth peer researchers then became advocates who initiated a number of activities to teach themselves and their peers about healthy relationships.

Introduction

In the last two years, the Bulgarian government has made limited progress in its attempt to implement the Istanbul Convention and its National Strategy for Children 2019-2030. This strategy was developed to improve the support provided to children and families, especially to vulnerable children and women who suffer the effects of domestic violence. However, some conservatives lobbied against the Convention’s implementation based on their interpretation of the concept of ‘gender’ and that Bulgarian NGOs were trying to implement early sexuality education and to promote homosexuality in schools. The Convention’s implementation was thus postponed due to lack of consensus and political power. As a result of such a sensitive situation, new challenges have arisen. It has become more difficult to lobby about sexuality education programs in front of the relevant governmental structures and school representatives.

In response to these challenges, the ‘Adolescents’ Perceptions on Healthy Relationships’ (APHR) project was initiated to prevent sexual abuse and exploitation of adolescents by improving the safety and security of the spaces in which they move and live. Funded by the Oak Foundation, the project focuses on understanding how adolescents in Bulgaria and Tanzania view healthy relationships based on the idea that healthy relationships can prevent sexual abuse and exploitation. APHR utilized participatory processes by training adolescents as peer researchers and advocates. Through those processes, they also developed and disseminated an adolescent-centered Healthy Relationships model for policy-relevant research and advocacy. ISS, in cooperation with partners International Children’s Development Initiatives (ICDI) and Animus Association, trained adolescents in research techniques and solicited their input in developing the research design.

The 40 Bulgarian Youth Peer Researchers (YPRs) aged 14-18 who conducted the research between January 2017 and March 2019 examined various aspects of relationships in different settings, such as in the family, peers/friends, and schools. Through a survey, qualitative interviews, and focus group discussions on topics such as violence, sexuality, and online behaviour, they consulted with 1,200 adolescents aged 11-18, unpacking concepts that adolescents reported as important ingredients for healthy relations—concepts such as trust, respect, equality, and the balancing of dominance. The research definitely reveals a great deal about the world in which young people in Bulgaria navigate and how this affects their relationships. The research showed, for example, that homosexuality, a controversial topic in Bulgaria over the past few years, remains a challenge for youths: only 47% felt comfortable sharing their sexual status with their parents. In addition, 58% of YPRs responded that they think that violence always, often, or sometimes occurs in romantic relationships between teenagers—mostly psychological violence.

A gap in education, a lack of space

“Actually, I’ve read a lot of articles about sex, I took part in a course [not related to the school] dedicated to sexual education. I do not learn anything in my school. I learned a lot from the girls from this group.” –Alexander YPR, 17

In Bulgaria, many schools offer no sexual education at all. Teachers are unwilling to talk about sex and when they do, the curriculum tends to focus on ‘biological’ and negative aspects and risks of sexuality, such as early pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. YPRs pointed out that although these findings did not surprise them, they found them very problematic. They and their peers now depend on each other and on the Internet to get information on sex and sexuality. The YPRs also commented that the school does not provide any space for learning or exchange when it comes to these topics. Yet they assert that understanding the role of sex is essential to a healthy relationship, as it is to be open and informative about it. Adolescents therefore need safe spaces and opportunities to discuss it. This, they argue, will greatly contribute to establishing and maintaining healthy (intimate) relationships throughout their lifetimes.

Youths driving action to transform sex education

Following these discussions, youth peer researchers have felt increasingly empowered to take action. First of all, the YPRs have taught themselves what there is to know about sexual education. Through literacy and online research, listening to experts and talking to their peers, they have come to understand what information young people need to have when it comes to sex and sexuality. They have not only informed themselves, but have also become peer educators, helping their classmates to become better informed and feel comfortable when talking about this subject.

Moreover, the YPRs can now confidently indicate what is needed to improve sexual education and information for young people. And they haven’t stopped there: To really make changes, they have devised a policy brief with recommendations for schools to improve sexual education. This policy brief now forms the basis of an advocacy campaign, which will include a website, peer-to-peer sexual education classes, a social media campaign, and the creation of events and spaces where young people can discuss matters of sexuality freely and safely.

Recommendations as set out in the APHR policy brief

Comprehensive sexuality education should become part of the standard high school curriculum in Bulgaria—not as an afterthought, or in a minimalistic manner, leaving it up to teachers if and how they want to address it, but as a standardized, high quality ‘course’ that deserves the same respect and attention as other subjects.

Sexuality and relationships should be discussed in a broader sense in schools. Sex education classes should continue to address the biological aspects of sex (including STDs and preventing unwanted pregnancy). However, the conversation about sexuality and relationships should be expanded and should also include topics like love and romance, sexual pleasure, online pornography, healthy relationships, communication, homosexuality, emotions, dominance and equality, and (preventing) sexual abuse.

Young people should be involved in the design and development of the above-mentioned sexual education programmes.Schools should create more space for meaningful child and youth participation, not only to talk about sexuality and relationships, but about other issues that may concern them. Adolescents expressed a desire to discuss and exchange with their peers and with teachers. They want to be heard and to be taken seriously.

The APHR project results reveal the potential of participatory peer research itself for effecting positive change and promoting healthy relationships from an adolescent-centered perspective. The adult researchers in the project are therefore also advocating their Healthy Relationships Model for working with children and youth in research and development practice.

About the authors:

Rutger van Oudenhoven is Senior Programme Manager at International Children’s Development Initiatives in Leiden, Netherlands. He is adviser to the APHR Bulgaria team.

Kristen Cheney is Associate Professor of Children & Youth Studies at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) and leader of the APHR project.

Kristina Nenova is an International Projects and Programs expert at Animus Association in Sofia, Bulgaria. She is the lead local researcher for the APHR Bulgaria team.

Creative Development | Moving national narratives: artistic expressions of flight, refuge and belonging by Roy Huijsmans

By ISS Blog Bliss 31 January 20205 October 2020 2134 views

National historiography often takes the form of a single story propagated by those in power, thereby muting alternative experiences of ordinary citizens of these celebrated events. In Laos, the country’s National Day coincided with an international dance festival, showing different ways of recounting histories. In this blogpost Roy Huijsmans suggests that in the creative realm and performing arts we may find articulations of the subjugated narratives of the collective memory of the nation.

When visiting the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR) late November 2019 for the Fang Maekhong International Dance Festival I found myself also witnessing the preparations for the celebration of the 44^th Lao National Day. Government buildings were being adorned with freshly purchased national flags, always flanked by the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party flag in bright red and sporting the familiar hammer and sickle in yellow. There were the inevitable banners, too, carrying slogans celebrating the nation and the progress made under the leadership of the communist Lao People’s Revolutionary Party.

In Lao historiography, the establishment of the Lao PDR is presented as the logical endpoint of a long struggle by the Lao peoples against imperial forces – first French colonial rule, then Lao Royalist Governments backed by the United States of America as part of its broader stakes in the Second Indochinese War. Around each national day (2 December), the various Lao newspapers and television stations contribute their bit to the reproduction of the national narrative, with specials about revolutionary heroes, heroic battles, and by detailing the development progress made under revolutionary rule. The same narrative is presented in school text books, musea, and in public speeches by officials.

All this is not particular to the Lao PDR. National historiography often takes the form of a single story told from the vantage point of the victors. Thereby it silences the many different experiences that were generated by these very same historical events (Evans 1998). For example, the narrative of a united revolutionary struggle against foreign powers and influence hides the many internal conflicts and civil war that were also part of the making of the Lao PDR.

A key element missing from the Lao narrative is the fate of the about 10 per cent of the then population that left the country throughout the 1970s and early 1980s. They left because they found themselves on the wrong side of history or simply escaped the impoverishment and repressive political climate characterising the infant years of the Lao PDR.

Virtually everyone in the today’s Lao PDR knows someone who has fled the country. Stories of flight, refuge, and increasingly also about return are told, yet often in private. These are the stories of uncles and aunts now living in France, the USA, or Australia. These stories have found no place in school textbooks or in any of the official commemorations around the Lao national day. Yet these stories matter because these, too, are a part of the collective memory of the nation.

The arts: subtle propositions going beyond the national narrative

Artistic initiatives are turning the tide to make the voices of migrants and refugees heard, however. Parallel to the preparations for the Lao National Day celebration, Vientiane also witnessed the 10^th edition of the Fang Mae Khong International Dance Festival. The French-Lao dancer Thô Anothaï was part of the impressive line-up comprising Lao national and international dancers. In his contemporary dance titled Mekong, Thô enacted his personal experience of fleeing Laos at a young age. Through his dance, by means of movements rooted in hip-hop and contemporary dance, he represented memories of his flight, such as a boats man paddling him across the Mekong River in the deep of the night.

As Thô took the stage, the first lines of a Lao traditional song were played. Soon the music gave way to soundbites of women’s voices in French, Lao, and the Vietnamese language that graphically described moments in the experience of flight and refuge. The song accentuated Thô’s personal account as a Lao story; the women’s voices referenced the broader context of the aftermath of the Second Indochinese War in which we must understand Thô’s experience. Through his performance Thô invited the audience to accompany him in his journey across the Mekong River, recalling his childhood experience of flight expressed through the serene and stunning beauty of his dance.

The themes of flight, refuge and identity are also central to Nith Lacroix’s 2007 documentary film titled Pierre & Pierrot. The film focuses on twin brothers of a French father and a Lao mother who were separated at a young age in their flight across the Mekong River into Thailand.

Thô Anothaï and Nith Lacroix’s artistic work are first and foremost works of art. Yet, by staging their work for audiences in the Lao PDR, the art may become more than just that. For more inclusive celebrations of national events, it is important to recognise the suffering and pain that is also part of the collective memory of the nation.

References

Evans, G. (1998). The Politics of Ritual and Remembrance: Laos since 1975. Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books.

This article is part of a series on Creative Development. Read more articles of this series here.

About the author:

Roy Huijsmans is a teacher/researcher at the ISS.

Rural support for authoritarian populism is strong – but another way is possible by Ian Scoones

By ISS Blog Bliss 29 January 202016 May 2020 2111 views

While the rise of authoritarian populism continues, its rural dimension has been missed in most commentary. Whether it is because of land grabs, voracious extractivism, infrastructural neglect or lack of services, people’s disillusionment with the status quo, across often disconnected rural areas and small towns, is tangible across settings. It is the rural dimension of the rise of authoritarian populism that has been the focus of the Emancipatory Rural Politics Initiative (ERPI), which aims at reinventing politics of new sustainable rural economies, based on solidarity and collectivity.

The rise of authoritarian populism continues. Now the UK has a fully signed-up version in its new right-wing government, with allies in Trump, Modi, Bolsarano, Orban and others. It is a dangerous, but perhaps inevitable, trend. The soul-searching on the Left after the UK election rather belatedly diagnosed the problem. It has been long in the making – the result of sustained neglect of services, infrastructure and livelihoods as globalised neoliberalism created winners (in London mostly) and losers elsewhere, including large swathes of (semi-)rural England.

It is the rural dimension of the rise of authoritarian populism – strangely missed in most commentary – that has been the focus of the Emancipatory Rural Politics Initiative (ERPI), initiated in 2017 in the aftermath of the election of Trump and the Brexit referendum. Our framing paper in the Journal of Peasant Studies, now downloaded nearly 23,000 times, was written that year, and remains (rather scarily) relevant. Its call for an alternative emancipatory politics and – following Chantal Mouffe – a version of a ‘left populism’, remains relevant.

Since our major meeting at ISS in the Hague in early 2018, the ERPI network has been busy discussing, organising and reflecting – not only diagnosing the problems, but also exploring solutions.

From problems to alternatives

In collaboration with openDemocracy, we produced a series of videos and short articles on ‘Authoritarian Populism and the Rural World’. Following a small grants competition, a series of great articles have been published as part of a special JPS Forum, now including contributions on Belarus, Bolivia, Cambodia, Ecuador, Hungary, Mozambique Russia, Spain, Turkey and the US (and more to come, including on ‘populism from above and below’ in Brazil).

The Journal of Agrarian Change has published an important review piece by Jun Borras emerging from these debates and Fernwood/Practical Action have produced Counterrevolution: The Global Rise of the Far Right by Walden Bello, part of the ‘small books for big ideas’ series.

In the Hague, a number of regional working groups were established, and they have been pushing the debate further. For example, ERPI Europe has been engaged in a number of events, and is producing an important special issue for Sociologia Ruralis, while ERPI North America has been publishing a great series of papers in a special issue of the Journal of Rural Studies. ERPI Africa has been engaging in field-based exchange visits and writing up experiences, ERPI Latin America is collecting together a set of papers – covering Guatemala, Haiti, Brazil, Colombia, Nicaragua, Mexico, and Bolivia – for a proposed special issue, and EPRI South Asia met in Sri Lanka to exchange experiences from across the region.

Finally, the ERPI group focusing on implications for human rights, linked to core ERPI partner the Transnational Institute (TNI), has also produced an excellent piece – A View from the Countryside.

Common threads: rural populism and alternatives to authoritarian politics

Some key themes have emerged from the debates that the ERPI has engaged in with people around the world.

Wherever you look, the rural dimension is key – not just in electoral calculus but in understanding underlying drivers. Whether it is because of land grabs, voracious extractivism, infrastructural neglect or lack of services, people’s disillusionment with the status quo, across often disconnected rural areas and small towns, is tangible across settings.

This leads to the fragmenting of communities and loss of security and identity. Lack of jobs and livelihoods is blamed on outsiders, often immigrant populations working in agricultural industries in such marginalised areas. Declining rural and small town livelihoods is often, in turn, linked to drug abuse and physical and mental ill-health, and increasing despair.

Across cases, the disenchantment and disenfranchisement felt in such areas is firmly the result of state neglect over decades, thanks to neoliberal policies that have resulted in austerity, extraction and exploitation.

The cosmopolitan, mostly urban, educated ‘left’ elite have failed to engage with these real concerns and traumas, while organised labour has defended remaining formal jobs to the exclusion of others who are unemployed or surviving on the margins.

Populist right-wing parties, despite dissonance in values and messages, have appealed to many, with promises of jobs, investment and renewal, combined with a nationalist anti-migrant rhetoric that resonates those who feel under threat.

Yet amongst the gloom, more positively, there are alternatives being created that offer the opportunity of a new politics in such rural and semi-urban areas. These are rooted in communities, linked to rural skills, trades and cultures, and encourage collectivity and solidarity, often around forms of ‘commoning’. Movements, such as around food sovereignty, help mobilise around and extend such alternatives.

Such initiatives often tackle the big issues of today: helping to build a new economy which is sustainable and addresses the threats of climate chaos. Very often they make use of modern tech to encourage connectivity, sharing and building solidarities. Yet, they remain on the periphery of state plans and political debate.

Where next?

Unless progressive politics focuses on such alternatives, and helps articulate and scale them up, the prospect of defeating the rise of authoritarian populism in the rural hinterlands looks slim. This requires new forms of decentred organising, focusing on real issues and people, and building from communities upwards and outwards. It requires different solutions for different places; not grand socialist planning or welfarist deals struck from above.

The UK’s election result was a trauma waiting to happen. It is a pattern that has been repeated elsewhere – and I fear will be in the future. As the ERPI discussions emphasise, the response should not be despair or blame games, but a reinventing of politics of a new sustainable rural economies, based on solidarity and collectivity. Following Ivan Illich, this means creating new practical, political ‘tools for conviviality’ that can confront authoritarian populism by building alternatives. And in this, the rural hinterlands and small towns are key.

This post first appeared on https://steps-centre.org/blog/rural-support-for-authoritarian-populism-is-strong-but-another-way-is-possible/.

About the author:
Ian Scoones is a Professorial Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies at Sussex and co-director of the ESRC STEPS Centre. He is one of the initiators of the Emancipatory Rural Politics Initiative and is a member of the editorial collective of the Journal of Peasant Studies.

Moving beyond women as victims in post-conflict peacebuilding efforts in Liberia by Christo Gorpudolo

By ISS Blog Bliss 27 January 202016 May 2020 2799 views

Liberia, a war-torn country for much of the 1990s, initiated several post-conflict peacebuilding programmes with the hope of building sustainable peace. But a study of the Palava Hut Program as a transitional justice mechanism showed that such efforts can be thwarted by the reduction of women to victims of war. The opportunity to rebuild gender relations damaged during wars can be missed in the process. Besides rethinking the link between women and victimhood, women’s inclusion in peacebuilding programmes based on lived experiences can help to equalize men and women in the peacebuilding process, argues Christo Gorpudolo.

Gender is one of the most damaged relationships during war. War and masculinity re-establishes gender hierarchies, and even after the end of wars such oppressive gender relationships persist. Several post-conflict peacebuilding efforts have been initiated in Liberia following two civil wars that occurred between 1989 and 2003. Most notable amongst these peacebuilding efforts have been the development of document called ‘A Strategic Roadmap for National Healing, Peacebuilding and Reconciliation and the National Palava Hut Program. These efforts are major achievements that have set the pace for peacebuilding in the country. Yet, as important as these peacebuilding efforts seem, how gender is viewed and incorporated within the country’s transitional peacebuilding programmes remains problematic for efforts to build sustainable peace.

Solhjell and Sayndee (2016) assert that Liberia has dominate-subservient gender power relations, which limits the participation of the female gender in public discourses and also affects their bodily integrity by limiting their movement from one social class to the other, especially in public decision-making processes (Solhjell and Sayndee 2016: 12). These general societal perspectives and/or biases of gender roles in Liberia have been key sources for policies informing the transitional justice process.

Gender can be viewed as a social institution that establishes patterns of expectations for individuals, orders the social processes of everyday life, and is built into the major social organizations of society such as the economy, ideology, the family and politics. It is an entity in and of itself (Lorber 1996). In the case of Liberia’s peacebuilding efforts, gender is constructed mostly in terms of women’s numerical inclusion in post-conflict peacebuilding activities. This is based on the generally accepted notion that women form a large portion of those victimized in the civil wars. Therefore, policy makers assume that they should be integrated into the Palava Hut talks numerically to share their stories of survival and receive apologies for the crimes committed against them. Although this assertion could be true, viewing women’s participation based on the lens of victimhood also poses a danger.

As part of my Master’s research at the ISS, in 2019 I conducted a case study of Liberia’s National Palava Hut Program as a transitional justice mechanism. Using Scriven’s argumentation analysis, I examined national policies that included the Palava Hut Program documents, related program evaluations and implementation reports, and the Strategic Roadmap for National Healing, Peacebuilding and Reconciliation. I specifically looked at issues of gender, including women’s representation in such policies. I found that victims in the studied documents generally referred to women and children. Based on this perception of women and children as victims, the documents advised that women should form part of the Palava Hut Talks to protect their rights that had been violated during the civil war and to address the ‘dishonour’ brought against them by the civil wars.

As important as those statements might sound, this fails to recognize the key role women played in ending direct violence in Liberia. Thus, women should be incorporated into the Palava Hut Program as significant stakeholders in Liberia’s peacebuilding process, not as victims. Viewing women as victims and men as perpetrators within the peacebuilding process can prevent the full realization of sustainable peace through peacebuilding efforts and hinders the possibility for the transitional era to be used as an opportunity to redefine existing gender relations. According to scholars like Catherine O’Rourke (2013), the extreme social disruption caused by political violence that a transitional justice era seeks to address can within the transitional era allow for some loosening of gender norms and create space for women to take up atypical gender roles. This can help reshape gender relations.

A way of approaching peacebuilding in Liberia in order to achieve a gender-just peacebuilding process would be to incorporate both men and women in the peacebuilding process based on their lived experiences—as equals and not necessarily according to a victim-perpetrator dichotomy. Considering lived experiences may help shift the focus of the Palava Hut Program past victims and perpetrators, thereby creating a deeper understanding of the conflict. This would also provide an opportunity to change gender-damaged relationships that persist in post-conflict societies, particularly Liberia.

References:

Lorber, J. (1996) ‘Beyond the Binaries: Depolarizing the Categories of Sex, Sexuality, and Gender’, Socological Inquiry 66(2): 143-160.

O’Rourke, C. (2013) Gender Politics in Transitional Justice. Routledge.

Solhjell, R. and T.D. Sayndee (2016) ‘Gender-Based Violence and Access to Justice: Grand Bassa County, Liberia’

About the authors:

Christo Z. Gorpudolo is a graduate of Development Studies, Social Justice Perspectives (SJP) from the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS).

Image Credit: ©Pray the Devil Back to Hell on Wikimedia Commons

Inside Delhi’s Doorstep Public Services Delivery Scheme by Sushant Anand

By ISS Blog Bliss 23 January 202016 May 2020 2190 views

Informal brokers and middlemen are essential for the delivery of public services in India. In 2018, the government of Delhi launched a programme that seeks to formalise these informal public service providers through an external agency. Examing the programme, Sushant Anand finds that despite its rising popularity, traditional methods are still prevailing. He points out a number of challenges the government has yet to overcome.

My blog published in 2019 discussed brokers and their role in the delivery of public services. The Government of NCT Delhi (GNCTD) in 2018 launched a programme that seeks to formalise these informal public service providers through an external agency. While 40 services were covered in September 2018, this was soon increased to 70 (across 12 departments) by July 2019, and a scale-up to 100 was expected to be reached by the end of 2019. I take a look at the working of the doorstep delivery of public services project.

As part of the project, citizens can call ‘1076’ and book an appointment with a mobile sahayak (facilitator). The mobile sahayak visits the service seekers’ residence at the given time and collects all requisite documents for the service, submits these documents with the concerned department in exchange of Rs 50 as facilitation fees. The sahayak then collects the final certificate from the government department, and delivers it back to the citizen to complete the transaction.

The services in this project include provision of certificates from the revenue department, driving licences and related services from the transport department, and availing access to certain social sector schemes. Most of these services are in high demand, and it can take days for service seekers to apply for and obtain important documents that can be essential to get benefits from government welfare schemes.

As per an annual report card, the GNCTD claims to have been able to service approximately 99.5 per cent of the 2,00,000 requests booked. As many as 13 lakh calls (1.3 mn) were made by the public. The facility currently operates with more than 125 mobile sahayaks, 100 call centre executives, 11 supervisors, 35 dealing assistants and 25 coordinators[1].

The institutionalisation of informal broker practices does incentivise assistance to the general public, however, there still are some teething issues observed through a year of the project’s operations.

Technical readiness: The launch of the scheme was accompanied by a series of glitches in the system due to fluctuating demand and the backend team modified the software multiple times. The mobile sahayaks and the call centres were also initially working in silos, and delivery of services reportedly suffered due to lack of coordination.
Traditional methods are still more popular: While the scheme was primarily launched to minimise the complexity of Government to Citizen (G2C) services from multiple departments through intermediaries, it was seen that more than 50 per cent of applications were still made directly at the window.
Rationalising resources: The scheme also faced issues with respect to planning its human resource base as most sahayaks initially quit their jobs due to low wages, and it was difficult to replace them. Among the requirements was for sahayaks to have their own motorcycle for conveyance, which is difficult to fulfill.
Understanding scale: Even as 1.3 million calls were made to the toll-free number, only 200,000 requests were booked and 150,000 were successfully resolved. While the churn rate of successful completion was high, it appears that the scale and demand of services was underestimated, resulting in only 15% cases being booked out of the total calls received.

Source: Hindustan Times, 16 July 2019

All the challenges have important lessons. Donald F. Kettl, a scholar of government and administrative reforms, has suggested that New Public Management (NPM) (such as the doorstep delivery of public services project) aims to “remedy a pathology of traditional bureaucracy that is hierarchically structured and authoritatively driven”. The accommodation of the role that brokers have played in service delivery in this case can be considered as a good example of NPM techniques. The government has attempted to eliminate rent-seeking, and create a leaner, incentive-driven local administration.

Ketll suggests that the six key characteristics of the NPM approach are productivity, marketisation, service orientation, decentralisation, policy oriented and being accountable by design. NPM clearly articulates a result-oriented relationship, specifying performance in a clear manner. This scheme was understood to be one-of-a-kind offering in India. While I would acknowledge it to be a constructive innovation by the GNCTD, the lack of technical capacity, public readiness and average resource allocation makes it less likely that the project will become a norm.

Any government service, when offered to the public, largely aims to ease public life or welfare, taking into account some degree of compatibility for uptake and reception by its beneficiaries. For a megacity like New Delhi, strong migration patterns, ad hoc living conditions for many, and the comfort associated with informal systems of access to public service delivery can become additional challenges.

This article was originally published by the Accountability Initiative, Centre for Policy Research.

References

[1]‘Delhi Government delivered on 99.5% of doorstep service requests,’ Hindustan Times, 10 September 2019. Access it here.

About the author:

Sushant Anand is a senior officer at the Accountability Initiative. He has a vast spectrum of experience to work in areas including health, education, WASH, resource management and climate change in organisations like FICCI, IPE Global, Ipsos and TERI.
Sushant is a public policy professional by training and completed his MA in Development Studies from the ISS.

EADI/ISS Series | Why gender matters to social movements by Stacey Scriver and G. Honor Fagan

By ISS Blog Bliss 20 January 202016 May 2020 2378 views

There are right and left, radical and conservative social movements at work in today’s volatile and unequal world. Whether directed towards a transformative social justice agenda or not, social movements themselves do not exist outside of the structures of power. A growth in populist politics, a resurgence of religious movements with conservative agendas on gender and sexuality, and new male supremacist ideologies remind us that gender justice is an extremely challenging and ongoing struggle. Even among social movements directed towards deep social justice, gender inequality remains a key concern, since gender-relatedinequalities persist, both within the movements themselves, as well as in their recognition, support and the response to them.

The Sustainable Development Goals represent the blueprint to achieving a better and more sustainable future. SDG 5 is particularly relevant to considerations of gender and social movements. It is clearly recognised that to achieve sustainable growth, gender equality is necessary. This includes the removal of barriers to women’s empowerment, such as the common and pervasive experience of violence against women or gender-based violence. It also implies re-shaping power structures through the inclusion of women in leadership roles, both within government and in economic activities.

Social movements can be powerful actors in efforts to protect and expand human rights, including gender inequality. Further, social movements are vital training-grounds for leadership and political engagement: many who ultimately take up positions of power within societies initially learned skills in negotiation and communication and built their reputations through work with social movements. They thus also offer a pathway for women to achieve political and economic status.

Gender in Social Movements for Economic, Environmental and Social Justice

Despite the potential of some social movements to contribute towards a gender-just world, inequalities persist within the structure and organisation of many. Leaders are most often men, and often men who ascribe to a culturally acceptable form of masculinity. Women often take on the ‘house-keeping’ roles within social movements, such as organising recruitment and developing campaigns, or ‘soft’ activism, such as maintaining relationships behind the scenes. Consequently, those whose voice are heard most and who consequently benefit most from such public profiles are more likely to be men, limiting the benefits of participating in social movements for women. In short, the working culture of these movements and their pedagogical methods do not create gender parity in membership and decision-making unless they are ‘engendered’.

Many social movements neglect to address the question of gender. For instance, in movements for peace and reconciliation, concerns perceived as relating only to women are often relegated to a secondary status. Peace movements may perceive conflict-affected gender-based violence, including the propensity for increases in intimate partner violence in the context of conflict, as being a second-class category of concern. That is, to be addressed once the ‘bigger’ issues of, for instance, organised violence by paramilitaries, are resolved. This is despite gender-based violence affecting more individuals than organised violent attacks.

The failure to apply a gendered approach to social issues and to create equality within social movements may thus replicate inequalities within the movement itself. This undermines the potential for social movements to be a space wherein women can develop key skills in leadership, shape demands for justice, and develop trust with publics. There is a crucial role for feminists and gender justice activists to create change within social movements, even those advocating social or environmental justice and sustainable development.

Gendered Social Movements

While women have historically taken on important, if often under-recognised, roles in social movements, with examples including the labour movements of the 19^thand 20^th Century, ‘women’s movements’ have also been active in combating gender discrimination, from suffrage movements to Violence agains Women (VAW) movements. There have been notable successes. The Global Campaign of the early 1990s, and the organisation of the Vienna Tribunal, achieved a significant shift in the human rights agenda, with the explicit recognition of violence against women as a human rights violation.

However, women’s or gender movements also face particular barriers due to gender bias, stereotypes and inequalities. Being perceived as having particularist goals or lacking sufficient political allies in positions of power has limited the successes of often vibrant women’s movements in terms of translating knowledge raising and public activism into direct political and/or economic gains.

Gender justice is too important to be siloed as a ‘women’s issue!

Put simply, social movements are critical components of thriving democracies, and even more critical where democratic accountability is on the wane. However, persistent gender inequalities within social movements, mean that social movements themselves may not be representative of the needs of its members. Social movements need to engage in critical reflection and restructuring to ensure that they are themselves gender just.

Moreover, adequate recognition that equitable social change and sustainable development requires gender equality must be central to the organising principles not only within social movements but also across those seeking social justice. Additionally, gender justice is too important to be siloed as a ‘women’s issue’. Allyship between explicitly gendered movements and those focused on other kinds of social justice change is needed. Transformative social change is necessary for long-term and sustainable development and social movements have an important role to play; gender justice, within and between social movements, is a prerequisite.

If you are you interested in discussing gender and social movements further, consider submitting to our harvest panel “Gender Movements and Social Justice” at the EADI/ISS General Conference 2020

Our panel seeks to deepen understanding of the role of gender movements, and gender in movements (including gender solidarity), working towards peaceful, equitable and just communities and societies. We welcome papers that engage with the issues of gender justice and social movements through a variety of perspectives and approaches. Contributions from early career researchers, established academics, and practitioners, including empirically and theoretically-based draft papers, are all welcomed.

Image Credit: Molly Adams on Flickr. The image was cropped.

About the authors:

Stacey Scriver is co-convenor of the Gender Justice Working Group of EADI. She is also a lecturer in Global Women’s Studies in the School of Political Science and Sociology and Director of the MA Gender, Globalisation and Rights at the National University of Galway, Ireland.

Honor Fagan is co-convenor of the Gender Justice Working Group of EADI. She is a Professor of Sociology at Maynooth University, Ireland. Her research interests focus on human security and international development, water, waste and social sustainability, and gender and governance. She is currently leading the Social Science component of two Horizon 2020 research programmes on water sustainability.

EADI/ISS Series | Two faces of the automation revolution: impacts on working conditions of migrant labourers in the Dutch agri-food sector

By ISS Blog Bliss 16 January 202016 May 2020 4072 views

by Tyler Williams, Oane Visser, Karin Astrid Siegmann and Petar Ivosevic

Rapid advances in robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) are enabling production increases in the Dutch agri-food sector, but are also creating harsh working conditions as the sector remains dependent on manual labour, while implementing new technologies. To ensure better working conditions for migrants forming the majority of manual labourers in this sector, ‘worker-friendly’ implementation of new technologies is necessary to limit the negative effects of the automation revolution.

The ‘Threat’ of Automation?

Decades-old debates about the extent of job loss induced by the automation revolution were re-ignited by the seminal work of Frey and Osborne (2013), who suggested large numbers of jobs would be replaced by automation. Where jobs are not lost, automation impacts labour conditions as facilities are geared towards the optimal use of new technology. Novel ICTs offer possibilities to increase labour productivity and to free workers from harsh and repetitive tasks (OECD 2018). Yet they also enable high levels of remote, covert monitoring and measurement of work, often resulting in increased work pressure and the risk of turning workplaces into ‘electronic sweatshops’ (Fernie and Metcalf 1998).

Ever since Keynes (1930) warned about “technological unemployment” in his essay ‘Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren’, tech innovations have been eliminating jobs across sectors (e.g., in manufacturing), while simultaneously leading to the creation of new types of work (e.g., machine engineers). However, the ‘fourth industrial revolution’ (Schwab 2016) currently taking place might differ from earlier ones: automation is accelerating, affecting a wider variety of jobs, and is now also penetrating sectors like agriculture. Likely candidates for new automation waves are ‘3D jobs’ (dirty, dangerous and demeaning) which are overrepresented in agriculture and often performed by migrant workers (manual mushroom picking, for example, which is physically demanding and carries myriad other risks like respiratory issues). Therefore, this sector – understudied in research on automation – deserves attention.

Farm Robots and Migrant Workers

‘Milking robots’, drones, and (semi-)automated tractors have appeared on farms in the U.S. and the EU. As the second largest exporter of agricultural products and the ‘Silicon Valley of Agriculture’ (Schultz 2017), the Netherlands is at the forefront of such innovations. Yet despite this position, Dutch agriculture still depends strongly on manual labour, as the complexity and variability of nature (crops, animals, soils, and weather) have hampered automation.

Technological innovation and the recourse to low-paid, flexible migrant labour in the Dutch agri-food sector both represent cost-saving responses to the increased market power by supermarkets (Distrifood 2019) and the financialisation of agriculture. A FNV (Federation of Dutch Trade Unions) representative asserted: “Employers see those people as machines […]. Employers need fingers, cheap fingers, if I may call it like that”[1].

However, an educated migrant workforce provides benefits to employers beyond ‘cheap fingers’. The majority of labour migrants from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), the largest group of migrant labour workers on Dutch soil (CBS 2019), hold a post-secondary education (Snel et al 2015: 524). As the Dutch are reluctant to do the low-paid 3D jobs, agriculture depends heavily on migrants from CEE countries, especially from Poland (Engbersen et al 2010). An estimated 30 percent of all CEE migrants in the Netherlands work in agri-food, contributing almost 2 billion euros to the country’s GDP in that sector (ABU 2018).

While technology can and does assist in and accelerate the harvesting process, this educated workforce can flexibly perform manifold tasks like identifying and communicating inconsistencies in products or processes to their supervisors, including plant illness, irregular production, etc. This makes them invaluable in improving agricultural production processes and output[2]. However, their working conditions remain precarious. Consequently, grasping the impact that technological innovations have on agriculture necessitates studying transnational labour.

To this end, ISS scholars – with the Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO) – initiated a research project titled ‘Technological change in the agro-food sector in the Netherlands: mapping the role and responses of CEE migrant workers’. So far, it has included interviews with organisations in the agri-food sector, trade unions, engineering/labour experts, and migrant workers; this formed the basis for the MA theses of Petar Ivosevic and Tyler Williams. First results were discussed during an ISS workshop with practitioners in December 2018, and a follow-up workshop will be held on 17 March 2020. In addition, two sessions on the topic will be organised at the 2020 EADI Conference taking place from 29 June to 2 July at the ISS.

Industry versus Workers

To date, the benefits of automation for industry and farm workers are highly unevenly distributed. For example, technologies such as (semi-)automated LED lighting allow for more crops to be grown indoors, accelerating crop growth and extending the growing season. This benefits the agricultural industry and supermarkets by leading to all-year production. It also initially improved agricultural labour conditions: workers received a more stable, year-round income and a reduction in time spent working outdoors in difficult weather conditions. However, these improvements also brought negative consequences for labourers. The workweek increased (from 40 to roughly 60 hours – occasionally 80 hours – per week), and smart LED-lighting technologies, sterile environments, and novel ways of conserving heat and humidity created harsher working conditions (cf. Pekkeriet 2019).

Moving Forward

How can decent labour conditions for (migrant) farmworkers be ensured while further automation of agricultural workplaces takes place? First, further research involving (migrant) workers themselves, growers, and other practitioners is needed to inform policy. So far, policy debates on the future of agriculture have paid only scant attention to (migrant) workers and labour conditions. Farm labour ‘shortages’ in agriculture are often narrowly and one-sidedly discussed in terms of supposed ‘unwillingness’ to work in agriculture per se or the tendency of CEE migrants to return to their home countries where economic growth has picked up. Such a position ignores the harsh (and often insecure) working conditions or postulates them as a given. It strongly underestimates the (potential) role of ‘worker-friendly’ implementation of new technologies and decent labour conditions in shaping the quality (and attractiveness) of farm work. Support from Dutch labour unions – which have started to organise and include CEE migrant workers – could increase migrant workers’ voice. Insecure, dependent work arrangements, language problems, and fragmentation of the migrant workforce have thus far impeded migrants’ own collective action. Finally, food certifications in the Netherlands primarily target food safety and sustainability. Including social (labour-related) criteria would reward farms with sound labour conditions[3].

[1] FNV Representative. 18 June 2018, interviewed by Karin Astrid Siegmann and Petar Ivosevic.

[2] Municipality Westland Presentation, World Horticulture Centre, 19 February 2019.

[3] For instance, the pillar of fair food in the slow food manifesto includes respectful labour conditions.

About the authors:

Tyler Williams recently completed the ISS MA Development Studies’ track in Migration and Diversity and co-organised the abovementioned workshop.

Oane Visser (associate professor, Political Ecology research group, ISS) leads an international research project on the socio-economic effects of and responses to big data and automatization in agriculture.

Karin Astrid Siegmann is a Senior Lecturer in Labour and Gender Economics at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), studying how precarious workers challenge marginalization of their labour.

Petar Ivosevic graduated from the ISS MA program in Development Studies in 2018, with a major in Agrarian, Food and Environmental Studies.

I am only well if you are well: can the Utu-Ubuntu philosophy help drive the acceptance of sexual and reproductive rights in Africa? by Joan Njagi

By ISS Blog Bliss 9 January 202016 May 2020 4778 views

In the face of growing resistance of religious and conservative groups on the African continent to the advancement of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), this article discusses the potential for African philosophy and theories to drive the acceptance of SRHR here and elsewhere. Utu-Ubuntu, a philosophy focusing on humanity and interconnectedness, may help to bridge divisions and advance SRHR for young people on the continent, writes Joan Njagi.

Two events that occurred in Nairobi toward the end of 2019 provided the backdrop for reflection on new ways of overcoming cleavages related to sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) in Africa. The first was the African Studies Association of Africa (ASAA) Conference in October and the second the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) +25 Nairobi Summit in November. As an African researcher working on SRHR, specifically those of young people, the events were meaningful to me for two reasons: the ASAA Conference highlighted the need for African scholarship to interrogate, unearth, and consequently contribute to addressing development challenges on the continent. The ICPD25 Nairobi Summit on the other hand was an important platform to take stock of progress on the landmark programme of action to advance SRHR, adopted by 179 countries across the world during the first ICPD Conference held in Cairo in 1994.

Important discussions and commitments aside, the ICPD +25 Nairobi Summit also brought to the fore the contestation of SRHR on the African continent. This contestation stems mostly from religious and conservative groups that have framed the SRHR agenda, specifically comprehensive sexuality education, abortion rights, and LGBTIQ rights, as a western imposition that poses a threat to the African family. These groups have been agitating for the need for African-developed solutions that uphold religious teachings and what they claim to be African culture including value for the unborn, sexual chastity for young people, sexual attraction and intimacy in heterosexual relationships only, as well as the patriarchal positioning of women as non-autonomous. These contestations continue despite evidence demonstrating the inaccuracies in such homogenized conceptualisations of African culture.

The contestation surrounding SRHR issues on the African continent as demonstrated by anti-SRHR and anti-rights protests during ICPD Summit brings me back to the ASAA Conference. One thing that struck a chord with me during the ASAA Conference is the need for African theories to drive the development agenda in Africa. I was particularly captivated by the Utu-Ubuntu philosophy in decolonising the understanding and conceptualisation of African cities, which was discussed in a keynote address titled “Rethinking the African Metropolis: From problem cities to Utu-Ubuntu cities of self-reliance and solidarity” delivered by Dr. Mary Kinyanjui, a Kenyan scholar, whose work focusses on gender and urban informal economies.

Utu and Ubuntu are East and Southern African concepts, respectively, which stem from the words mtu in Swahili and muntu in the Nguni Bantu languages, both of which mean human being. The underlying philosophy of Utu and Ubuntu is therefore of humanity and being humane. Utu-ubuntu espouses the values of interconnectedness and interdependence of our humanity, such that an individual cannot be self-sufficient or thrive on their own, hence the need for community. Utu-ubuntu is therefore based on the understanding that each person has a responsibility to accord others compassion, fairness, and respect, so that everyone can live in dignity. This involves embracing oneness and solidarity as well as sharing, generosity, and inclusiveness. It further requires adhering to basic norms of kindness, brotherhood, and sisterhood.

Prof. Micere Mugo, a literary critic and professor of literature at Syracuse University, who was forced into exile from Kenya for her political activism during Kenya’s second president Moi’s dictatorial regime, summed up the essence of Utu-Ubuntu perfectly during her keynote at the ASAA Conference when responding “I am only well if you are well” to a Shona greeting.

Since the ASAA conference, I have been thinking about what it would mean to apply the Utu-Ubuntu philosophy in my work as an SRHR researcher and a scholar working on adolescent SRHR. In my work, I have met teenage girls and young women who are pregnant and uncertain about their future and some whose dreams have been shattered by teenage pregnancy and early motherhood. The stigma and shame suffered as result of teenage pregnancy has resulted in insurmountable mental health challenges.

What has often irked me is how society has failed these girls and young women by depriving them of information due to the silences and taboos surrounding sexuality, as well as moralistic messages on sex and sexuality, driven by religious and conservative discourses around children’s sexuality. As a result, young people often have inadequate, inaccurate, and even misleading information about their bodies, relationships, sex, condoms, contraceptives, and abortion.

Rather than humanise young people as people who experience sexuality as part of being human, society has instead chosen to condemn their sexuality and expose them to confusion and vulnerability. Yet by condemning young people for having sex, for being human, we fail to espouse Utu-Ubuntu, and instead live out the western individualism that we often critique as un-African.

What if we instead humanised the way we approach young people’s sexuality and sought to ensure that they live a life of dignity and respect? What if we humanised knowledge beyond providing statistics to actually engage and understand issues from the perspectives of young people? What if we saw young people first as human beings with feelings, desires and the need to explore and therefore support them to do so safely? What if advocacy efforts centered on solidarity to advance young people’s wellbeing rather than advancing ideology that dehumanises young people?

The future of Africa depends on our ability to not only espouse the spirit of Utu-Ubuntu, but to practice it. This requires the understanding that Africa can only be well if her young people are also well, in all ways, including in their sexual health.

Image Credit: T-shirts of Mike

About the author:

Joan Njagi is a PhD candidate at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), of Erasmus University, Rotterdam. Her research examines the role of ICTs and digital technologies in navigating the socio-cultural tensions that surround sexual and reproductive health and rights, and their role in reconceptualising sexual health interventions for 10-17 year old girls. She also consults on sexual and reproductive health and rights in the East and Southern Africa (ESA) region.

Email: wanjiranjagi@gmail.com

Twitter: @Kenyanfeminist

The bitter aftertaste of chocolate: why Ghana’s cocoa farmers are struggling to adhere to sustainable cocoa production standards by Adjoa Annan

By ISS Blog Bliss 6 January 202016 May 2020 3786 views

Prompted by demands from consumers to know where the chocolate we eat comes from and how it is made, companies producing chocolate are increasingly investing in measures such as certification schemes and company-driven sustainability initiatives in an effort to make chocolate production more transparent and sustainable. However, cocoa farmers in Ghana are struggling to adhere to environmental standards for more sustainable cocoa production practices. Adjoa Annan explains why.

Consumers are more interested than ever to obtain information about the sustainability of cocoa beans, one of the main ingredients of chocolate, including the way in which it is sourced. At the farm gate level, where the sourcing of raw cocoa beans begins, Sustainable Cocoa Production (SCP) is increasingly promoted through the implementation of certification programmes and company-driven sustainability initiatives. These programmes attempt to enhance process quality through farmers’ adoption of production practices that focus on reducing environmental harm and including social considerations, such as paying a fair price for raw cocoa.

However, efforts to ensure SCP have been largely compromised by a lack of transparency and accountability of certification auditing systems [1] [2]. What is less known are the effects of undesirable incentives for cocoa farmers and a low level of knowledge transfer on their ability to ensure SCP. This article seeks to explain some of the barriers cocoa farmers face in adhering to environmental standards prescribed by the certification schemes they are subscribed to.

One objective of my PhD research on quality enhancement in Ghana’s cocoa sector is to examine how cocoa buyers control and promote process quality at the farm gate level. Two communities were selected for this study from the Adansi South and Amasie West districts in the Ashanti region, which accounts for one of the largest cocoa-producing regions in Ghana. Within the various cocoa-growing communities, different Licensed Buying Companies (LBCs) purchase cocoa beans. LBCs employ a purchasing clerk(s) who buys cocoa beans from farmers.^[1]

For the purpose of the study, an LBC which implemented the UTZ certification scheme and a cooperative supplying cocoa beans through an international chocolate brand’s label that adopts Fairtrade principles into its sustainability programme were studied. Purchasing clerks, inspection officers facilitating the auditing of farms, and farmers enrolled in both UTZ and Fairtrade programmes were also interviewed. By using in-depth interviews, participant observation, and farm visits, training regarding the UTZ and Fairtrade environmental best practices and factors on farmers’ adoption and non-adoption of best practices were examined.

Empirical observations revealed some challenges compromising effective SCP. Farmers were not effectively trained on the UTZ and Fairtrade environmental best practices. In the case of the international chocolate brand studied, farmers were seemingly sporadically trained on Fairtrade best practices once or twice a year, during cooperative meetings. The LBC that implemented the UTZ certification scheme organized training for farmers only once annually. In both cases, group trainings held in classroom venues were not suitable for explaining certain best practices that demanded on-farm demonstrations. This led to farmers’ poor understanding and implementation of environmental best practices on farms.

Farmers enrolled in both certification schemes noted that they struggled to understand technical topics presented in training, especially related to agrochemical use, health and safety issues, and water and waste management. Consequently, some farmers did not properly adopt best practices such as removing rubbish and agrochemical bottles from farms and wearing safety clothing. Some farmers also struggled to understand the required measurement of agrochemicals.

Aside from poor training, farmers noted that adopting all environmental best practices was time-consuming. Low-price premiums paid to farmers served as a disincentive to adopt best practices. Farmers complained that the premiums received for enrolling in certification programmes were not sufficient to warrant their efforts^[2]. These factors led to a low adoption rate on Fairtrade and UTZ certification environmental best practices. However, interviewed farmers felt that a premium increase and access to frequent on-farm training could enhance their efforts to adhere to sustainable production practices [3].

Overall, SCP was not effectively promoted in the various studied communities. Cocoa buyers did not seem to invest enough in the sourcing communities where they buy cocoa beans. In order to achieve sustainable chocolate, there should be an increased engagement of farmers to enhance the quality of cocoa bean sourcing processes. The needs of farmers should also be addressed to ensure cocoa farming as a sustainable livelihood. At present, this is not happening, which is leaving chocolate with a bitter aftertaste.

[1] In one of the studied communities, for instance, five different LBCs and nine different purchasing clerks were buying cocoa beans from farmers. There is competition over cocoa beans among purchasing clerks.

[2] As at 2018, the premium received by UTZ and Fairtrade farmers interviewed for this study in the studied communities was 1.4 USD and 1.6 USD, respectively per the standard 64kg bag of cocoa beans.

References

Fountain, & Hütz-Adams. (2015). Cocoa Barometer – Looking for a Living Income. Cocoa Barometer, 42–43.

Fountain, A., & Huetz-Adams, F. (2018). Cocoa Barometer.

In-depth interviews with farmers during data collection from July 2017 to March 2018 in Aponapon and Subiriso communities, Ashanti region, Ghana.

About the author:

Adjoa Annan is a PhD candidate at the Center for Development Research of the University of Bonn, Germany. Annan completed a Master’s degree in Development Studies at the ISS.

Marie Antoinette rules in Colombia as the masses protest against inequality

By ISS Blog Bliss 19 December 201916 May 2020 1906 views

By Fabio Andrés Díaz Pabón and María Gabriela Palacio

Since late November, Colombia has seen unprecedented mass protests, the longest since 1977. These protests illustrate the awakening of a muffled civil society. Protests in Colombia are part of a Latin American “spring”. Demonstrations have, since September, swept across Haiti, Mexico, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Panama, Uruguay, Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia and Chile. But Colombia’s protests are not merely following a regional trend, nor can they be attributed to a single ideological leaning.

Who is protesting and why

Colombians are protesting against inequality, because the country has the most unequal society among the 36 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. In addition, recent government measures, such as cuts in taxes to wealthy investors and an increase in taxes for the middle classes, have generated a significant backlash in a failed attempt to implement “trickle-down economics”.

Though the Colombian economy has experienced resilient economic growth despite the fall in commodity prices, there is little to no redistribution taking place. The richest 1% of the population captures more than 20% of the total labour income.

Because measures recently adopted by the government probably exacerbate inequalities, peasants, student, urbanites, labour unions and indigenous groups have taken to the streets. Their grievances might differ but the persistence of inequality has led to a reduction of their tolerance to measures that maintain the status quo.

Protesters are demanding the implementation of the provisions signed in the 2016 by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia — People’s Army Colombian peace agreement. For some factions in the government, demanding the fulfilment of the promises of the Constitution and demanding peace is seen as a subversive act. Yet Colombians are not demanding a revolution; they are demanding the right to a dignifying life and the fulfilment of the promises made by the government.

In a country that is in an armed conflict and is home to one of the highest shares of internally displaced populations in the world, the dismissal of protesters’ grievances constitutes a threat to civil society and democracy. The number of assassinated social and indigenous leaders and activists illustrate these risks.

The motivation for protests relates to the deepening of inequalities and levels of precarity in terms of access to education, health and social protection and the weariness of armed conflict. The strength of the protests can be explained as the result of the transition of the Colombia society towards peace — the peace accords with paramilitaries in 2006 and guerrillas in 2016 opened different venues for political participation — and the strengthening of social movements.

Government’s response

The response from the government of Iván Duque has been one of denials, accusations and failed attempts to regain control over public discourse.

He took office thanks to the political backing of politicians and sectors in society who opposed the peace negotiations with guerrillas and the state reforms taking place since 2010. Once in power, Duque found himself having to comply with state policies his support base did not agree with.

But these groups do not represent the majority of the population. Because of this, Duque faces a 70% disapproval rate and only 24% approval rate, according to a recent Gallup poll. This also means he has no control over the congress, posing a dilemma to his government. Either Duque tries to clear his policies to receive the broader support of society and face the alienation of his core supporters or he loses the capacity to lead the country. Because of this, media such as The Economist have depicted Duque as a president without direction.

Given this limited political space, the government attempted a propaganda campaign that tried to cast protesters as not contributing to the development of the country and drove Duque to plan the first meeting after the national strike with the industrials and business people rather than with the protestors.

This illustrates that the government cannot see that the protests span across race, location and class. Protests have brought together diverse actors that have found in the streets a space of encounter. Social groups are refusing government measures concerning social security, pensions and labour reforms, because they would have a pervasive effect on the livelihoods of the majority of the population. This explains why protests are supported by 74% of the population.

The disconnection between self-interested elites and the rest of society is evident. The proposal for a tax break, such as allowing consumption without value-added tax for three days a year and an extended “Black Friday” as a solution to the protests illustrate how little the government understands its citizens. Initiatives such as these reflect the aloofness of Maria Antoinette; a “let them eat cake” response.

Economists have opposed other proposals tabled by the government as lacking any technical basis. Populist economic measures aim to increase the acceptability of Duque’s government but can drive inequality and further grievances. The elimination of a 2% tax for buying houses worth more than $260 000 shows that the government is not undertaking reforms to improve the livelihood of the majority of Colombians, neither are improving state revenues.

Policy challenges

The debate can be framed about the availability of public resources and how to spend these, but data shows that the country is growing faster than any other OECD country. Nevertheless, the gains of growth are not evenly distributed, because the cost of living for the middle class is growing faster than their incomes.

The state is facing a long-standing problem of export-dependent economies. As the global economy cools down, the demand for Colombian exports has declined. In response to an imminent trade deficit, the state must increase its revenues but is afraid of taxing the wealthy — its remaining support base. This scenario takes place in a country in which informal employment is rising, and the size of industrial production is declining. The country is also going through a demographic transition, with an ageing population adding pressure to the pension system. As the population grows older, fewer contributors can sustain the social security system, and the costs for public health and pension fees increase.

One of the government proposals was to reduce employment costs and make youth employment flexible. Driving the most significant segment of the population into precariousness cannot be sound politics or economics, especially if the government is thinking about financing the pension system for future generations. Duque’s government praises the discourse of innovation and entrepreneurship, but it should consider that people in insecure employment are less likely to take risks and innovate.

Policies need to tackle the sources of inequality in Colombia and work to the benefit of the growing youth and middle class. The policy dilemma the government has is either to increase taxes to the bulk of the population, or reduce exemptions to wealthy citizens. Given the little political capital that the government has, increasing taxes for the wealthy might mean the government could run out of support. But failing to create the fiscal space that could sustain the economy and redistribute income might exacerbate inequalities in the future.

Moving towards an equal society is not only an ethical response to the grievances of diverse social groups but also a necessary condition for accelerating economic growth. Structural changes should be considered. The government should shift its attention towards innovation and industrial policies that can internalise and disseminate technological gains while driving domestic demand towards the local industry. Redistributive reforms are a prerequisite for progress because they help to close structural gaps and lead to higher levels of productivity, full use of capacities and resources, a fairer distribution of income and wealth and provide all citizens with the right to embark on the plans that they consider worthwhile.

Transition from violence

Protests remain spaces of uncertainty and crisis, but they also are spaces of representation, democracy and opportunity. Protesters bypass the structures of representation and send signals to institutions when they do not work. Furthermore, they allow governments to hear different voices and provide valuable feedback on the workings of the economy. Yet privileged actors invest energy and resources in preventing positive dissent and protecting the status quo.

Inequality and precariousness hinder economic growth and social cohesion. The mass protests, in the Colombian case, not only demonstrate how public voice emerges when violence is declining, but also how inequalities can be exposed once violence decreases, because people demand basic rights for the losers of development processes. As the country tries to leave violence behind, the nature of the conversations changed from armed conflict to citizens’ rights. Nevertheless, Colombia is a country that remains in fear of violence, the legacy of a 70-year war. The leadership of the government or its lack thereof remains central in blocking the transition away from violence.

Picture credit: Roboting on Wikimedia Commons

This article was originally published by Mail and Guardian.

About the authors:

Fabio Andrés Díaz Pabón is a researcher at the African Centre of Excellence for Inequalities Research, a research associate in the department of political and international studies at Rhodes University and a researcher at the International Institute of Social Studies in the Netherlands.

María Gabriela Palacio is an Ecuadorian political economist interested in social policy, inequality and exclusion, who works as an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Humanities of Leiden University. She holds a PhD in Development Studies by the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS).

Death and torture in the Life Esidimeni cases in South Africa: avenues for accountability by Meryl du Plessis

By ISS Blog Bliss 16 December 201916 May 2020 3058 views

In 2015 the lack of attention to mental health care in South Africa made news headlines when 1,711 mental health care users dependent on assistance were forced out of state-sponsored private mental health care facilities. In what has been called the worst human rights violation since the end of apartheid, 144 of these transferred patients died due to neglect. A number of national and international legal mechanisms exist to hold the perpetrators accountable, but victims and their relatives may need assistance to be able to do so.

In 2015, the South African government decided to move 1,711 mental health care users dependent on assistance for their daily functioning from a state-sponsored private hospital group called Life Esidimeni into the care of other actors, including NGOs and hospitals not specialized in the care of patients, many of whom were suffering from severe mental illness that affected their ability to lead normal lives. Following the death of 144 mental health care users due to inadequate care and neglect, the South African government stated that this decision had been made in order to implement a policy of deinstitutionalisation, to satisfy financial auditing requirements not to use one service provider for lengthy, uninterrupted periods, and to save costs.

A remaining 1,418 persons survived, experiencing conditions that former Deputy Chief Justice Moseneke, the arbitrator in proceedings between the South African government and the families of the mental health care users, described as torture (paras 58 to 141). At the time of the arbitration award in March 2018, 44 of the mental health care users had gone missing in the absence of care, lack of food, water and sanitation and systems to keep track of where users were housed. News reports in March 2019 indicated that some users were still unaccounted for, although many had been traced with the help of police and the Department of Social Development.

Investigations point to rash decision-making and a lack of care

A report by the Office of the Health Ombud has described the provincial health department’s project in terms of which the transfers occurred as “done in a ‘hurry/rush’, with ‘chaotic’ execution, in an environment with no developed, no tradition, no culture of primary mental health care community-based services framework and infrastructure”.

According to the Arbitration Award, the South African government accepted liability and acknowledged that the actions of its officials and its agents contravened South Africa’s obligations under international law, the South African Constitution, 1996, the National Health Act 61 of 2003, the Mental Health Care Act 17 of 2002, and the government’s own National Mental Health Policy Framework and Strategic Plan.

The survivors and the families in the Life Esidimeni arbitration were awarded compensation of approximately R1.2 million (approximately €73,000) each in terms of the common law and in the form of damages for breaches of constitutional rights. Justice Moseneke also ordered the government to construct a monument to commemorate the suffering and loss caused by the government’s actions and to remind future generations of the “human dignity and vulnerability” of mental health care users. He furthermore ordered that government report to the Office of the Health Ombud and to survivors and their families on the contents, as well as the implementation of its recovery plan, which seeks to “achieve systemic change and improvement in the provision and delivery of mental health care by the Department of Health in the Province of Gauteng” (para 7a). Furthermore, Justice Moseneke ordered that the health care professionals involved in the killing and the torture of the mental health care users be reported to their respective professional bodies. Steps taken in this regard should be reported on to the Health Ombud and the claimants.

Pursuing accountability: two possible avenues

The steps taken by government above are arguably insufficient to ensure accountability. Apart from measures that the South African government can choose to implement at its discretion, which accountability mechanisms can be used by social justice organizations representing the victims and their relatives to address the crass disregard for mental health care users’ rights by government officials, health care professionals, and managers of NGOs involved in the Life Esidimeni case?

The Special Investigations Unit, the State’s preferred forensic investigations unit established in terms of legislation, has been successful in claiming back portions of the funds that had been improperly allocated to some NGOs. This was done after a presidential decree to investigate whether NGOs benefited improperly from the Life Esidimeni processes. However, no accountability has followed for government officials and health care professionals who were involved in taking reckless decisions and implementing such decisions. What are the options in this regard?

Firstly, accountability in the form of criminal prosecutions is possible, although the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) has stated that there is insufficient evidence for criminal prosecutions. However, evidence can be gathered through inquests into the deaths by courts, which have been ordered by the Arbitrator.

Moreover, if the NPA maintains its refusal to prosecute those involved in the deaths and torture, there is the possibility of private citizens instituting prosecution proceedings in terms of the Criminal Procedure Act, although the costs involved make this a prohibitive process for most persons. Funding options for private prosecutions include NGOs and private donors. Without funding and legal assistance, it is highly unlikely that it is an avenue that families would be able to pursue.

Secondly, if domestic remedies are unsuccessful, there is the possibility of laying a complaint with the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in terms of, inter alia, articles 3, 15 and 16 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. South Africa ratified the Convention, together with its Optional Protocol, in 2007. However, the Committee may only make “suggestions and recommendations” after considering a complaint (art 5 of the Optional Protocol). Unless there are political or economic repercussions that flow from adverse findings by the committee, it is my view that it is likely to be a weak accountability measure.

These are two possible avenues in the continuing struggle to ensure accountability for the deaths, pain, and suffering caused by the South African government’s, health care professionals’ and non-governmental organizations’ actions in the Life Esidimeni cases. While the report of the Health Ombud and the arbitration award have suggested repercussions for some of the health care professionals and state officials who neglected their duties, it remains to be seen whether the individuals whose actions caused the deaths, torture, and trauma of mental health care users and their loved ones will be held accountable.

About the author:

Meryl du Plessis is a senior lecturer in the School of Law at the University of the Witwatersrand. In 2019, she participated in an Erasmus+ sponsored fellowship programme at the International Institute of Social Studies.

Holding Myanmar accountable for acts of genocide is just the start of a long process of justice for the Rohingya by Lize Swartz

By ISS Blog Bliss 12 December 201916 May 2020 1998 views

Public hearings are currently underway at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, where Myanmar stands accused of committing genocide against the Rohingya minority after violent crackdowns since 2012 left thousands dead and forced more than one million Rohingya to flee the country. This follows shortly after the Minister of Justice of The Gambia at the International Conclave on Justice and Accountability for Rohingya held at the ISS in October declared that what has transpired in Myanmar over the past years must be named genocide and that The Gambia would lead efforts to hold the Myanmar state accountable through international legal mechanisms. However, this is just the first of several steps to ensure justice for the Rohingya—the human side of what has become a ‘refugee crisis’ needs to be acknowledged, writes Lize Swartz.

The desire to hold perpetrators accountable for crimes committed against the Rohingya[1], to improve the living conditions and well-being of Rohingya refugees[2], and to ensure their eventual safe return to Myanmar was unanimously expressed at the recent International Conclave on Justice and Accountability for Rohingya. At the conclave, a number of high-level dignitaries and specialists working on justice for the Rohingya at both the international and local level came together at the ISS in October this year to discuss key short-, medium- and long-term objectives in ensuring the eventual safe return of the Rohingya to Myanmar and ways in which to reach them.

His Excellency Abubacarr Marie Tambedou, Minister of Justice of The Gambia, at the conclave declared to a sizeable audience that The Gambia would lead the process of holding the Myanmar state accountable—a declaration that was enthusiastically welcomed by attendees as an important first step in ensuring justice for the Rohingya. The Gambia accordingly instituted proceedings [3] against Myanmar at the International Court of Justice, the principal judiciary organ of the United Nations, in November this year. Laetitia van den Assum, an independent diplomatic expert who was previously part of the Advisory Commission on Rakhine State and who also attended the conclave[4], told a Dutch news website that The Gambia had launched the application because the UN Security Council due to resistance from Russia and China had not undertaken any action in this regard over the past few years.

While the declaration of genocide and the filing of the recent application are steps in the right direction, the complexity of processes of ensuring justice and accountability have not been sufficiently recognized at the conclave, where discussions focused on holding perpetrators accountable and returning Rohingya refugees to Myanmar under safe conditions. Bangladesh, who has assumed a leadership role in housing Rohingya refugees, was praised at the conclave for its hospitality, while representatives of Bangladesh highlighted the difficulties of housing almost a million refugees.

The discussions made me wonder whether the humanity of the Rohingya is sufficiently recognized by those working on ensuring justice for them. In particular, the Rohingya genocide has become a ‘refugee crisis’, gaining increasing attention due to the sheer numbers of refugees residing in host countries. This is transpiring while the Rohingya in fact have been victims of policies of exclusion and direct violence within Myanmar for over forty years. It seems that it is only now that the issue is receiving attention—but perhaps for the wrong reasons.

At the conclave, it became clear that the Rohingya were seen as temporary residents hosted by benevolent neighbouring countries. However, it became evident during the conclave that repatriation is not straightforward, as changes in national policies, laws and leadership in Myanmar are crucial for the creation of conditions of safety and security as a sustainable solution to the long-term crisis. Conference attendees agreed that without such conditions, the cycle of violence and exclusion is likely to repeat itself as it has done before.

While the proceedings against Myanmar at the ICJ are a first step, host countries and the international community all have to come to terms with the fact that the process of ensuring justice could span several decades and that ongoing collaborative effort is required for the entire duration of the process. It is important to recognize the human side of the ‘refugee crisis’ and to ensure that besides holding perpetrators accountable through formal international legal mechanisms, the well-being of the Rohingya should be prioritized now—whether they are temporary or permanent residents of host countries. The following things should be kept in mind:

Bangladesh and other host countries are now the Rohingya’s home, and they may remain so for many years to come.

When humans settle somewhere, they grow new roots that anchor them to a place. The international community may not want to recognize that the Rohingya has already grown roots in host countries and that they will continue to do so until their return to Myanmar, if they choose to return. It is crucial for host countries to accept that the Rohingya might not be going anywhere anytime soon and that their integration into host communities is crucial, whether temporarily or permanently. Host countries have already been generous in providing resources and a safe space for the Rohingya, but they now needs to direct their gaze towards the social dimensions of well-being among the Rohingya, including the creation of a sense of belonging and the creation of education and employment opportunities by doing the opposite that the Myanmar state has done—by acknowledging the Rohingya minority as part of their society and accepting them despite their origin or citizenship status. At the conclave it became clear that the lack of access to education was one of the most pressing problems facing the Rohingya.

The Rohingya should acquire an understanding of the process of change, not only in repatriation, but also in holding the perpetrators responsible.

Importantly, the Rohingya also need to understand that their return to Myanmar, even though desired by some of them, may not take place in the coming year or years, which will help them make long-term decisions about where they could settle. CSOs and local grassroots actors working with Rohingya on the ground can play a crucial role in helping the Rohingya understand why the cogs are turning slowly and why their return to Myanmar is being delayed. In addition, information on the proceedings and outcome of pending ICJ or ICC cases will play an important role in the Rohingya’s gauging of the level of safety and security of Myanmar and, therefore, in their willingness to return to Myanmar when it is possible.

The process of justice and accountability does not end when the Rohingya return to Myanmar – it only begins then.

The long-term objective of helping the Rohingya deal with trauma should be highlighted; this shows dedication to the cause of the Rohingya and not just to addressing the immediate refugee crisis. A Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was discussed at the conclave, is effective not only in gathering evidence of crimes against humanity, but also in helping victims of crimes against humanity deal with trauma. The wounds that have been created over the last forty years will not heal instantly, but they can heal more effectively with the creation and efficient functioning of such mechanisms and institutions that facilitate dialogue and interaction among all ethnic groups in Myanmar.

[1] Following violent crackdowns on the Rohingya starting in 2012, more than one million Rohingya have fled Myanmar, many to neighbouring country Bangladesh.

[2] At present, Cox’s Bazar near the Bangladesh-Myanmar border houses more than 700,000 Rohingya refugees in what has become a massive slum.

[3] According to ICJ Press Release No. 2019/47, available at https://www.icj-cij.org/en/case/178, The Gambia alleged “violations of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (the ‘Genocide Convention’) through ‘acts adopted, taken and condoned by the Government of Myanmar against members of the Rohingya group’ ”.

Image Credit: Zlatica Hoke on Wikimedia

About the author:

Lize Swartz is a PhD researcher at the ISS working on the intersection of sustainability and climate crises and the influence of power on understandings of and responses to such crises. She was a conference reporter at the International Conclave on Justice and Accountability for Rohingya.

EADI/ISS Series | Limits to learning: when climate action contributes to social conflict

By ISS Blog Bliss 11 December 201916 May 2020 2230 views

By Dirk Jan Koch and Marloes Verholt

REDD+, or Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation, has been one of the holy grails of international efforts to combat climate change for the past 10 years: over 10 billion dollars have been pledged to this cause by donor countries. Although REDD+ aims to reduce deforestation rates while increasing the welfare of landowners, research has shown that it also negatively impacts indigenous communities and has contributed to conflict. While hard work has been done to improve REDD+ programs, there are serious unintended effects of this much needed climate change action program. We wondered if organizations will do something about these unintended effects and would like to stimulate debate on that. We found that there are limits to what they learn: some unintended effects are likely to persist.

The REDD+ programmes, developed by the United Nations, use a payment for environmental services (PES) approach to support developing countries in creating more sustainable land use models. The idea behind this is that landowners move away from traditional land use methods that deplete forests and hence exhaust their capacity to absorb CO2. In turn, they receive monetary and other incentives that make up for loss of income and enable them to work towards more sustainable land use.

However, a disturbing number of “unintended consequences” results from these programmes. Such consequences do not necessarily relate to the initial goals of the programme: it can for example achieve great results in forest preservation and poverty alleviation; yet be only accessible to those who officially own the land. Thereby it excludes the poor residents for whom the programme was initially intended. Importantly, because these effects fall outside the scope of the programmes, they are not always taken into consideration when it comes to measuring impact.

In the past years, researchers found such effects on both the forest preservation and social impact fronts. Now, determining that some bear the brunt of well-intended efforts to tackle climate change is one thing. The next question, however, is crucial: will implementers be able to learn from their mistakes? Are the unintended consequences that have been seen in the past years avoidable, and does REDD+ hence have the potential to be for instance truly inclusive and conflict-sensitive?

Will programme implementers learn from their mistakes?

The answer is, as always: it depends. Reasons for not learning from unintended effects are partly technical: for example, the difficulty to measure the actual deforestation rates or the forests that are “saved” as a direct result from the project (the so-called displacement effect). With better measurement techniques, experts expect that these issues can be overcome in the near future.

However, the unintended consequences of REDD+ that are social in nature are a completely different ball game. These include for example the discrimination of indigenous peoples and their ancestral ways of living and working the land; the exclusion of many rural poor because they do not have official land titles; the exclusion of women for the same reason; or the rising of social tensions in communities, or between communities and authorities.

Organizations which implement REDD+, such as the World Bank and the Green Climate Fund, are aware of these unintended consequences and have put measures in place to anticipate and regulate them. These “social and environmental safeguards” should prevent discrimination as a result from the programmes. Moreover, grievance redress and dispute settlement mechanisms are in place to serve justice to those who have been harmed or disadvantaged regardless.

Despite these systems and regulations, World Bank and GCF employees explain that they are struggling with managing these unintended consequences, and that it is difficult to satisfy everyone’s needs while still achieving results on the deforestation front. The dilemma they face is clear: the more time, effort and money is spent to anticipate all possible unintended consequences, the less money and time is left to use for the implement the climate change programming, and time is ticking.

Ideological limits to learning

Donors who fund the programmes appear sometimes more concerned by just increasing disbursement rates, to show they are active in the fight against climate change, than fully taking note and acting on the collateral social damage. With more pressure from civil society, donors and organizations are likely to also take more of the social factors on board, for example through the safeguard system. However, there appears to be one major blind spot, on which little learning is taking place.

To our surprise, the most encountered unintended effects are the so-called motivational crowding out effects. Time and again, it was found that, while people were initially quite concerned about the forest and finding ways to preserve it, their intrinsic motivation to do so declined when monetary rewards were offered. The neo-liberal model of putting a price on everything might work on the short run, but appears to contribute to an erosion of conservation values in the long run. So, taking stock of collateral damage, this might be one of the most unexpected ones we encountered. And unfortunately, it goes against the very ideological basis of the PES approach. Currently, we also found little action by organizations and donors to deal with this unintended effect. An ideological limit to learning appears to be in place here.

Yet, we are still hoping that climate justice can be achieved. That green objectives can be combined with social justice objectives. We invite you to share your abstracts with us for the panel we are organizing at the EADI conference in 2020. The deadline is on December 15. If you would like to read more background information on this topic, you are welcome to consult our working paper.

Image Credit: Peg Hunter

About the authors:

Dirk-Jan Koch is Professor (special appointment) in International Trade and Development Cooperation at the Radboud University in Nijmegen, and Chief Science Officer of the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs. His latest publications include Is it time to ‘decolonise’ the fungibility debate? (2019, Third World Quarterly, with Zunera Rana) and Exaggerating unintended effects? Competing narratives on the impact of conflict minerals regulation (2018, Resources Policy, with Sara Kinsbergen).

Marloes Verholt is researcher at the Radboud University Nijmegen. She researches the unintended effects of international climate policy. With a background in conflict analysis and human rights work, she views the climate change debate through these lenses.

Brexit tales of discontent: the revenge of Empire by Helen M. Hintjens

By ISS Blog Bliss 9 December 201916 May 2020 3044 views

Nobody knows what happens after UK general elections on 12 December 2019: Brexit, a referendum on Irish unity, on Scottish independence, or a No-Deal exit from the EU? In 1977, Tom Nairn in The Break up of Britain warned that during “extreme difficulties and contradictions, the prospect of break-down or being held forever in the gateway… may lead to… nationalist dementia for a society” (p. 349). The election taking place this week will decide whether the ghosts of imperial ancestors win the day, or whether younger generations can save the UK from its divided self.

Crisis? Which one?

Uncertainty over Brexit is wreaking havoc on the Brits. Those who want to remain in the EU are in despair; those who want to leave are angry. Most are sick of it. Britain’s collective mental health, already poor before Brexit, is worsening dramatically.

Illustration 1: anti-depressant prescriptions in England: another opioid crisis.

In 2012, the Jimmy Savile scandal erupted, resulting in a public crisis in confidence in the British establishment. The public enquiry under then-PM Teresa May into “Historic Child Sexual Abuse” involved serious charges against MPs, celebrities, and royals. The crisis recently resurfaced when Prince Andrew gave a BBC interview on his Epstein connection. He was soon forced to withdraw from UK public life. The Savile crisis is almost forgotten, yet in 2012, John Simpson in The Guardian called this “the worst crisis I can remember in my nearly 50 years at the BBC”. Brexit is now the second “worst crisis in 50 years” in less than a decade.

Myths and lies

Some see the 2016 Referendum result as based on myths and lies. The language of war—betrayal, surrender—gained currency. More recently, the Labour Party accused Johnson and his rich friends of planning a ‘Big Short’ on a No-Deal Brexit. Pro-Brexiteers accuse Remainers (termed ‘Remoaners’) of thwarting the “will of the British people”. Tory MPs who are pro-Remain have been thrown out of the Conservative Party. Support for Brexit remains in rural, small-town and post-industrial England, despite the dire warnings of Operation Yellowhammer [1]. In London, Bristol and Birmingham, and across Scotland and Northern Ireland, the majority wants to Remain. Welsh opinion has moved towards Remain, or even Independence.

Illustration 2: Humour is essential

This joke sums up the dilemma for smaller UK countries: “An Irishman, a Scotsman and an Englishman go into a bar. The Englishman wants to leave, so they all have to leave”. Brexit humour abounds, and it helps a little, but only a little.

Macho English Nationalism

On Gender and Brexit, Aida Hozic and Jacqui True comment whilst “men took up 85% of the press space and 70% of television coverage”, during the Brexit campaign, “women [became]… visible as actors… to ‘clean-up’ the mess left by their male counterparts” (p. 276). Women and men voted similarly on Leave-Remain. Young people were notably more pro-Remain than their elders. Commenting in Third Text, Finlayson comments: “Farage’s Brexitism… opposes the small, ordinary, decent, local and familiar to the big, distant and untrustworthy”, showing a ‘little Englander’ mentality harking back to Empire. Pro-Brexit rhetoric centres on ‘guts’ and courage: “…phrases [that] invoke boyhood stories of wartime bravery against the odds and of standing up to boarding school bullies” (pp. 602-603), and tales of the Empire.

Illustration 3: Brexit and Dangerous Jingoism

Outdated imperial values are dangerous. Both racist and sexist, such values risk renewing sectarian violence in Northern Ireland. The murder of Labour MP Jo Cox and UK-wide spike in hate crime since the Referendum leaves minorities fearing the future. And small-minded English nationalism merely intensifies Scottish, Northern Irish, and Welsh nationalism. The 12 December 2019 elections are crucial.

Algorithms and Rule by Nobody

In today’s networked age, algorithm-based ‘filter bubbles’ limit social media users’ suggested content to their existing comfort zone. Guardian investigative journalist Carole Cadwalladr found that the Leave campaign defeated Remain by using such filtering algorithms effectively [2]. Causing suspicion of his motives, Boris Johnson recently refused to allow the publication of a parliamentary report on Russian social media interference in UK elections.

Pro-Brexiteers also frame Brexit as revolt against ‘faceless Brussels bureaucrats’, echoing Hannah Arendt’s ‘Rule by Nobody’. Yet EU neoliberalism could give way to UK financial deregulation, a danger with the UK constitution now collapsing. Abandoning compromise also means Britain could break into three or four national units. Sectarian and anti-minority violence would likely accompany this break-up.

End Thoughts

Nairn warned the Brits—especially the English—of the danger of rooting around in their imperial past for renewed nationalist identity symbols: “… once these well-springs have been tapped there is no real guarantee that the great forces released will be ‘controllable’” (p. 349). As minorities in the UK live in fear of the future, Brexiteers need constant reminding that words can be mortally dangerous. We are now in Karl Marx’s vision in The Eighteenth Brumaire where “[t]he tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living… [drawing]… from them names, battle slogans, and costumes in order to present this new scene in world history”. Rather than plunge back into its imperial past, and end up divided, it is hoped the UK electorate will vote to remain in the EU. The question now will be whether the EU will want us!

At a Research in Progress Seminar 12 December 2019 ‘BREXITLAND FAIRY TALES’, Helen Hintjens will elaborate on some of the points in this blog. 13.00-14.00, ISS. This happens to be on the same day as the UK national parliamentary elections!

[1] The latest Operation Yellowhammer document was released on 2 August 2019. It predicts shortages of medicine, “risk… panic buying… [which could] exacerbate food supply disruption”, “[u]rgent action… to ensure [continued] access to clean water”, “[the disruption of] [la]w enforcement data/information sharing UK-EU”, and “[p]rotests and counter-protests… across the UK” alongside “… a rise in public disorder and community tensions”.

In Northern Ireland “growth of the illegitimate economy” especially in cross-border areas“.

[2] https://www.spectator.co.uk/2019/11/exclusive-dominic-cummingss-secret-links-to-russia/

Cadwalladr also in: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/may/17/dark-money-democracy-billionaires-funding

Image Credit Main Photo: Williams Murray Hamm on Flickr

About the author:

Helen Hintjens is Assistant Professor in Development and Social Justice. She publishes on asylum policies and on post-genocide reconciliation in the African Great Lakes region, and Rwanda in particular.

Reporting or turning a blind eye? Police integrity in Uganda by Wil Hout and Natascha Wagner

By ISS Blog Bliss 5 December 201916 May 2020 3438 views

Imagine that you are a police officer and witness a close colleague accepting a bribe. Would you report this behaviour or turn a blind eye to it? 600 police officers in Uganda answered similar questions relating to a variety of cases of undesirable police conduct. A series of recent publications by Dr Natascha Wagner and Professor Wil Hout, with ISS alumna Dr Rose Namara, shows that officers who participated in an accountability project were influenced positively in their attitudes towards desirable and undesirable police behaviour.

The arrest of Ugandan musician, businessman and opposition politician Bobi Wine in August 2018 caused world-wide attention to the brutal behaviour of the Ugandan police force. This crackdown on a popular figure in the country added to the already bad reputation of Uganda’s police, which is commonly seen as violent and corrupt.

Democratic theory sees the police, next to the army, as the ‘strong arm’ of the state. These institutions are faced with a ‘paradox of power’: they possess important coercive tools that should be used to protect the state and its citizens, but could also be employed to attack those whom they should protect. For this reason, accountability mechanisms are created to ensure that police behaviour respects the principles of the rule of law. Countries with a robust rule of law mechanism, such as The Netherlands, subject the police to strict political and legal oversight. Police officers who ‘cross the line’ and engage in unacceptable behaviour will likely be punished, although recent reports on the code of silence in the police force in The Hague suggest that this may not always be self-evident.

Similar mechanisms do not apply to the same extent to Uganda, which is widely seen as an imperfect democracy, with many traits of so-called ‘competitive authoritarianism’. The country holds regular elections, but political liberties are seriously impeded by the rulers of the country. President Yoweri Museveni’s regime, which has ruled Uganda since the removal of Obote in 1986, regularly uses the police force to repress oppositional forces that may threaten its hold to power. The recent setup of a Field Force Unit for handling riots and demonstrations, according to some observers, is one example of the militarisation the Ugandan police, and could represent a further step to using the police for regime support.

In this seemingly hostile context, the Police Accountability and Reform Project was implemented by the Ugandese NGO HURINET with the financial help of the Dutch Embassy in Kampala. The project aimed to improve relations between civil society, the media and the police by organising dialogues, and inform the public about the work of the police. These activities were meant to strengthen police accountability mechanisms.

The evaluation department of The Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs brought in a team from ISS to assess, among others, the police accountability project. The ministry was interested to see to what extent its ‘good governance’ policies in various countries had been effective. Our aim in relation to the project on police accountability was to estimate whether it impacted the attitudes of Ugandan police officers. We concluded that the project in all likelihood contributed positively to the attitudes of police officers regarding desirable and undesirable police activities.

Our research project consisted of different activities. One important element was a survey among a large group of police officers, drawn from districts across Uganda, with the help of a dozen cases of police behaviour. Based on earlier research on police integrity, we let police officers evaluate a variety of cases (or ‘vignettes’), among others relating to police officers who take bribes, steal from a burglary site, and refuse to record a complaint about torture by one of the officer’s colleagues, and, to a District Police Commander who orders a violent response to a demonstration, leaving 20 people dead. Police officers who participated in the project appeared on average much more critical about the misbehaviour depicted in the cases, while they were also more likely to report a colleague for misbehaving. They were more inclined to see the behaviour as a violation of official policy and were more supportive of disciplinary action against misbehaving colleagues.

Interviews with 23 police officers, selected from the higher ranks, supported the findings from the survey. Overall, officers who participated in the accountability project had clearer ideas about human rights norms, the proper treatment of arrestees and relations with the community. The responses of those police officers were credible signs of the norm-setting impact of the accountability project.

Overall, our findings show that it pays off to engage police officers in discussions about acceptable and non-acceptable behaviour, even in a difficult environment such as Uganda. Obviously, the spreading of norms about police behaviour is just one element in creating a better functioning police apparatus. A shift in attitudes does not necessarily represent a reversal of behaviour, since the latter is influenced by many factors other than attitudes. The accountability project in Uganda demonstrated the usefulness of working with the police, although longer-term collaboration may be necessary for achieving permanent results. This may be an important lesson for improving police operations in other countries where accountability and rule of law are a concern.

Publications:

Wil Hout, Ria Brouwers, Jonathan Fisher, Rose Namara, Lydeke Schakel and Natascha Wagner (2016) Policy Review Good Governance: Uganda Country Study, Report for the Policy and Operations Evaluation Department (IOB), Ministry of Foreign Affairs, available at http://hdl.handle.net/1765/102964. This report contains the vignettes that were used in the survey among police officers.

Natascha Wagner and Wil Hout (2019) ‘Police Integrity and the Perceived Effectiveness of Policing: Evidence from a Survey among Ugandan Police Officers’, in Sanja Kutnjak Ivković and M.R. Haberfeld (eds) Exploring Police Integrity: Novel Approaches to Police Integrity Theory and Methodology, New York: Springer, pp. 165-191, available at http://hdl.handle.net/1765/115822.

Natascha Wagner, Wil Hout and Rose Namara (2020, forthcoming) ‘Improving Police Integrity in Uganda: Impact Assessment of the Police Accountability and Reform Project’, Review of Development Economics, available at http://hdl.handle.net/1765/121705.

Wil Hout, Natascha Wagner and Rose Namara (2020, forthcoming) ‘Holding Ugandan Police to Account: Case study of the Police Accountability and Reform Project’, in Sylvia Bergh, Sony Pellissery and Christina Sathyamala (eds) The State of Accountability in the Global South: Challenges and Responses, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, available at http://hdl.handle.net/1765/115862.

About the authors:

Wil Hout is Professor of Governance and International Political Economy at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) of Erasmus University Rotterdam. His research interests relate to international political economy, regionalism, development policies and issues of governance and development.

Natascha Wagner is associate professor of Development Economics at the ISS. Her research interests lie in international economics, development, health and education. She has participated in various impact evaluation projects and large scale data collections in Africa and Asia ranging from public health to good governance and sustainable development.

Blame games won’t help us address the climate crisis by Lize Swartz

By ISS Blog Bliss 2 December 201916 May 2020 3086 views

The climate crisis is forcing us to rethink our relationship with the world around us and the effect of our own actions (or inaction) on this massive collective action problem. Blame games are becoming a dangerous diversion tactic used to deny responsibility for our own role in the crisis by blaming others for causing it, writes Lize Swartz. Recent developments in the Netherlands and beyond reveal just how far we still have to go to acknowledge the climate crisis as a collective action problem and to rethink our own role as natural resource users in addressing the crisis.

Crises are often associated with the polarization of different interest groups through the politicization of crises and crisis responses due to the uncertainty they cause and the inevitability of change they come to signify. The global climate crisis is no different: it is arguably the biggest collective action dilemma we as humankind have had to face, generating massive uncertainty about the impacts of a changing climate, and making it clear that radical change is necessary. We now have to come to terms with the fact that we have a very limited time in which to reverse the effects of the damaging development trajectory we have collectively subscribed to over the last centuries on the climate—something we are very hesitant to do due to the implications of such radical change for our comfort and quality of life.

As a result, we have started trying to place the blame on each other in order to avoid having to take action ourselves due to the refusal to acknowledge the effect of our own actions on the creation and exacerbation of the crisis. The recent protests in The Hague highlighted cleavages in society resulting from polarizing discourses of who’s to blame that will undermine efforts to address the crisis. Over the past few months, The Hague has become a political battlefield as groups have marched to the political hub of the country to make their voices heard in the struggle to find solutions to the climate crisis on Dutch soil that seems to have paralyzed the country’s political leadership. When Dutch politicians suggested curbing agricultural and building activities to reduce nitrogen emissions, farmers first rolled in en masse on their tractors, followed by those working in the construction sector. Their message was clear: we will not be made scapegoats—others are equally or more guilty and should also have their activities limited. They felt victimized and proceeded to blame other parties for causing the crisis. The blame game seems to be a vicious cycle of receiving, denying and passing on blame.

Similarly, a recent article in a Dutch newspaper claimed that international universities are climate unfriendly because international students take intercontinental flights several times a year to visit their families. The author compared their travel patterns with those of European students, who ‘only’ took intracontinental flights to other European countries for the same reason. And the split between the ‘vegan’ and ‘meat lover’ camps, as if they are opponents in some figurative battle, is well known.

These examples make clear that the climate crisis is polarizing especially those societies discussing it. Through what has become somewhat of a herd mentality, it has become very easy to compare our own behaviour to that of others, finding ourselves superior (we recycle, we don’t own cars) and thus pressuring others to do the same, or simply refusing to acknowledge that our own behaviour is problematic and blaming others because we don’t want to change. The more pressing the problem becomes, and the more apparent the need for radical and immediate change becomes, the more demands seem to be placed on others to change their behaviour.

Collective action needs to move beyond global negotiations

Elinor Ostrom argued in 2010 that climate change is a collective action problem and that no single state should shoulder the burden of having to address it alone (Ostrom 2010). Collective action problems are defined as problems that require a collective effort to address them; individual responses based on individual interests undermine the ability of the collective to address the problem and have negative consequences (Ostrom 2010). The image of two donkeys tugging on a rope comes to mind. When the donkeys attempt to move in opposite directions, the rope becomes taut and neither of them can move. When they move in the same direction, alongside each other, there is no resistance and both can achieve their objective – to graze in peace.

We need the same kind of mentality when attempting to address the climate crisis, and recognizing that climate change is a collective action problem is a first step. Although a strong institutional response is necessary to lead international efforts to combat climate change, we should acknowledge the need for a combined institutional and individual response. Ostrom argued that states should collectively address the crisis, but we as consumers and producers are just as responsible for doing so.

Importantly, before blaming industry for emissions and states for failing to discipline industries, we need to better understand and acknowledge the way in which our own seemingly insatiable appetites for material products and consumables, including for food and water, are feeding our fossil fuel addiction and affecting increased production and emissions. The climate crisis, which fundamentally trails back to our relationship with the world around us and our problematic individual and collective claim on it, demands a different way of life. We will need to take a long, hard look at ourselves and our identity as consumers in order to understand our contribution to the crisis, and we will have to acknowledge this and then collectively define our respective roles in addressing the crisis together. The last thing we need is to stand divided instead of united.

References:

Ostrom, E. (2010) ‘A multi-scale approach to coping with climate change and other collective action problems’, Solutions.

Image Credit: Andol on Wikimedia

About the author:

Lize Swartz is a PhD researcher at the ISS focusing on water user interactions with sustainability-climate crises in the water sector, in particular the role of water scarcity politics on crisis responses and adaptation processes.

EADI/ISS Series | Solidarity for People Displaced by Large-Scale Investment Projects

By ISS Blog Bliss 29 November 201916 May 2020 2131 views

By Kei Otsuki and Griet Steel

Since the 1980s, international organizations and financiers have created sophisticated guidelines on involuntary resettlement procedures. They have relied on public consultation to build consent in order to establish resettlement projects as an effective, common, and sustainable solution to displacement. But the focus on pre-resettlement consultations has largely neglected the importance of follow-up processes when resettled people start facing difficulties to live their everyday life. How can we, development researchers and practitioners, engage with the long-term effects of resettlement and its potential pathways towards sustainable development?

“VIVER É DIFICIL (Living is difficult)” reads the slogan on a water tank set up next to a typical concrete resettlement house in Mozambique (Photo). A plastic water pipe connects the water tank to a gutter, placed under the corrugated zinc roof, designed to facilitate the harvest of rainwater. In this semi-arid part of Africa, however, rain is increasingly scarce. “God stopped the rain”, says the owner of this house, David, who also wrote the slogan on his water tank.

The difficulties David is facing are, however, not only caused by the lack of rain. He is one of the resettlers who were displaced from the Limpopo National Park in south-western Mozambique in 2013. These people had agreed to be displaced and resettled on the promise that they would have a better and modern life in the resettlement village built for them. The Park administration, sponsored by the German Development Bank and the South African Peace Park Foundation, had claimed that it needed to invest in wildlife-based ecotourism without human presence for the greater sustainable and economic development in the region.

Living in the National Park, David has had his own hut and independent huts for his two wives and their children. In the resettlement village outside the Park, his household of more than 10 members crams into one small concrete house with only two rooms. What’s more, the Park administration had promised to donate water pumps to the resettles to irrigate their new collective farm. However, since the pumps were delivered at the village leader’s house 5 years ago, they never got connected.

Considering these drawbacks, you would not expect that, before the resettlement took place, David and his fellow community members had actively participated in public consultations with the resettlement officers from the Park administration and local governmental officials for almost a decade. They had discussed and built consent on housing, irrigation, and water pumps. Yet, after their resettlement was completed and new life started, new situations unfolded and the new living conditions remained difficult.

Internalising Follow-Up Processes

This is not unique to the particular case of David’s resettlement village. Since the 1980s, international organizations and financiers – development banks, in particular – have created sophisticated involuntary resettlement guidelines, and relied on public consultation to build consent in order to establish resettlement projects as an effective, common, and sustainable solution to displacement. But, as David’s case exemplifies, the focus on pre-resettlement consultations has largely neglected the importance of follow-up processes when resettled people start facing difficulties to live their everyday life.

As debates on mining-induced displacement and resettlement show, the core of the problem lies in the externalization of the cost of displacement and resettlement. Displacement and resettlement are treated as side effects with limited budgets allocated for compensation. It is vital instead to envision how resettlement projects could be firmly internalized in the core business of investment projects. Projects should allocate substantial financial and human resources for following-up on the resettlements’ sustainable development.

How can we, as development researchers and practitioners, engage with the long-term effects of resettlement?

At the upcoming EADI-ISS International Conference, we propose a panel in which colleagues working on different cases of displacement and resettlement can share their insights and perspectives about the processes through which resettlement projects evolve, develop and perhaps create chains of displacement effects and grievances over time. These unfolding realities in post-resettlement contexts cannot be fully planned and agreed upon in consultations. For example, in David’s case, the resettlers are in constant negotiations with their host community to negotiate land for cultivation or sharing basic infrastructure such as water boreholes. Yet, we know little about effects of such unfolding interactions for the overall sense of justice and sustainability.

At the same time, there might be cases that positively shape cooperation and solidarity through post-resettlement interactions. In any case, one question remains: How can we, development researchers and practitioners, engage with the long-term effects of resettlement and its potential pathways towards sustainable development?

The understanding of solidarity is vital – in these contested frontiers of displacement and resettlement in both rural and urban areas. We thus call for papers that delve deeper into the lived experiences of resettled populations, such as David’s, to deepen our understanding of what solidarity means in different cases of displacement and resettlement. In addition, we are interested in discussing methodological issues pertaining to our responsibilities of doing research on such contentious issues.

About the authors:

Kei Otsuki is a sociologist/geographer specialized in sustainable development in Latin America (esp. Brazil) and Africa (esp. Ghana, Mozambique) as well as in Japan. She holds a PhD in development sociology from Wageningen University and MSc and BA degrees from the University of Tokyo. Her research interests center on equitable and sustainable development, environmental justice, and remaking of communities and geopolitics, especially regarding investment-induced displacement and resettlement on resource frontiers.

Griet Steel is an assistant professor in International Development Studies at the Department of Human Geography and Planning. She is an anthropologist by training and has been involved in several international research projects addressing the interplay between gender, technology, land and mobility and the broader challenges of sustainable urban development.

More legal flexibility needed for Syrian refugees living in Jordan and elsewhere by Dina Zbeidy

By ISS Blog Bliss 25 November 201930 June 2020 3011 views

Jordan is home to some 700,000 Syrian refugees who are trying to adapt to Jordanian laws and customs, including the legal requirement and social expectation to register a marriage. Dina Zbeidy argues that while the precarious legal and economic status of Syrian refugees in Jordan plays a part in preventing them from registering their marriages, development organizations can play an important role by shifting their focus to addressing structural obstacles Syrian refugees face and by challenging the problematic legal system.

Marriage registration is mandatory in many countries, including Jordan, and its importance is inscribed in various international conventions.[1] The non-registration of a marriage has a number of grave consequences in Jordan specifically, since, here, lineage and nationality pass through the father. Therefore, marriage registration is needed in order for children born in Jordan to receive a legal identity and gain access to various rights and services. Indeed, one of the main concerns among organizations and officials revolve around the fact that non-registration can lead to children lacking a recognized national identity[2].

In Jordan, development organizations and Jordanian officials debate the negative implications of the non-registration of marriages among Syrian refugees. However, they often miss the point and their argumentations diverge from the concerns and daily experiences of Syrians themselves. In 2016, I conducted over ten months of fieldwork as part of my PhD research on marriage practices among Palestinian and Syrian refugees in Jordan and the work of development organizations on the topic. I noticed that Syrian refugees were often concerned with navigating the legal and social obstacles they faced due to their recent displacement. While most of my respondents were aware of the legal obligation to contract a marriage through court, they often did not have the means to do so, and were worried about the negative image Jordanians held towards Syrians because of their different marriage practices.

The fact that some Syrian couples in Jordan do not register their marriages stems from a variety of factors. One factor is the different legal system they were used to in Syria. While according to Syrian law marriages should also be concluded through the court, in practice most Syrians concluded what they term a zawaj sheikh, that is a marriage concluded by a sheikh and fulfills the Islamic requirements of a marriage, but is not officially registered at court. The couple usually registered the marriage at a later stage, often after the birth of their first child.

In addition, many Syrians in Jordan faced difficulties obtaining the necessary legal documents. Especially young Syrian men were reluctant to seek the assistance of the Syrian embassy as they were wanted in their country for military service. Moreover, for the majority of Syrians who struggled financially, the high costs in documentation and transportation formed another obstacle.[3]

While most Syrians were aware of the requirement to register a marriage, the obstacles they faced did not lead them to refrain from getting married. Having lost loved ones due to war, and away from family members dispersed around the region, marriage provided them with one way through which they could build a new life in displacement. Respondents stressed the desire to start their own families and make a home for themselves amidst their precarious conditions. Therefore Syrians have tried to find ways to circumvent the legal obstacles to ensure that they can still get married.

Structural obstacles must be addressed

Syrian refugees thus face a number of challenges when it comes to complying with Jordanian laws on marriage registrations. But what development organizations and Jordanian officials fail to highlight is the problematic legal system itself. Interventions of organizations focus on spreading awareness around the legal requirement of marriage registration through workshops and explaining the consequences of failing to do so. By doing this, they place the responsibility for change on the shoulders of refugees themselves instead of addressing the structural obstacles refugees face, or calling for Jordanian officials to facilitate marriage registration for refugees who lack the means to do so according to the current regulations.

Moreover, harsh laws related to the recognition of newborn infants pending marriage registration status are particularly problematic. Bearing children outside of an official marriage is still a taboo issue on which organizations choose not to publicly campaign, leaving the patriarchal legal system unchallenged. In order to alleviate the burden placed on refugees, it is necessary to place the focus for finding a solution on the Jordanian legal system itself. This can be done both by taking into account the specific obstacles refugees face due to their displacement, and by addressing women’s vulnerable legal status in Jordan when not officially married.

Dina Zbeidy will hold a seminar about the Marriage Registration in Jordan at the ISS on November 26.

[1] See for example Article 3 of the UN General Assembly Convention on Consent to Marriage, Minimum Age for Marriage and Registration of Marriages, and Article 16.9 of the Convention of Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).

[2]In my interviews with employees of Jordanian development organizations, the scale and impact of unregistered marriages became apparent. I was told about a case of a Syrian couple living in Jordan who had concluded a marriage according to Syrian custom. When the wife went to the hospital to deliver her baby, she was asked by hospital staff for her marriage contract. When she was unable to provide them with one, social services took her newborn baby away and the husband was arrested. While the law discusses the status of an ‘illegitimate child’, it does not mention the removal of a child. Nevertheless, this practice seems to be a regular occurrence.

[3] As mentioned by my respondents and according to the Registering Rights Report (2015).

References:

Nimri, Nadeen. 2017, February 28. To Give Birth to a Child outside of Wedlock in Jordan. Raseef22 (Arabic).

Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) and International Human Rights Clinic (IHRC). 2015, October 15. Registering Rights: Syrian Refugees and the Documentation of Births, Marriages, and Deaths in Jordan. Cambridge: IHRC, Harvard Law School

Part of the arguments and ethnographic data in this piece were discussed and published in the following article:

Zbeidy, Dina. 2018. “Marriage Registration among Palestinians and Syrians in Jordan: Debating Identity, Society, and Displacement.” Sociology of Islam, 6(3), 359-380.

Image Credit: DFID – UK Department for International Development on Flickr. The image was cropped.

About the author:

Dina Zbeidy is a PhD candidate at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. Her PhD research focuses on marriage practices and discourses among civil society and refugee communities in Jordan. She has over eight years of professional experience in non-profit work in Palestine and the Netherlands. She currently teaches social sciences and conducts research on topics related to law and justice at the Leiden University of Applied Sciences.

EADI/ISS Series | Rethinking inequalities, growth limits and social injustice

By ISS Blog Bliss 18 November 201916 May 2020 1807 views

By Rogelio Madrueño Aguilar, José María Larrú and David Castells-Quintana

Inequality is above all a multidimensional problem. Yet, the key question is whether it is possible to reduce inequality and to what extent. Recent evidence suggests that the growing divide between rich and poor threatens to destabilize democracies, undermines states’ economies and fuels a variety of injustices, either economically, socially, politically or ecologically. Despite certain variations, this holds true not only for rich economies, but also for low and middle income countries.

Inequality is above all a multidimensional problem. It is by all means a complex issue that requires global solutions in accordance with the challenges imposed by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. As stated in this agenda “the achievement of inclusive and sustainable economic growth […] will only be possible if wealth is shared and income inequality is addressed”.

Yet, the key question is whether it is possible to reduce inequality and to what extent. Recent evidence suggests that the growing divide between rich and poor threatens to destabilize democracies, undermines states’ economies and fuels a variety of injustices, either economically, socially, politically or ecologically. Despite certain variations, this holds true not only for rich economies, but also for low and middle income countries.

When looking a little more closely at the ongoing popular upheavals, protests and street disturbances in different countries, they have something in common: the dissatisfaction of people, mostly youths, with the uneven distribution of opportunities, limited social mobility and issues of environmental sustainability in their societies, to name only a few. After 2008, all these reasons have triggered a wave of global protest in a growing number of countries, such as Chile, Haiti, Ecuador, Spain, etc.

In particular, there seems to be a lack of confidence in the political class and the institutional setting, and their capacity to reverse these negative trends. More importantly, there is a clear awareness that the concentration of market power and wealth in the hands of the rich with linkages to political power is a fundamental problem.

Institutional solutions versus social mobilization

The open question now is whether we should pave the way for reducing inequality through the normal functioning of institutions, or through different types of mobilization and social protest? In fact, we are indeed witnessing many cases which show a preference for the second option.

Again, the aim of fighting inequality faces a daunting challenge: the combination of rising inequalities within countries and an apparent inequality trap seems to be a vicious cycle that is difficult to break; especially in the light of prevalent inconsistencies in policy objectives and institutional implementation at the national and global level: on the one hand there are mechanisms in place that reinforce economic, political or social structures that lead to persisting inequality. On the other hand, efforts are being made to connect the fight against corruption, crime and tax evasion, which may lead to a reduction of social inequalities.

This lack of policy coherence is affecting economic growth and redistribution as two key conditions to reduce the gap between the richest and the poorest. It is not only that several regions experience weak growth in per capita income, but there has also been a strong opposition to the introduction of a capital gains tax for the wealthiest across countries, who have become even richer over the past decades. This, however, translates into an emerging pattern where inequality is strongly linked with less sustained growth. At the same time the goal of economic growth itself is increasingly being questioned. Particularly in countries of the global north there are serious doubts about its compatibility with ecological sustainability.

Persisting inequalities or paradigm shift?

For all of these reasons we find ourselves facing a tough situation in which class struggle settings are becoming more frequent and severe in many areas of the world. It seems that we are either moving towards a problem of persistent inequalities or standing on the threshold of a new paradigm shift.

Therefore, there is an urging need to examine and assess the different impacts that the spiral of inequality is causing around the world. While acknowledging that some inequalities might be socially fair to a certain extent, others claim asymmetric responses in order to favour socially disadvantaged groups such as women and children. Markets alone are unable to reach an economically efficient outcome or to create a level playing field for all members of society. This means moving ahead towards a balanced social agenda that takes into account the multidimensionality of inequalities as well as the historical, legal, social, economic, climatic and intergenerational perspective.

If you are you interested in discussing global inequalities, please, consider submitting to our seed panel “Rethinking inequalities in the era of growth limits and social injustice” at the EADI/ISS General Conference 2020.

Our panel aims to find new understandings to the notion of inequalities in order to enrich the contemporary development discourse and explore global cooperative solutions. This involves new ideas, dimensions and approaches, including critical voices from the global south.

Image Credit: Alicia Nijdam on Wikicommons

About the authors:

Rogelio Madrueño Aguilar is Research Associate at the Ibero-America Institute for Economic Research, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, the Complutense Institute of International Studies, and the Spanish Network of Development Studies (REEDES).

José María Larrú is Professor of Economics at the Universidad San Pablo CEU, Madrid.

David Castells-Quintana is visiting professor in the Department of Applied Economics at the Autonomous University of Barcelona.

Terrorism not in my name by Tariq Modood

By ISS Blog Bliss 4 November 201916 May 2020 1722 views

Muslims are now at the centre of two forms of terrorism. On the one hand, acts of terror carried out in the name of Islam and/or to defend a Muslim population by fellow Muslims. And on the other, acts of terror by white supremacists carried out in the name of western, Christian, or European civilisation. How should one respond to terrorism carried out in one’s name?

I put aside for now forms of state terrorism such as those carried out by the US-led alliance in Iraq, by Israel, by the Assad regime in Syria, or by China in Sinkiang, for example, because they deserve a separate discussion.

The first thing to note on the two kinds of terrorism I am interested in is that, globally speaking, the overwhelming majority of the victims are Muslims (just think of Pakistan and countries such as those in which groups like ISIS operate). I shall, however, confine myself to western or white-majority countries. In other words, I am thinking of attacks such as those carried out on the London transport system in 2005 and on Muslim worshipers in Christchurch, New Zealand in 2019 – where Muslims are a minority and also a minority – albeit not an insignificant one – of the victims.

There are a number of interesting questions that can be asked about the two kinds of violence mentioned at the top of this blog. For example, the two seem to have some kind of causal or reactive connection and one could explore that aspect and wonder if both are set to increase as they feed off and copy one another. One may also ask about the role of religious identity, especially as there seems to be two different dynamics at work. In the case of Islamist-inspired violence, the relationship with religious identity seems direct, even if based on deviant interpretations of Islam. In the case of the Christchurch killer, a direct appeal to Christianity seems to be at best civilizational rather than faith-based; its relationship to religious identity is that it is explicitly in the name of opposition to a specific religious identity, namely Islam, or more precisely to a hatred of Muslims, in other words, Islamophobia.

My question here is: how should those who share the relevant generic named identity (eg., being Muslim, being white, being a Westerner) respond to the violent evocation of their identity by perpetrators of violent crimes? And, further, can there be a basis of cross-arching unity through such responses and bi-sided condemnations?

Since 9/11 many western (and other) Muslims have been numerously asked to condemn Islamist acts of atrocities. While all or nearly all do so, some Islamists and left-wing Muslims also object to non-Muslim fellow citizens asking them to do so. They bristle against the assumption that they might be supportive of such atrocities and ask why is the condemnation sought only from Muslim citizens. Isn’t the desire for public condemnation by their fellow citizens a kind of collective suspicion of all or most Muslims, which is only one step short of collective blame, which would be racist?

Requiring rituals of public condemnation of jihadi terrorism by co-citizens just because they are Muslims may indeed be Islamophobic. But perhaps Muslim co-citizens not spontaneously – without being asked to – distancing themselves from Islamist terrorism shows a diminished civic identity? Or perhaps not?

One test of this, or at least an opportunity to reflect on it, presents itself with the growing white supremacist terrorism. Should white citizens – in virtue of being white and co-citizens – feel obliged to say anything to groups victimised by such terrorists? Are Muslims or other relevant minorities owed a condemnation by co-citizens? Does it matter that such condemnation by white people would reassure and express solidarity with their Muslim co-citizens? Is the requesting of white people to make such a condemnation or the spontaneous making of it by them an acceptance of collective blame and the not making of it, siding with racism and Islamophobia?

While we should not overlook that western Muslims live under a burden of suspicion and stigmatisation with constant pressure to conspicuously exhibit they are good citizens in a way that most white people do not have to, we should all indeed strive to be good citizens. Zealous witch-hunting of Muslims is not good citizenship; but nor is not spontaneously attending to one’s co-citizens fears and anxieties and cultivating forms of solidarity.

Given that the two kinds of attacks that I have been discussing here are likely to grow at least in the short and medium-term and that they are meant to divide communities and citizenries, can bi-sided ‘not in my name’ condemnations rather than the silence of ‘nothing-to-do-with-me’ be the appropriate response of citizens and political leaderships?

This article was originally published on openDemocracy and is part of a series on Global Extremes.

About the author:

Tariq Modood is Professor of Sociology, Politics and Public Policy and Director of the Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Citizenship at the University of Bristol and a Fellow of the British Academy. His latest books include Multiculturalism: A Civic Idea and Essays on Secularism and Multiculturalism (2019). He recently held a seminar about ‘Accomodating Religious Diversity in Secular Institutions’ at the ISS.

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, under the GREASE project (grant no. 770640) and the BRaVE project (grant no. 822189).

The opinions expressed in these blog posts are the sole responsibility of the authors. The European Union is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information or opinions contained herein.

Land and property rights in South Africa: questions of justice by Sanele Sibanda

By ISS Blog Bliss 30 October 201916 May 2020 2445 views

How we approach contestations over land and property rights in South Africa says a lot about what we believe a just post-colonial constitutional order to be. While politicians and political parties have exploited issues around land and property rights to garner votes, particularly in the 2019 election, what has become apparent from ensuing public and scholarly debates is that there is emerging a collective sense of an impending national existential crisis. At the heart of this crisis lies the thorny question: where to from here for South Africa’s constitutional democracy?

How the ground shifted in the 2019 general election

In early May 2019, South Africa held elections that were dubbed by South African Independent Electoral Commission head, Sy Mamabolo, as the “most complex, highly contested and logistically demanding” since the commencement of the democratic era in 1994. The highly contested election saw the governing party, the African National Congress (ANC) and the official opposition, the Democratic Alliance (DA) retain their overall positions as South Africa’s biggest political parties, while simultaneously losing a substantial portion of the national vote. These losses can be contrasted, first, with the continuing electoral rise of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), whose policy mainstay has been the promotion of a radical programme of economic freedom, focusing particularly on land redistribution. Secondly, there was the unexpected (re)emergence of the Freedom Front Plus, whose policies reflect a retrogressive, right-leaning, white separatist agenda that opposes race-based affirmative action in any form and the redistribution of land.

While the respective decline and rise in popularity of the four parties (who between them garnered over 90% of the national vote) is notable, these shifts in numbers are far from the most interesting aspect of the election. Rather, it was how the issue of land or, more broadly, the question of property rights dominated public discourses as well as the different parties’ electoral campaigns and manifestos. Nearly, all the parties took up clear positions around the question of whether or not section 25 of the Constitution (the property clause) should be amended. Unsurprisingly, this question generated much cause for hope and anxiety, depending on which side of the economic or class divide one falls; it hardly requires mention that in South Africa there is a close correlation between race and class, and indeed class often operates as a proxy for race.

Land and Property Rights Debates

The real significance of the heated debates around land and property rights is that they clearly indicate a collective sense of an impending national existential crisis. At the heart of this crisis lies the thorny question where to from here for South Africa’s constitutional democracy? In other words, whilst much of the contestation was rooted in the EFF’s original proposal – often dismissively dubbed as populist – for “land expropriation without compensation” to be realized by an amendment to the property clause, the questions raised are much more profound. Such as, what remains of the sense of possibility in the post-apartheid constitutional project in the eyes of those who, 25 years into democracy, continue to occupy the margins reserved for those historically disenfranchised and dispossessed? To be precise, at their core these questions reflect an increasing sense of marginality, exclusion and growing hopelessness experienced by multitudes of Black South Africans who continue to be asked to temper their expectations towards attaining the ‘improve[d] quality of life of all citizens’ promised to them by what many commenters regularly remind us is the best constitution in the world.

There have been calls for the land and property debate to be less populist and emotive, but more rational and pragmatic by many commentators, who also often call for a defense of the Constitution. These calls also often oppose the very idea of an amendment to the property clause. It is notable how in making these calls for level heads or pragmatism notions of justice (in light of centuries of colonial-apartheid dispossession) remain largely absent in the arguments and reasoning advanced. Instead, these calls justify persevering with the current governmental land policies (with the caveat that they be subject to faster, better, less corrupt implementation). This silence on the justice question is quite telling, as the question of who retained land and property rights acquired originally through violent racist policies, and who was conferred with a hope to acquire land and property in a post-apartheid future speaks fundamentally to what we understand justice to be, or more precisely, what type of justice has been or can be achieved under the 1996 South African Constitution.

It is easy to dismiss questions of what type of justice or whose justice as being overly philosophical, esoteric or ethereal even. However, what cannot be dismissed with equal ease is that South Africa’s fomenting crisis has profound implications for what the citizenry understand or believe to be the constitution’s vision of justice and its potential to undo unearned material and social privilege and change South Africa’s historically racialised property relations. What I am suggesting here is that those engaging in the debate about land and property rights should stop talking past each other as is the case currently. There should be less of a focus on abstract questions of the constitutionality or necessity of an amendment, instead what is needed is an increased emphasis on setting out, examining and elaborating upon the justice claims of the different positions advanced. Elaborating on the justice claims would entail requiring being transparent in naming or expounding on the ethical, moral, philosophical and/or historical justifications that ground positions advanced, as well declaring whose or which interests their positions advance.

Competing notions of justice

At this juncture, it is fair to ask what it would mean, in practical terms, to center the notion of justice in this debate. At the risk of over-simplification, I suggest that in public and academic discourses there are at least two identifiable streams of this debate. One stream (that I associate myself with) broadly speaking, advances a probing critique of the current constitutional paradigm and calls for a decisive change to the prevailing land and property relations achieved under the current dispensation which has left much of the land, property and wealth in the hands of white South Africans. Another stream defends the constitutional compromise that largely retained the status quo on land and property relations at 1994 whilst committing (at least textually in accordance with the constitutional property clause) to progressive, piecemeal redistribution and restitution of land; this stream tends to be simultaneously critical of government’s perceived failure to fulfill its constitutional mandate. To place justice at the center would be to require that both sides equally foreground their underlying justice claims, although in fairness it must be acknowledged that those calling for paradigmatic change generally do.

Earlier this year Time Magazine dubbed South Africa as “the world’s most unequal country”, this fact of a growing divide between the haves and the have-nots coupled with the increasing angst around land and property rights suggests an impending crisis is on the horizon. Continuation of the debate on current terms signals a failure to address the underlying justice questions of how this inequality was produced and has been sustained post 1994. To avoid the descent into a cataclysm, I suggest here that a first step must be to shift the grounds of debate away from political rhetoric, a focus on legalities and policy (over)analysis as this all too comfortably skirts the questions of justice implicit in really grappling with South Africa’s racially skewed wealth, land and property holdings.

Image Credit: Martin Heigan on Flickr

About the author:

Sanele Sibanda is a faculty member in the School of Law at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa. He has been a visiting fellow at ISS, a participant in the joint Erasmus School of Law – ISS Project on Integrating Normative and Functional Approaches to the Rule of Law, and currently serves in the supervisory team of one of the candidates in a joint ISS-Wits PhD programme. Sibanda recently completed his PhD at University of the Witwatersrand entitled “Not Yet Uhuru” – The Usurpation of the Liberation Aspirations of South Africa’s Masses by a Commitment to Liberal Constitutional Democracy.

Fighting Climate Change: Is Academia Doing Enough? by Fleur Zantvoort

By ISS Blog Bliss 22 October 201916 May 2020 1882 views

Sometimes our research takes us to unexpected places. I spent the last weeks gluing my friends to fossil fuel corporations, getting lifted up and “bureaucratically displaced” by riot police, and dancing to David Bowie’s “Rebel, Rebel” in the rain on a bridge occupied by Extinction Rebellion. In the midst of climate chaos and ecological breakdown, the boundaries between activism and academia are collapsing all around me. And that is the point.

Frontline communities, including many indigenous people, have been defending their lands and ways of living and being with the earth for centuries. They are strenuously resisting colonial capitalism’s appropriation and commodification of “nature”. Globally, the movement for climate justice and a liveable planet has gathered incredible momentum over the past year, with the global climate strike in September being one of the largest coordinated global protests in history. Yet, we know that it is not nearly enough. We cannot solve the problem of climate change, but we can do our best to limit its impacts. Whatever action we take, millions of lives have already been lost and millions more will be lost in the years to come. The climate is already changed, and we cannot turn it back.

There is still a lot that is worth saving, nurturing and reconstructing, but this requires a radical overhaul of our political, economic and social systems. Moreover, to change everything, it will take everyone. The most important thing that I can share with you from my MA research conducted alongside the people of Extinction Rebellion Netherlands, is that hiding behind our institutional walls to try and conjure up solutions is not going to help much. I knew this before, but I do not think I was able to fully grasp what that meant.

Social justice scholarship is crucial to confront climate and ecological breakdown, and we need academia and activism to stand united in this struggle. Although ISS takes pride on building these bridges, I find myself wondering if this amounts to more than empty words. In industrialised countries, we are responsible for demanding rapid mitigation and compensation for the destruction that has already been caused. Yet, the climate movement has not quite reckoned with a long history of exclusion, as environmental issues are compartmentalised into a white, middle-class, educated niche. Activist scholarship can play an important role in overcoming this, building a movement that challenges the colonial, hetero-patriarchal capitalist system that lies at the root of climate change and ecological destruction.

However, activist scholarship also demands that our commitment to social and climate justice moves beyond our classrooms and offices and into our daily lives and praxis. This applies to us as individuals as well to our institutions. On the request of students and staff to close ISS during the climate strike, the institution responded by offering us tea and cookies. In the meantime, there is no plan, not a single policy in place for mitigating the ecological footprint and carbon emissions of the institute. A proper analysis of the climate and ecological crisis and, its intersections with human rights, women’s liberation, economic development and social policy remain absent from the curriculum. It is 2019 and even the oil companies have acknowledged the catastrophic impacts of climate change for over 50 years. Isn’t it rather time for academic institutions to also proactively respond?

If we as an institute take social justice seriously, we need to demand climate justice as well, in our research, in our board rooms, and at our kitchen tables. This is the fight of our lives, and we need to do it right. Even conservative scientific estimates predict the collapse of our food system, mass species extinction, and yearly flood events that used to occur once a century displacing an additional hundreds of millions of people. All of this is already happening and will intensify over the coming decades, within our lifetime. So, I want you to ask yourself: will I be able to say that I did what I could? If the answer is no, you know what you have to do.

If there is a strike, go strike. If your situation allows you to participate in civil disobedience, participate. If you work in government, do what you can to push for meaningful action and do not take no for an answer. If you are a professor, do not allow a course to go by without seriously considering the implications of climate change. And, if you are an institute for global development and social justice, take a clear stance and do what you can to support students and staff, because cookies and coffee are just not going to cut it.

About the author:

Fleur Zantvoort is doing her MA in Development Studies at ISS, specialised in Social Justice Perspectives. She is conducting her research with Extinction Rebellion Netherlands, on the politics of knowledge and relation in the climate justice movement.

Related to this topic: It’s time for flying to become the new smoking by Dorothea Hilhorst

Do skill building training programs improve labor market outcomes among rural youth in India? by Bhaskar Chakravorty

By ISS Blog Bliss 14 October 201916 May 2020 1778 views

In India, 54% of the country’s population is below the age of 25 and faces a high rate of unemployment. The government of India is implementing job-linked skill building training programs to improve labour market outcomes among disadvantaged rural youths across India. The study[1] conducted in rural Bihar suggests the outcomes to be short-lived while caste discrimination and low paying job placements play a crucial role in negating the initial returns of the training.

India is an example of a developing country facing a pressing need to devise strategies to provide regular employment to its youthful population. India is among the youngest nations in the world, and the expected ‘bulge’ in the 15–59 age group over the next decade offers an opportunity but also a challenge. The opportunity stems from the expected global shortage of 56 million young people (15–35 years), and India could potentially serve as a worldwide sourcing hub for skilled manpower (Ministry of Labour and Employment 2014). On the other hand, a failure to provide opportunities to the youth population as they enter the labour market may translate into a ‘demographic disaster’ rather than a dividend.

The twin challenge of creating jobs while at the same time bridging the skill gap is well recognized by the Indian government. Consistent with this policy priority, on September 25^th, 2014, the government launched the ‘Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushal Yojana’ (DDUGKY), a program for training, skill building and job placement intended for rural youth from poor families.

The scheme implements skill development through a public–private partnership mode, whereby registered private sector partners or project implementation agencies (PIA) plan and implement skills training and placement program for participants. The scheme is supposed to train rural youths of the age group 15–35. They are eligible as candidates if they belong to below poverty line (BPL) category or any member of the family is a member of a self-help group (SHG). Depending on the course, the training can be of three, six, nine or twelve months. Training courses offered by the PIA are approved by the National Council for Vocational Training (NCVT) or Sector Skill Councils (SSCs). Post-training, PIAs are required to place a minimum of 70% of trained individuals in jobs which offer regular monthly wages at or above a minimum monthly wage of Rs. 6000. Post-placement financial support of Rs.1000 is provided to the on-job candidates for a duration of two to six months.

The intention of the DDUGKY and other similar skills training programs is to attenuate unemployment and poverty, but this is possible only if social structures do not hinder voluntary participation in the program. If there are differences at the level of program accessibility based on caste, gender or other social markers, either in program participation or in job placement after training, then increasing government spending and augmenting the supply of trained individuals may achieve little towards the final goal of enhancing welfare and equity.

To understand whether skill building programs improve the labour market outcomes and social mobility among disadvantaged youth, the study was conducted with 263 DDUGKY participants of a three-months residential training program and 263 non-participants in mid 2016 in the Darbhanga district of Bihar, India.

The analysis of the findings is based on comparing individuals who had attended a training course sponsored by the scheme (termed “DDUGKY participants”) with individuals who had applied but did not eventually attend the training (termed “non-participants”). Analysis showed that the scheme is very well targeted, and more than 90% of those who attended the training and showed an interest in the scheme belonged to below-poverty-line families. While the NGO appeared to have well-qualified personnel, the bulk of the participants (64.6%) were not satisfied with the training they had received. With regard to employment effects, 42% of the graduates were placed immediately after the training, which translates into a 29% percentage point impact of training on employment.

However, these gains were short-lived and within two to six months after training, the impact of the scheme on employment was statistically not different from zero. About a third of the placed graduates left their jobs due to caste discrimination and a third exited as the salaries offered were too low to cover their expected living costs. While employment effects were zero, the training did help graduates move from agricultural to non-agricultural positions.

In conclusion, the analysis presented here focused on one training course in one district of rural Bihar. While this study does not paint a very optimistic picture of scheme-induced employment effects nor is it overtly negative about the scheme itself. Indeed, in the current case the positive effects of the scheme appear to have been partially undone by deep-rooted discrimination. It is entirely possible that other courses offered in other parts of the country are able to achieve higher placement rates and that trained graduates are not subject to post-placement discrimination.

Notwithstanding this possibility, what this study highlights is the urgent need for credible analysis of the slew of skills and job training programs that have recently been launched by the government. These should focus not only on initial job placement but also examine employment status after a time lag. Finally, while simply dictating job creation through such skills training courses and demanding 70% placement is unlikely to succeed, the analysis presented here shows that employment effects in the range of about 15% are likely to deliver a nonzero return.

[1] MA Dissertation (2015-16) at International Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Hague, The Netherlands

Image Credit: Atharva Tulsi on Unsplash

About the author:

Bhaskar Chakravorty is a development professional with more than 13 years of experience working on a range of development issues. At present, he is pursuing a PhD at Warwick Institute for Employment Research (IER) and is a Chancellor’s International Scholar (CIS) at the university. Previously, he completed a MA in Development Studies with specialization in Poverty Studies and Econometric Evaluation of Development Policies from the ISS. He was awarded the prestigious Joint Japan World Bank Graduate Scholarship (JJ/WBGSP) for undertaking the MA program.

Governance in the Colombian Amazon: Heavy-handed and lacking coherent policies by Ana María Arbeláez Trujillo

By ISS Blog Bliss 3 October 201916 May 2020 2451 views

The President of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, has been at the forefront of the critiques for his dismissive attitude towards the fires in the Amazon. Although a significant portion of the rainforest (40%) is contained in Brazil, it is key to consider that eight more countries share the Amazon and are responsible for its preservation. What are these other states doing to preserve the largest rainforest on the planet? This article analyzes how the policies promoted by Colombia’s president, Iván Duque, are insufficient to protect the rights of the Amazon[1] and its inhabitants.

Colombia’s share of the Amazon covers 41% of its territory and constitutes 10% of the Amazon rainforest. According to official numbers[1], in 2018 the annual deforested area in Colombian Amazonia amounted to 1381 km² (almost twice the size of New York City)[2]. Moreover, according to data from the World Resources Institute, the country ranked 4^th in the list of states losing the most tropical primary rainforest in 2018[3].

Paradoxically, this peak in deforestation in the Colombian Amazon is closely linked to the signature of the 2016 peace agreement between the government and the FARC-EP[4]. The demobilization of the guerillas and the persistent absence of official institutions allowed land grabbers to take advantage of this sovereignty gap[5]. People from different areas of the country are paying peasants to cut down trees from the Amazon to create new pastures for cattle production and palm oil plantations[6]. Furthermore, other key drivers of deforestation in the country are the expansion of the agricultural frontier in protected areas, illicit crops, extraction of natural resources, non-planned infrastructure, and illegal logging[7].

So, what is the Colombian government doing to address the factors triggering deforestation? Duque’s stance to this issue is to understand nature as one of the main assets of the country and to implement an approach of environmental security[8]. Under this logic, the military forces and the police play the central role in the protection of natural resources, while socio-political policies are undermined.

Accordingly, ‘Operación Artemisa’[9] which is the main program to stop deforestation, follows a hard hand approach: military interventions and criminalization. So far this year, at least 64 military operations had taken place, and 117 people were captured for committing environmental crimes[10]. However, many civil organizations have criticized these procedures because during their implementation authorities have disregarded the rights of peasants and local communities, while the identity of the culprits who are financing the process of deforestation remains unknown[11].

By focusing policy responses to environmental problems on military actions, the government neglects that deforestation in the Amazon is a manifestation of structural issues like inequality and political exclusion. Historically, the Colombian state has ignored the peripheric regions of the country, and this legacy of marginalization has created precarious living conditions and minimal economic opportunities for the inhabitants of the Amazon region.

Furthermore, as mentioned in a previous post, the current Colombian government neglects the multidimensional character of the rural problem in Colombia. Hence, the enforcement of laws with the potential of delivering real change in periphery areas such as the Land Restitution Law enacted in 2011 and the Rural Reform agreed within the context of the peace accord in 2016, is being obstructed[12].

All in all, policies for protecting the rights of the Amazon and the Amazonian people should not focus primarily on strengthening the military force. A real effort to halt deforestation implies, on the one hand, recognizing the holistic nature of the problem, and on the other, applying existing distributive policies and proposing alternatives aligned with the rights and needs of the communities. Also, it is vital to acknowledge that industries such as cattle and palm oil are playing a leading role in the destruction of Amazonia. Thus, it is necessary to rethink ideas about development in the region.

The increasing awareness of the importance of Amazonia is a timely opportunity to push forward effective policies to protect the lungs of the world and to empower local communities. However, the extent to which this opening would contribute to transformational change and improved governance is still unclear and will depend significantly on the political will to do so.

References

[1] The Colombian Suprem Court, through and historical ruling, declared the Amazon subject of rights. However the government has failed to implement the orders to impement it: https://www.dejusticia.org/en/the-colombian-government-has-failed-to-fulfill-the-supreme-courts-landmark-order-to-protect-the-amazon/

[1] https://pidamazonia.com/content/resultados-monitoreo-de-la-deforestaci%C3%B3n-2018

[2] For an analysis of the 2018 deforestation report see: https://www.pidamazonia.com/content/la-reducci%C3%B3n-de-la-deforestaci%C3%B3n-en-la-amazon%C3%ADa-no-es-significativa

[3] https://www.wri.org/blog/2019/04/world-lost-belgium-sized-area-primary-rainforests-last-year

[4]https://sostenibilidad.semana.com/medio-ambiente/articulo/cual-es-la-relacion-entre-cambio-climatico-paz-y-deforestacion-en-colombia/44862

[5] https://sostenibilidad.semana.com/medio-ambiente/articulo/deforestacion-una-politica-de-ocupacion-del-territorio/43647

[6] See for example: https://www.pidamazonia.com/content/el-invisible-acaparamiento-de-tierras

https://www.semana.com/opinion/articulo/los-intocables-por-margarita-pacheco/601367

https://www.semana.com/opinion/articulo/la-cadena-criminal-de-la-deforestacion-columna-de-daniel-rico/615305

https://www.pidamazonia.com/content/deforestacion-y-acaparamiento-de-tierras-en-guaviare

[7] https://pidamazonia.com/content/resultados-monitoreo-de-la-deforestaci%C3%B3n-2018

[8] https://www.pidamazonia.com/content/%C2%BFse-militariza-la-gestion-ambiental-y-territorial

[9] https://id.presidencia.gov.co/Paginas/prensa/2019/190428-puesta-marcha-Campana-Artemisa-buscamos-parar-hemorragia-deforestadora-ha-visto-ultimos-anios-pais-Duque.aspx

[10] https://www.elcolombiano.com/colombia/el-mundo-mira-a-la-amazonia-y-que-se-hace-en-colombia-IC11467582

[11] https://www.elespectador.com/noticias/nacional/denuncian-falso-positivo-judicial-en-captura-de-campesinos-en-el-parque-nacional-chiribiquete-articulo-853626

https://www.coljuristas.org/nuestro_quehacer/item.php?id=213

[12] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334814048_Rights_in_the_Time_of_Populism_Land_and_Institutional_Change_Amid_the_Reemergence_of_Right-Wing_Authoritarianism_in_Colombia

Image Credit: Efraín Herrera – Presidency of Colombia

About the author:

Ana María Arbeláez Trujillo is a lawyer, specialist in Environmental Law and holds an Erasmus Mundus Master in Public Policy. She works as a researcher for PID Amazonia, a civic society platform to address deforestation in the Colombian Amazon. Her research interests are the political economy of extractivist industries, environmental conflicts, and rural development.

The End of the African Mining Enclave? by Ben Radley

By ISS Blog Bliss 30 September 201916 May 2020 2127 views

During much of the twentieth century, the African mining sector was seen by many as an enclaved economy, extracting resources to the benefit of the global economy while offering little to meaningfully or sustainably advance social and economic development on the continent. Yet recent mining industry restructuring has fuelled fresh hopes that the sector now carries the potential to drive industrialisation and structural transformation across Africa’s 24 low-income countries. However, empirical evidence from this country group has been lacking, with a focus instead on middle-income African countries (in particular South Africa) and the historical experiences of today’s high-income countries. So what relevance, if any, does the idea of the mining enclave continue to hold for Africa’s poorest areas today?

Since 1980, the World Bank has loaned more than $1 billion to low-income country governments across Africa to liberalise, privatise and deregulate the mining sector, resulting in the en masse arrival of transnational corporations (TNCs) to lead a foreign-controlled, industrial mining economy across the continent. The process has been theoretically sustained, in part, by an emergent group of Global Value Chain (GVC) scholars, who take ‘as their point of departure the ﬂaws of the literature on the enclave nature of extractive industries in Africa’ (Ayelazuno, 2014: 294). The enclave thesis was initially established by Prebisch (1950) and Singer (1950), who used a centre-periphery framework to argue that capital intensive resource extraction in the global periphery has little articulation with local and national economies, and that the benefits accrue largely to the foreign countries and TNCs providing the industrial technology and capital.

Two of the most influential policy papers from the GVC literature challenging this thesis, Kaplinsky et al. (2011) and Morris et al. (2012), observed that the global mining industry has recently restructured away from vertical integration and towards outsourcing the supply of goods and services to independent firms. Historically, so the argument goes, foreign-managed industrial mines in Africa were enclaved productive structures, which tightly managed and controlled all of their activities internally. Yet today, by subcontracting to and procuring from domestic firms and entrepreneurs, these same mines can ‘provide a considerable impetus to industrialisation’ (Morris et al. 2012: 414). For Kaplinsky et al. (2011: 29), ‘the enclave mentality in low–income [African] economies is an anachronism’.

Yet to what extent does this claim about the end of the African mining enclave hold up in reality? This was the motivating question behind my recently published article, which explored the issue through a case study of Twangiza, an industrial gold mine located in South Kivu Province of the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, and managed by the Canadian corporation Banro. The answer, in short, is that the empirical data painted a very different picture to the expectations laid out by the theory.

While Banro did outsource a range of activities and services at Twangiza to independent firms, as foregrounded in the GVC literature, it internally managed the procurement of its mid- to high-value supplies – which heralded almost entirely from the Triad states,[1] South Africa and Australia – and subcontracted mostly to foreign firm subsidiaries. Banro only outsourced procurement to Congolese suppliers at the lowest-value end of the chain, mostly for office equipment and stationery, worker safety equipment and basic construction materials (such as steel bars and concrete). As elsewhere in the procurement chain, none of these low value goods were manufactured or procured domestically.

In the realm of subcontracting, in 2017, Banro subcontracted 15 firms to provide 13 different activities and services to the Twangiza mine. Of these firms, outside of the provision of labour, only two were Congolese. This was despite the presence of existing Congolese firms operating in the same areas (such as security, catering, road maintenance, fuel and transportation). Considered together, foreign firms captured an estimated 87 per cent of all value accruing to Twangiza’s subcontractors. In addition, some foreign firms had used their arrival through Banro to consolidate and expand their presence in the Congolese economy, by securing further subcontracts in the country’s mining and other sectors.

Moreover, while the position of labour is not considered by GVC enthusiasts, it proved highly relevant in this case, as corporate outsourcing at Twangiza had altered the nature of the relationship between workers and managers, as well as between different groups of workers themselves. Subcontracting at Twangiza led to the mine’s workforce being split across 15 different firms. This high level of organisational fragmentation weakened the collective power of workers by reproducing and further entrenching pre-existing social divisions between them. Individual firms recruited along certain class, ethnic or territorial lines, that functioned to hinder worker organisation and unity across them. This helps explain the near total absence of labour militancy at the mine, despite the fact that a large segment of the mine’s workers experienced low and declining wages, and poor access to benefits.

While the case of Banro’s Twangiza mine reflected global mining industry restructuring away from vertical integration and towards corporate outsourcing, there was little evidence to suggest this restructuring had invalidated the foundations of Prebisch and Singer’s original enclave thesis. On the contrary, the general picture seemed to confirm this thesis, whereby resource extraction in the periphery has few domestic linkages and is generally disarticulated from local and national economies due to the periphery’s dependence upon external technology and industrial capabilities in the centre.

Drawing on these findings, the wisdom of earlier neoliberal mining sector reform is questioned. Rather than taking a laissez-faire approach to mining industrialisation, African governments would be better served adopting interventionist measures via pro-labour and industrial policy to counter the observed twin tendency of corporate outsourcing to marginalise domestic firms and weaken the collective strength of workers through the organisational fragmentation of labour.

[1] The EU, the US and Japan.

References:

Ayelazuno, J. (2014) ‘The “New Extractivism” in Ghana: A Critical Review of its Development Prospects’, The Extractive Industries and Society 1(2): 292–302.

Kaplinsky, R., M. Morris and D. Kaplan (2011) ‘A Conceptual Overview to Understand Commodities, Linkages and Industrial Development in Africa’. London: Africa Export Import Bank.

Morris, M., R. Kaplinsky and D. Kaplan (2012) ‘“One Thing Leads to Another”: Commodities, Linkages and Industrial Development’, Resources Policy 37(4): 408–16.

Prebisch, R. (1950) ‘The Economic Development of Latin America and its Principal Problems’. New York: Economic Commission for Latin America.

Singer, H. (1950) ‘U.S. Foreign Investment in Underdeveloped Areas: The Distribution of Gains Between Investing and Borrowing Countries’, The American Economic Review 40(2): 473–85.

Picture credit: Ben Radley. It shows cranes at Banro’s Twangiza mine that look out across the surrounding hills.

About the author:

Ben Radley is a PhD student at the International Institute of Social Studies in The Hague. His research interests centre on the political economy of transnationals and development in low–income African countries, with a focus on the DRC. He’s a Leverhulme Trust grantee, and an affiliated member of the Centre of Expertise for Mining Governance at the Catholic University of Bukavu in the DRC.

Are We Having One or Two Capitalist Crises? Mapping Social Reproduction in Capitalism by Maryse Helbert

By ISS Blog Bliss 20 September 201916 May 2020 2878 views

In June, a colloquium called ‘capital accumulation: Strategies of Profit and Dispossessive Policies’ was organised for the 50^th anniversary of the University of Paris Dauphine. The colloquium provided a snapshot of the current debates and concepts within the field of Marxism. The discussion between the main key Marxist speakers – David Harvey and Nancy Fraser– revolved around conceptualising various challenges that capitalism is facing. The different conceptual mapping of the crises provides different paths to emancipatory changes.

Capitalism is facing many heterogenous ills: Economic, financial, environmental and care deficits. Harvey analyses these ills under the single umbrella of economic crisis that found its origin in the contradictions that the capitalist system carries. Basically (and we all know the drill), capitalism is a process of circulation. Capitalists put some money to buy labour power and means of production, make them work together under a given technology and organisation to produce a commodity that will be sold on the market for a value. In this process, workers are not being paid according to the value they have produced but rather are being paid wages that barely cover the socially necessary costs of their own reproduction. The difference between waged labour and the real value produced by the workers fuels capitalist profit. Given that the capitalist system is a process, a part of that profit has to be capitalised and put again into circulation to extract more profit. The quest for more profit compels capitalists to promote endless growth rates.

In David Harvey’s view, the two classes’ social relations of exploitation are at the crux of the accumulation process of capitalism, overaccumulation and consequent crisis. Overaccumulation as a crisis is defined as surpluses of labour and capital which cannot get together in a profitable enterprise. In this understanding, social reproduction of labour and nature are what Harvey calls free gifts for the capitalist system and are not conceptualised as independent mechanisms of accumulation.

The economic crisis or overaccumulation gets temporarily solved through spatio-temporal fixes or what Harvey also calls accumulation by dispossession[1]. The crises of capitalism are being temporarily tamed by geographical expansion and restructuring. Indeed, capitalist accumulation works within a fixed space where there are built environments such as transport, factories, roads etc. leading to dispossession of the local population to produce profit. The process of capitalism destroys the space as it needs to increase profit through growth. Once the space is destroyed, at a later point, capitalism re-creates a new space to reproduce the capitalist system of overaccumulation. So, this process of creation and destruction is at the very core of globalisation and understanding the geographical principles of globalisation will help to find a path for emancipatory changes.

While Fraser agrees that the crux of accumulation lies in the two classes’ social relations, she thinks that this view is too narrow[2] as it focuses only on social processes and social relations that are accorded value in the capitalist system by the capitalists and that the capitalists themselves define as having economic value. It does not integrate the non-economic phenomena of global warming, care deficits and the hollowing out of public power. Rather, Fraser believes that currently, capitalism is having two crises: the economic and the non-economic crisis. While the economic crisis is the one described by Harvey, the non-economic crisis is coming from activities which are not recognised by the capitalist system. The non-economic activities are the borders of the capitalist economy. These activities are for instance the non-wage labour of social reproduction which provides the supply of labour but also activities such as social bounds, solidarity and forms of trust. There are other spaces than the private home where activities of social reproduction and its associated care activities are occurring. For instance, public education and health care systems as well as leisure facilities are all part of the activities of care. Slavery and immigration are the two most common ways capital has replaced labour. The separation between social reproduction and production enables capitalist forms of women’s subordination while being the indispensable background precondition for the possibility of capitalist production (Fraser, 2014).

Particularly, Fraser focused on the crisis of the activities of social reproduction. The division between social reproduction and production have shifted overtime. In the 20^th century there has been mutations of social reproduction activities within the state. After the Second World War, some aspects of the social reproduction moved from the realm of the private home to the realm of public services and public good while in the Neoliberal era, social reproduction and care mutated from the realm of public services to the realm of the market forces.

The last mutation has accentuated care extractivism and hence the crisis of care. The concept of care extractivism as development by Wichterich is an analogy to the concept of resource extractivism and posits the increasing reliance of the extraction of care, through commodification and, economisation in the market forces . For instance, this concept can be used for transnational reproductive networks where the Global North recruits through the free market care workers from the Global South to provide care activities. This process creates a deficit of care in the family of the care worker of the global south. In other words, care workers who work in a family in the Global North do not have as much time for their own families in the Global South. As Wichterich argues, the neoliberalisation of care ‘depletes care as commons in societies and families of the Global South’. Moreover, the extraction of care workers in the Global South are not the only source of crisis.

The neoliberal mutation has led to a deficit – crisis – of care in other domains. It has led to a deficit of teachers and care givers because the state abandoned supporting these public good services. It also has led to a deficit of the quality of care as the persistent drive for growth and expansion while focus on profit has pushed capitalism to intensify efficiency to reduce costs. As Witchery points out, in many domains such as industrial process, efficiency can lead to quality. However, care is different. For instance, it is not possible to increase efficiency and productivity of feeding a baby or a dement person. It means that the emphasis of efficiency to cut on cost will impede the quality of the care provided.

Last, the privatisation of care has reconfigured the gender and race order as these activities are mostly carried out by cheap workers constructed along social hierarchies of gender, class, race and North South and, post-colonial division. By looking at social reproduction and care extractivism, Marxist theory opens up then to feminism, and colonialism while still acknowledging class struggles.

Mapping social reproduction is at the core of Marxist discussions. While traditional Marxists such as Harvey places it at the point of production and value, others such as Fraser wants to go at the border of the capitalist activities and consider social and care activities that occur outside and inside the private home. It also recognises social resistances outside class struggle such as movement for free education or free childcare. Finally, the points of resistances at the border of the capitalist system can be seen as sources of emancipatory changes.

References

[1] David Harvey, “The ‘New’ Imperialism: Accumulation by Dispossession,” Socialist Register 40 (2004): 63–87.

[2] Nancy Fraser, “Behind Marx’s Hidden Abode: For an Expanded Conception of Capitalism,” New Left Review 86 (2014): 55–72.

About the author:

Maryse Helbert is a Post-doctoral Research Fellow at the ISS. Prior to that, she was a Post-doctoral Research Fellow at the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society. She has been an advocate for women’s rights for decades, having worked for AWID (Association for Women in Development), DIPD (Danish Institute for Parties and Democracies), and she is a gender-based violence research expert to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals for the United Nations Development Programme. Taking an ecofeminist approach, her PhD looked at oil industry and its economic, social and environmental impacts on women in three countries. In her latest work, she takes on the lessons learnt from the fossil fuels industry to explore the challenges of a post-carbon society.

Can technology ‘decode’ developmental problems? by Oane Visser and Manasi Nikam

By ISS Blog Bliss 12 September 201916 May 2020 3110 views

This article presents an interview with Dr. Oane Visser, Associate Professor in Rural Development Studies, at the International Institute of Social Studies. It shows ways in which technology can be used to address developmental problems. Dr. Visser coached six teams in a technological challenge about the ‘prevention of land grabbing’.

The Municipality of The Hague and the Data Science Initiative organized a hackathon for Peace, Justice and Security in November, 2018. It was supported by the International Criminal Court, NATO, Red Cross, World Vision and Asser Institute. The hackathon focused on creating innovative solutions using data science for problems focused on humanitarian disasters, fake news, evidence, emergency funds and land grabbing.^[1] About 27 teams from 20 nationalities participated in this event. Monkey Code, one of the teams coached by Dr. Visser, won and was rewarded a cash prize of 10,000 Euros.

Here follows an excerpt from a conversation between Dr. Visser and Manasi Nikam.

Manasi: What was the purpose of the hackathon?

Oane: There are different kinds of hackathons. Often these are commercial, but this hackathon had societal and developmental relevance. The Hague being a city of peace, justice and security cannot promote these ideas without engaging with new technologies. The basic objective of the hackathon was to enable people sitting anywhere in the world to participate in designing solutions to developmental problems.

Manasi: What role did you play in the hackathon?

Oane: There were five different challenges, one of which was on preventing land grabbing. Asser Institute requested me to lead together the six teams that participated in this challenge. I guided these teams to understand the context of land grabbing and the kind of data they can collect.

Manasi: Can you tell me something about the winning team?

Oane: The winning team was Monkey Code. It is a tradition in hackathons to come up with funny names. The team had young staff members belonging to a Canadian, multinational ICT company.

Manasi: Just out of curiosity, how is it that a multinational company was interested in a hackathon that had social relevance?

Oane: The company does a lot of work for governments such as mapping migration patterns. So, they do have an interest in social issues.

Manasi: Can you tell us something about the tool that the winning team developed?

Oane: Yes. They combined existing databases such as satellite data, social media data, be it Twitter, real estate news groups and local media etc. to develop an algorithm that aims to predict areas in the world that are vulnerable to land grabbing.

Manasi: Do you think deploying technical solutions depoliticizes developmental problems?

Oane: Yes and no. There are some actors who promote techathons, big data, algorithms and think that they can do away with the difficult questions. But there are also others who acknowledge that one technical solution cannot solve the problem. In reality, a lot of politics comes in. For example: What does the algorithm focuses on? How do you define the problem? Who controls the solution? How is the data that is integrated being used? Those are the big issues in the usage of technology. There is a strong belief among some that it is a magic bullet, very precise and accurate. Such thinking is a problem because the more social the data becomes, the less objective it tends to become.

Similarly, if the data is not valid, no matter how sophisticated the algorithm is, a coherent analysis cannot be made. There are also problems with someone taking the data out of the context and then analyzing it. The divide between Global South and North makes it riskier because many tech people are from the Global North or from emerging economies like India and China. Development projects around the world are implemented in collaboration with tech companies, who have their own particular interests such as getting data about citizens from developing countries. This gets partially subsidized by donor money under the facade of humanitarian aid.

Manasi: Why was the issue of land grabbing taken up?

Oane: Land grabbing is linked with local food security, dispossession of land, biofuels, energy and environmental problems. Around 2007, land grabbing caught attention globally, due to big deals being made in Madagascar and Ethiopia. But even before that, in Eastern Europe, a lot of land abandoned after the fall of the Berlin wall, was purchased by Western investors. Two advantages for investors who purchased land in countries like Romania have been 1. that the land was bought at a very low cost, meanwhile 2. geographic proximity to Europe means that the produce grown on the land can be sold easily in rich markets. Agriculture subsidies make it all the more profitable, as the amount of subsidy is linked to the size of the land. As the size of land owned increases, the amount of subsidy given also increases in relation to it.

In parts of Africa, Latin America and Asia, there is also displacement of people and dispossession of land. The projects in these areas target western markets. As a result, food security in the local area is affected. Similarly, in industrial agriculture the use of pesticides de-grade the environment. Due to the domination of western investors in the land market, buying land becomes expensive for young and local farmers. Countries like Russia and Ukraine often become targets of land grabbing as their land is immensely fertile and institutions are weak. In fact, local authorities are themselves often involved in land grabbing practices.

Manasi: What is the next step after this hackathon?

Oane: We had several ‘problem recognition workshops’ with one hackathon team from Leiden University and this summer we presented the process so far at the EuroDIG conference at the World Forum in The Hague. I have been attending various hackathons this year focusing on agriculture and development related themes. Designing data driven solutions for developmental problems mean different complexities and limitations compared to regular hackathons. I would be interested in seeing what kind of additional information the tech solution can generate once a more sophisticated version of the tool is available.

^[1] https://impactcity.nl/monkey-code-wins-hackathon-for-good-with-solution-to-prevent-land-grabbing/

Image credit: Rainforest Action Network on Flickr

About the authors:

Dr. Oane Visser (associate professor, Political Ecology research group, ISS) leads an international research project on the socio-economic effects of – and responses to – big data and automatization in agriculture.

Manasi Nikam is a student of MA in Social Policy for Development at ISS. She has co-authored ‘Children of India’ a chapter on the status of well-being of children, for Public Affairs Index 2018.

Do Natural Disasters Stimulate Trade? by Chenmei Li

By ISS Blog Bliss 5 September 20195 October 2020 2583 views

Typically, disasters are seen as disruptions of normal economic activity and thus reducing trade. However, the existing empirical evidence for a negative relationship between disasters and trade is contradictory. On the contrary, it has been recognised that disasters may stimulate trade. How come? And what are the policy implications of this finding?

While this article deliberates on these central questions in brief, the motivation to write this article stems from my recently published collaborative work (Li and van Bergeijk 2019 in Nitsch and Besedes) on the same subject where this topic is discussed in greater detail.

Ensuring economic resilience and preventing trade disruptions has been an important issue for research and policymaking. The impact of natural disasters, closely related to this issue, is thus a topic of rising relevance for development studies. This is particularly true for countries that suffer often from natural disasters, especially the Small Island Development States (SIDS). In general, the occurrence of natural disasters has also been increasing over the past decades.

Further, disasters are commonly seen as disruptions in the normal economic activity and thus causing reduction in trade (e.g. Gassebner, Keck and Teh 2010; Oh and Reuveny 2010; Martincus and Blyde 2013; Hayakawa, Matsuura, and Okubo 2015). However, the existing empirical evidence does not convincingly support a negative relationship between disasters and trade, both when it comes to imports and exports (Li and van Bergeijk 2019).

Creative destruction

Disasters could also potentially impact trade positively, as recognized by more recent studies, through demand, technology upgrading and firm productivity. For example, disasters generate import demand in order to replace the lost production (Adam 2013). From a supply side perspective, Pelli and Tschopp (2012) pointed out the creative destruction aspect of disasters, supported by micro evidence from Yogyakarta Indonesia (Brata, De Groot and Zant 2018). The evidence suggests that the 2006 earthquake in Indonesia had a ‘cleaning effect’ on the manufacturing sector, forcing out unproductive firms, and opening rooms for new firms, which are recognized to be even more productive and have higher productivity growth than the surviving firms.

Recent macro level empirical evidence from 63 countries supports the counterintuitive idea discussed above (Li and van Bergeijk 2019). The main finding is that the natural disasters are associated with higher trade growth, both regarding imports and exports. In addition, the evidence suggests lower level of development is associated with higher disaster resilience. In particular, Least Developed Countries (LDCs) appear to have higher trade resilience, possibly due to better access to aid and greater awareness of the aid community. Preliminary evidence suggests Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) enhances trade resilience by different mechanisms for imports and exports. The enhancing effect for imports is associated with FDI flows while for export it is linked to FDI stocks. It is suggested that the political system, i.e. level of democracy, the often-assumed significant factor to resilience, is not determinative.

Implications

What does this finding imply? First of all, the study suggests that trade is even more important than normally thought. The countries that encounter more natural disasters, i.e. SIDS, are often the ones that largely depend on global markets. In a world of de-globalization (van Bergeijk 2019), trade resilience and preventing trade disruptions should be given attention for research and policy-making, and should be considered as a global joint task.

Second, mechanisms that are primarily discovered to cope better with, or even take advantage of natural disasters, offer new insights to policy makers. For example, giving priority to attract FDI could be an effective method to remain resilient. After natural disasters, a group of new firms with great growth potential is likely to emerge. Providing appropriate support to these firms could contribute to better economy. However, this requires more research on firm behavior after a natural shock as suggested by Brata, De Groot and Zant (2018).

It may be difficult to conclusively state whether disasters are good or bad for trade. The conclusiveness suffers from limitation of econometric methods. And there is a lack of country case studies on this subject. However, the importance of trade and investment flows for the resilience against natural disasters is clear. This gives extra reasons for policy makers and the international communities to be alert to possible trade disruption. This might be of particular significance given the current global dynamics, where the China-US trade war, Trumpism, and Brexit often dominate the headlines and create threat to global trade.

References:

Adam, C. (2013). Coping with adversity: The macroeconomic management of natural disasters. Environmental science & policy, 27, S99-S111.

Bergeijk, P.A.G. van (2010). On the Brink of Deglobalization: An alternative perspective on the world trade collapse. Deglobalization 2.0

Brata, Aloysius GunadiA.G. & de Groot, Henri H.L.F. & Zant, Wouter. (2018). Shaking up the Firm Survival: Evidence from Yogyakarta (Indonesia). Economies. 6. 26. 10.3390/economies6020026.

Chenmei Li and Peter A.G. van Bergeijk. (2019). Do Natural Disasters Increase International Trade? In Nitsch, V. and T. Besedes (eds), Disrupted Economic Relationships, MIT Press: Cambridge, MA. (Book chapter A). https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/disrupted-economic-relationships

Gassebner, M., Keck, A., & Teh, R. (2010). Shaken, not stirred: the impact of disasters on international trade. Review of International Economics, 18(2), 351-368.

Hayakawa, K., Matsuura, T., & Okubo, F. (2015). Firm-level impacts of natural disasters on production networks: Evidence from a flood in Thailand. Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, 38, 244-259.

Oh, C. H., & Reuveny, R. (2010). Climatic natural disasters, political risk, and international trade. Global Environmental Change, 20 (2), 243-254.

Pelli, M., & Tschopp, J. (2012). The Creative Destruction of Hurricanes. http://www.freit.org/RMET/2012/SubmittedPapers/Martino_Pelli03.pdf.

Trade and Openness During the Great Depression and the Great Recession Edward Elgar: Cheltenham.

About the authors:

Chenmei Li is currently a Project Specialist at Institute of New Structural Economics at Peking University, Beijing. She was in Economics of Development program, Batch 2014-15 at ISS. During the program she worked with Professor Peter van Bergeijk on the DEC research project “Crisis, deglobalization and developing countries”.

Peter van Bergeijk (www.petervanbergeijk.org) is Professor of International Economics and Macroeconomics at the ISS.

The credibility problem of United Nations official statistics on Internally Displaced Persons by Gloria Nguya and Dirk-Jan Koch

By ISS Blog Bliss 2 September 201916 May 2020 3121 views

Our research, notably Gloria Nguya’s PhD research, which she recently defended at the ISS, focused on Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in urban settings in eastern DRC, particularly Bukavu and Goma. Bukavu and Goma are provincial capitals of the Kivus with about 25 years of instability. According to the latest United Nations figures there are exactly 25.619 IDPs in Bukavu[1]. These very precise figures have surprised us, because when we started our field research we noted that there was a large confusion about who should be counted as an IDP. During our research we found people who considered themselves IDPs, even though they were just regular migrants according to official definitions. Others who thought they weren’t IDPs were actually IDPs according to these official definitions. In this blog we single out one key crucial question to which there are so many contradicting responses: ‘When is somebody no longer an IDP?’.

During the field research, we encountered confusions on when somebody is no longer an IDP. Whereas some actors, such as local NGOs, argued that somebody couldn’t be labelled an IDP anymore if he or she could rent a house, others argued that one remains an IDP as long as one has specific unmet needs related to their displacement. Partly because of this problem of identifying IDPs in urban areas, we noticed that virtually all international organizations stopped targeting IDPs in their urban programming altogether. They would focus only on general vulnerability criteria, such as a housing situation. They omitted specific IDP needs related to their displacement status, such as trauma, access to documents or to remedy. This is worrying, as the plight of IDPs is an important element used by agencies to attract attention and funding.

Overall, the main inconsistency relates to methodologies: whereas in reality there are substantial differences in when an IDP is counted as such by humanitarian actors in the field (especially in urban areas), the UN data gloss over these differences. To arrive at the number of 25.619 IDPs the UN only included people that were displaced in 2016, 2017 and 2018. So, if you are a displaced person from 2015 or before, you are no longer counted in the statistics. This is too bad for you; however, the interesting thing is that as such this cut-off point goes against the definition that the UN itself supports. The Guiding Principles on internal displacement do not mention anything about a duration, quite to the contrary: an IDP remains an IDP as long as no durable solution has been achieved (global report on internal displacement 2019, p. 68). Well, for the IDPs in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) these principles do not appear to hold: IDPs prior to 2016 in the DRC fall hence between stools.

We do not argue that the numbers provided by the UN are too high, or too low: we also do not know. In our research we noticed that to determine if somebody is an IDP according to the UN definition one needs to engage in conversations with the potential IDP in terms of the origin of the move, their needs or issues. The methodology that the UN has used, notably asking key informants, such as neighborhood leaders, instead of potential IDPs themselves, isn’t accurate enough according to us.

Luckily there is an interesting initiative from the United Nations Statistical Commission. They have launched an Expert Group on Refugee and IDP statistics in 2016, who finished their first report. Their sobering finding is that, while agreement on the IDP definition exists, ‘less agreement exists on when an IDP should stop being counted as displaced. Most states do not follow the definition and framework […] variations in state practice are widespread, making international comparability difficult.’ In 2020 they should have finished their guidelines (amongst other on how to measure ‘durable solutions’) and have started capacity building to roll them out (IMDC, 2019, p.56). So, there is a hope that better IDP statistics will become available in the future if the United Nations and their backers follow through on their intentions.

To conclude, we feel that instead of creating some kind of fake sense of certainty, the United Nations may better admit that they only have rough guesses on the number of IDPs. We argue this because the confusion about IDP numbers does not only affect programming, but it also affects the relationship between the host government and the humanitarian actors, which has repercussions on the sustainability of humanitarian efforts on the ground. The DRC government even boycotted the DRC pledging conference in 2018 because the numbers weren’t correct, ‘the high numbers of displaced people are frightening investors, and the country is much more dependent on investment for development than development aid’ said the DR Congo’s Minister of Communications. By being more transparent about the challenges of IDP statistics, the UN has a clear argument about why more investments are needed in creating better displacement monitoring guidelines and mechanisms. Until these are in place, it is only better to have a moratorium on coming up with specific IDP numbers.

[1] https://displacement.iom.int/node/3911, p.2

About the authors:

Gloria Nguya has just completed her PhD in livelihoods strategies of Internally Displaced Persons in Urban Eastern DRC at the International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam.

Dirk-Jan Koch is professor by special appointment for International Trade and Development Cooperation at the Radboud Univeristy in Nijmegen and Chief Science Officer at the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Norms: How can we start tackling something so often ignored in governance work? by Katie Whipkey

By ISS Blog Bliss 30 August 201916 May 2020 1692 views

What do you get when you cross university researchers, development aid practitioners, and a few people somewhere in between? This sounds like it could be the start to a good joke, but it could actually be the start of something much more meaningful. A group of 19 researchers and practitioners got together at the CARE Nederland office to talk about a major gap in the research literature and development practice: governance norms.

Yes, norms are a hot topic in research and development and much attention has been given to considering gendered norms, corruption, and other very important topics. But, thinking about how norms interact with governance systems is something that is rarely addressed head-on. CARE Nederland decided to convene this group to start the conversation.

So, what do norms have to do with governance? Perhaps more than you might think! Governments and public authorities worldwide are faced with norms every day. It could be something as simple as community members at the village level being expected to buy a drink for their local representative in order to get a small need met or as complex as maintaining power for an ethnic group at the national level. Regardless of what it is, many studies have been undertaken to try to understand different types of norms in a variety of sub-themes and numerous interventions have been launched to change them. Despite this variety of studies and interventions, few have directly tackled the theme of norms in governance directly.

There are many definitions of what constitutes a norm, but for the sake of this conversation, we’re using a shared understanding that a norm is a collective belief that influences what behaviors people do. A norm is a norm because it relies on others, whereas an attitude, for example, could be an independently-held belief. Norms could be about what people believe others are doing and about what people believe others think they should be doing. Norms can directly translate into a behavior or there could be many norms that collectively influence a behavioral outcome. Certainly, some norms are stronger than others; norms can range from being essentially obligatory in a society to something just relatively common or possible. All this in mind, of course, public authorities will encounter norms every day in many aspects of their jobs.

Norms often persist due to the propensity for solidarity, reciprocity, and a sense of obligation. In other words, corruption norms often persist because officials are expected to take care of their own. If a norm is socially accepted, it is legitimized and likely to persist even if it is damaging. For example, if a norm exists that public officials must take bribes and a new, well-meaning public official decides to break this norm, then he/she could risk being ostracized from colleagues or even risk losing his/her job. Regardless, norms require reference groups (these are the people who others believe dictate whether a norm is accepted) and sanctions (punishments or rewards for breaking or upholding the norm). In our example here, the reference group would be peer public officials and the sanction would be being ostracized or losing the job.

We should consider putting power at the center with many forces such as institutions, individuals, resources, social structures, and societal morals and values all working to create and maintain norms. And of course, people experience power dynamics and inequalities differently, so the intersectionality of power is also a driver of governance norms.

In general, norms are part of an ecosystem. They persist from the macro to the micro and can be experienced differently in different parts of the ecosystem. Norms can be changed by drivers such as the economy, through official mechanisms such as law changes, or through personal motivations from awareness raising or other activities. In fragile and conflict settings, there may be a mismatch between traditional and modern norms that could create tensions between sub-groups. In governance processes, this could create a fundamental divide between more modern or national government systems and more traditional or local governance processes, which could be a driver for enabling such norms to persist.

We have a lot of considerations if we want to tackle this issue together. Not least of all are our ethical considerations: Who are we to change a deeply-held norm? How do we balance incentives such as development aid if we tie them to norm change? How do we ensure that we’re not entangling our personal values with what is truly best for communities? How do we generate internal motivations for communities to change norms on their own? These questions and so many more are important considerations for both researchers and practitioners.

By the end of the first meeting, it was quite clear that we still have a lot of work to do to understand governance norms. We must first understand and then seek to challenge governance norms if we want to make meaningful progress toward sustainable and inclusive governance processes worldwide.

This blog was based on a working group event for experts in the topic of social norms in The Netherlands on 1 July 2019 and was originally published here. The event was sponsored through the Every Voice Counts project of CARE Nederland, funded by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Members of the social norms expert group include: Emmely Benschop (The Hague Academy of Local Governance), Sylvia Bergh (International Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam), Lori Cajegas (CARE Nederland), Ben Cislaghi (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine), Jacopo Costa (Basel Institute on Governance and University of Basel), Ine Cottyn (Clingendael Institute), Marleen Dekker (Leiden University African Studies Center), Volkert Doop (VNG International), Edin Elgsaether (Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy), Elsbet Lodenstein (Royal Tropical Institute), Berlinda Nolles (CARE Nederland), Pavithra Ram (RNW Media), Ambra Scaduti (Oxfam Novib), Reintje van Haeringen (CARE Nederland), Merlijn van Wass (CARE Nederland), Fatma Wakil (CARE Nederland), Katie Whipkey (CARE Nederland), Karin Willemse (Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication) and Franz Wong (Royal Tropical Institute).

Image Credit: Mehzabi on Wikimedia. The image was cropped.

About the author:

Katie Whipkey is the Policy, Research, and Communications Officer for the Every Voice Counts programme at CARE Nederland. Katie joined CARE in February 2019 to work on promoting inclusive governance and expanding the voice of women and youth in fragile and conflict-affected settings through evidence-based research. Prior to CARE, Katie worked at RAND Corporation as a policy analyst. Katie has an MSc in Public Policy and Management from Carnegie Mellon University.

EADI/ISS Series | Why do we need Solidarity in Development Studies? by Kees Biekart

By ISS Blog Bliss 28 August 201916 May 2020 2311 views

The next EADI Development Studies conference is about “Solidarity, Peace and Social Justice”. But what does solidarity actually mean in relation to development studies? Kees Biekart explores the term by looking at current global examples such as the Fridays for Future movement.

Let’s assume development essentially comes down to a process of social change. Or better, a wide range of connected processes of social change. We can think of female textile workers in Bangladesh trying to unionise, even though the employers try to prevent this. Or we can think of measures to deal with massive flooding in the Bangladeshi deltas, washing away many houses of these textile workers’ families. Or we can think of decisions by European teenagers willing to pay extra for fair trade labels in their fashion clothes made in Bangladesh. All these processes are in some way connected around the idea of solidarity. Social change cannot be generated by ourselves only, even though we can make individual choices. This is probably the core idea of solidarity.

There are at least two essential building blocks of solidarity: action and reciprocity. Any activist struggle will require some sort of solidarity in order to be able to realize social change at a larger scale. Greta Thunberg started her protest in August 2018 at the age of 15 just by herself, quitting her classes every Friday and sitting in front of the Swedish parliament, handing out leaflets about climate breakdown. In the following months hundred thousand teenagers all over the world joined her example and went out during school time to protest against the destruction of the planet; by May 2019 the crowds had grown to over a million.

According to Amnesty International Secretary General Kumi Naidoo (also former director of Greenpeace), Thunberg’s “Fridays for Future” climate campaign was more effective in generating global awareness about climate change than the combined efforts of the major international environmental NGOs. It illustrates again that every big struggle often starts small with the ripple effect of an activist initiative making sense to many more: the basis of any solidarity campaign.

Inequality undermines solidarity

The other building block of solidarity is reciprocity: it represents more than just a voluntary gesture, as it is a commitment that will often imply personal sacrifices. This commitment may be ideologically driven, or religiously, but is born out of the conviction that there is mutuality in a supportive relationship. Solidarity with Syrian refugees coming to Europe implies that we also share some of our welfare and freedom. Again, born out of a basic human value that we help those who have less, as long as we can afford it. This reciprocity distinguishes solidarity from charitable initiatives. And it is not without implications: the bond of solidarity also has consequences for how mutual support is realized. Of course, not everyone is willing to give up welfare or to offer shelter. As Juergen Wiemann argued in his recent EADI-ISS blog: “Solidarity is waning with rising levels of immigration to Europe and the US, provoking resentment by those who already feel left behind”. Inequality is therefore definitely an undermining factor for solidarity.

Following Hannah Ahrendt’s view on compassion, solidarity implies linking action and reciprocity, as it is based on connecting existing struggles. After all, social struggles are mutually dependent the old mantra ‘your struggle is our struggle’. It is a matter of locating and analysing activist struggles as part of broader efforts and bigger visions for change. This can be extrapolated also to struggles for changing development studies to embrace a more global perspective. The wicked problems to be solved are not necessarily originating in the Global South, as most of its causes are located in the Global North. Despite arguments by authoritarian populist leaders such as Trump and Netanyahu and their supporters for the opposite, the construction of walls between North and South will only aggravate international inequality and will eventually be felt particularly in the North.

Rethinking mainstream Development Studies

So how to deal with solidarity as development studies scholars? Well, it implies that we have to really rethink development studies in its mainstream fashion. For example, by exploring development research topics to be researched explicitly in the Global North, linked to migration policies, poverty and inequality, climate change, neo-colonialism, etc., analysed from a global solidarity perspective. It may require new ways to organise research programmes by providing leading roles (and funding) to Southern scholars. It may even imply phasing out development studies programmes in the Global North as we currently practise it, by shifting their hubs to the Global South. Development studies often remains a Northern-dominated field of studies in which solidarity often is disregarded as a concept revealing activist agendas, rather than a key agenda for fundamental change. After all, isn’t that what we aspire when focusing on ‘development’?

Therefore, the next EADI conference will, for a change, explore examples and experiences of how solidarity efforts have tried to make meaningful changes in a wide variety of settings. We encourage panels on how to integrate solidarity into new perspectives on development studies. And how to address unequal power relations in our curricula and programmes by highlighting the urgency of pursuing change, facilitated by reciprocal relationships and interdependent struggles. Maybe we should talk less about development and more about how to contribute to the necessary changes required.

About the author:

Kees Biekart is Associate Professor in Political Sociology at the International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam

Does attending preschool benefit Indian children at a later stage? by Saikat Ghosh

By ISS Blog Bliss 19 August 201929 June 2020 3177 views

Despite having one of the world’s largest early childhood education and care program named ‘Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS)’ in operation since 1975, the impact of such provisions on children’s later development is still largely unknown in India. Empirical evidence from India suggests that attending preschool makes children more sociable but does not improve their cognitive ability.

Does Early Childhood Education (ECE) matter?

Childhood is the most important phase of human life and the strong foundation made during the early years can lead to improvements in children’s cognitive and social development. It has already been witnessed that ECE contributes substantially to children’s development and well-being and children attending early education programs is associated with improved performance in school^{1, 2}. ECE is considered extremely effective for children from disadvantaged backgrounds as it can narrow the gap in early development between children from different socio-economic classes³.

On the contrary, evidence also suggests that early, extensive, and continuous nonmaternal care may have some development risks for young children and the larger society^{4, 5}. Although ECE may increase cognitive skills at school entry, it may also increase behavioural problems and reduces self-control⁶. Therefore, there also exist some sort of disagreements regarding the effects of ECE programs on children’s development.

Based on the above backdrop, a study was recently conducted to understand whether attending preschool provide any benefit to children at the later stage of their life. Based on a sample of 1369 first graders, the study took place in India which is home of approximately twenty percent of the world’s child population in the age group of 0-6 years. The key question asked in this context was: do the children who attended preschool possess greater skills at the primary school level? Children’s accumulation of cognitive and social skills was assessed by respective class teachers using twelve indicators such as their attention towards class, ability to remember lessons, friendliness towards peers, etc.

Does attending preschool help Indian children?

The results from the study suggest that the ECE provisions in India are able to contribute to child development, but only partially. Children who attended preschool were found performing better, but this association was not uniform over different skill types. Although attending preschool seems to help children in improving their social skills, there was no such effect with respect to cognitive skills. Furthermore, in contrast to the parental notion about the private preschools being better than the ICDS ones, there was no such evidence found of any of the preschools having a relative edge over the other.

Given the fact that not only preschool attendance but also the quality of the preschool matters, one can hold the quality of preschools in India as responsible for not being able to provide any cognitive incentive to children. The focus of the ICDS programme seems more on the feeding aspects than on promoting behavioural change in childcare practices. The people responsible in these settings are often not very well educated and do not have the required skills to take on this responsibility^{7( p.30)}. Besides, the curriculum followed in the private preschools were also criticized for its quality and suitability for children^{8, 9}. Therefore, both types of preschools seem lacking the quality to contribute to children’s cognitive development.

On the other hand, regardless of the quality of care and curriculum, attending preschool allows children to interact and communicate with peers and integrate themselves. Normatively, first friendships are established during the preschool years, and the acquisition of social skills such as helping and sharing, etc. during preschool predict later school engagement and academic success^{10, 11}.

Therefore, by providing an improved and more scientific curriculum to the children, ECE provisions in India can help children in greater skill accumulation. Taking into account that parents mainly send their children to preschool for early education and school readiness¹², emphasizing on the educational component of the ICDS programme could attract more parents towards it. Given the fact that the ICDS programme is mainly targeting the marginalized section of the society, expanding its coverage and improving the quality of service provisions would certainly help children from the disadvantaged backgrounds to build a strong foundation.

References:

Weiland, C. & Yoshikawa, H. (2013). Impacts of a prekindergarten program on children’s mathematics, language, literacy, executive function, and emotional skills. Child Development, 84(6), 2112–2130.
DeCicca, P. & Smith, J. D. (2011). The long-run impacts of early childhood education: Evidence from a failed policy experiment. National Bureau of Economic Research. Working Paper 17085.
UNICEF (2016). The state of the world’s children: A fare chance for every child. Retrieved from: https://www.unicef.org/publications/files/UNICEF_SOWC_2016.pdf
Belsky, J. (2002). Quantity counts: Amount of child care and children’s socioeconomic development. Development and Behavioural Pediatrics, 23(3): 167-170.
Belsky, J. (2001). Developmental risks (still) associated with early child care. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry & Allied Discipline, 42(7): 845—859.
Magnuson, K. A., Ruhm, C. J. & Waldfogel, J. (2004). Does prekindergarten improve school preparation and performance?. NBER Working Paper No. 10452
UNESCO (2006). Select issues concerning ECCE India. Paper commissioned for the EFA Global Monitoring Report 2007, Strong foundations: early childhood care and education.
Kaul, V. & Sankar, D. (2009). Early childhood care and education in India’. New Delhi: NUEPA.
Swaminathan, M. (1998). The First Five Years: A Critical Perspective on Early Childhood Care and Education in India. New Delhi: SAGE.
Howes, C., Hamilton, C. E., & Philipsen, L. C. (1998). Stability and continuity of child-caregiver and child-peer relationships. Child Development, 69, 418–426.
Ladd, G. W., Price, J. M., & Hart, C. H. (1988). Predicting preschoolers’ peer status from their playground behaviors. Child Development, 59, 986–992.
Ghosh, S. (2019). Inequalities in demand and access to early childhood education in India. International Journal of Early Childhood. DOI: 1007/s13158-019-00241-8

Image Credit: Jay Galvin on Flickr

About the Author:

Dr. Saikat Ghosh is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories (LifBi), Germany where he is leading a project focusing on early childhood education in India. He is a former ISS Graduate (2011-12) and awarded his Ph.D. from the University of Bamberg in 2018. His research interest centers on poverty, education, inequality, and social policy analysis with a particular focus on developing countries. Formerly, he has worked for the Bamberg Graduate School of Social Sciences (BAGSS), Germany, UNU-WIDER, Helsinki, and the State Government of West Bengal, India.

Sri Lankan President Sirisena’s political war on drugs by Shyamika Jayasundara-Smits

By ISS Blog Bliss 15 August 201916 May 2020 2628 views

Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena’s answer to drug-related crimes is bringing back the death penalty. According to recent reports, international drug smugglers are increasingly turning to Sri Lanka as a transit hub in Asia, while drug-related arrests are on the rise. The question is whether the war on drugs is winnable and whether the death penalty will help. Framing the anti-narcotics efforts as a war has been a selling point for the public who are getting weary of everyday drug abusers and dealers.

On 26 June 2019, Sirisena signed death warrants for four prisoners serving sentences for drug-related crimes. His signature brought an end to a 43-year moratorium on the death penalty which begun following a final capital punishment case in 1976.

Sirisena’s return to the death penalty has provoked mixed responses. Some point out that Sirisena cannot present evidence to show that the death penalty can save future generations from the scourge of narcotics and drug trafficking. His attempt to link an undisclosed drug mafia with the April 2019 Easter bombings did not prove convincing for most observers. The claim was flatly contradicted by a Special Presidential Committee appointed to probe the Easter attacks and statements issued by Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. As Sirisena’s arch rival in politics, Wickremesinghe points the finger at home-grown jihadists. Linking drugs with terrorism is a familiar fable in the history of war in Sri Lanka.

Fearing that he might lose the support of his own government, President Sirisena has announced that he will declare a day of ‘national mourning’ if the government does not agree to his reinstatement of capital punishment or seeks to abolish it. For many in Sri Lankan politics, whatever the scale of the drug problem at hand, bringing back capital punishment for drug offences sounds like an over-reaction.

Legal experts point to pitfalls in the road ahead. Reinstating the death penalty requires approval both from an extremely divided national legislature and the Supreme Court. Their legal–moral appeal seems to have had some effect on Sri Lanka’s majority Sinhala–Buddhist population. But the President’s efforts to convince the public by citing blessings he received from a number of Buddhist clergymen have mostly fallen on deaf ears.

Sirisena’s move to bring back the death penalty is not out of character. Almost immediately after being sworn into office in 2015, Sirisena started a morality-inspired war against narcotics. He launched an anti-drug elite task force and increased police powers to deal with drug offenders. An island-wide anti-drug awareness campaign led to the establishment of thousands of committees in schools and villages to combat drugs. Yet in December 2018, Sri Lanka voted in favour of a final moratorium on the death penalty at the United Nations General Assembly. This vote was retracted just six months later. The background to this turn is developing dynamics in Colombo’s political settlement and the huge political stakes involved in the gamble to bring back capital punishment.

Sirisena has tied the war to his personal as well as political agenda. Like his predecessor Mahinda Rajapaksa, who won the ‘war against terrorism’, Sirisena wants to go down in history for having saved Sri Lanka in the war on drugs. One can attribute President Sirisena’s toughness and bravado of his resolve to an inspirational meeting with Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte in January 2019. This ‘toughness’ is an effort to politically re-brand himself as stronger and more powerful than Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, a competitor in the December presidential elections.

As a former defence secretary, Rajapaksa has already earned a reputation for being ‘tough on crime’. Contrary to Rajapaksa’s hard-man political image, Sirisena is often depicted as softly spoken and temple-worshipping — an ordinary man of the village. Although Sirisena has yet to officially declare his intention to contest the presidency, his decision to bring back the death penalty could be a sign that he is preparing such an announcement. Reinforcing a reputation for ‘toughness’ is vital for Sirisena given his rapidly declining public approval ratings following the disastrous Easter bombings.

The question is whether the war on drugs is winnable and whether the death penalty will help. Framing the anti-narcotics efforts as a war has been a selling point for the public who are getting weary of everyday drug abusers and dealers. Considerable political momentum was created by the ending of almost 25 years of civil war, and people are accustomed to the warfare frame of reference.

As intended, the reintroduction of the death penalty received the expected reaction from local and international civil society organisations, the United Nations and Western governments — the so-called ‘coalition of enemies’ of the majority Sinhala–Buddhist constituency. Ultimately Sirisena’s political fate will depend on this constituency, which so far seems supportive of his gambit.

Although there are no clear signs that Sirisena will be re-elected, he is making small gains by drawing political attention to himself, while distracting the electoral mass away from compelling issues of national security and economic development. Sirisena’s choice of battleground has been executed with almost military precision, reminding us of Clauzewitz’s claim that ‘war is politics by other means’.

This article was originally published by the East Asia Forum.

About the author:

Dr. Shyamika Jayasundara-Smits is an Assistant Professor in Conflict and Peace Studies at ISS/Erasmus University Rotterdam. She holds a PhD in Development Studies from the ISS and an MA in Conflict Transformation and Peacebuilding from Eastern Mennonite University, Virginia, USA. Her current research agenda covers a wide variety of themes including, security sector reform, challenges of post-conflict transition and diaspora politics.

Revolution and music: women singing out in Sudan by Katarzyna Grabska and Azza Ahmed A. Aziz

By ISS Blog Bliss 12 August 20195 October 2020 5345 views

With the attention to Sudanese women musicians actively participating in the current uprising in Sudan, this article reflects on the history of women’s involvement in music and how their performances have acquired political claims over time.

Music in times of revolution

The ongoing revolution in Sudan started with mass protests in December 2018 (see last week’s BLISS blog), led to the overthrow of Omar El Bashir in April 2019, and to a massacre orchestrated by the Transitional Military Council on the 3^rd of June, 2019. These unprecedented peaceful protests had opened up a space for the amalgamation of creative productivity in Sudan and across the diaspora, including music. Young people and women have been portrayed as being at the forefront of the resistance. The images of women demonstrating on the streets, singing, drawing and making art on the streets have flooded the social media. However, this is a hyperbolic depiction of their actual number supported by the fact that this level of participation by them was unanticipated. The revolution has been seized by diverse women as a space to make claims for greater freedoms and liberties, including contributions to nation-building projects. Yet, these acts of citizenship (see Isin and Nielsen 2008) are highly gendered and take place within the constraints of patriarchal norms (Azza Ahmed. A. Aziz).

Music has always occupied a significant role in the multiple cultural expressions of the Sudanese nation. In the current uprising, it created a space to enact resistance and narratives of belonging. Women amateur singers as well as professional musicians in the diaspora and in Sudan have become key voices in the message of the revolution from the streets and visibilising the political claims that are being made.

In Sudan, since the coming to power of Omar El Bashir and the Islamists in 1989, the music scene has been deeply affected. Many musicians were curtailed, went into exile, and the once popular music spots in Khartoum where Sudanese jazz and popular music could be heard were banned. It was also combined with the demise of once famous music institutions in the capital. The Sudanese government’s centralisation of power under the banner of an Islamised identity was established, and this ultimately imposed specific gender codes that were legally consolidated through The Public Order Law of 1996 that established strict rules for women’s dress code and public appearance. This measure limited the public spaces where women artists could perform both in Khartoum and throughout Sudan. Despite this, women’s political and patriotic claims within songs were not silenced.

For example, an all-female music group Salute Yal Banoot, who since its foundation in 2014, has been contributing to dismantling some of the obstacles (other examples include female members of the mixed Igd Al Jalad group, Nancy Ajaj, Al Balabil, etc). These women had to navigate arbitrary refusals by the government to allow them to perform in public on stage. Salute Yal Banoot have also been actively involved in the uprising. They dedicated their performance in Kuwait in March 2019 to those who had lost their lives in the protests. On their facebook website, they stated that resistance could take different forms, one being music, and the need to embrace the collective of being Sudanese. They use the slogan of John Garang, the late leader of South Sudan, quoting him: ‘SUDANISM embraces all that is African, Arabian, Islamic and Christian. It encompasses religion, race and culture and expresses them as a unique identity. Thus, it is inherently irreconcilable with sectarianism of any kind.’ Here, their music and creative practice merge with the political potentialities of the nation that they enact through the diversity of the composition of their own music group.

To understand the musical role of women visible on the Sudanese scene in the current context, we need to situate it within the wider history of women as the producers of music in general and their performance of political songs in particular.

Historical take on women and music

Historically, women have had a significant place in musical production in Sudan according to different genres that have existed: hamassah (encouraging men to go to war: for example, Mihaira bint Aboud who encouraged the Sudanese to fight against the Turko- Egyptian occupation and who is evoked during the current revolution as a voice for women to emulate), sirah (songs for men at their weddings en route to the bride’s home, manaha (bereavement songs) and as hakamats’ songs (existing in Western Sudan encouraging men to go to war). Hence, there has been a continuum of women using music to enact gendered citizenship and the current uprising is another expression of such political actions.

The history of women’s eruption onto the Sudanese music scene was not always smooth. The first public rhythms used by women were characterized by 3 beats on the daluka (a clay drum with a leather covering) and they were known as the tumtum. They were the province of ex-slave females working in local alcohol haunts that were deemed disreputable. Eventually they became a source of emancipation for ex-slave women (ghanaya) within the urban centres of Sudan. They came to express the life experiences of working class women during the 1930s and 1940s. These rhythms became part of female wedding universes and they were equally sung by free-born female artists.

Given the popularity of the genre it was gradually appropriated by men and modified. The establishment of Radio Omdurman in 1941 made this genre intrinsic to Sudanese popular music (see also Saadia I. Malik 2003). A notable singer of this genre was Asha Al Falatiya. Asha managed to access a men’s world by shifting to the use of an orchestra. Part of her credibility as an artist was contained in the fact that she penetrated men’s world’s through her recordings that were diffused on Radio/TV Omdurman. Her political stand was well visible in a nationalistic song about defending the nation against heavy artillery external attacks where she enjoins Mussolini to wage war in Sudan’s defense in order to circumvent the duplicity of Hitler. This was a time when women’s feminism was still subject to penetrating mens’ political and economic worlds.

In the 1970s, certain forms of women’s singing were institutionalized and the penetration of women on the music scene was the product of liberalization and market forces. Eventually women started singing on television and the approbation of the official media elevated the profession of women singers. Their access to public stage, however, dwindled with sharia law and 1996 public order law.

The political momentum of the current uprising gave women musicians more opportunities to take risks and re-enter more visibly the public stage in Sudan. This gives us a sense of the ongoing transformations of gender norms and gender relations more widely.

This article is part of a series on Creative Development. The first part dealing with art in the Sudanese revolution can be found here.

Image Credit: Salute Yal Bannot

Azza Ahmed Abdel Aziz lives between Khartoum and London. She holds a Ph.D in Social Anthropology, with a special focus on Medical Anthropology from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Her research focuses on cultural understandings of health and well-being. She has been following the unfolding upraising in Khartoum since December 2018 and has been documenting the everyday protest practices, focusing specifically on the artistic expressions. She is also a co-researcher with Kasia Grabska in the ISS-funded project on creative practice, mobilities and in development in Sudan.

Katarzyna (Kasia) Grabska is a lecturer/researcher at the ISS and a filmmaker.

Creative Development | Sudan protests: artistic acts of citizenship by Azza Ahmed A. Aziz and Katarzyna Grabska

By ISS Blog Bliss 9 August 20195 October 2020 3659 views

Since December 2018, flashing images of protests in Sudan have appeared in mainstream media. This, however, barely touches upon the ongoing struggles of the changing local and diasporic dynamics of what ‘citizenship’ and belonging in Sudan mean (see ISS research project). Many acts of citizenship (see Isin and Nielsen 2008) have been most visibly associated with artistic creativity that spread across Sudan and in diaspora. In this article, we reflect on how art has been one of the key drivers of the revolution and the transformation of local and diasporic citizenship claims pertaining to Sudan.

The December 2018 Sudanese Revolution: A Hub of Artistic Creativity

The revolution was propelled by demonstrations all over Sudan. The demonstrations demanding freedom, peace and justice culminated in a million persons march happened on the 6^th of April, 2019. Demonstrators reached the Army headquarters in Khartoum and were joined by people from all over Sudan. Since that date, large swathes of the Sudanese population had been occupying a space in front of the Army headquarters (midan al itisam): the sit in space. Almost two months of occupation of this space created a world where revolutionaries could join to realize their objectives of freedom, peace and justice. They demanded that military forces that overthrew Omar El Bashir (representing military junta that came to power through a coup in 1989) on 11^th of April hand over power to a civilian led transitional government.

Artistic and creative practice has played a seminal contribution to the development of resistance and the revolution. The genesis of the sit in space had reignited a flurry of creativity ranging from painting, photography, filming, spoken word and whatsapp messaging that conveys information about its evolution to diverse audiences: the Sudanese public , the diaspora and the outside world, through graphic design, slogans, speeches, song lyrics and live recordings. Prior to the protests, art in public spaces of Khartoum was rare. Women artists were significantly more absent. During the sit in, the walls of the city became covered with extensive murals or art work.

Within the sit in zone a huge 3 km canvas was being prepared by artists within the premises of a technical training school. This canvas was to be presented to the public. It would encompass artistic symbols as well as the signatures of those who would represent all those who dedicated their lives to staying in place. Another zone, that was a rubbish dump, had been transformed into a space of beautiful art. This creative practice gave a clear sense of belonging and facilitated making political claims for many, regardless of gender, class, age and ethnic origin.

Art is fundamentally linked with revolutionary processes and plays an important role in creating a sense of belonging and citizenship. Through painting the walls of the army headquarters, singing in public, filming and photographing, the demonstrators performed acts of citizenship, expressing their ideals and demands for Sudan and their own understanding of rights as Sudanese people. With the digital access and the instant sharing of messages of hope, despair, and demands for justice, freedom and civil rule, it became possible to disseminate these practices across the globe both for those remaining in Sudan and those in diaspora.

The sit-in period was characterized by protracted negotiations between the Transitional Military Council (TMC) and the driving force of public mobilization the Sudanese Professional Association (SPA). This was a fraught process that included the involvement of the notorious Rapid Security Forces (RSF) militias under the leadership of Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo (known as Hemeti) the second man within the TMC. On the 3^rd of June at the crack of dawn on the last day of the Muslim fasting month, Ramadan, the TMC brutally dispersed the people occupying the sit in space. Live bullets were fired on peaceful civilians and many people were mortally wounded, killed, raped and injured (see dying for the revolution BBC). This massacre was followed by measures aimed at terrorizing civilians and executed by the RSF that patrolled the streets, randomly harassing, beating and raping. The erasure of most of the creative acts of citizenship by painting over many of the murals on the walls of the sit in area was set into motion in order to wipe out the achievements of the revolution and silence its call. Notwithstanding that Khartoum remained eerily silent for 10 days with the internet quickly disabled and people fearing to leave their homes , the mobilization rapidly persisted.

Art, erasure and making of citizenship

The erasure of art orchestrated by the TMC, in the aftermath of the massacre, points to the power of art and artists to create a political space for expression of citizenship. Yet, the massacre and the erasure led to other creative practices in music and visual art that frames new contours of belonging and political rights. During the six months of protests and especially during the massacre, many lost their lives. They were framed as martyrs. They became a motivation for the youth who started proclaiming their right not to be forgotten: ‘we will not forget and we will not forgive, blood for blood we will not accept monetary compensation’. This expresses their intent to persevere in creating a better Sudan worthy of their sacrifice. This particular narrative of how martyrs are predominantly represented is visible in the music of Ahmed Amin.

In visual art, the work of Assil Diab, a Sudanese artist living in Qatar, illustrates the significance of remembering and documenting the sacrifices of those who died during the peaceful protests. Alongside a group of artists, she paints wall murals depicting the faces of the fallen on the walls of their family homes. She seeks permission from their families to bear testimony to the fact that Sudan has not forgotten their sons and daughters (graffiti art).

Through art, young musicians and visual artists are constructing a new model of a deserving citizen, a martyr. The calls for freedom, peace, and justice, sit alongside other claims to citizenship depicted here through these ‘good deaths’. This medium instills that martyrs are occupying a worthy place in the hierarchy of citizens in Sudan. This is just one aspect of how art plays into some key imaginaries of belonging and provides a reading of diverse ways of participating in the revolution as an evolving nation-making Sudanese project that emanates from the local and from afar.

This article is part of a series on Creative Development. A second part to this article dealing with women and music during the Sudan protests can be read here.

Image Credit: Jakob Reimann on Flickr

Azza Ahmed Abdel Aziz lives between Khartoum and London. She holds a Ph.D in Social Anthropology, with a special focus on Medical Anthropology from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Her research focuses on cultural understandings of health and well-being. She has been following the unfolding upraising in Khartoum since December 2018 and has been documenting the everyday protest practices, focusing specifically on the artistic expressions. She is also a co-researcher with Kasia Grabska in the ISS-funded project on creative practice, mobilities and in development in Sudan.

Katarzyna (Kasia) Grabska is a lecturer/researcher at the ISS and a filmmaker.

Depo-Provera and HIV transmission: the jury’s still out by C. Sathyamala

By ISS Blog Bliss 23 July 201916 May 2020 3778 views

The link between HIV transmission and the use of Depo-Provera®, a three-monthly injectable contraceptive, has raised concerns for its use in populations with high prevalence of HIV. The WHO is convening a Guideline Development Group at the end of this month to review the status of Depo-Provera based on evidence from a new study. Considering that its results are not unequivocal, sufficient time should be allowed for response from scholars, health authorities of the concerned countries, and civil society representatives to facilitate an informed decision.

From 29-31st July, 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) is convening a Guideline Development Group to review the existing recommendations for the use of contraceptive methods for women ‘at high risk of HIV’ (World Health Organization 2019a). This review will specifically focus on the results of a randomized ‘clinical’ trial, the Evidence for Contraceptive Options and HIV Outcomes (ECHO) published in the Lancet last month (ECHO Trial Consortium 2019). The ECHO trial, carried out in four African countries (South Africa, Kenya, Swaziland and Zambia), was designed to ‘settle’ the two-decade long contestation whether or not the three-monthly injectable contraceptive Depo-Provera® increased the possibility of HIV transmission in women users.

Depo-Provera is not a new contraceptive. However, it has been dogged by controversy since the 1960s when the first application for licensing as a contraceptive was made by the American pharmaceutical Upjohn. Depo-Provera was considered hazardous because of its potential carcinogenic, teratogenic, and mutagenic effects (Multinational Monitor 1985; Sathyamala 2000). However, after its approval in 1992, evidence began to accumulate that it increased the possibility of HIV transmission in women users. In 2012, WHO cautioned that women using it ‘should be strongly advised to also always use condoms’ (emphasis as in original) (World Health Organization 2012). Because of the uncertainty in observational studies, the ECHO consortium was formed in 2012 to design a randomized trial.

Despite reservations expressed by others (see for instance, Ralph et al., 2013) on the ethics of randomization and subjecting participants knowingly to a contraceptive method that could increase HIV transmission, the ECHO consortium went ahead with the trial in 2015. Contrary to expectations, it was successful in recruiting sufficient numbers of women and randomizing them to one of the three contraceptive methods, viz., Depo-Provera, a levonorgestrel sub-dermal implant, and a copper intrauterine device; the latter two acting as the control arms for testing Depo-Provera’s association with HIV. It has been argued that the randomization was made possible by exercising undue influence, and by concealing the real nature of the clinical trial during recruitment (Sathyamala 2019). Therefore, the ECHO trial has violated a central tenet of the Helsinki declaration by privileging the pursuit of knowledge over the interests of the girls/women trial participants from Africa (ibid).

Importantly, in the ECHO trial the sample size was calculated to estimate an increased risk of 45% or above only; by choosing a high cut off point, a decision was made not to detect lower risks (Hofmeyr et al., 2018). Hence, although the trial showed that Depo-Provera increased HIV transmission risk by 23 to 29% as compared with the sub-dermal implant, the finding is being dismissed as of no consequence due to a lack of statistical significance (ECHO Trial Consortium 2019). This makes little sense either for the individual girl/woman or from a public health perspective. A modeling exercise showed that even a 1.2 fold increase of HIV with Depo-Provera could lead to 27,000 new HIV infections per year, a number higher than that due to maternal deaths that would be averted by its use as a contraceptive (Butler et al., 2013). Moreover, the ECHO team, even while admitting to the inadequate statistical power to detect risks lower than 30%, affirmed that ‘for individual women at very high HIV risk, … even a relatively small effect might be important in contraceptive and HIV prevention decision making’ (ECHO Trial Consortium 2019 , p.8). Considering that one of the surprising findings of the ECHO trial was the ‘alarmingly high’ HIV incidence in the trial population, observed ‘throughout the course of the trial’ (ECHO Trial Consortium 2019, p.9), it could well mean that Depo-Provera should not be used in populations with high prevalence and transmission rates of HIV.

Yet, a systematic misinformation campaign has been launched in the media[1] fed by the WHO’s own statement that the trial found no link between the methods studied and HIV (World Health Organization 2019b). This indicates that a decision has already been made to declare Depo-Provera as safe for use in high risk populations. In reality, the ECHO trial findings, instead of ‘settling’ the issue, have only added to the uncertainties. It is therefore essential that the Guideline Development Group of the WHO that is meeting at the end of this month does not reach a decision in haste by the end of August as notified. Instead, sufficient time should be given to scholars, health authorities of the concerned countries, and civil society representatives to analyze the results of the ECHO trial and work out the policy implications.[2] Only can then a truly informed decision be made on an issue that is going to affect the lives of millions of women worldwide.

[1] See for instance, Guardian (2019), Walker (2019).

[2] The ECHO team has kindly agreed to share the data of the trial beginning 3 months following the publication of the article ending 36 months (ECHO Trial Consortium 2019, p.10)

Image Credits: ZaldyImg on Flickr

About the author:

C. Sathyamala is a public health physician and an epidemiologist with a PhD in Development Studies from the ISS. Currently she is an academic researcher at the ISS.

The question of democracy in environmental politics: The Green Road Project in Turkey by Melek Mutioglu Ozkesen

By ISS Blog Bliss 22 July 201929 June 2020 1684 views

Road construction is usually presented as a major condition for development, but the question is: development for who and whose land is being intruded for the construction of the road? In Turkey, these questions were prominently raised by social movements and civil society organizations when the government launched its Green Road Project in 2013. It is promoted by the state authorities for making the Black Sea region accessible to the incoming tourists that would arguably improve the economic conditions of the people living in the region. Six years later, the road has almost been completed, and this post can only pay homage to the brave and gradual field attempts of social movements to stop this project.

The Green Road Project is a road project with a length of 2645 kilometers that will connect the highlands of the Artvin, Bayburt, Giresun, Gümüshane, Ordu, Rize, Samsun and Trabzon provinces in the northern part of Turkey. The target of the Green Road Project is declared as ‘the completion of not only the Green Road Project to provide a significant brand value to the region in the tourism sector and link the highlands to each other, but also the acceleration of social progress that will be ensured through the resulting economic development.’[1] However, it also means the loss of livelihoods, increase in construction, rent, and environmental damage for the locals living in the region.

The Green Road, introduced by state officials as a regional development project, is justified by a discourse of serving ‘the people’ and providing local and national development through infrastructural modernization, which could result in a tourism boom and attract foreign investment. It led however to the adverse reactions of highland residents. Non-governmental organizations involved in the protest argue that the process has been carried out without consulting the local people at any moment during the policy making stages. Various organizations such as TEMA, the Fırtına Initiative, ‘Brotherhood of the Rivers/Highlands’, and ‘Black Sea in Revolt’ monitored the project very closely and struggled against it. They tried to stop the construction for a long time until eleven locals were detained by the gendarme and 24 locals were prosecuted on the charges of violating the freedom of work.

Mother Havva, depicted in the title image, who has become the symbol of the social opposition in the region, says:

‘Let them see if there is anything green in this road. Those highlands are ruined for whom? Highlands should be for our children, for our animals. We have no place to go. We kept our hometown alive by protecting our highlands and forests. The state exists because we exist, because this folk exists. Neither would [exist] these police, this gendarme, this judge, this government, this district governor for that matter. They exist as long as we exist. We are people with our land, our green, our highland!’[2]

Apparently, Mother Havva and the government officials do not refer to the same group as ‘the people’. This contested use of ‘the people’ makes us question which people this project serves? Which people will gain and lose by it? Mother Havva, while justifying her resistance against the project, protests that the state acts against – their peoples’ rule and their will. Perceiving ‘the people’ as the founding component of the state, she also questions who the state is? The Turkish government identifies its uncontested executive actions as democracy for the Justice and Development Party (AKP) since its rise to power in 2002, and has been trying to legitimate itself as the representative of the ‘will of the people’. On the other side, ‘the people’ identify themselves with their environment and lands, and consider this project as a threat for their livelihoods. This contested use of the term ‘the people’ by the locals and the officials sheds light on different projects of democracy endorsed by the two sides. While the locals have been struggling for their representation in the ongoing projects happening on their living space and refuse to leave absolute control to the mercy of the political authority, the government officials have been legitimizing their actions through conducting their representational legitimacy in the country.

In the Green Road Project, participatory action seems out of the agenda in an ever suspending process which excludes the opposing locals from any stage of policy making itself. Even when the locals mobilized to struggle/protest against the project, they were threatened, detained and were usually marginalized through various discourses such as that of ‘pasture occupiers’, settled in the region without legal permission and against local development. In this context one can say that the Green Road Project is one clear example that asks for the necessity of participatory democracy in environmental politics in Turkey in order to avoid the threats and disappearance of the livelihoods of the rural people in the region.

[1] DOKAP (2014). Doğu Karadeniz Projesi (DOKAP) Eylem Planı 2014-2018. T.C. Kalkınma Bakanlığı.

[2] BirGün. (2015) Havva ananın isyanı: Kimdir devlet? Devlet bizim sayemizde devlettir.

Image Credits: Demiroren News Agency

About the author:

Melek Mutioglu Ozkesen is a visiting PhD researcher in the Political Ecology Research Group at the ISS. She comes from the Ankara University in Turkey.

Complexity of Micro-level Violent Conflict: An ‘Urban Bias’ lenses of a Native Researcher? by Delphin Ntanyoma

By ISS Blog Bliss 15 July 201916 May 2020 1819 views

Micro-level violent conflict is complex, and the triggers of violence are unpredictable. Building on long-seated unresolved grievances coupled with the presence of foreign armed groups in Eastern Congo, the South-Kivu province is facing a barely noticed humanitarian crisis whose understanding can even puzzle a native researcher. In such a context, can a ‘native researcher’ with lenses affected with ‘urban bias’ understand complex contours of micro-level violent conflict?

This blog post tries to raise awareness on complexity of micro-level layers of recurring violent conflict. It builds on Kalyvas’s (2006) understanding of ‘urban bias’[1]. He states that urban bias refers to lack of information on countryside violence but also the tendency to paint gunmen involved in violence as primitive and criminals. Though Kalyvas stresses on reporting and accounting on civil-war violence, this blog post considers that ‘urban bias’ is widely embedded in understanding the local context while little attention is paid to those painted as ‘criminals’.

In March 2019, I visited Minembwe in the South-Kivu province, the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). It was amid tense violent confrontation between opposing local armed groups largely affiliated to ethnic communities in the region. The MaiMai groups are affiliated to Babembe, Banyindu and Bafuliro communities against Gumino, while Twirwaneho are linked to Banyamulenge community. However, local armed groups are currently being supported by foreign groups from Rwanda and Burundi, the two DRC’s neighboring countries. The reasons for my visit to this region were twofold. One, I had to use this opportunity to teach two courses at undergraduate level within Eben-Ezer University of Minembwe. Two, this is a region I had to visit as part of my fieldwork. Although I am a native of this region, however, this time, I came back as a researcher in conflict economics studies.

The background of Eastern Congo violent conflict is complex with different layers. The region I visited has been under regular clashes between communities – due to mutual contestation, confrontation around ‘autochthony’ versus ‘immigrants’, misunderstanding between farmers and cattle herders as well as other dynamic motives. Community clashes have been going on for decades. Recently, Burundian and Rwandan rebels have been involved in clashes that are supported by local groups. Burundian and Rwandan groups are respectively supported by Kigali and Bujumbura with aims of overthrowing regimes in their countries. They are meddling into local problems with an intent of creating an unoccupied space for further military plans.

Subsequent to recent clashes, roughly 150 villages (including my parents’ village) were burnt down between 2018-2019. It has led to approximately 200,000 internally displaced people. Most of these have been concentrated in Minembwe facing high risks of hunger and diseases. Hundreds are estimated to have died during this period. Existing schools and health facilities have been destroyed. Moreover, due to limited access to transport infrastructures and media, the tragedy happening in this region remains unnoticed to a large extent.

Despite efforts deployed by the local opinion leaders, the neighborhood of my village named Kidasi, part of Minembwe region, was attacked on 13^th June 2019 due to a shooting of one person; and a revenge that killed tens. Local population have fled towards Minembwe due to an incident that could have been prevented, if there have been a presence of committed security services. Such incidents build on collective sense of victimization and popular prejudice. Nevertheless, a ‘mundane incident’ can spread widely to hundreds of kilometers. Guns are used to settle family issues as was done in my village’s neighborhood wherein driven by hatred and jealousy, one sibling killed another.

However, when visiting my own village during the fieldwork, I appreciated regular dialogue between ethnic communities. For example, the local opinion leaders managed to save the life of a local chief who was arrested by a group of gunmen. The local chief was released following their interventions. During this visit, I managed to learn also from some members of a committee in charge of reconciliation and dialogue. It was impressive to hear testimonies and efforts of ethnic communities regarding their cohabitation. One could hope that this would be a local model of trust among communities.

My impression was that these local initiatives aiming to sustain peace needed some support. I thought my intervention could be oriented in exchanging ideas with primary and secondary school teachers. We discussed possibilities of re-constructing my primary school made up of woods and straws. Due to poverty and inaccessibility in terms of transport infrastructure, the local population cannot afford costs of a decent building. Moreover, parents are also burdened by remunerating schools’ teachers. Children from these schools drop out due to their inability to pay school fees. My discussion with teachers focused mainly on these features of having a school reconstructed and possibilities to support vulnerable parents.

We had a fruitful exchange and looked forward to support the education of the vulnerable. Together, we introduced a request within a local NGO to see their possibility to help building a school. We shared information about channels through which we can involve state authorities. Beyond that, we discussed negative effects of violent confrontation. We had many old and recent references about how violence can hardly spare any of these ethnic communities. Their role as members of the ‘literate’ class was touched.

Though these were likely minor efforts on my side, I was more oriented on normative ideas to find urgent solutions to the challenges presented in these schools. I seem to have concentrated on ‘literate’ class alone and missed to talk to someone who could just shoot (un) intentionally in the air; and will kill all efforts. As a matter of fact, the shooting by unknown assailants of a member of Babembe ethnic community, has drawn wide retaliation by (counter) attacking and ‘revenge’ on Banyamulenge ethnic community. After leaving my village, I was told that I should have met Mutamba[2]. Why? Was the view I had of the local context be interpreted as an ‘urban bias’?

Regardless of Mutamba’s literacy level, his influence relies on manipulating young people to express themselves by ‘shooting bullets in the air’. I am not yet sure if meeting Mutamba (whom I called later on phone) could have prevented my neighborhood to fall into clashes. However, I argue that in such volatile context coupled with collective victimization guns have more power than anything else. As I question Kalyvas (2006), I felt that, meeting teachers was sufficient. However, I certainly had no clue and clear information on Mutamba. I wish that I could have met many of such people if this would have spared this region.

[1] This is a given name of the guy whom I was indicated he could, by shooting in the air or target someone for his own interests, pull the neighborhood into intractable clashes.

[2] See Kalyvas, Stathis N. (2006:38-48) in “The Logic of Violence in Civil War”. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

About the author:

Delphin Ntanyoma is a PhD candidate at the ISS. His research falls within Conflict Economics and is part of the Economics of Development & Emerging Markets (EDEM) Program. With a background of Economics and Masters’ of Art in Economics of Development from ISS, the researcher runs an online blog that shares personal views on socio-economic and political landscape of the Democratic Republic of Congo but also that of the African Great Lakes Region. The Eastern Congo Tribune Blog can be found on the following link: www.easterncongotribune.com.

When the going gets tough: duty of care and its importance by Siena Uiterwijk Winkel

By ISS Blog Bliss 11 July 201916 May 2020 2778 views

Safety and security for students and staff traveling in complex, remote and hazardous areas is important but often taken for granted at universities. In order to create an embedded, inclusive and efficient policy, it is key to have more exchange of good practice examples among universities and to talk about what is needed in this respect. This article argues these points through discussions that happened in a seminar organised by the ISS on ‘Safety and Security Abroad for Universities’ in cooperation with the Centre for Safety and Development (CSD).

The death of Giulio Regeni, a PhD student at Girton College, Cambridge, in 2016 had a major effect on safety and security policies at the universities in the UK and beyond. Giulio was murdered whilst conducting research in Egypt. There is a growing awareness that universities not only have a legal duty of care towards their students and staff but also a moral obligation as an employer and an educator to provide appropriate support, assistance, training, and to create safe working conditions. Calamities that befall staff and students, such as traffic accidents, muggings, hotel fires, kidnappings, terrorism and natural disasters, not only affect the individuals concerned but they can have an impact on the entire institution. Whether it is academic staff doing research in complex regions or going on visits to partner institutions, students writing their research papers in remote areas or support staff visiting projects in hazardous places, an inclusive safety and security policy should assist staff and students by guiding them to keep risks at minimum.

The ISS organized a seminar on ‘Safety and Security Abroad for Universities’ in cooperation with the CSD. During this seminar, the University of Amsterdam, the University of Copenhagen and the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) shared their experiences and ongoing work to create safer working conditions for researchers in the field. During the discussions, we wrestled with the question of how can we limit risks and provide appropriate support to our researchers without interfering with academic freedom.

Marlies Glasius, a professor at the University of Amsterdam, responded to the lack of existing literature on working safely in countries with authoritarian regimes by collaborating with others to put together a much-needed, co-authored and freely downloadable volume on the topic. The book deals with the importance of good preparation, risk assessment and clear instructions for field work. It also touches on the possible mental impact of working in complex and potentially hazardous research arena.

Daniel Thomas Mosbæk Jensen of the University of Copenhagen works as a mobility officer and focuses on the road towards creating an inclusive safety and security policy. He shared that in order to create support for such a policy in the organization, one should involve different internal and external partners. Clear agreements about each department’s responsibilities concerning risk assessment and insurance should be discussed and formulated in order to make the policy effective.

From IDS, having worked on this topic for many years, important issues were discussed by Tim Catherall and Mustafa Roberts. One key point was that in the UK, universities have a legal duty of care. It is illegal not to abide by the duty of care as an employer. This is also applicable in The Netherlands, although there is less awareness about the implications of such a duty than seems to be the case in the UK. IDS have a university safety and security strategy that is embedded in the organization. The various departments such as the project support teams, risk management sub-committee, the executive board and external travel booking partners have their own set responsibilities.

These range from being responsible for risk assessments and filling in travel notification forms to providing security reports and real-time alerts about safety and security. As every department within the organization has its own responsibilities, it is relatively easy to outline expectations to traveling staff. IDS’s safety and security strategy is based on corporate risk management policy and on a risk register. This risk register involves risk assessment as part of the proposal-writing phase of any project. All the steps within a project that involves travel are based on the outcome of the risk register. This means that if a high-risk level is identified, additional training is provided, previous academic experience in hazardous areas is considered and the necessity for the travel is carefully scrutinised. The policy includes a travel notification procedure that results in a clear overview of who is where and when. So in situation of crisis, the university can find out fast and easily who is in the specific area and who might be in danger.

During the presentations and discussions at the end of the seminar, several key questions came to mind. Whose duty of care is it? What could be the role of donors in enhancing risk awareness? Where does the duty of care stop? What is the right balance between limiting risks and providing appropriate support without interfering with academic freedom?

In the end, we need to be more risk aware. It is time to take sensible and proportionate action within universities to ensure that our staff and students are well-trained, supported and equipped to do the work we ask of them. The duty of care is as global in its implications as is any aspect of university business. The fact that both students and staff operate ever more internationally and thus venture increasingly into potentially hazardous, complex and remote environments in the course of their work and study, brings new challenges to the university in terms of ensuring that the infrastructure provided matches the evolving needs. Are we doing enough in this respect?

Do you have an opinion on this or an experience to contribute? Please share your thoughts in the comment section!

Image Credit: John Payne on Flickr

About the author:

Siena Uiterwijk Winkel is an AMID trainee working as a policy officer at ISS. Her background is in Peace and Conflict studies with a specialization in Child Development and Protection. At ISS she works on Outreach, Engagement and Impact of research.

What does Modi 2.0 mean for the world’s largest democracy? By Meenal Thakur

By ISS Blog Bliss 8 July 201916 May 2020 1919 views

The mandate of India’s general election silenced the ‘if not Modi then who’ debate which had been brewing given the country’s economic instability and rising communal polarization. The historic re-election of Narendra Modi as India’s Prime Minister fundamentally re-ordered the country’s political landscape and reaffirmed people’s faith in him to fulfil their economic aspirations. While critics are wary of the ethno-nationalism that fueled social turmoil under the new government, others look forward to Modi’s promised vision of a ‘New India’ in his second term.

Political analysts called the phenomenon a ‘Modi wave’ that gripped the nation, when in May 2014, Narendra Modi – leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was first elected as the Prime Minister of India by the greatest mandate the country had witnessed in over 30 years.

Five years later, Modi was expected to come back to power but with reduced numbers, however, Modi proved the naysayers wrong. Not only did he get re-elected, but his party won 303 of the 542 parliamentary constituencies, breaking its own record of 282 in 2014. The Modi wave, stronger than ever before, consumed whatever came in its way. BJP candidates, including one with terrorism charges against her, piggybacked on Modi’s popularity and rode their way to the Parliament. The biggest casualty being India’s Grand Old Party- The Indian National Congress which was sent back to the pits as it failed miserably to even win enough seats to become the leader of opposition.

The two sides of Modi’s staggering victory were captured by the Time Magazine days before the election ended. The magazine’s May cover called Modi “India’s Divider-in-chief”- a play on his religious nationalism which has resulted in a hostile environment for Muslims who constitute 14% of India’s population.

However, the magazine also carried a counter-view –‘Modi the Reformer’ where it pinned Modi as India’s best hope for economic reform. A similar line was towed by many publications and political analysts back home- India needs change, the opposition is in shambles and Modi remains the only person who can deliver.

The unassailable megalomaniac

This election and the BJP’s historic mandate raises fundamental questions about the values of secularism and liberalism that are the cornerstones of the world’s largest democracy. While India has taken pride in its diverse social fabric- something that its founding fathers and mothers had cherished deeply as the nation’s strength- Modi’s victory acted as a mirror to the Indian society. Blow by blow, he decimated the popular perception of ‘Unity in Diversity’ and appealed to the darkest corner of the middle-class Hindu’s mind.

Modi fanned, and vehemently so, the burning yet unexposed cauldron of religious intolerance in the Indian society. Issues of rising unemployment and farm distress raised by the opposition were overshadowed by Modi’s hyper nationalism. A strategically crafted election campaign coupled with Modi’s gift of the gab roused powerful emotions in the electorate who were made to believe that Modi was the one who would protect the cow (a sacred animal for Hindus) and the country (in the wake of attacks by Pakistan-based terrorist groups).

To be sure, if the BJP’s thumping victory was a result of a toxic ethno-nationalism which painted the country saffron (the colour of India’s Hindu right wing), it also reflected a resonance with Modi’s economic and foreign policies in the last five years. To his credit, Modi’s first tenure saw improved relations with the United States, China, and Japan. Hugging his counterparts on foreign visits not only made for great optics but also earned him the praise of millions of voters for putting India on the world map.

Back home, his social sector schemes helped him expand the BJP’s voter base from upper-caste Hindus and penetrate the lower caste votes.

Road ahead

The pro-incumbency votes mean that people still believe in Modi’s hallmark motto ‘Sabka saath, sabka vikas’ (Collective effort, inclusive growth) and expect him to deliver on reviving economic growth and addressing rising unemployment and farm distress.

Just a day after the BJP government was re-elected, unemployment figures were released showing unemployment at a 45-year high in India. Many allege that the government suppressed the information until the election was over. While the Modi government’s aversion to transparency is the subject matter for another article, let’s just say that the next five years will make or mar the aspirations of millions of unemployed youth constituting more than 50% of the country’s population.

The government also has the task of reviving India’s aviation sector and continue working on the hard-pressed infrastructure sector with the same rigor as shown in its previous term. Challenges will also arise in the health sector for which the government has announced affordable universal health coverage, popularly known as ‘Modicare’- another testament to Brand Modi.

Economic policies aside, Modi’s next term will also shape what political scientist Yogendra Yadav calls ‘the idea of India.’

Concerns have been expressed about the alarming rise of anti-intellectualism as well as subversion of democratic institutions under the BJP government. For example. the appointment of Hindu nationalist ideologue, Swaminathan Gurumurthy (the key person credited with advising Modi to undertake the disastrous demonetization drive in 2016) to the board of the Reserve Bank of India in 2018. However, this is just one of the salvos of the BJP government privileging Hindu religion and identity politics over science and rationality. BJP ministers have in the past dismissed Darwin’s theory of evolution as unscientific.

The next five years will also be crucial for minorities (mostly Muslims and Dalits) who have suffered episodes of mob lynching by self-appointed cow vigilantes who seem to be getting emboldened since the BJP came to power. Silence on Modi’s part and inflammatory statements made by BJP leaders to incite communalism do not bode well for the minorities in India.

The absolute majority with which Modi won has bolstered the already aggressive Hindu right wing and has heightened fears of India heading towards an authoritarian democracy. Nevertheless, the mandate also gives him the legitimate power to decide, act and deliver and, take India on the path of progress.

Meanwhile, the world watches India to see whether the absolute power wrested in Modi would make our worst fears come true. I hope not.

Image Credit: narendramodiofficial on Flickr

About the author:

Meenal Thakur is from India and is currently pursuing her masters in Governance and Development Policy at The International Institute of Social Studies. A former journalist, she wrote on politics and development for one of India’s leading national dailies before joining ISS.

Brokering India’s public service delivery by Sushant Anand

By ISS Blog Bliss 4 July 201916 May 2020 3203 views

Informal mediation peopled by brokers, touts, middlemen has over the years embedded itself within public service delivery. Even as they are not within the government system, brokers have come to play an important role, and have reshaped it. The Municipality of Delhi is no exception. Through this article I discuss as to who are these people, and how do broker practices impact governance?

I met Pankaj Sharma, 36, while researching a paper on informal institutions. For the past 15 years, he has been assisting people to complete their documentation for any work they may have at the zonal office of New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) in Karol Bagh, a popular locality in the national capital of India. He is not employed by the government, and carries out his business sitting on a boulder or under a tree. He likes to be known as a consultant, but came into this line of work by accident as a result of unemployment.

Driven mainly by patronage networks, brokers, fixers or touts behave as ‘gatekeepers’ may block or expedite access to public services based on the payment of a fee based on his/her special position as an access provider (Kumar & Landy, 2012: 130-131). Brokers and other such informal networks effect a new understanding amongst citizens seeking to make use of public services – services that are out of reach for citizens if not for them.

With respect to the citizen’s services at the South and North Municipalities of Delhi, service seekers had trouble finding their way in the maze of departments at the institutional premises, and thus preferred approaching the broker at a nominal fee. The officers within the institutions viewed these brokers as a complementary part of the service delivery owing to the fact that these are legal consulting type entities. The brokers themselves, however, felt that they should be institutionalised as service partners due to the high volume of services seekers, usual technical glitches, steep learning curve for officials to keep up with systemic interventions, and the general acceptability of the public.

The Helmke & Levitsky (table below) framework of 2004 offers an understanding of the linkage between the existence of informal institutions and formal government systems.

The typology provided by Helmke and Levitsky (2004: 728) is based on the outcomes of informal rules and effectiveness of the formal rules in a given context. The outcome variables dictate whether the result of these rules are in line or against what one may expect from strict adherence of formal rules. The effectiveness variable on the other hand is the extent to which the formal rules are realised in practice. It is understood that where the rules and procedures are ineffective, the probability of enforcement will be low (Helmke and Levitsky, 2004: 728).

The study findings based upon service-seeker surveys & interviews confirmed a direct dependence on these brokers outside any and every municipal office in New Delhi. A sample of 30 service seekers across two municipal zone offices conveyed that 80% of them usually approached brokers to speed up the process of their work at a minimal fee irrespective of their economic status. While the less educated clients seemed more vulnerable to exploitation, the educated, upper class clients too waited for their turns for calculation of property tax, if not for arrangement of paperwork to obtain birth/death certificate. There seemed to be a process oriented equilibrium where an imperfect system seemed to be working well, both at supply and demand side.

The modus operandi of broker-led governance was further mapped against the recent doorstep delivery of public services policy initiated by the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (GNCTD) to understand the inherent complexities in the system of delivery of public services. The doorstep delivery of public services was a set-up where mediation was institutionalised as part of the system to prevent exploitation of service seekers by the brokers who established ‘temporary power centres’ that could exacerbate access problems (Media reports in 2017-18). The public institution arrangement had been plagued with weeding brokers and touts, especially to ease the citizens off the red tape myriad, information asymmetries and bureaucratic violence (Gupta, 2012) especially in matters related to water, electricity and transport authorities.

Mediated governance has no accountability to its users but brokers are usually risk averse and efficient in delivering services to ensure the leverage of positive marketing and, maintaining their space in the ‘mediation market’. In other words, the system is far from being transparent as nobody knows the legitimacy of the means used by fixers. The mediation of public services may well be offering services to citizens at a price in the short-term, but it is a larger reflection of the lack of capacity, complacency and poor design of service delivery systems in the long-run.

This is a shortened version of an article published here by the Accountability Initiative, Centre for Policy Research.

References

Gisselquist, R.M. (2012) Good Governance as a Concept, and Why this Matters for Development Policy. WIDER Working Paper

Gupta, A., 2012. Red tape: Bureaucracy, structural violence, and poverty in India. Duke University Press.

Helmke, G. and S. Levitsky (2004) ‘Informal Institutions and Comparative Poli-tics: A Research Agenda’, Perspectives on politics 2(4): 725-740

Kumar, G. and F. Landy (2012) ‘Vertical Governance: Brokerage, Patronage and Corruption in Indian Metropolises’, ‘Vertical Governance: Brokerage, Patronage and Corrup-tion in Indian Metropolises’, Governing India’s Metropolises, pp. 127-154. Routledge India

About the author:

Sushant Anand is a senior officer at the Accountability Initiative. He has a vast spectrum of experience to work in areas including health, education, WASH, resource management and climate change in organisations like FICCI, IPE Global, Ipsos and TERI.
Sushant is a public policy professional by training and completed his MA in Development Studies from the ISS.

Reclaiming the space for feminism in development practice: the role of ‘femocrats’ by Clara Mi Young Park

By ISS Blog Bliss 1 July 201916 May 2020 2541 views

In spite of international pledges to gender equality and development that leaves no one behind, the current wave of populism and autarchy is materializing in the form of resurging patriarchy, oppression and exclusion. This has spurred a counter movement of feminist activism across the globe. At this juncture, this article discusses the role of feminists in development organizations that can and must also do their part to promote change that is premised on gender and social justice.

With the adoption of the Sustainable Development Agenda 2030, the international community committed to transformational change that puts gender equality, human rights and leaving no one behind at the center of sustainable development.

At the same time, with the rise of populist, fundamentalist and extremist politics, not only has the space for democratic civic expression and engagement shrunk, but women human rights defenders are also increasingly the target of violence and oppression. The recent report of the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders highlights the rise of “misogynistic, sexist and homophobic speech by prominent political leaders in recent years, normalizing violence against women and gender non-conforming people”. Equally worrisome are the spread of “gender ideology” advanced by certain groups as a threat to morals, religious and family values, widespread militarization and use of violence and force, and globalization and neoliberal policies that disempower women and exacerbate power and social inequalities (United Nations General Assembly 2019, 7).

The current political scenario calls for an urgent action and convergence among those committed to social and gender justice. As we approach the 25^th anniversary of the Beijing Platform for Action in 2020 with a gender equal world still a chimera, we need to step up our efforts and “push back against the push back” on women’s rights, as the Secretary General of the United Nations Antonio Gutierrez said in opening the 63^rd Committee on the Status of Women in March this year.[1] Testament to that is the new wave of feminist activism that is spreading across the globe. Feminists working in development can and must also play their part.

The role of feminists who embrace gender as a profession in development bureaucracies – referred to as ‘femocrats’ (Goetz 2004, 137) – has not always been fully appreciated by feminist activists and academics, although there have also been genuine attempts to recognize the contribution of and the hardship faced by femocrats (Goetz, 2004). In the past, this divide reflected critical feminist reflections on the heels of the gender mainstreaming project. On the one hand, gender equality had become an integral part of the development agenda and sustainability discourse, opening the door for feminists to engage in high level political fora and processes (True 2003). On the other hand, by coming to mainstream, gender lost “its political and analytical bite”, sometimes leading to simplification and essentialization of the feminist project (Cornwall 2007, 69).

This juncture, however, requires alliance building and bridging rather than dividing. For those like myself who navigate multiple positionalities, as feminists, gender and development professionals, women and men from different cultural, ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds, the question is: How can our work make a difference while being apparently more acquiescent to different interests, including of bureaucracies that are slow and/or reluctant to change?

Despite the challenges, the present moment is ripe with opportunities. While not perfect, Agenda 2030 opens the way to tackling a broad range of structural gender inequalities, including violence against women and girls, unpaid care work, sexual and reproductive health and rights, access to productive resources, and women’s access to decision making (Razavi, 2016). Increasingly in development, the call is for feminist and gender-transformative action. Action that transforms and subverts the traditional structures that perpetuate gender, social, power hierarchies and, injustices – be it in environmental, agricultural and rural development or climate change policy and praxis. Such transformation implies moving beyond technical and technocratic approaches and fixes to addressing gender inequalities. It implies grounding the design of development action on a thorough understanding of the power and social dynamics at play in a specific context. It calls for recognizing the intersectional and compounding nature of inequality and oppression.

Within this context, femocrats can advocate for stronger political commitment and for policies and programmes that take the Agenda 2030 pledges seriously and address the structural barriers to gender equality and the realization of women and girls’ human rights. Femocrats can also push for increased accountability towards international instruments and conventions. Importantly, femocrats can expedite the promotion of a re-politicized understanding of gender and the positioning of intersectional gender justice on the agenda of global policy fora, where social justice-based approaches are easier to take forward. Finally, femocrats can play a unique role in opening doors while facilitating dialogue among parties and actors.

It is thus the special duty of any femocrat to fight from inside the system while creating alliances with likeminded people from different backgrounds. For example, femocrats can promote dialogue and create formal spaces and terms of engagement[2] of women’s groups, LGBTQI groups, social movements, farmers’ and fishers’ organizations and indigenous and minority groups with government actors, engaged researchers and other actors. This is needed to build the kind of sustainable coalitions that can bridge initiatives from below with initiatives from above, thus opening the space for more democratic participation and decision-making while advancing a vision of development grounded in gender and social justice.

[1] Opening remarks made at the opening session of CSW63, held in New York, 12 March 2019, which the author attended.

[2] As Jonathan Fox (2009: 489) notes, “balanced decision-making processes are especially difficult to construct, especially across cultural and organizational divides” but coalitions can become sustainable “when grounded in shared terms of engagement”.

References

Cornwall, Andrea. 2007. “Revisiting the ‘Gender Agenda.’” IDS Bulletin 38 (2): 69–78.

Goetz, Anne Marie. 2004. “Reinvigorating Autonomous Feminist Spaces.” IDS Bulletin 35 (4): 137–40. doi:10.1111/j.1759-5436.2004.tb00169.x.

Razavi, Shahra. 2016. “The 2030 Agenda: Challenges of Implementation to Attain Gender Equality and Women’s Rights.” Gender & Development 24 (1): 25–41. doi:10.1080/13552074.2016.1142229.

True, Jacqui. 2003. “Mainstreaming Gender in Global Public Policy.” International Feminist Journal of Politics 5 (3): 368–96. doi:10.1080/1461674032000122740.

United Nations General Assembly. 2019. “Situation of Women Human Rights Defenders. Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders. Human Rights Council. Fortieth Session. 25 February-22 March 2019.” A/HRC/40/60. Promotion and Protection of All Human Rights, Civil, Political, Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Including the Right to Development. New York: United Nations.

Image Credit: Fibonacci Blue on Flickr

About the author:

Clara Mi Young Park is the Regional Gender, Rural and Social Development Officer of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Office for Asia- Pacific. She has recently earned her Doctoral Degree at the International Institute of Social Studies with a thesis on “Gender, generation and agrarian change: cased from Myanmar and Cambodia”. This piece is partially based on self-reflections about doing feminist research included in the doctoral thesis.

European Peace Science Conference | Why do economic sanctions work? Do they? Will they? By Peter A.G. van Bergeijk, Binyam A. Demena, Alemayehu Reta, Gabriela Benalcazar Jativa and Patrick Kimararungu

By ISS Blog Bliss 27 June 201918 May 2020 3623 views

Political scientists and economists claim to understand the mechanisms of economic sanctions as a tool for foreign policy and assert to have provided convincing statistical evidence for their theories. In this contribution we argue that their theories and evidence are significantly influenced by publication bias. What does this mean for our understanding of the history of economic sanctions? Further what are the implications for the future application of the sanction instrument?

Economic sanctions have become a much more important instrument in the international arena since the 1990s. Indeed, 1990 is a watershed year. It is the year that marks the fall of the Soviet Union and thereby the end of the superpower conflict that complicated United Nations security sanctions. It is the year of the sanctions against Saddam Hussain’s Iraq. Sanctions that stood out, because they were imposed within a week, truly multilateral (the first case, for example, in which Switzerland participated), and covered both trade and financial flows. Also, the imposition could and was monitored closely by means of a blockade by the navy. The sanctions against Iraq are the show case where all economic conditions for success were met. And, yet they failed.

It may of course have been the case that the goal of the sanctions was impossible to meet because giving in would mean the end (and actually the death) of the regime. So, research continued to investigate what factors are important for sanctions to be successful. We have investigated three determinants of sanctions’ success by means of a meta-analysis of thirty-six studies that were published in the period between 1985 – 2018 (most of these studies appeared in peer-reviewed journals). These determinants are trade linkage (economic sanctions do not make much sense if the sanction target and sanction sender do not trade), sanction duration (sanctions probably need to be quick and unexpected to have a maximum impact) and prior relations between sender and target (sanctions may work better against friends than foes).

Based on this, the first conclusion is that the research findings are not converging. This is illustrated in Figure 1 indicating the consensus of the literature until the turn of the millennium. It shows that the trade linkage is a determinant of sanction success, but after say 2005 the literature increasingly disagrees. We find the same pattern for both sanctions’ duration and prior relations.

Figure 1 Reported coefficients for trade linkage in 32 studies (a positive coefficient means: the study finds that more trade linkage is positively correlated with sanction success)

In our analysis, we focussed on publication bias as a potential source of the heterogeneity of the research. Publication bias may be introduced by the science publication industry. Editors and referees force scientists to look for significance and authors in a publish-or-perish-environment may be tempted to report the regression with the significant coefficient although “the other million of regressions” that they run were insignificant. Authors may also self-select because they are, for example, convinced of the need to use sanctions and therefore, want to show that sanctions work. Or they are ideologically inclined to argue against limiting international trade flows. We use meta-analysis to measure the extent of bias with respect to the findings for trade linkage, duration and prior relations. Consistently, we find a significant bias, so strong that the underlying average effect actually is zero.

Our findings fit in the so-called replication crisis that is a general and disturbing trend in science. Scientifically, this is disturbing because it hurts the credibility and reliability of our knowledge production in the hearth.

In the end, it poses a clear challenge for policy makers inclined to design evidence-based policies and an imperative question then becomes – what evidence to consider?

This contribution is based on a research project for MA students at the Institute of Social Studies for which Alemayehu Rita, Gabriela Benalcazar Jativa and Patrick Kimararungu received the Award for the best Research Paper Project 2018. It is the second article in a series related to the 19^th Jan Tinbergen European Peace Science Conference that was hosted by the ISS from June 24th to 26th June 2019. Read the first article here.

Image Credit: IsaacMao on Flickr

About the authors:

Peter van Bergeijk (www.petervanbergeijk.org) is Professor of International Economics and Macroeconomics at the ISS.

Binyam Afewerk Demena is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR). His PhD and MA in Development Economics from the ISS, EUR. His research interests relate to primary empirical research and meta-analysis in development economics, international economics, fishery economics, health economics and other related issues. He has published articles in Applied Economics, Journal of Economic Surveys, Journal of International Trade and Economic Development, and Third World Quarterly among others.

Alemayehu Sisay Reta is a research assistant at the ISS. His research and professional experiences are in the areas of Development, Economics, Economic sanction, Project Feasibility Studies, Business and Economic analysis, Monitoring and Impact Evaluation and Program Development. He has an MA graduate in Economics of Development, 2018, International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam.

Gabriela Benalcazar Jativa is an MA graduate in Economics of Development, 2018, International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam. She specializes in quality assurance but she is also interested in researching issues concerning local development and meta-analysis.

Patrick Bitandaro Kimararungu is an MA graduate in Economics of Development, 2018, International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam. Patrick’s MA thesis focused on Meta-Analysis on Economic Sanctions. His interests lie in the continuation of economic policy research especially in developing countries.

Do teachers discriminate in occupational expectations and grading? by Shradha Parashari

By ISS Blog Bliss 24 June 201918 May 2020 4111 views

Marks assigned by teachers tend to motivate students, have bearing on their career choices, admission to universities and affect students’ self-esteem. Existing literature shows that teachers may hold preconceived stereotypes and implicit biases based on their students’ ethnicity, caste, class, and sex, which influence the grades that the teachers award. Consistent with that, my own research among 120 teachers in 8 private and 11 Indian government schools found evidence of teacher discrimination on the basis of students’ caste and socioeconomic status.

Marks assigned by teachers tend to motivate and incentivize students (Van Ewijk, 2011). Even basic in-class tests are important for students and in the long term are likely to have a bearing on their career choices (Hanna and Linden, 2012). Lavy (2008) points out that marks given to students by teachers not only determine students’ class ranking and admission to universities, but also act as a reward or punishment that can either boost or lower students’ self-esteem.

With regard to teacher influence on test scores, existing research suggests that teachers hold preconceived stereotypes, implicit biases that affect teachers’ expectations based on students’ ethnicity, socio-economic status, caste, sex and physical attractiveness which may influence the grades that they award. Psychological research shows that teachers may look hard for errors while marking essays or tests of minority students so that the results conform to their expectation. That is called an expectation confirmation bias (Sprietsma, 2012).

Experimental studies in the economics literature confirm this. For example, Hanna and Linden’s (2012) study on India shows that teachers assigned lower marks to low caste students relative to high caste students. Similarly, Sprietsma (2012) shows evidence for Germany of low marks assigned to essays written by students with Turkish names relative to essays by students with German names. Tenenbaum and Ruck (2007) find that US-American teachers hold lower expectations for minority African-American students relative to their Caucasian peers.

Consistent with these findings, my own research in 8 private and 11 government schools among 120 teachers in Delhi found evidence of teacher discrimination in occupational expectations (expectation of career paths of students) and grades awarded on the basis of students’ caste and socioeconomic status. To uncover this discrimination, I utilized a randomized experiment.

The experiment of the study was conducted in three stages. In the first stage, students were randomly selected and invited to write essays on the topic “My future career ambition” in which student’s described their background, occupational paths/career paths and challenges to achieve those career paths. In the second stage, I randomly manipulated students’ caste and socioeconomic status on the set of essays. The last and third stage involved visiting schools and requesting teachers to mark essays on a score of 100 and rate occupational expectations (expectations about student’s career paths) on a score of 5. The findings from my research are in line with existing literature on teacher discrimination in schools.

Discrimination confirmed

I found that teachers discriminate in holding occupational expectations and grading. Teachers assigned lower occupational expectations for essays assigned to low caste and low socio-economic status relative to high caste and high socio-economic status. However, high socio-economic status mitigates the effect of low caste. Consistent with this bias in occupational expectations estimates show a bias in grading which is consistent with Sprietsma’s (2012) findings that lower expectations of teachers against minority students might further perpetuate discrimination in grading.

Figure 1 and 2: Mean teacher’s occupational expectations and Marks

Essays assigned low caste and low socio-economic status characteristics are assigned 3.64 points lower marks relative to essays assigned to high caste and high socio-economic status. Given the ultra-competitive nature of schooling in India and the importance of grades in determining access to higher education, a 3.6 point disadvantage is substantial. There is also a trade-off between caste and socio-economic status. Belonging to high socio-economic status lowers the extent of discrimination faced by low caste students as marking bias falls by 0.8 points for low caste and high socio-economic status students. The research further explains the origin of these results and finds that the discrimination against low caste students arises from a majority number of high caste teachers in the sample and not from the low caste teachers.

Conclusion

Education has the power to transform lives of students who belong to minority classes and castes. However; they may not be able to reap advantage of education if teachers discriminate in occupational expectations and grading. Since discrimination is associated with feelings of inferiority among students and low self-esteem adversely affects their admission to universities, their career choices and their overall development (Hoff and Pandey, 2006), teacher discrimination is a matter of concern. There is an urgent need for proper training mechanisms in schools that address teacher discrimination, requesting teachers to take implicit bias tests, educating teachers about stereotypes and implicit bias that might bias teachers’ expectations against minority students and perpetuate discrimination in grading. Further formulating a policy of standardized objective grading can also aid in minimizing discrimination in grades awarded.

Link to the author’s research paper: https://www.iss.nl/en/news/teacher-discrimination-occupational-expectations-and-grading-shradha-parashari

References

Casteel, C.A. (1998) ‘Teacher–student Interactions and Race in Integrated Class-rooms’, The Journal of Educational Research 92(2): 115-120.

Ferguson, R.F. (2003) ‘Teachers’ Perceptions and Expectations and the Black-White Test Score Gap’, Urban Education 38(4): 460-507.

Hanna, R.N. and L.L. Linden (2012) ‘Discrimination in Grading’, American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 4(4): 146-168.

Hoff, K. and P. Pandey (2006) ‘Discrimination, Social Identity, and Durable Inequalities’, American Economic Review 96(2): 206-211.

Lavy, V. (2008) ‘Do Gender Stereotypes Reduce Girls’ Or Boys’ Human Capital Out-comes? Evidence from a Natural Experiment’, Journal of Public Economics 92(10-11): 2083-2105.

Sprietsma, M. (2012) ‘Discrimination in Grading: Experimental Evidence from Primary School Teachers’, Empirical Economics 45(1): 523-538.

Tenenbaum, H.R. and M.D. Ruck (2007) ‘Are Teachers’ Expectations Different for Racial Minority than for European American Students? A Meta-Analysis.’, Journal of Educational Psychology 99(2): 253.

Van Ewijk, R. (2011) ‘Same Work, Lower Grade? Student Ethnicity and Teachers’ Subjective Assessments’, Economics of Education Review 30(5): 1045-1058.

Image Credit: Shradha Parashari

About the author:

Shradha Parashari is an ISS alumna of the 2017-18 MA batch and a Research Associate at Energy Policy Institute at University of Chicago-India. This blog is concerned with the author’s award-winning research that was conducted under supervision of Professor Arjun Singh Bedi and Professor Matthias Rieger.

Creative Development | “Do I exist”? Miktivism for Land Rights and Identity in Ethiopia by Tatek Abebe

By ISS Blog Bliss 20 June 20195 October 2020 5957 views

Miktivism—the use of music for the purposes of activism and social change—has become a popular strategy of resistance among Ethiopian youth. I use the term miktivism to refer to the practice of employing music to advance causes of social justice by youth who do not claim to be activists, at least not openly. This blog explores an example of miktivism: young musicians deploying what they regard as their talents and resource—music and microphone—to highlight questions of land and identity in the Oromia region, Ethiopia.

Land grabbing in the Oromia region

The Oromia region is the largest of Ethiopia’s nine federal regions. Its inhabitants, the ethnic Oromo people, account for about 35% of the country’s population. Oromo people inhabit lands surrounding Addis Ababa and also in west, central, and south Ethiopia. Due to its proximity to Addis Ababa, the Oromia region has been subjected to continuous encroachment by industrial and real estate developments driven by Ethiopian and international investors and suffered from land grabbing driven by foreign agri-investments (e.g. Lavers 2012).

Maalan Jira? / Do I exist?

The struggle to retain agricultural land has been at the core of widespread youth protests in the Oromo region during the period 2015-2018. Music plays a key role in these protests and the song Maalan Jira by Oromo artist Hacaaluu Hundeessaa serves as a prime example.

Maalan Jira is a social-political song disguised by love lyrics in Affan Oromo language. The song was released in 2015, at the beginning phase of the youth protests and has had close to 6 million views on the YouTube.

Land grab as an existential threat

Maalan jiraa, maalan, jiraa, maalan jiraa, Yaa Gaa-laa-nee…
Maalan jiraa maalan, caccabsee na nyaatee jiraa
Ani hin jiruu… Ani hin jiruu, Ani hin jiruu… Yaa Ga-laa-ne, Ani hin jiruu Kukkutee na nyaate xurri

Do I exist Galaane? No Galaane I do not exist; they chopped and ate my liver [vital organs].
What is left of me Galaane? They broke up my bones and ate them.

Koo Galaanee tiyyaa, Sululta loon hin tiksuu darabaatti galchiisa,

My dear Galaane, Sululta cannot let the cattle to graze freely; they have to fence them.

The lyrics present contemporary land grabs as an existential threat. This is done by drawing an analogy between the human body/anatomy and land as a vital means of existence for the rural population. Hacaalu Hundessa repeatedly expresses that his ‘bones are broken up’, bit by bit, in order to exemplify how agricultural land is slowly becoming a scarce resource for farmers. Phrases like ‘vital organs chopped away’ and ‘eaten up’ represent first of all the grabbing and selling of rural land to investors. These existential metaphors also resonate with one of the most popular chants during the protests: ‘lafti keenya lafee keenya’ (‘our land is our bone’). Secondly, the music video and the lyrics refer to the need to fence cattle because of declining open pastures. Oromo people have a long tradition of letting their cattle unfettered in the field. Cattle is brought home only when they are to be milked or slaughtered. This is just one example of illustrating intensified land grab in the name of development, experienced by local population not as a mere change in livelihoods, but as a compromise to what it means to be Oromo.

Historical repetition of grabbing of Oromo lands

Laal Galoo-too, Gullalleen kan Tufaa, gaara Abbichuu turii, Galaan Finfinnee..see.
Laal Galoo-too, Silaa akka jaalalaa Laal Galoo-too, wal irraa hin fagaannuu Laal Galoo-too, Jarraa nu fageessee.

Look my Galoo, Gullallee belonged to Tufaa, Abbichuu was on the hills, Galaan farmed Finfinnee.
We, the lovers, should have never been separated, but those people separated us.

The main protagonist in the song is a woman named Gelaanee, who is affectionately referred to as ‘Galoo’. Gelaanee also refers to a queen of one of the Oromo clans which was conquered by Emperor Menellik II during his expansion in the 20^th century. Following this conquest and resembling contemporary developments, queen Gelaanee’s land became incorporated into Ethiopia’s capital.

Malaan Jira recounts the violent expansion of Finfinnee into Addis Ababa through the gradual pushing away of indigenous Oromo clans. The song laments how—through land grabs—people are losing not just their land but also their rural mode of life. It refers to localities like Gullelle, Abbichuu, Galaan and, Sululta etc; places where Oromo clans lived for generations. These areas are now either part of Addis Ababa or suggested for incorporation into Addis Ababa’s Integrated Development Plan. This development plan, locally known as the master killer plan, is the main trigger for the ‘Ethiopian Spring’.

‘Separation of lovers’

Diiganii gaara sanaa, Gaara diigamuu hin-mallee,
Nu baasaan addaan baanee, nuu addaan bahuu hin-mallee.
Seeqanii sesseeqanii, kan gar gar nu baasan jaraa—yii

They dug that hill, a hill that should never have been dug/destroyed.
They separated us, the people who should never have been separated.
Little by little, they cut us apart [alienated us].

Maalan Jira effectively mobilizes a number of metaphors to express social critique in a guarded manner. For example, the phrase ‘Separation of lovers’ refers to the growing rift between Oromia region and Finfinnee brought about by the allocation of its land for the development of Addis Ababa. The metaphor also stands for the ethnic-based federalism pursued by the Ethiopian government, amplifying differences rather than shared interests. Both the song and music video tell stories of several generations of farmers who went on to cultivate vast areas of land, yet the present generation does not even have a ‘ground to sleep on.’ The music video alludes to systemic dispossession, i.e. the process of political economy altering the material grounds of life as well as the ways in which people struggle for control of social reproduction.

Maalan Jira is a prime example of the miktivism embraced by Oromo youth. It shows how youth mobilize historical references and powerful metaphors, describing the loss of identity, way of life, livelihoods and lands of Oromo people. Yet, by using ‘Galoo’ they can just claim it is an innocent love song. This strategy enables youth to elude the risks engendered by voicing political issues openly.

Reference

Lavers, T. (2012). ‘Land grab’ as development strategy? The political economy of agricultural investment in Ethiopia. The Journal of Peasant Studies, 39 (1), 105-132.

This article is part of a series on Creative Development.

About the author:

Tatek Abebe is a professor at the Norwegian University of Sciences and Technology (NTNU) where he convenes the MPhil in childhood studies. His current research focuses on generational implications of development/poverty with an emphasis on young people’s lives and transitions into adulthood. He conducts ethnographic and participatory fieldwork in diverse African contexts.

European Peace Science Conference | NEPS and the ISS Celebrate Jan Tinbergen with a Home Run by S. Mansoob Murshed

By ISS Blog Bliss 13 June 201918 May 2020 3070 views

In less than two weeks from today, the ISS will host the 19^th Jan Tinbergen European Peace Science Conference, which will witness the presentation of nearly a hundred papers in quantitative conflict studies. But who was Jan Tinbergen, and why was a whole conference named after him? In the first article of our series, Mansoob Murshed sheds light on these questions.

The year 2019 marks fifty years since the Nobel Prize for Economics was instituted. The first award went to the two founding fathers of econometrics (techniques applied to empirical data to test theoretical hypotheses) namely the Dutch economist Jan Tinbergen and the Norwegian economist Ragnar Frisch. This year also happens to be a quarter of a century since the passing of Jan Tinbergen. Between 24^th and 26^th June, the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) of the Erasmus University of Rotterdam (EUR) will host the 19^th Jan Tinbergen European Peace Science Conference, also known as the Network of European Peace Science (NEPS) conference.

It is fitting that the Institute does so for a number of reasons. Jan Tinbergen was a founding member of the Economists for Peace and Security, and perhaps the society’s most distinguished doyen on this side of the Atlantic Ocean. Although it is well known that Professor Tinbergen enjoyed a long tenure at the Erasmus School of Economics, what is less known is that the ISS awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1962. Jan Tinbergen was a founding member of the Economists for Peace and Security. He was, incidentally, also one of the founding members of the Econometric Society back in the 1930s. Unsurprising, as he was one of the progenitors of this particular art.

Underpinning all of Tinbergen’s contributions to Economics is his desire for the usefulness of research. The extent of inequality in society during his youth in the 1920s (as is once again the case with a vengeance), as well as his first-hand experience of poverty in Leiden caused him to abandon a potentially brilliant career as a Physicist to become an Economist; Physics’ loss was Economics’ gain. He, however, brought over extensive intellectual arbitrage from Physics (and Mathematics) into Economics. Many others shared his passion for measurement, but he went to systematize it by inventing econometrics, a statistical tool that enables the testing of economic theories, and he preferred theory to be mathematical.

As such, he devised the first empirical macroeconomic model for an economy, even though the operation of the model was hampered in the case of the Netherlands by the paucity of data (unlike in the UK or USA). The 1930s was an era plagued by the scourge of mass unemployment in the industrialized world, just as nowadays the immiserisation of many at work afflicts most societies (a phenomenon otherwise known as precarious employment). Tinbergen was invited by the League of Nations to work on business cycles, because these cyclical swings were the major cause of unemployment.

At one time, Tinbergen was also the leading advisor to the League’s successor, the United Nations, on development policies, which most famously resulted in the benchmark for the quantum of development assistance to be donated by rich nations. (0.7% of national income), although Tinbergen really would have wanted more to go to poorer nations. Even more presciently, Tinbergen favoured world government, as he feared governance at the level of the nation state risked becoming myopic.[1]

Tinbergen managed to connect the inseparable concepts of welfare and security[2], as well as to formulate the notion of global security[3]. Underpinning the notion of world security is yet another inseparability between military (or security) expenditure and development assistance for poorer countries. A degree of convergence in average incomes across nations was required, and to bring that about, military expenditure needed to be curtailed so as to free up more money for aid.

It is worth reiterating Tinbergen’s commitment to the societal relevance of Economics, the need to engage in advisory work, and the overwhelming salience of finding solutions to economic problems, especially poverty and inequality between nations. His style of communication was refreshingly free of our current obsession with memes and soundbites. For all of these reasons, and more besides, it is fitting that this year’s NEPS conference, which will witness the presentation of nearly a hundred papers in quantitative conflict studies, will be held at the ISS, in the Hague, the home town of one of the pioneers of the economics of conflict, who was also one of the most ardent and distinguished champions of disarmament and development assistance.

[1] See Kol, J and P De Wolff (1993), Tinbergen’s Work: Change and Continuity, De Economist, 141.

[2] Tinbergen, J and D Fischer (1987) Warfare and Welfare, New York; St. Martin’s Press.

[3] Tinbergen, J (1990) World Security and Equity, Aldershot: Edward Elgar.

This is the first article in a series related to the 19^th Jan Tinbergen European Peace Science Conference that will be hosted by the ISS from June 24th to 26th June 2019.

Image Credit: Nationaal Archief, Den Haag, Rijksfotoarchief: Fotocollectie Algemeen Nederlands Fotopersbureau (ANEFO) under a CC license. The image was cropped.

About the author:

S. Mansoob Murshed is Professor of the Economics of Peace and Conflict at the ISS. His research interests are in the economics of conflict, resource abundance, aid conditionality, political economy, macroeconomics and international economics.

Why Feelings Matter in Global Politics: Aesthetics, Vulnerability and Playing with Language by Aoileann Ní Mhurchú

By ISS Blog Bliss 10 June 201918 May 2020 2958 views

What happens when we foreground the aesthetics of language -– that is the feelings, perceptions and imaginations it invokes – when thinking about resistance in voice? Aoileann Ní Mhurchú argues that we can begin to think about the importance of vulnerability in language rather than just mastery of language. Looking in particular at shame and failure as feelings in language she considers playfulness as an imaginative response to these.

Postcolonial resistance has often been linked to the act of mastering indigenous non-European languages, rather than just European languages for people to voice their concerns, alternative ideas and challenges against dominant structures of power (example: Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o). However, such arguments also stress the importance of the aesthetics of language – understood as the invoked feelings, perceptions and imaginations. For example, Thiong’o (1983: 385) discusses ‘use of words, images, inflexion of voices to effect different tones’, and the significance of this to ‘human experience, culture and, perception of reality’.

What happens, therefore, when we go so far as to foreground an aesthetics approach to language when thinking about voice? I argue that we begin to think about vulnerability rather than just mastery in the possibilities of ‘voice’ against dominant structures of power.

For example, in postcolonial Ireland the revitalization of the indigenous Gaelic language was a key element in the reconstruction of a national identity in the early 1900s after 800 years of British colonial rule. In 1901 however only 16.5% of the population spoke Gaelic; and today, despite several revival attempts, less than 2% speak it on a daily basis outside of education. As someone who did grow up speaking Gaelic (alongside English) at home, I came to realise that there is a great shame which descends on people that rise up against their oppressors to claim an identity and self-determination only to wake up every day and fail to perform that identity ‘properly’.

Rather than mastery at play here, what is felt is a general sense of shame and thus vulnerability: both by those who do not speak Gaelic sufficiently or properly, which undermines their sense of Irishness, and by those of us who did command it somewhat for being ‘too Irish’, and thus too different from the majority. Indeed, Franz Fanon and Jacques Derrida explore the illusion, in their opinion, of the ability to escape colonial corporal and psychological otherness through mastery of a European language or through mastery of some pre-existing indigenous language. They emphasize how the psychic shame of Otherness undermines the ability of the colonized to truly inhabit either the European language – given the accompanying fear of performing it improperly without the correct accent or heritage – as well as indigenous/heritage languages which have been devalued for so long.

Decolonial literature accentuates an aesthetic approach that enables different ways of knowing reality rather than adding to what we already know as reality (Anzaldúa 2000; hooks 1989; Mignolo 2000; Mignolo and Vázquez 2013). Therefore, I want to move beyond simply equating vulnerability with shame and failure to exploring new social relations (Butler 2006) which such vulnerability enables – and specifically, the play with language which is enacted as a response.

In the Irish case, play with language can be seen in the haphazard mixing of broken Gaelic with English – summed up nicely by one rap song (and the controversial proverb) Is Fearr Gaeilge Briste Na Bearla Cliste, (‘Broken Irish is better than Clever English’). In many European countries we see today furthermore the adoption of playful vernacular language through the children and grandchildren of those who have migrated from former colonies. While such people of colonial heritage in these European countries may have multiple linguistic and cultural identifications; interestingly not all of these are places they visit or spend much time in, nor languages which they speak very well, nor cultures they are necessarily overly familiar with. What happens then is, that they use aspects of available heritage languages – words from here and there that they come to learn – and mix these together with the European language which they have grown up with (See Ní Mhurchú 2014 for examples and further discussion).

For bell hooks (1989: 17), vernacular language resembles the colonizer’s tongue but has undergone a transformation: ‘it includes recollections of broken tongues, given us ways to speak that decolonise our very minds, our very beings’. Officially termed a multi-ethnolect or ‘contact language’, a populist view is that these vernaculars are simply a random accumulation of errors; or examples of youth-speech which people grow out of (Radhhani 2016; Wiese 2014).

Refusing this, critical socio-linguists argue that multi-ethnolects are a form of creative expression of the self. Here creativity is understood beyond mastery of a single language to the creation of variety in language use (Wiese 2013). Multi-ethnolects are understood to have been developed in situations of vulnerability where the existing ‘repertoires of languages available to the people in contact did not provide a sufficiently effective tool for communication’ (Bakker and Matras 2013: 1)

The importance of vulnerability here as creativity is something that I am currently exploring in my research to open up understandings of hybrid/ambiguous experiences of identity and belonging.

This is a version of a presentation Aoileann Ní Mhurchú gave as part of the 2019 ISS Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) roundtable series in February this year.

About the authors:

Aoileann Ní Mhurchú is a lecturer in International Politics at the University of Manchester. Her research interests lie in the areas of critical citizenship studies, international migration, sovereignty and subjectivity, and theories of time and space. She recognises the limits of existing frameworks for understanding experiences of political resistance and participation from positions of marginality or ambiguity. And therefore engages with aesthetic forms of meaning and representation in literature and vernacular music and language.

EADI/ISS Series | Solidarity, Peace, and Social Justice – will these values prevail in times of fundamental threats to democracy? By Jürgen Wiemann

By ISS Blog Bliss 6 June 20195 October 2020 2815 views

In today’s world of constantly rising inequality, increasingly authoritarian governments and anti-immigration sentiments, solidarity, peace and social justice seem to be more out of reach than ever. In a joint series by the EADI and ISS in preparation for the 2020 General Conference “Solidarity, Peace and Social Justice”, Jürgen Wiemann, EADI vice president, reflects on the possibilities we have to preserve these values.

Widening gaps

Solidarity, peace and social justice – the title for the 2020 EADI/ISS General Conference – are foundations and goals for a good society, a functioning democracy and for a global system that guarantees peace and facilitates international cooperation. Yet, our world seems to be moving in the opposite direction. Peace is no longer guaranteed when the global order established after the Second World War is not only attacked from outside but – even more disturbing – undermined from within; solidarity is waning with rising levels of immigration to Europe and the US, provoking resentment by those who already feel left behind; finally, social justice has become a utopian goal in a world of constantly rising inequalities.

The widening gap between incomes and wealth of the rich and the squeezed middle class is already perceived as a threat to democracy in Western countries. With political will, income inequality could be alleviated by progressive taxation. What may be even more relevant is the cultural alienation between the old middle class threatened by the negative consequences of globalisation, and the new middle class of professionals, academics and managers who benefit from globalisation and modernisation in general. Educated people see their incomes rise with a widening range of job opportunities through the internet and international job markets. They feel enriched by other cultures and exotic dishes and tend to acclaim openness and immigration. Their cosmopolitan tastes and lifestyles let them look down upon ordinary, less educated people who see their skills devalued by new technologies and new modes of production and distribution until their jobs are finally replaced by machines or outsourced to low-wage countries.

The widening economic and cultural divide between the old and the new middle class brings authoritarian populists to the fore who emphasise the resentment and anger of those left behind, reaffirming their perception of unfair treatment and even neglect by the elites and the media. Obviously, the populists do not have a plan to alleviate the economic distress of their constituency. On the contrary, their role is to defend the existing inequalities by exploiting the widespread resentment against the threats from globalisation. However, economic nationalism will not alleviate the plight of their electorate but will jeopardise jobs and compress incomes of the old middle class even further.

Whatever the medium and long-term economic effects of the nationalist policy agenda will be, it threatens to undermine the post-war global order from within. This would have dire consequences not only for the world economy, but also for international cooperation and global governance. It opens the door for other authoritarian governments to pursue their illiberal agenda and what they perceive as national interest without respect for their neighbours’ interests and the rest of the world.

From the end of history to the end of Western hegemony

After the Second World War, a global order was erected in order to prevent another world war and enhance peaceful international cooperation through trade, foreign direct investment and development cooperation. It was based on a set of values and principles enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the UN Charter. An array of international organisations was founded to implement the principles of peaceful international cooperation.

Trade liberalization and market access to the United States helped the war-damaged economies of Germany, Japan and the rest of Western Europe to recover faster than had been expected at the end of the war. Since the 1960s, a handful of smaller South East Asian countries implemented a development strategy of export-oriented industrialisation which let them catch up with the West within one generation, in terms of both income and technological capacity. Their success was celebrated as East Asian Miracle. In those days already, American and European industries felt the pressure from labour-intensive industries in South East Asia and Japan. Yet, in the 1970s, Western economies were more affected by two oil shocks and the ensuing stagflation. On both sides of the Atlantic the answer to that challenge was to stimulate economic growth through unleashing market forces, i.e. the neoliberal agenda.

That was the beginning of globalisation unchained, with China embracing capitalism in 1978 and copying the East Asian model of export-oriented industrialisation on a large scale. For two decades, economists and international financial institutes like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund took the rapid rise of China, India and other Asian emerging markets as proof of the effectiveness of the Washington Consensus that prescribes trade liberalisation for goods, services and capital. Millions of Chinese, Koreans, Indians, Indonesians etc. have been lifted out of poverty in one generation.

The complementary stress for the industrialised countries resulting from increasing imports of ever more sophisticated products from East Asia – job losses, abandoned industries, declining communities and regions – was vindicated by economists as necessary industrial restructuring that would eventually make everybody better off. Today, we realise that this was an unfounded promise: the incomes of the old middle class have stagnated since decades while the rich have enjoyed increasing incomes and wealth. The middle-class squeeze was especially strong in the US and the UK, two countries whose governments had embraced neoliberal economic policies earlier and with more consequence than continental Europe. In both countries, populists have either taken over the government or gained a decisive influence on its course, undermining the European Union and the post war global order.

Responding to Environmental Threats

These trends do not forebode well for international cooperation and global governance which is more urgent than ever when it comes to responding to the challenges of climate change, extinction of species, overexploitation and excessive pollution of the oceans and other global or regional ecological disasters. A growing world population aspiring to the lifestyles of the middle classes in the West, is already trespassing several planetary boundaries. However, authoritarian populists routinely question scientific evidence and threaten media coverage of scientific research that aims at preparing the public for the required changes in lifestyles, for increasing taxation of carbon dioxide and for sharing responsibility for the global commons with other countries.

Optimists believe that human ingenuity and creativity will produce technological solutions to the global challenges. However, there is a risk that the avalanche of new technologies, especially artificial intelligence, will not only replace manual labour, but also jeopardise a wide range of professional jobs so that the fabric of industrial societies will be undermined faster than policies can be developed to contain their impact. There are more disturbing aspects associated with revolutionary new technologies, such as the manipulation of public opinion through social media, the possibility of totalitarian governments to control and suppress any opposition with new surveillance technologies, and new forms of warfare, cyberwar and fully autonomous weapon systems, may threaten peace and security. One can only hope for creative policies and agreements both on the national and the global level for containing the disruptive consequences of all these new technologies.

Conclusion: The challenge for the development community

The current erosion of the global order in general and the European Union in particular, is alarming, especially for those committed to development research and cooperation. It is our interest to work for improving the climate for effective international cooperation and a fair sharing of responsibilities for managing the various challenges between rich and poor countries and rich and poor in each country. The recent challenges to political stability and economic prosperity need to be comprehended by the community of development scholars, development policy makers and practitioners in order to focus their teaching and research and to adjust development cooperation to the changing environment.

At this critical moment in history, the development community must make up its mind: Quite a few scholars and activists have been, with good reasons, critical of globalisation and neoliberal policies that aggravate inequalities everywhere and threaten the global commons. Yet, we should reject the fundamental questioning of the old global order and economic globalisation that is gaining ground in the West. Authoritarian populists are not concerned about the problems of developing countries. Their dream of the good old times when White Supremacy justified uninhibited exploitation of developing countries and their natural resources allowing for relatively comfortable lifestyles even for the middle classes in the West, is opposed to any effort at improving the living conditions in the Global South while respecting the ecological limits to growth. Therefore, we will have to defend the principles and institutions of the global order against the assault from the authoritarian international in order to keep the door open for the reforms and improvements necessary in every country and in the global arena for achieving the SDGs before 2030.

This is the first article in a series launched by the EADI (European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes) and the ISS in preparation for the 2020 EADI/ISS General Conference “Solidarity, Peace and Social Justice”. It was also published on the EADI blog.

Image Credit: EarthDayPicture

About the author:

Jürgen Wiemann is economist, EADI Vice President and chair of the Subcommittee of the EXCO on Conferences. From 1999 to 2011, he had been the German delegate to EADI’s Executive Committee. Before his retirement in 2011, he had been deputy director of the German Development Institute (DIE) and advisor on trade (policy) and development (cooperation) to the German Ministry for development .

Europe in Times of Deglobalization by Peter A.G. van Bergeijk

By ISS Blog Bliss 30 May 201918 May 2020 3583 views

The current phase of deglobalization is a challenge for social sciences. Peter van Bergeijk discusses what we can learn from previous deglobalizations. What do the periods of the Great Depression and Great Recession currently imply for Europe?

Similarities

Both the “Roaring Twenties” and the “Roaring 2000s” were characterized by ‘globality’, a combination of belief in openness and optimism about our future. With open and global markets, capital freely moved around the globe. The speed and level of global change was unprecedented. New products changed our daily life, new economies emerged, and life expectancy improved, creating hope while strengthening confidence. The pre-crises years were characterized by an increasing share of internationally traded products, as illustrated in Figure 1.

Source: van Bergeijk 2019.

However, this changed dramatically with the Great Depression and the Great Recession. First and foremost, there was the impact of the financial crisis that gave rise to the idea of secular stagnation. Openness as we can see in Figure 1 entered a downward phase for more than a decade. In the international political arena, the erosion of the hegemon’s (in the 1930s the British Empire and nowadays the United States) position associated with the rise of previously peripheral countries in the global trade system was an important element. Countries in the periphery grew faster than the advanced economies and competition from the previous-outs created doubt about the future rules and norms of the world trading and investment system. Figure 2 illustrates how the position of the hegemon is being handed over roughly at the time when deglobalization made its mark. In the 1930s, we see that an eminent change at the top takes place as the United States undercut economic power of the British Empire. Today we witness how the emergence of China challenges the position of the United States.

^UK before 1950 covers the British Empire. Calculations based on Bolt et al. 2018.*

Differences

On the other hand, significant differences could be noted between the deglobalization of the 1930s and 2010s. Both in a North–South and South–South context, trade in the Interbellum period relied on specialization based on comparative advantage, and not on intra-industry trade organized in international value chains which is an increasingly important characteristic of today’s trade. Protectionism is often seen as an important reason for trade destruction in the period after the breakout of the world trade collapse during the Great Depression, but much less so for the Great Recession and its immediate aftermath. Trade-wise, the most important difference is perhaps the fact that our deglobalization experience started from a much higher intensity of globalization and that according to current projections, a fall to the level of the 1930s is not likely.

Europe

The very existence of the European Union is a fundamental difference to the 1930s when the European continent was fragmented, confrontational and bellicose. While Europe is missing the military might that is often seen as a necessary condition for world leadership, there could be a possible scenario in which the European Continent has to act as the hegemon of last resort. In this scenario, neither the US nor China may assume the role of the world leader, either by choice or forced by internal and external circumstances. A hot trade war between the United States and China could fit into this scenario, for example, because trade is diverted to Europe. In this scenario, China refocuses its internationalization strategy and reorients from serving export markets to serving domestic markets. The US strengthens its isolationist policies and withdraws from a number of international agreements.

If that happens, European cohesion will increase as the costs of leaving the European Union become very clear to the member states (and their populations) after the dust settles on Brexit. So, while a particular weak spot of Europe currently is the lacklustre support of its basic philosophy amongst the large former communist countries (Poland, Hungary, Romania) and even among increasing parts of the Dutch population, coherence of the European Union may actually increase, especially if the British exit is as disastrous as many predict. With China and the US being unwilling or unable to provide global economic leadership, the world would turn towards Europe.

Indeed, the European Union was built on the idea of the Liberal Peace and can be expected to further democratization and the multilateral trade system. Maintaining good relationships with China, Japan and the United States will be crucial, however, for the extent to which progress can be made with the European external agenda.

References

Bolt, J., R. Inklaar, H. de Jong and J. Luiten van Zanden, 2018, ‘Rebasing ‘Maddison’: new income comparisons and the shape of long-run economic development’, GDC Research Memorandum 174, Groningen University: Groningen.

Peter A.G. van Bergeijk, Deglobalization 2.0, Edward Elgar, 2019.

This article is a shortened version L’Europe à l’ère de la démondialisation that appeared in French on Telos.

In 2018, Bliss Blog featured a series on deglobalisation. Articles of this series can be read here, here and here.

About the author:

Peter van Bergeijk (www.petervanbergeijk.org) is Professor of International Economics and Macroeconomics at the ISS.

Right-Wing Populism and Counter-Movements in Rural Europe by Natalia Mamonova

By ISS Blog Bliss 23 May 201918 May 2020 3839 views

Right-wing populism has gained high levels of support among rural population in Europe. How could this happen and what are the solutions? Natalia Mamonova, of the Emancipatory Rural Politics Initiative, explains the causes of populism in the European countryside and shares some ideas on potential resistance and the building of alternatives to the regressive nationalist politics.

Right-wing populism can be found right across Europe. Today, every third European government consists of or depends on a populist party. Not for the first time, populist movements have been spreading across this continent, but the current wave is, perhaps, the most significant one since the end of World War II. The contemporary right-wing populists have a strong rural constituency, as was evident by recent elections and referenda, where 53% of British farmers voted in favour of Brexit, for example. The ‘Law and Justice’ party enjoys substantial support from Polish countrymen for its aggressive nationalism and strict Catholicism. French far-right presidential contender Marine Le Pen gained the support of many French food producers with her ‘buy French act’ campaign, in which she called for more food to be produced and consumed in the country.

Does this imply that contemporary European populism is a rural phenomenon? Certainly not, but Europe’s populists are rising by tapping into discontent in the countryside and exploiting rural resentments against elites, migrants and ethnic minorities. Despite the significant rural support for populist parties, the European countryside has remained largely overlooked in the contemporary debates on the political crisis and the ways out of it. Meanwhile, it was in the countryside that both Mussolini and Hitler won their first mass following, and it was angry farmers who provided their first mass constituency. The countryside, however, provides not only a breeding ground for populist parties, it also may for other progressive solutions in form of emancipatory rural politics. The latter is the focus of the Emancipatory Rural Politics Initiative (ERPI), a scholar-activist community that aims at understanding the rise of right-wing populism in rural Europe, as well as the forms of resistance occurring and the alternatives being built.

In the contemporary political and academic debates, the right-wing populism is commonly portrayed as a result of economic and cultural crises that hit Europe during the last decade. Indeed, the economic distress, created by the Global Financial Crisis, followed up by the Eurozone Crisis, has exacerbated economic inequality and social deprivation in rural Europe, which influenced the villagers’ support for populist parties. Likewise, the fears of losing the cultural identity due to globalisation, multiculturalism and the refugee crisis are especially profound in the countryside and make rural dwellers more receptive to the populist message that they are the true protectors of their nation’s culture and heritage.

However, these arguments do not explain why in Spain and Portugal, two of the countries hit hardest by the economic crisis, the far right remains only marginal. Meanwhile, Poland – which has one of the fastest growing economies in Europe – has become paralysed by right-wing populism. Likewise, if we consider the migrant crisis as the reason for right-wing populism, we would not be able to explain why the vote for the Front National in France was particularly high in certain rural areas that have never seen a single immigrant, or why the strongest support for banning minarets in Switzerland was expressed in rural cantons where the number of Muslims and immigrants in general was low.

We argue that the true cause of right-wing populism in Europe (and the world) is the fundamental crisis in globalised neoliberal capitalism. This crisis is the most pronounced in rural areas, where the neoliberal agricultural model of development has failed to provide benefits to the majority, instead facilitating accumulation by the ‘one percent’. For example, according to the European Commission report on the EU Farm Structures, during the last ten years, 100 000 small-scale farms have disappeared in Germany, 300 000 in Bulgaria, 600 000 in Poland and 900 000 in Romania. In total, the number of full-time farmers across the EU fell by over a third during the past decade, representing almost five million jobs. The European Common Agricultural Policy primarily supports larger companies that are oriented to boosting yields and industrial production, while small-scale farmers have become marginalized and forced to close.

The crisis of neoliberal capitalism is directly related to the crisis of advanced representative democracies, which is especially profound in the European context, where the EU is responsible for Eurozone decision-making. In the countryside, the peoples’ feeling of being politically ‘overlooked’ and ‘forgotten’ is not completely groundless. Europe’s political mainstream used to ignore the interests of the rural population because of the following reasons. First, rural votes are not decisive as villagers constitute just 28% of the EU-28 population. Second, the division between the urban and the rural is usually less pronounced in Europe and, therefore, politicians appeal to the working class, not to rural dwellers. And finally, villagers are commonly perceived as apolitical and, thus, not a reliable electoral group. These factors may explain why at the recent UN Human Rights Assembly in Geneva, nearly all European countries voted against or abstained the Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas.

The political underrepresentation of rural Europeans is also their own responsibility. Although the last years bear witness to what Michael Woods calls the ‘rural reawakening’ – an increase in rural mobilisation and activism in Europe – rural protest groups remain mostly fragmented and only informally linked. Moreover, rural activists are unable to build coalitions with consumer movements and urban-based food activists who are often more advanced in sustainable food politics. Despite the tremendous efforts of the European Coordination Via Campesina and other EU-focused rural movements, European farmers groups lack an ideological and organisational coherence and, until now, failed to develop strong transnational networks of solidarity and coordinated action. The lack of powerful social movements and political parties that could represent the interests of rural dwellers has contributed to an electoral success of right-wing populist parties in rural Europe.

We believe that top-down initiatives are unable to defeat the right-wing populism in Europe and elsewhere, the resistance should come from below. The first step towards this is to generate a common identity among various groups of food producers and consumers connecting them across class, gender, racial, generational, ideological, and urban-rural divides. Food sovereignty can be the tool to enhance solidarity, collective identity and political participation in rural Europe. It advocates for people’s rights for healthy and culturally appropriate food and offers a sustainable alternative to the neoliberal agricultural model and the way of life.

Furthermore, since the cause of right-wing populism is the failure of globalised neoliberal capitalism, cosmetic changes will not have a long-lasting effect, we need to change the entire system. We need to put food producers – not multinational corporations and supermarket chains (!) – at the centre of the European food system and decision making. This requires a radical transformation of power relations, which is impossible without a large-scale mobilisation of food producers and consumers. The first seed of the transformation has already sprouted. In January 2019, 35 000 of farmers and food activists from around Europe took to the streets of Berlin calling for ‘Agricultural Revolution’. They were ‘fed up’ with industrial agriculture and demanded a reorganization of EU farming policy towards a more sustainable model which supports the welfare of the environment, animals and small-scale farmers, and restores democratic and accountable governance in the food system.

The text is prepared based on multiple discussions with Jaume Franquesa and other ERPI scholars from the research project ‘Right-wing populism in rural Europe: causes, consequences and cures’. It was originally published on ARC2020.

About the author:

Natalia Mamonova is a Research Fellow at the Russia and Eurasia Programme, Swedish Institute of International Affairs (UI) and Affiliated researcher at the Institute for Russian and Eurasian Studies (IRES) of Uppsala University, Sweden. She received her PhD degree from ISS in 2016. Since then, she was a visiting scholar at the University of Oxford, the New Europe College in Bucharest, and the University of Helsinki.

Creative Development | Art and Knowledge Production: Sense, The Senses and the Struggle for Control by Aoileann Ní Mhurchú and Cathy Wilcock

By ISS Blog Bliss 15 May 20195 October 2020 3478 views

What is the relationship between art and knowledge production? Does art only contribute to the aesthetics or does it have any role to play in production and even in control of knowledge? This article explores these questions through an example of ‘immigration’. It is a version of the presentation given by Aoileann Ní Mhurchú at the recent ISS workshop ‘Moving Methods’, funded jointly by the CI and D&I groups.

Across the social sciences, the study of ‘art’ is being understood broadly as the study of ‘creative endeavour’ (Danchev and Lisle 2009: 776). Here, art is understood not only as finished products such as paintings or novels, but as ‘activities that produce aesthetic responses, critiques and affirmations’ Rosario-Ramos et al (2017: 221). This moves our focus beyond ‘high art’ and towards a variety of cultural processes such as graffiti, rap music, cartoons, and film. Furthermore, it moves us beyond the intentions of the artist as the source of meaning, and it opens up the idea that art’s relationship to knowledge production is rooted in its activation of responses, critiques and affirmations.

Much work has already shown how popular culture can provide frames of reference about cultures and people which influence how they are ‘known’. For example, by orientalizing the colonized as victims, exotic and/or to be feared (Semmerling 2006).

In relation to the topic of immigration, there has been rich discussion around representations of the ‘good verses the bad immigrant’. In the dystopian video game ‘Papers Please’, the player is asked to assess the claims of immigrants as ‘dubious or genuine’ based on their collection of paperwork. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QP5X6fcukM&frags=pl%2Cwn An archetypal ‘immigrant’ identity has been shaped by such artistic products, which are themselves emergent responses to the same cultural milieu to which they contribute.

What has also been explored is how popular culture can challenge dominant ways of knowing the world (Magallanes-Blanco 2015). For example, on immigration, art works such as the murals along the USA-Mexico border by Mexican artist Lalo Cota have been praised for directly challenging the harmful dominant narrative of the ‘good/bad migrant dichotomy’. In a darkly humorous tone, his surrealist and satirical works play with the notion of ‘illegal alien’ by depicting sombreros in the shape of UFOs.

Image by Lynn Trimble

Therefore, art is about power relations: it raises questions about dominance and resistance and, is linked to struggles over control of knowledge between the margins and the centres.

Linking art to struggles over knowledge is a useful but broad endeavor. Ranciére helps narrow this down by theorizing this struggle by way of the senses. Ranciére associates art with a process of struggle over knowledge through ‘determin[ing] the relationship between seeing, hearing, doing, making and thinking’ (Ranciére 2013). Ranciére points to the role of art in engaging the senses to invoke visibility, audibility, saying ability, thinkability, do-ability of certain ideas/possibilities over and in contrast to others. The result is that art is posited as political, rather than something which can merely comment on politics.

To explain: the political nature of, for example, F.Lotus – Ai Weiwei’s installation of 1,005 life jackets floating in the pond of the Belevedere museum in Vienna – can be understood not only for its commentary on the migration crisis, but for the ideas and identities that are made visible and audible when they act on the senses of the audience.

As such, we need to situate such arguments within post and de/colonial literature. This has a long history of exploring how knowledge ‘has been grounded in the suppression of sensing and the body’ (Mignolo 2011b: 275; hooks 1989). In doing so, it allows us to think about the active suppression of ways of being linked to the senses under modernity (which is seen as the other side of coloniality rather than its opposite).

To go back to our example of ‘Papers Please’, a post/decolonial angle propels us to delve deeper and to ask how and in whose interests was the knowledge of the ‘good/bad immigrant’ produced in the first place?

Such literature helps us to look beyond art as a struggle over senses which can merely ‘add to’ our existing knowledge of social sciences. Instead, it draws attention to harder epistemological questions about the nature of the ‘academy’ and ‘reality’ itself. For example, it points to how a focus on the senses (re)shapes what is known as ‘creativity’ by linking this to vulnerability and the margins (Ní Mhurchú, 2016). Additionally, it forces us to (re)evaluate as a colonial move (Mignolo 2003) the separating out of art as interpretive knowledge (grounded necessarily in the humanities) from questions about practical societal knowledge (grounded necessarily in the social sciences).

The ideas sketched here gesture towards a conceptual framework to approach the analysis of art for knowledge-production in the social sciences. Situating Ranciere’s sensory approach within the post/decoloniality literature, allows us to recognize art as a struggle for control over knowledge through the senses. While doing so, we are urged to recognize that knowledge-producing institutions are part of, and not above or outside of, those struggles.

On 22 May 2019, ISS Associate Professor of Childhood & Youth Studies Roy Huijsmans along side Assistant Professor Katarzyna Grabska and Academic Researcher Cathy Wilcock will hold a seminar regarding their joint research on ‘Migration and Musical Mobilities’. Find more information here.

This article is part of a series on Creative Development.

About the authors:

Aoileann Ní Mhurchú is a lecturer in International Politics at the University of Manchester. Her research interests lie in the areas of critical citizenship studies, international migration, sovereignty and subjectivity, and theories of time and space. She recognises the limits of existing frameworks for understanding experiences of political resistance and participation from positions of marginality or ambiguity. And therefore engages with aesthetic forms of meaning and representation in literature and vernacular music and language.

Cathy Wilcock is a postdoctoral researcher at the ISS, with a background in critical development studies. In her role at ISS, she is continuing her work on political belonging in the context of forced migration.

Nepal’s school-merging programme goes against the right to education by Nilima Rai

By ISS Blog Bliss 9 May 201918 May 2020 3826 views

Nepal’s government is increasingly merging schools due to shrinking population numbers in its rural areas, arguing that this will improve the quality of education. However, as Nilima Rai points out, reducing the number of schools actually has an adverse impact on children in remote areas. Hence, the government policies interfer with the children’s right to education.

The Prime Minister of Nepal and his government has named the quality of education in public schools as the topmost priority, with a promise of developing Nepal as an international educational hub. Accordingly, the Nepal Government is aspiring to ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education and promoting lifelong learning opportunities for all under Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4, with a proposed target of an enrolment rate of almost 100% by 2030.

So, the governmental authorities believe that merging schools will help to improve the quality of education in public schools. However, it is necessary to understand whether the existing education policies and infrastructures of public schools, particularly in remote areas of Nepal, are inspiring children’s enrolment, or whether it has an adverse impact on them. This article is based on the informal conversations with people I met during my visit to Annapurna Base Camp and a governmental official of Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MoEST) Nepal, reflections of different field visits (other research purposes), and policy reviews and grey literatures relevant to Nepal’s education system and children’s rights.

Context of the Study

I met a girl, three or four years old, in a small teahouse. Like any kid, she was happily playing outside her house. I asked her mother, the teahouse owner, if she went to school. Her reply evoked introspection: “Yes, she does, but she just came home a few days ago for the Dashain vacation.” Wasn’t she too young to leave her mother to travel far just to join school?

Later, I discovered that the little girl was staying with her elder siblings in Pokhara (17 miles away) to study, since the neighbourhood primary school had merged with another school and was now located some distance away. Her story is not a new phenomenon, particularly in the remote villages of Nepal where school-merging policies and programmes are being implemented.

Implications of School Merging Policies on Children’s Education

Consequently, the implications of the existing education policies in sparsely populated areas of Nepal are evident. A large corpus of literature on migration and remittances suggest that remittances have improved the living standards of remittance-recipient households and led to internal migration, mostly for the children’s education, because student numbers in remote areas have dropped. To address the decreasing number of students in public schools, the government introduced the School Merging Implementation Directives 2014, but the long-term impacts of school-merging policies on children were not considered prior to its design and implementation.

The Directives followed the scheme to restructure the education system from classes 1 to 12 by creating uniformity as per the School Sector Reform Plan 2009-15 . According to the Directives, schools located within 30 minutes’ walking distance from home and serving a small population, that are unable to meet the minimum criteria of a full-fledged foundation, primary or upper primary school, can be merged together and run as a full-fledged school. According to the Status Report 2014-15 of the Department of Education, out of the 35,223 schools in the country, 443 schools were merged with neighbouring schools, 627 were closed, and 43 were downsized. This number might have increased since then.

The provision of merging schools located within 30 minutes’ walking distance from home overlooks the grim realities of a difficult topography and the absence of transportation in remote areas. The addition of 15-20 minutes to the commute time has exacerbated the children’s problems and increased the chance of dropouts. Taking into account the widespread poverty in Nepal and the country’s dependency on intensive agriculture, the Government of Nepal (Ministry of Health and Population and Ministry of Education) in support of different UN agencies and INGOs introduced the mid-day meal programme to support families in need and encourage children who have to walk long distances to school simply in search of enrolment. Due to irregularities and the insufficiency of such programmes, cases of children not getting the mid-day meal exist.

Children’s Rights and School Merging Policy

It is said that the practice of merging schools is intended to enhance the quality of education by centralising scattered resources, but it is very crucial to assess the feasibility for each and every child before merging schools. When schools are merged, children have no alternative but to quit school, endure the hardship of commuting over longer distances, or leave their parents and live in another place.

Hence, my study finds that the school-merging programme goes completely against the children’s right to education. When seen from the lens of child rights and the perspective of local communities, it has actually aggravated the children’s problems and driven them away from school. Therefore, it is imperative to analyse the long-term consequences of such policies on children’s education and exercise to find a better and comprehensive solution.

This post is a summarised version of the author’s article in the Kathmandu Post.

Image Credit: Simona Cerrato on Flickr.

About the author:

Nilima Rai is an ISS alumni. She is currently working for CESLAM on various research studies, and previously worked for several National and International NGOs. Her primary research interests are issues of International/National migration and labour, forced migration, ethnic relations, and gender issues
.

A green revolution using frugal innovation: crop insurance for Tanzanian farmers by Meine Pieter van Dijk

By ISS Blog Bliss 2 May 201918 May 2020 3393 views

What is the best way to help traditional small maize farmers in Tanzania to increase their production? A crop insurance project in Tanzania showed great success in decreasing the vulnerability of these farmers to drought through a simple frugal innovation called Weather Index Insurance. However, a transition from traditional to hybrid seeds is recommended to further decrease vulnerability and increase agricultural productivity.

What is the best way to help traditional small maize farmers in Tanzania to increase their production? Droughts occur more frequently in Tanzania, but the core problem is low agricultural productivity. Local extension services are not functioning properly (Lamek, 2016), while farmers are still using traditional seeds instead of hybrid seeds, which could contribute to achieving food security in the country. A non-commercial private sector initiative is helping these farmers by providing crop insurance. Between 2011 and 2014, the Swiss Capacity Building Facility (SCBF), a non-governmental organisation (NGO) financed by ten Swiss insurance companies, funded four training projects in Tanzania aiming to familiarise maize farmers in the Iringa, Mwanza and Arusha regions with crop insurance.

No new technological options were introduced to reach as many farmers as possible at minimum cost. Instead, the project used a Weather Index Insurance (WII) based on existing satellite images to determine whether drought prevailed in the area concerned during the seeding, germination or ripening period. If the signal is less rain than normal, the farmers registered through their mobile phones are compensated for the damage, ideally by topping up the amount available for calling or making mobile phone payments. This is a frugal innovation (using existing technology), because farmers can insure as little as one bag of hybrid seed bought from the seed company (SeedCo) using their telephone, covering only the germination period), or through signing up for a package for one acre of land through NGOs.

The training projects were carried out by Acre Africa (AA), an international NGO, with a local affiliate (Acre Tanzania). The project contributed to the training of thousands of farmers in the three regions studied. In total, more than 20,000 farmers are insured in the Iringa region and more than 10,000 in the Mwanza and Arusha regions taken together.

Assessing Weather Index Insurance

To assess the effects of Weather Index Insurance for Tanzanian maize farmers, a survey has been undertaken by the author in the Arusha, the Mwanza and Iringa regions. A total of 200 farmers were interviewed using cluster sampling with the villages as sampling units and then selecting farmers’ households per village as randomly as possible. The objective was to analyse the effects of the crop insurance introduced with the support of SCBF on household’s income and assets and on agricultural productivity.

Different ways of supplying insurance were compared. Farmers supported by a local NGO, the One Acre Fund (1AF), showed that insurance is particularly useful if it is embedded in an institutional support structure that is non-commercial and close to the farmers; not using a profit-oriented intermediary (SeedCo) or a combination of a commercial and non-commercial organisations also led to greater success. All modalities re-insure the final risks with a local commercial insurance company and a re-insurance company.

Most farmers did not know how much they pay for the insurance, but were generally positive about it, since the insurance offers a feeling of security and the intermediary organisations reduce the loan in case of a crisis. However, some farmers were critical because no payments were made despite limited rains, or the payouts were too low. They wanted support to find better markets for their produce and more transparency concerning payouts.

Transition from traditional to hybrid seeds required

Supporting the transition from using traditional to hybrid seeds is recommended to increase rural incomes and food supply and contribute to food security in the country. It is important to select the intermediary carefully and to consider crop insurance as part of support package, which should also include fertilisers and additional inputs like pesticides and access to water. There is scope for making the innovation more frugal by really using only mobile phones for registration and payouts, which was currently not always the case. There is demand for this service from other regions, for other crops and risks (like caterpillars). More information and training should be provided to farmers and the insurance needs to be made more transparent. Complaints of farmers should be taken seriously.

An extended version of this article has been published on researchgate: “Going for hybrid maize: the importance of land for the success of maize crop insurance in Tanzania”. Contribution to a World Bank conference on Land and Poverty, Catalyzing innovation in Washington, March 25-29, 2019.

References

Wilfred Lamek (2016) Agricultural extension in Tanzania, PhD, Free University Amsterdam.

Image Credit: ICRISAT on Flickr.

About the author:

Meine Pieter van Dijkis economist, em. professor of Water Services Management at UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education, visiting professor at the Beijing University for Civil Engineering and architecture, and em. professor of Urban management at the Institute of Social Studies (ISS) and the Institute of Housing and Urban development Studies (IHS) of Erasmus University.

The Netherlands and Colombia: A Blurry Alliance by Ana María Arbeláez Trujillo

By ISS Blog Bliss 18 April 201918 May 2020 3373 views

The Netherlands may have found in Colombia a strategic partner to help expand its commercial activities, but Colombia’s complex social context needs to be carefully considered. Whether this alliance will benefit both countries, or will reinforce the dynamics of the longest conflict in Latin American history, will depend greatly on the Dutch stance towards very sensitive issues that affect the Colombian rural sector.

The Netherlands has found in Colombia a strategic partner to expand its commercial activity in Latin America. In 2017, the exports of the South American country to the Netherlands amounted to 1.542 million US dollars, situating the Dutch economy as the fourth most important destination of Colombian products worldwide, and the first within the European Union[1].

This partnership is presented as a win-win scenario. While the Netherlands could benefit from Colombia’s 40 million hectares of land suitable for agriculture[2], Colombia could fully develop its rural potential through an alliance with the world leader in agricultural innovation. This cooperation holds a great deal of promise. Thus, there are grand expectations regarding the meeting that took place last November in Bogotá between Prime Minister Mark Rutte and President Iván Duque, who came to power in August 2018.

However, some caution is needed. The Prime Minister’s visit occured in a context of uncertainty and digression given Duque’s lack of political will to comply with the peace agreement reached between the former government and the FARC, as well as his dismissive attitude towards structural problems of the rural sector such as the excessive concentration of land, extreme poverty, and inequality.

In this regard, a study conducted by Oxfam in 2017[3] revealed that currently, concentration of land in Colombia is much higher than it was in the 1960s when the conflict started. The statistics show that while 80% of rural land in the country is controlled by 1% of the large estates, small farmers have lost most of their territory. As evidence, 80% of small peasants have a landholding smaller than 10 hectares, which do not occupy even 5% of the census area. Moreover, official data shows that the Gini coefficient of rural property is 89,7% (with 0 corresponding to complete equality and 100 corresponding to complete inequality)[4].

The government’s approach, however, has been to neglect the multidimensional character of the rural problem. Since his presidential campaign, Duque has been skeptical of the peace process. Therefore, although the first point of the peace agreement is to push forward a comprehensive agrarian reform, the policy of the new government has focused mainly on supporting agro-business, implementing modernisation measures, and protecting the property rights of large landowners[5].

This official position has raised a deep concern among many civil society actors who have fears pertaining to the success of historical compromises reached in La Habana. The initiatives that are at risk include: the creation of a Land Fund for the distribution of land that was illegally acquired; the development of procedures to formalise property rights of small and medium farmers; and the establishment of ‘Territorial Spaces for Training and Reincorporation Spaces’ (ETCR in Spanish), which are places dedicated to training the former members of the FARC for their reincorporation into civil life through productive projects[6]. To this day, the government has not shown a serious commitment to advance any of these strategies, threatening the future of the post-conflict phase.

Most worryingly, the Office of the Ombudsman in Colombia reported that 331 community leaders were killed between January 2016 and August 2018[7], and that the number keeps growing[8]. The seriousness of the situation led the UN[9] and IACHR[10] to urge the Colombian government to strengthen protection measures to guarantee the integrity of social leaders. Although the government has denied the systematic character of these killings, in the face of strong national and international pressure, the creation of an integral policy to tackle this urgent situation was announced[11]. It is worth noting that 80% of the leaders that have been killed were involved in the defense of the territory and restitution of land efforts[12].

In this regard, on 5 April more than 500 Colombians gathered in The Hague to march peacefully from the Colombian Embassy to the Headquarters of the ICC[13]. Their aim was to denounce that the lack of action of the Colombian State is leading to impunity of crimes against humanity, and to raise awareness among the international community[14].

This complex social context must be seriously considered by the Dutch commission that will advise the Prime Minister on his negotiations with Colombia. Whether this alliance will foster both countries, or will reinforce the dynamics of the longest conflict in Latin American history, will depend greatly on the Dutch stance towards these very sensitive issues that affect the Colombian rural sector.

References

[1]http://www.mincit.gov.co/loader.php?lServicio=Documentos&lFuncion=verPdf&id=80988&name=OEE_MA_JM_Estadisticas_de_comercio_exterior_ene-ago_2018.pdf&prefijo=file

[2] https://www.elespectador.com/economia/colombia-tiene-40-millones-de-hectareas-para-producir-alimentos-articulo-795814 and http://es.presidencia.gov.co/noticia/180621-Gobierno-definio-Frontera-Agricola-Nacional-para-avanzar-hacia-el-desarrollo-rural-sostenible-y-proteger-la-biodiversidad

[3] https://d1tn3vj7xz9fdh.cloudfront.net/s3fs-public/file_attachments/colombia_-_snapshot_of_inequality.pdf

[4] https://www.eltiempo.com/economia/sectores/desigualdad-en-la-propiedad-de-la-tierra-en-colombia-32186

[5] https://lasillavacia.com/silla-llena/red-rural/historia/los-programas-agrarios-de-los-candidatos-en-campana-un-analisis and https://semanarural.com/web/articulo/elecciones-presidenciales-2018-las-propuestas-para-el-campo/504 and https://www.portafolio.co/economia/propuestas-de-los-candidatos-presidenciales-en-el-agro-y-lo-rural-son-incompletas-517480

[6]https://semanarural.com/web/articulo/que-le-espera-a-la-colombia-rural-en-la-presidencia-de-ivan-duque/550 and https://elpais.com/elpais/2018/08/30/planeta_futuro/1535660220_091882.html

[7] https://colombia2020.elespectador.com/pais/agresiones-contra-lideres-sociales-antes-y-despues-del-acuerdo-de-paz

[8] https://www.rcnradio.com/colombia/durante-el-gobierno-duque-22-lideres-sociales-han-sido-asesinados

[9] https://colombia.unmissions.org/en/un-rejects-and-condemns-killings-human-rights-defenders-and-leaders-colombia

[10] http://www.oas.org/en/iachr/media_center/PReleases/2018/065.asp

[11] https://www.elheraldo.co/politica/no-podemos-decir-que-asesinato-de-lideres-sociales-sea-sistematico-mininterior-543998 and https://www.elespectador.com/noticias/politica/gobiernos-de-santos-y-duque-coinciden-asesinato-de-lideres-sociales-no-es-sistematico-articulo-813250

[12] https://www.rcnradio.com/colombia/durante-el-gobierno-duque-22-lideres-sociales-han-sido-asesinados

[13] https://paxencolombia.org/la-cpi-recibio-documentacion-sobre-asesinato-de-lideres-sociales-en-colombia/

[14] https://www.resumen-english.org/2019/04/march-to-the-international-criminal-court-to-stop-the-murders-of-social-leaders-in-colombia/

About the author:

Ana María Arbeláez Trujillo is a recent graduate from the Erasmus Mundus Program in Public Policy. She is a lawyer and a specialist in Environmental Law. Her research interests are the political economy of extractivist industries, environmental conflicts, and rural development.

To fight or to embrace? Divergent responses to the expansion of Southern China’s industrial tree plantation sector by Yunan Xu

By ISS Blog Bliss 8 April 201918 May 2020 2987 views

The industrial tree plantation sector has been expanding rapidly and massively in Southern China, affecting the livelihoods of the local population residing in the region. But is change resisted or embraced? A recent study on the political economy of Southern China’s industrial tree plantation sector shows that differentiated positions of villagers in their communities lead to distinct political responses to the expansion of the sector.

In the past two decades, the industrial tree plantation (ITP) sector has been expanding rapidly and massively in Southern China, and especially in Guangxi Province. ITPs refer to monocultures of fast-growing tree crops (such as eucalyptus, pine and acacia) mainly used for inedible industrial raw materials. The rise of the ITP sector, involving both foreign and domestic actors, has led to extensive changes in land use and land control, as well as in labour conditions and livelihoods of the villagers in this region. These changes and the resulting encroachment by the ITP sector have led to diverse political reactions by affected villagers residing in this region.

A recent study analysed the dynamics of the ITP boom in Southern China. The main finding of the study is that, contrary to what has been observed in many other places around the world where a crop boom has taken place, the local population in Guangxi Province did not necessarily lose and thus did not always resist the expansion. It shows a more complicated trajectory of the livelihood change and political reaction from below in the course of the crop boom, which is beyond “resistance against expulsion”.

Beyond expulsion

In this case of Guangxi Province, interviewed villagers’ livelihoods were not fully threatened even when some of their collectively owned forest land was appropriated due to their diverse livelihood sources and their ability to retain of their farmland owing to certain institutional settings in China (e.g. the household responsibility system). As a result, when part of their land was leased out, they remained capable of maintaining their subsistence. Hence, when studying the local population’s livelihood change during the massive changes of land use and land control, examining what and how much is left to the villagers is just as important as analysing what and how much has been taken from them.

Moreover, affected villagers are not a homogeneous group, but have varying interests and resource endowments, including land control, labour conditions, financial resources and social relations, and were thus affected differentially during the crop boom. Those villagers who controlled little (or even no) means of production and had little (or even no) access to alternative livelihoods became more vulnerable, whereas those with privileged access to livelihood resources were able to benefit from the sector.

In a few cases, some villagers gained control over the land from local or nearby village collectives and became owners of ITPs. Over the course of these practices, grabbers were not outsiders, but local villagers themselves. They were then able to accumulate land and the associated benefits at the expense of their fellow villagers, rather than simply being victims or resisters in a land deal. Such relatively small-scale land grabbing dominated by local villagers is called intimate land grabbing.

These are critical reminders to go beyond the dichotomies of “small vs. large”, “outsider vs. local actors” and “victims vs. grabbers”, and to focus, instead, on the dynamics of social relationships around land and production processes.

Beyond resistance

Because of their distinct positions and diverse degrees of dispossession (or no dispossession), villagers had varying perspectives and diverse political responses towards the expansion of the sector. When villagers were able to get actively incorporated into the crop boom, benefiting from the crop boom, they tended to embrace these changes. When the villagers were passively excluded and had lost out, they were more likely to resist. Thus, the villagers’ concerns were mainly centred on their subsistence and economic gains/losses, which are closely associated with the terms of the villagers’ inclusion/exclusion and their access to the alternative livelihood opportunities. Hence, to understand the trajectory of political reactions, the villagers’ differentiated interests and wins and losses should be the key focus of future analyses.

About the author:

Yunan Xu is a recent PhD graduate of Development Studies at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) in The Hague. She has published several journal articles, reports and conference papers. Her research interests include: land politics and policies, rural livelihood, rural politics, agrarian transformation, crop booms, flex crops and food politics, with the geographic areas both in China and beyond (Southeast Asia and Latin America).

A zero-waste Philippines is possible by Froilan Grate and Jed Alegado

By ISS Blog Bliss 4 April 201918 May 2020 3218 views

January is Zero Waste month in the Philippines, celebrating the month in which a law on waste management was signed in 2000. Since the law came into force, various cities and towns in the Philippines have shown leadership in implementing the law. But strong political will and robust policies are needed to ensure that government leaders and an engaged citizenry can transform the Philippines into a zero-waste country.

Five years ago, Presidential Proclamation No. 760, signed by former president Benigno S. Aquino III, officially declared the month of January as Zero Waste Month. The proclamation defined ‘zero waste’ as “an advocacy that promotes designing and managing products and processes to systematically avoid and eliminate the volume and toxicity of waste and materials, and to conserve and recover all resources, and not indiscriminately dispose or burn them.”

Even before the issuance of the proclamation, various nongovernmental organizations in the Philippines have been trying to mainstream zero waste as a goal for our government. In fact, PP 760 traces its roots to the first-ever Zero Waste Youth Convergence organized by Mother Earth Foundation, in which 5,000 youth leaders issued a Zero Waste Youth statement calling for the celebration of a Zero Waste Month.

January was chosen as Zero Waste Month because this was the month when Republic Act No. 9003, or the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000, was signed. Many countries around the world have expressed admiration for this landmark Philippine law, as it calls for a decentralised waste and resource management system that also bans waste incinerators.

According to the National Solid Waste Commission, waste in Philippine cities and municipalities is mostly composed of organics (52 percent). Recyclables comprise 28 percent, and residuals (waste that can’t be reused, recycled or composted) 18 percent. Much of the waste (80 percent, which is organics and recyclables combined) can be safely returned to nature or industry without resorting to landfills and incineration.

Through proper segregation, organics can be composted in our homes, schools and offices. In a linear waste management approach, organics are wasted instead of being turned into a resource. Under a zero-waste approach, recyclables are reused and recycled and become a source of livelihood for waste workers as well.

Various cities and towns in the Philippines have shown leadership in implementing the law, hoping to transform into a zero-waste city. A good model is San Fernando, Pampanga, which achieved a 78-percent waste diversion record (or the amount that was composted or recycled instead of going into the landfill) in 2017, from 12 percent in 2012. Tacloban City was also able to increase the coverage of waste collection but managed to decrease the volume of waste sent into landfills.

However, the work does not end at the local government unit (LGU) level. Many LGUs that have already been implementing zero-waste policies need strong support from national government agencies and legislators. They have the power to enable an environment that supports these policies by enacting laws and supporting the implementation of such laws that can scale up the successes of LGUs doing the zero-waste approach.

For instance, cities like San Fernando, Pampanga, that are trying to reduce nonrecyclable plastic waste through local ordinances cannot implement zero waste effectively unless there is a law at the national level to mandate businesses to stop the production of single-use disposable plastic packaging. Having a national law will ensure that materials such as disposable implements or throwaway sachet packaging are not produced in the first place. Thus, it removes the burden from LGUs to have to manage plastic waste that can neither be recycled nor composted.

With strong political will and robust policies in place, government leaders and an engaged citizenry can transform the Philippines into a zero-waste country. The coming midterm elections is an opportune time to ensure that we are on the right track.

This article was originally published in The Inquirer: https://opinion.inquirer.net/119378/a-zero-waste-philippines-is-possible#ixzz5fyE854dE

About the authors:

Froilan Grate is the regional coordinator of the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives Asia-Pacific.

Jed Alegado is the communications officer for Asia-Pacific of #breakfreefromplastic.

Women’s Month 2019 | Sex selection: an ordinary or violent act? by Christo Gorpudolo

By ISS Blog Bliss 1 April 201918 May 2020 3212 views

According to the United Nations Population Fund, there is a variation in the ratio of male to female birth—since the 1990s, 25% more male births than female have been recorded in different areas. Prenatal sex selection reflects a subtle act of violence rooted in social, political, economic, and cultural factors that re-enforces the persistent low economic status of women and value of girls in some communities. This could lead to an overall impact on the mental and physical health of women as well as the creation of a gender imbalance within the population.

Prenatal sex selection is a practice that involves the use of medical techniques to choose the sex of an offspring. Although it has been linked to medical practices that help balance the family, it also leads to sex-selective abortion, where predominantly the lives of girls are halted before birth. It is a form of violence against women that systematically discriminates against girls before birth and at conception, limiting women’s agency in matters relating to their reproductive health rightsplace women at an unequal hierarchical position within the family as decision makers on the sex of a child as well as family size.

This form of gender-based violence (GBV) as with many other forms of GBV is complex. It is rooted in cultural preferences for sons, societal ideas of the roles and responsibilities of women and men, and unmerited privileges for or the rights of men over those of women. In some places, continuity of family lineage and care for ageing parents, as well as wage-earning capacity are all factors that contribute to this form of discrimination. Generally, sex selection results from social, economic and cultural biases that favour men over women.

These cultural, economic and social biases raise the yet unanswered question: ‘are we collectively doing enough and investing in a society free of all forms of violence and befitting women?’

It has been nearly 40 years since The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Violence against Women (CEDAW) was adopted by the United Nations—a convention that has been ratified by 187 countries. However, sex selection, deeply rooted in economic and social biases, still exists in majority of these 187 countries, including Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, and India.

The practice of sex selection also affects girls after birth. Studies have shown that unwanted girls may endure neglect or be deprived of opportunities, creating a further disincentive for mothers to have daughters, since they don’t want to see their children suffer. UNPF (2018, no Page) provides the rationale.

In some agrarian economies, girls are at risk of being in poor health, lack of care or malnourished, to keep their brothers strong and healthy as a source of protection or an assurance for a bigger farmland or harvest and or to continue the family linage.

Sex preference also affects women’s mental health within the family. Studies have shown that in some instances, women who give birth to only girls may be under huge societal pressure to produce a male child.

To combat this form of violence against women and girls, we have to begin a discussion on identifying and eliminating harmful gender stereotypes and roles that have given rise to the overt act of selective birth. We need to look more closely at the economic market systems that support higher-earning value of a particular sex and the social structures that link specific traits or attributes to power and success, as these are the subtle but yet violent act that hinders the birth of many girls.

References:

United Nations Population Fund (2018) ‘Gender biased sex selection’ Accessed March 23, 2019 https://www.unfpa.org

NCBI (2011) ‘The consequences of son preferences and sex selective abortion in China and other Asian countries’ Accessed March 23, 2019 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3168620/

This article is part of the series `Women´s Month 2019´, in which members of the ISS gender committee reflect on women´s issues on Bliss. Other articles of this series can be read here and here.

About the authors:

Christo Z. Gorpudolo is a student of MA in Development Studies, Social Justice Perspectives (SJP).

Reclaiming control of Indonesia’s oceans by Salena Tramel

By ISS Blog Bliss 25 March 201918 May 2020 2868 views

At once unexplored and overexploited, the oceans surrounding Indonesia represent neoliberal development’s final frontier. But Indonesian activists are building a global movement to resist the financialisation and privatisation of the world’s oceans.

Indonesia, the largest archipelago in the world, holds some stunning coastal and deep-water resources. With more than 17,500 islands straddling two oceans, the sea is not only a way of life, but also a source of it.

Fisheries account for a significant part of Indonesia’s trillion-dollar economy – the largest in Southeast Asia. More than 30 percent of global maritime trade finds its way through the Strait of Malacca, which is among the busiest of international shipping lanes. Tourist havens are seemingly everywhere, from the palm-fringed beaches of Bali, to the abundant shallow-water reefs of the Coral Triangle.

Managing marine ecosystems is therefore an unsurprising priority for the vast number of actors that have a stake in Indonesia’s coastal economy. At once unexplored and overexploited, the oceans represent neoliberal development’s final frontier. The twin processes of ocean acidification and global warming, and related international political responses further complicate matters.

Blue economy

New analysis was recently published in the journal Science, indicating that oceans are heating up 40 percent faster than a United Nations panel of experts predicted in a study carried out five years ago.

The study further concluded that in 2018, seawater temperatures reached an all-time high and were expected to escalate further in the coming years. Theses studies mirror those on land, where combined data from NASA and NOAA show that the five hottest years ever have occurred in the 2010s.

For many, marine ecosystem management, fisheries management, and climate change mitigation strategy are embodied in a redoubled commitment to the blue economy – the idea that the financialisation of oceans can reap economic profit and save the environment at once.

But what kind of development does the blue economy seek, and for whom? In Indonesia, small-scale fishers and their communities are holding fast to various manifestations of traditional knowledge that they see as key to ensuring the survival of the seas and of future generations.

Whose Oceans?

The Indonesian islands have long been at the forefront of oceanic policy and development circles, in large part because of their sheer numbers and strategic location.

One such high-level process held recently was the Our Ocean conference, which took place in late October in Bali. The meeting brought together a large number of powerful actors to debate some of the most pressing oceanic issues: climate change, fisheries, the blue economy, pollution, maritime security, and marine protected areas.

As is the case in many top decision-making spaces, representatives of governments, corporations, and intergovernmental institutions were given a seat at the table. Notably absent, however, were those closest to the sea – the fishers.

Marthin Hadiwinata, Chief Executive of the Indonesia Traditional Fisherfolk’s Union (KNTI), said: “Policies on marine issues cannot be addressed in the absence of fishing communities who have direct linkages to the ocean”.

Hadiwinata explained that the issue of marine pollution, for instance, most deeply affects people living around the coastal areas and small islands: “Rather than inviting fishers to share their solutions,” he added, “companies who are involved in mining and other forms of extractive industry that dump their waste into the sea are regarded as corporate partners in cleaning up dirty waters”.

Blue carbon

Likewise, climate change mitigation and adaptation projects often turn to the problems that caused the environmental crisis in the first place as a way of responding to it. Take for example Blue Carbon, where, as with other carbon sequestration programs such as REDD+ (reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation), polluters are allowed to continue their practices so long as they purchase ‘offsets’ in ecosystems elsewhere.

Most often, the burden falls on the shoulders of peasant and indigenous rural working communities, converting their crops and gathering spaces into monocultures such as industrial tree plantations.

Blue Carbon applies this logic to mangrove, coral, and seagrass ecosystems, while small-scale fishers who work in these areas are treated as nuisances and prohibited from future access to their fishing grounds.

Blue Carbon has been championed in high-level policy spaces such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) processes, as well as through ‘big green’ organisations like the Nature Conservancy. It is currently being pioneered in Indonesia.

People’s movements

Indonesian social movements and grassroots organisations have long been in the business of carefully protecting the islands’ cornucopia of natural resources. In the rapidly evolving marine sector, fishers are forced to be quick on their feet when putting their solutions on the national agenda.

KNTI, the small-scale fisher’s movement that is present in nearly all of Indonesia’s 34 provinces, is playing a leadership role in turning the tide of both discourse and policy towards justice and sovereignty for fishers. This task is done at scale, targeting national and transnational political dynamics.

When word of the Our Ocean conference and its lack of grassroots representation reached KNTI’s members, they were quick to clap back by organising their own participatory meeting: the Ocean’s People Conference. Unlike its ‘official’ counterpart, the parallel meeting reflected the diversity of Indonesia’s small-scale fisheries sector.

The gathering strategically took place in Jakarta – not just to make it more accessible, but also to shed light on marine megaprojects encroaching on the busy capital. The most notorious of these has been a land reclamation project supported by Indonesia’s former colonisers, the Dutch.

This project has been centred on protecting Jakarta from floods by installing a network of fake islands and a giant seawall in Jakarta Bay. While the Governor of Jakarta finally revoked some of the permits necessary to complete the project – thanks, in large part, to a strategic battle fought at the hands of social movements like KNTI – much of the damage had been done.

Local activists

Ipah Saripah, a fishworker from North Jakarta, explained that the reclamation issue has profoundly impacted her family’s livelihood: “Even though the reclamation stopped, they’ve already constructed four islands,” she said, “and that development is right in the middle of our fishing areas.

“We have been bribed, intimidated, displaced, and even tortured to make way for this reclamation,” she added.

Saripah and other activists from the fishing communities feel that big reclamation projects like the one stalled in Jakarta Bay serve as a blueprint for coastal development in Indonesia. Similar megaprojects are being rolled out in other parts of the country, and they are woven together with the common thread of replacing traditional fishing practices with profit-seeking industries backed by big Asian and European capital.

That’s what the Ocean’s People Conference and related gatherings of people’s movements are attempting to shut down. Ibu Rofi’ah, a representative of a peasant organisation in East Nusa Tengarra, Indonesia’s southernmost province, said: “We are not looking for money, but for means to spread our knowledge.”

Ibu Rofi’ah travelled to Jakarta to explain how she played a leadership role when her community put an end to an iron-mining operation. Today she is working with fisheries cooperatives that find themselves in standoffs with corporations in the mining and tourism sectors.

Movement building

Members of KNTI recognise that their struggles reflect those of fishing communities elsewhere. To this end, the movement is an active member of the World Forum of Fisher Peoples (WFFP), a transnational social justice movement dedicated to serving the unique needs of fishers and fish workers.

Since the issues affecting fishers have become increasingly entangled – for instance, when climate change adaptation policies meet big capital – WFFP has doubled down on its attack strategies to protect the communities it represents.

A key part of that is actively promoting the Small Scale Fisheries Guidelines, which is the only comprehensive global governance instrument intended to protect fishers and traditional fisheries. KNTI has been doing this work across Indonesia, and making its demands global through social movement gatherings and even United Nations processes.

Marthin Hadiwinata said: “Here in Indonesia, we are pushing the government to immediately recognise and protect fishers’ rights. And at the same time, we are building the global movement to resist financialisation and privatisation of the world’s oceans.”

This article was originally published in The Ecologist: https://theecologist.org/2019/feb/01/reclaiming-control-indonesias-oceans?fbclid=IwAR2E4tVd0ylFjOcEJKqtD4EKG_mxVRaBVsd9dmyMyW-CNdGigsoA-Zep_74

About the author:

Salena Tramel is a journalist and PhD researcher at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) in The Hague, where her work is centered on the intersections of resource grabs, climate change mitigation, and the intertwining of (trans)national agrarian/social justice movements.

Urban heteronormativity and the queer city in Brasília, Brazil by Juliana Grangeiro

By ISS Blog Bliss 18 March 201918 May 2020 3195 views

Brazil leads the numbers when it comes to LGBTQ+ death rates. Stories of prejudice against LGBTQ+ persons dominate newspapers and social media daily. But what about Brazilians building local social spaces of resistance and joy? Looking at the urban context of Brasília for my MA research, I talked to its residents to discover how spaces for inclusivity and innovation enriching queer lives are created and experienced.

In a country where hate speech and homophobic/transphobic crimes are on the rise, queer lives are constantly threatened. Often, LGBTQ+ youth in cities find public space to be the liberating environment they are denied in their family’s house. But in 2017, every 19 hours one LGBTQ+ person died in Brazil, 56% of them in public spaces and 6% in privately owned establishments.

The right to walk about freely in the city, to gather, and to perform multiple genders and sexualities (according to Judith Butler’s concept of gender performativity) are often denied. But in the urban context of a highly planned city, Brasília, a segment of inhabitants are challenging the heterosexist tools of urban planning and the homophobic society.

Brasília: the reach for development

Designed and built during the 1950s, Brasília represents the country’s shift from agriculture to an industrial economy. Its modern architecture and planning were made to represent (economic) progress. Under this premise, an egalitarian city was built for an unequal society, producing dichotomies that are still deeply rooted. Poverty was made invisible through structured geography and anyone beyond the white middle-upper class spectrum was further marginalised.

Figure 1 – Brasília Esplanade with its National Museum, National Congress and Ministries

Why Brasília?

In a highly-planned context such as Brasília, state regulation is extensive; the city has a strong law enforcement unit focusing on noise made at night. Since 2008, with the popularly known “Silent Law”, dozens of restaurants, bars and clubs have been fined or closed due to “noise pollution”. The right to party and to gather as one form of our civic freedom is often denied and culture is easily framed as the enemy to life quality. In this highly regulated context, I investigated how non-normative lives and transgressive bodies were occupying places they were usually denied while also changing the social cityscape.

Having lived in Brasília for seven years, I witnessed initiatives led by its inhabitants to reclaim the city. Counterbalancing its large avenues, monumental scale and cars, people are following global city trends and re-signifying the city’s spaces. I went back to the concept of the right to the city by David Harvey to see how people “are changing their lives by changing the city”. I also saw the nuances within the different identities within the movement, focusing especially on class and gender within the queer community.

The homonormative, classicist, and misogynist city X the queer city

Among most of the research participants there is a consensus: producers and organisers are building diverse spaces. They want to move post-identity politics beyond and within the movement. According to interviewed producers, they have never claimed to be LGBTQ+ exclusive. They attracted diverse sexualities and genders by making sure to use an inclusive neutral language and equal prices.

Most of them are escaping what they called the “GGG movement” (the gay upper-class white man). Nonetheless, social segregation is also reflected within the LGBTQ+ community. For those coming from the outskirts and having a lower social economic background, challenges are still multiple. First, they have further infrastructural challenges to reach the central Queer spaces and have fewer options in their neighbourhoods. While some might find it safer to go out in the city centre in order to avoid meeting family members, they must save money to afford such a luxury. Meanwhile, they also face further social stigma coming from those of the upper social class.

Challenges are also constant for women. In the gendered urban experience, they are systematically targeted. One of the research participants evidenced how, after two years of constant persecution, she closed her venue facing multiple charges on noise pollution and fees of thousands of euros in a process filled with misogyny and lesbophobia. Another (cis female lesbian) participant faces the backlash of trying to change a historically heteronormative venue into a more diverse one – having a place that isn’t queer enough for the LGBTQ+ community and not heterosexual enough for normative sexualities, leading to the loss of customers. Finally, a third participant shows how, being a trans artist woman, she needs to “put herself out there three times more” to have her work recognised when compared to male cisgender colleagues.

Nonetheless, the stories of those people and their initiatives aim to change their lives by changing the city. Relationships between people in marginalised social groups are reflected in the physical realm – in the landscape, on walls, in party settings. As you walk, pass by or occupy spaces, you change the space; you create shared feelings of belonging and/or community.

Most of them are doing this actively, either by assigning new meanings to abandoned underground tunnels or forgotten buildings and neighbourhoods, or by actively showing their affections in public. Others promote queer identities within the academic environment by promoting and building voguing communities and bringing back the ball culture, such as House of Caliandra.

Figure 2 – Group of friends walking towards one of the Carnival’s LGBTQI+ parties

Through the research we could see that spaces previously neglected or overlooked are now transformed and queered by those non-normative bodies, sexualities, and genders. Planning and space heteronormativity are contested daily, either by their lonely bodies navigating through the city or their power when walking in groups (especially during Carnival).

Meanwhile, Brasiília’s queer scene seems to be evolving slowly from the gay white patriarchy. Beyond the urban heteronormativity, those that do not qualify under homonormativity might still face segregation in those spaces. The strong incipient movement led by women, trans, and non-binary genders still has room to grow and truly queer the city and its bodies.

About the author:

Juliana Grangeiro is a graduate student of ISS and a Brazilian activist towards LGBTQ+ rights. At ISS, she co-founded the Sexual Diversity Committee and volunteered at COC Haaglanden. In Brazil, Juliana has worked in international cooperation towards climate change mitigation and educational projects at USAID, UNDP and Nuffic.

Women’s Month 2019 | ‘Empty’ laws and Peruvian women’s ongoing struggle for therapeutic abortion by Zoya Waheed and Romina Manga Cambria

By ISS Blog Bliss 15 March 201918 May 2020 4054 views

Laws and regulations are policy tools that are seen as strong and effective in securing rights, but should we assume that this is always the case? Looking at therapeutic abortion, evidence from Peru leads us to believe otherwise. Legislation of protection laws often fails to be translated into practice.

In 1924, a therapeutic abortion law was passed in Peru. Ninety-five years later, this law, which allows for legal abortions when the physical or mental health of the mother is at stake, only exists on paper. There are many reasons why this law has not been implemented, ranging from a lack of awareness of the existence of the law to ambiguity when it comes to the law’s contents. While progress of some sort has been made over the last five years with the introduction of guidelines for abortion providers, it is important to understand that much more progress is needed for these women in Peru and elsewhere, as access to safe therapeutic abortion is still limited.

K.L and L.C: Keystone cases in the struggle for safe therapeutic abortions

The Human Rights Watch indicates that women across the world often opt for unsafe procedures because legal abortions are seldom provided in public healthcare facilities. Additionally, due to the uncertainties in the circumstances under which abortion is legal, healthcare providers fear punishment if they were to carry out a therapeutic abortion. Women are also often unaware of their right to therapeutic abortion, and in the cases they are, they’re refused the abortion due to the fear carried by healthcare providers. In other cases, women are refused legal abortions due to the bias carried by some healthcare professionals, who may not always agree that the mother’s life is in danger, and would thus see the abortion as unnecessary. Additionally, due to the social stigma attached to abortions, women may not want to get an abortion due to the fear of being judged.

Two cases were particularly relevant for discussion in Peru. In 2001, K.L., a 17-year-old Peruvian girl, was forced to carry an anencephalic fetus to term, a condition that made unviable the life of the fetus after being born. She gave birth and was forced to breastfeed the baby for four days until it finally died. These events caused her severe depression that required psychiatric help.

In another case in 2006, L.C. was a 14-year-old girl that fell pregnant after being raped repeatedly, which led her to attempt suicide. She survived, but woke up quadriplegic. Her mother requested a therapeutic abortion in order for her spinal column to be operated on to try and regain mobility of her body, but it was denied. Doctors claimed it was prohibited because the pregnancy no longer posed a threat to her physical health, so she was forced to continue the pregnancy.

After the cases of the K.L. and L.C., the Peruvian state was internationally condemned by the ONU´s Human Rights Committee for denying therapeutic abortion to these teenagers. As a response, in June 2014, the Peruvian Ministry of Health published the “Guía Técnica Nacional para la interrupción del embarazo por indicación terapéutica”, or the National Technical Guide for the Pregnancy Interruption by Therapeutic Indication, approved by a Ministerial Resolution Nº 486-2014/MINSA. This guide was looking to standardise the procedure and give more information to the health practitioners about it.

Despite its approval, there are still a lot of medical practitioners that refuse to implement it. As an example of this, in 2017 the Committee on Consumer Protection had to sanction a private healthcare facility with a fine for not approving a therapeutic abortion request, despite the evidence of mental health damage.

Persisting barriers (read: failures)

Despite the clarity of the law, it has not been implemented to the extent it should have. Often, people assume that passing a law and putting it in the penal code is enough to implement it. But when those responsible for implementing it don’t know enough about it, how is it supposed to protect those it aims to safeguard?

Even after the introduction of the guidelines, it is evident that the application of the law is scarce. Additionally, there isn’t much knowledge to be found on the application after the guidelines were created. The state is not taking the responsibility it should by ensuring medical facilities fully implement the law. Even though the discussion has been opened again, it’s clear that it’s not enough. A transformation in the norms and values that surround the topic of abortion must be addressed if the application of such laws is to be successful.

This article is part of the series `Women´s Month 2019´, in which members of the ISS gender committee reflect on women´s issues on Bliss. Other articles of this series can be read here.

Image Credit: openDemocracy. The image has been cropped.

About the authors:

Zoya Waheed is a Pakistani SJP student at ISS. She is the secretary of the Gender committee and is committed to women empowerment.

Romina Manga Cambria is a Peruvian GDP student at ISS. She’s inherited her feminism from her mother. She’s part of the Gender committee.

Striking for a transformative university by Karin Astrid Siegmann and Amod Shah

By ISS Blog Bliss 13 March 201918 May 2020 2828 views

Budget cuts in higher education limit universities’ transformative potential. A big strike is therefore planned in the Netherlands for all sectors of education on 15 March 2019. This strike follows demonstrations amongst others by university staff and students in The Hague in December 2018. This post is a conversation between ISS PhD researcher Amod Shah and senior lecturer Karin Astrid Siegmann about what motivates them to participate in the protests.

Karin: So many people came for the demonstration in The Hague—many more than I had expected! There were 1,000, some say even 2,000 people. What motivated you to join, Amod?

Amod: I was very impressed at the size of the demonstration, too. Being part of an educational institution, an element of solidarity motivated me to join. And there are very real impacts of these proposed cuts on us as PhD researchers. We are already in a situation where there is limited capacity for PhD supervision and training because academic and administrative staff are stretched and need to balance research and teaching responsibilities. The budget cuts aggravate that. There’s also a broader discussion to be had: these cuts are huge and structural. What does that mean for the university?

Karin: I see people without permanent contracts and tenure often don’t dare to speak up, criticise, or do anything that would distract their attention from getting those publication points necessary to get tenure. Overall, I see a move towards the neoliberalisation of universities: universities are more and more managed like ‘knowledge factories’. There’s more attention to quantifiable outputs than to the contents of your research, the meaning of what you teach, and of your research for society. To me, a public university should be a space where people manage to think out of the box, creatively for a better, more just society.

In my research and teaching, I use Polanyi’s work quite a bit. He looked at European societies from the perspective of efforts to commodify everything in society, driven by business interests and also pushed by governments. I see similar dynamics in the neoliberalisation of universities. Yet they are a space that should not be commodified in a healthy society. The effort will backfire, I think. But Polanyi also perceived simultaneous counter-movements by ordinary people, by social movements. I see the protests as such a form of resistance.

Amod: Very real conflicts of interest are created when, instead of government funding, you rely on a private organisation, foundation, or company to provide funds for research.

Karin: ‘Conflict of interests’ puts it very politely. I see an increasing influence of corporate interests that want to uphold the status quo. For instance, I see many more calls for research on climate change adaptation rather than what can be done to prevent climate change. That allows us to not question a westernised consumerist way of life, a dogma of economic growth.

For the ‘knowledge factory’, a similar model is being implemented not only in universities but also other sectors, such as in healthcare or in government offices where you should care about the public good rather than higher productivity. This model works through individualisation and competition. It provides disincentives for people to collaborate, but also encourages them to recycle their own work in order to make a career.

Such an individualistic model also makes it easier within institutions to divide and rule and silence critical voices. Michael Burawoy has written a really interesting class analysis of how a university manages to silence protest against new public management restructuring by dividing academic staff from admin staff, through the provision of some privileges to academic staff.

Amod: This is a very good point! As a former MA student and now as a PhD researcher, I see that playing out at ISS, too. By creating such differences—that as a PhD student you are not a student but you are not a staff member either—you intentionally or unintentionally harm the ability for people to collaborate.

We are of course aware that there are funding pressures, but it’s important not to let go of the ethos of a university that contributes to social change. There should be space for collaboration, to think more broadly, not to be oriented solely towards the next publication, or finishing your PhD or getting a job. There are universities and spaces where people are trying to get away from this rat-race kind of orientation The University of Gent is one example: their new system for faculty evaluation de-emphasises quantitative metrics and focuses on what faculty members are proud of[1]. There are real examples out there about how things can be better—these are not ideas which are just up in the air.

Karin: Yes, I was really touched by that example. Another example I have heard about is the planned cooperative university in Manchester. Because of the increasing privatisation in universities, students don’t have the funds to study. That way, universities becomes a more and more exclusive space. With a cooperative university, they want to develop an alternative model with students and staff as the main stakeholders.

Amod: For me, what’s happening in the Netherlands is symptomatic of a more global phenomenon, of the state withdrawing from higher education. What do you think?

Karin: I just referred to Burawoy’s class analysis of neoliberalised universities. I heard him speak about that two years back in Lahore, Pakistan, at a private university. I found it so interesting that somebody coming from a public university in the US presented an analysis that spoke both to the situation of students at a private, elite university in Pakistan and somebody like me who is teaching at a public university in the Netherlands. Very different contexts, but his observations rang a bell for so many people in the audience.

Amod: I would add to this the idea of the university as an egalitarian space, where people from very different backgrounds are able to come and study together. I think that’s a hallmark of public education across the world. This egalitarian space is one of the first casualties of the privatisation and neoliberalisation of higher education. I see that a lot in India now, with the mushrooming of expensive private universities.

Karin: I think even in the publicly funded universities in countries that claim to be very egalitarian like the Netherlands, you very often see the reproduction of class, racial, and gender hierarchies. I don’t pretend that right now public universities are egalitarian spaces. But in private universities, it is very clear that the customer-pays principle rules. Whereas in public universities you can contest that, and there’s space to demand more inclusiveness.

Amod: I agree. I think that’s what these protests are about—maintaining a space for contestation in the public higher education system.

Karin: So, we will take to the streets again on 15 March?

Amod: Yes!

The 15 March demonstration at Malieveld, The Hague will start at 12:00 (noon) and will continue until approximately 13:30.

[1] We would like to thank Zuleika Sheik for sharing this information.

Image Credit: Alice Pasqual on Unsplash

About the authors:

Karin Astrid Siegmann is a senior lecturer in gender & labour economics at ISS.

Amod Shah is a PhD candidate at the ISS.

No choice but to grow: debt and economic growth in rural Colombia by Lorenza Arango Vásquez

By ISS Blog Bliss 11 March 201918 May 2020 2316 views

A majority of Colombia’s rural areas now hold large levels of interest-bearing debt as a result of the increased popularity of bank credits. This article through interviews with debtor peasants shows that their lives have been transformed by the debts they have incurred—debt has generated an imperative to grow. In producing the necessary amount to fulfil debt, small-scale producers are pressed to follow principles of accumulation and profit maximisation that characterises the capitalist society.

The boom of bank credit and debt

Across rural Colombia, bank credit has become the major instrument for financing productive activities. This boom is relatively recent and it was marked by the 1989 National System of Agricultural Credit (Sistema Nacional de Crédito Agropecuario: SNCA), a law aimed to increase the availability of bank credit in the countryside.

In 2016, as part of my previous collaboration with rural credit institutions, I was sent to El Carmen de Chucurí (Colombia) to attest the expansion of bank credit and to document the types of creditors in the area. El Carmen de Chucurí is a municipality located in the northeast of the country that had recently been named Colombia’s most important hub for cocoa production. During my stay, I found that the rising production of cocoa had to do with specific rural development policies, but also and more generally with the necessity to produce in order to repay loans.

For debtor peasants in El Carmen de Chucurí, debt repayment is a constant source of fatigue and concern. The majority of their time and efforts is devoted to growing cocoa, a “commodity” that represents the necessary “liquidity” to fulfil their credit obligations. While the expansion of rural bank credit continues to be the subject of many studies, discussions of the nature of debt and being a debtor are neglected.

The growth-imperative debate: a research topic

In my MA research paper, I focused on the expansion of interest-bearing debt in El Carmen de Chucurí rather than on that of credit. I interviewed a number of cocoa growers – all members of a local cocoa marketing association– whose lives have been forever transformed by their relationship with debt. In order to repay the principal and the interests of the bank credits, debtor peasants have been forced to increase the quantity of their cocoa produce and its value. Put another way, debt has generated an imperative to grow.

This apparent straightforward correlation is at the core of an ongoing scholarly debate on the role of credit interests for economic growth[i] (Strunz et al., 2015). While some scholars argue for a nexus between credit interests and economic growth, the more standard narrative on money and growth seems to largely neglect this relation. Still within the first current, there are differentiated stances. One set of scholarly work is based on the assumption that there exists a natural propensity towards growth and that credit is only the conduct through which the latter materialises[ii] [iii](King and Levine, 1993; Schumpeter 1983). Another body of academic literature more critically engages with this correlation and departs from the recognition that there is nothing natural or inherent in modern paths of economic growth. Instead, the imperative to growth relates to a very specific mode of production, capitalism, that was marked by “deep and painful social transformations”[iv] (Wood, 2009: 37).

Debt as a disciplining device

The research found that in the case of El Carmen de Chucurí (Colombia), the pressures to repay and remain solvent have significantly transformed the lives of peasants. They have been forced to adopt “maximizing strategies” based on a specific (capitalist) form of economic rationality, which I labelled as a transformation of their mindsets. In parallel, debtor peasants have also been pressed to intensify their work routines at the expense of their health, as part of turning debtors into “flexible and docile” to meet repayment deadlines. I called this a transformation of their bodies. Theoretically, I argued that these changes could be understood as part of the overarching disciplining effects of debt.

Debt and development trajectories

The behavioural and social changes in the lives of debtor peasants have, in turn, shaped their own trajectories of development. In producing the necessary amount to fulfil debt, they are pressed to follow principles of accumulation and profit maximisation that characterises the capitalist society. Rather than an odd case in which rural household indebtedness commingles with high productivity margins and large rates of returns, this reading is pertinent to other contexts where debt, too, constitutes a mechanism that propels capitalist logic. In an attempt to unpack the disciplining effects of debt, my research tried to point at the close ties between debt repayment and economic growth, and among this correlation and the expansion of capitalism more broadly.

References

[i] Strunz S, Bartkowski B and Schindler H (2015) Is There a Monetary Growth Imperative? In: Leipzig, 2015. UFZ. Available at: http://www.ufz.de/export/data/global/67091_DP_05_2015_Strunzetal.pdf.

[ii] King R and Levine R (1993a) Finance and Growth: Schumpeter Might Be Right. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 108(3): 717–737. DOI: 10.2307/2118406.

[iii] Schumpeter JA, Opie R and Elliott JE (1983) The Theory of Economic Development: An Inquiry into Profits, Capital, Credit, Interest, and the Business Cycle. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction Publishers.

[iv] Wood E (2009) Peasants and the Market Imperative: The Origins of Capitalism. In: Akram-Lodhi AH and Kay C (eds) Peasants and Globalization: Political Economy, Rural Transformation and the Agrarian Question, pp. 38-56. London: Routledge.

Image Credit: Alice Pasqual on Unsplash

About the author:

Lorenza Arango Vásquez is a recent master graduate from the ISS (December 2018).

Women’s Month 2019 | Seed keepers, memory keepers: native women and food sovereignty by Leila Rezvani

By ISS Blog Bliss 8 March 201918 May 2020 4184 views

When North America was colonised, the relationship of indigenous people with food was also colonised. But a group of women acting as seed keepers for their communities are fighting back, practicing decolonisation in their daily work and addressing the legacy of food colonisation through the reclamation of seeds and the traditions, practices, and affective relations that nurture human-plant-environment relationships and keep Native communities thriving, healthy, and connected.

Understanding the colonisation of North America begins with understanding food. Europeans thought that Natives could be ‘civilized’ through their stomachs. Targeting Native diets and methods of food provisioning was a way to control and disempower. Native populations of humans, non-human animals, and plants were decimated due to disease and violence. In what is now called the United States, native groups were forced onto individual allotments, often marginal land away from ancestral homes. Sedentary farming was viewed as the rational form of land use, shaping the native in the white yeoman farmer’s image.

And in residential schools, Native languages, dress and diets were forcefully repressed and replaced with English, European clothing and foods like wheat and dairy, which were largely absent from Native diets previously (Vernon 2015).

The legacy of this physical and cultural violence is clear: today, at least 60 Native reservations struggle with food insecurity, and Native families are four times as likely as other US families to report having not enough to eat (PWNA 2017). This places many Native communities in a relationship of dependence with the US Government: the USDA provides canned goods, powdered milk, processed cheese and white sugar, contributing directly to high rates of diabetes, heart disease, and obesity (Vernon 2015).

Fighting back

Native women are addressing the legacy of food colonisation by asserting their communities’ right to grow food for themselves—food that nourishes human bodies, cultural tradition, and the wider web of non-human species and environments. These women and the groups they work with not only promote food sovereignty but practice it: Winona La Duke of the Anishinnaabe founded the White Earth Land Recovery Project, which bought back 1,200 acres of tribal land that had been appropriated by the US government and began a project to revive the collection of wild rice, an important traditional food.

Rowen White of the Mohawk Nation founded Sierra Seeds, a company selling locally adapted and heritage varieties, and directs the Indigenous Seed Keepers Network (ISKN). In the winter of 2018, the ISKN came to an agreement with Seed Savers Exchange, a public access seedbank of rare and heritage varieties, to identify and rematriate[1] varieties of corn, beans and squash that originated in Native communities (White, n.d.).

Rufina Juarez, a Chicana Indigenous woman, helped organise the 14-acere South Central Farm, maintained by 350 primarily Central American families as a space to grow culturally appropriate, nourishing food in 20-by-30-foot plots. The farm was a haven for immigrants to grow food that connected them to the places they left behind: nopales, corn, squash, tlapanche and papalo greens, lettuces, strawberries, cabbages (Mark 2006). The farm was bulldozed in 2006 even after farm advocates were able to raise money to meet the $16 million asking price. (Juarez 2010, Gordon 2006).

And still, new challenges constantly arise: climate change alters traditional migratory routes of important game animals like caribou, land grabbing for industrial monocropping or extraction removes land from indigenous stewardship, and biopiracy[2] and corporate consolidation of the seed industry deteriorates crop biodiversity (Cultural Survival 2013). Native women continue to organise in the face of these challenges, recognising that colonisation is an ongoing, evolving process, deeply tied to the machinations of globalised capital.

Enduring practices

The work of seed keeping and the maintenance of community tradition it entails is often, but not exclusively, spearheaded by women. Collaboration between many stakeholders, Native or not, young and old, male, female, or otherwise, is key. I chose to highlight these initiatives because women are central and powerful, but are not burdened with speaking for ‘nature’, from an essentialised, gender-based position. Rather, their work builds on traditions of care, affectivity, and community network building that women and others have performed for generations, throughout the trauma of colonisation and the attempted, but unsuccessful, erasure of native foodways.

[1] “Rematriate” means returning the seeds to their place of origin. “Repatriate” is more commonly used, but here I chose to retain the word used in White’s article, which consciously imputes a feminine quality to the seed and the land to which it is returning.

[2] Biopiracy describes the process by which biological or genetic material (commonly from medicinal or crop plant or animal species) is obtained and exploited for commercial use without the knowledge or consent of the original ‘owners’ or stewards of the material. The most common situation is multinational pharmaceutical or agrochemical/seed companies using indigenous plant knowledge to locate commercially valuable species, stela them, and then patent them so they become exclusive property of the corporation. The term was originally coined by Pat Mooney of the ETC Group and popularized by Vandana Shiva of Navdanya.

References

‘Combating Food Insecurity on Native American Reservations'(2017) , pp. 1-4Partnership with Native Americans and Northern Plains Reservation Aid.

‘Maintaining the Ways of our Ancestors: Indigenous Women Address Food Sovereignty’ (Last updated 13 October 2013) (a webpage of Cultural Survival). Accessed 16 February 2019 <https://www.culturalsurvival.org/news/maintaining-ways-our-ancestors-indigenous-women-address-food-sovereignty>.

Alvarez, L. (Last updated 2019) ‘Colonization, Food, and the Practice of Eating’ (a webpage of The Food Empowerment Project). Accessed 13 February 2019 <http://www.foodispower.org/colonization-food-and-the-practice-of-eating/>.

Gordon (14 June 2006) ‘LA’s South Central Farm Shut Down and Bulldozed’ Tree Hugger. Accessed 16 February 2019 <https://www.treehugger.com/corporate-responsibility/las-south-central-farm-shut-down-and-bulldozed.html>.

Mark (9 June 2006) ‘Could the battle for South Central Farm be coming to a close?’ Grist. Accessed 25 February 2019 <https://grist.org/article/mark2/>.

Juarez, R. (2010) ‘Indigenous Women in the Food Justice and Sovereignty Movement: Lessons from the South Central Farm’, NACCS Annual Conference: Chicana/o Environmental Justice Struggles for a Post-Neoliberal Age, 1 April 2010. San Jose State University pp1-10.

Vernon, R.V. (2015) ‘A Native Perspective: Food is More than Consumption’, Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development 5(4): 137-142.

White, R. ‘Indigenous Seed Keepers Network: The Long Way Home; Seed Rematriation at Taos Pueblo’ (a webpage of Native Food Alliance). Accessed 13 February 2019 <https://nativefoodalliance.org/indigenous-seedkeepers-network/>.

This article is part of the series `Women´s Month 2019´, in which members of the ISS gender committee reflect on women´s issues on Bliss.

Image Credit: https://www.stopthewall.org/apartheid-wrong

About the author:

Leila Rezvani is a Master’s student in the AFES major. She comes from Southern Vermont, USA, and is interested in the politics of scientific knowledge production, seed systems, plant breeding and thinking about how the agro-food system could be more just for plants, people and non-human animals. She misses the mountains and hopes to work for a small seed company or farm someday (soon).

Kidnapping in the Eastern Congo: ‘Grievance-oriented’ struggles and criminality? by Delphin Ntanyoma

By ISS Blog Bliss 6 March 201918 May 2020 3932 views

From August to November last year, 83 cases of kidnapping were reported in Ruzizi Plain alone, part of Uvira territory in the Eastern Congo. While kidnapping can be viewed as a major problem in the DRC, Delphin Ntanyoma argues that it’s important to consider that violence in the Congo is deeply embedded in the demands for better living conditions coupled with other socio-political loopholes that have been created since the colonial era.

Late last year, in November, I visited Uvira, one of the largest cities in the South Kivu region, Eastern Congo. The city constitutes an administrative center of Uvira Territory, having both the same name. For practical and security reasons, some passengers travelling from Bukavu, the capital city of the South Kivu Province, to Uvira pass through Rwanda and/or Burundi—two countries that border on the DRC. The choice of taking the Rwanda-Burundi route is not only linked to safety concerns, it is also connected to hazardous transport and road conditions. From Bukavu to Kamanyola, one must pass Ngomo escarpments[1]. What makes one think twice before undertaking the journey is the way in which you can, at any time, fall into the hands of kidnappers. Kidnappers are currently active in the Ruzizi Plain—from Kamanyola up to Uvira.

Though thoroughly criminal, kidnapping has become another form of violence in the Eastern Congo region. It has recently been practiced in the neighboring province of North Kivu, mainly in Rutshuru Territory to the extent one can guess that this practice has been imported in Uvira territory from the neighboring province.

Violence in the Congo is deeply embedded in the demands for better living conditions coupled with other socio-political loopholes that have been created since the colonial era. Following the country’s independence from Belgium, the public had had high expectations regarding the improvement of their standards of living. Rebel groups started to be formed, demanding an increase in living standards that many thought is unlikely to be achieved. Recently, the proliferation of and reliance on armed maneuvers has entered an era of unprecedented crises currently involving kidnapping.

From August up to late November 2018, more than 83 kidnapping cases had occurred only in the Ruzizi Plain region[2]. The kidnapping nightmare culminates in the paying of ransoms that average around $150-200. These incidents of kidnapping are widely spread in the vast region that borders on Burundi and Rwanda. However, localities of Ruzizi Plain such as Lemera, Kigoma, Luberizi, and Kabunambo are considered epicenters of these incidents. In most cases, these localities are targeted due to the way in which power confrontation occurs here at the local level. In addition, kidnappers exploit an absence of the national army in order to operate freely.

Kidnapping targets single persons to groups of people, and in Ruzizi Plain more men than women have been targeted: Out of the 83 reported cases, 71% of those kidnapped were men. In addition, kidnappers target individuals who may be able to pay. These are generally schools’ headmasters and teachers, villages’ chiefs, traders, motorcycle drivers, but also others targeted by their opponents settling accounts through arranged kidnappings. That is, armed groups can benefit from a clash between two parties, as they could then turn to them for revenge through arranged kidnapping. Kidnapping also targets village chiefs suspected of siding with the national army in their efforts to contain armed men. Some are targeted for having played the dubious role of pleasing both sides. The complexity and dynamics around armed mobilisation in the region explains decisions behind targeted kidnapping. However, one needs to recognise that even commuters are sometimes rounded up by these armed men desperately seeking to diversify their funding sources.

Kidnapping in Rutshuru and around the Volcanoes-Virunga Park is widely multifaceted. But behind the scenes, the same armed groups belonging to Maimai[3] are specifically cited among those engaged in the kidnapping of civilians. Engaging in such criminal activity is yet another expression of the failure to sustain their struggles. In Ruzizi Plain specifically, kidnappers are young militants and armed groups’ leaders who have at some point been reluctant to engage in reintegration or demobilisation processes. Whenever defeated or fallen into internal dissidence, these groups find shelter in remote regions where their strongholds are hardly attacked by the national army. By being unable to sustain conventional military wars, disconnected to sources of funds, armed groups resort to all means to survive. By getting involved in such criminal activities, observers tend to overlook the relevance of struggles that generally aimed to express anger over wide social and economic inequalities.

Though not yet deeply researched, it seems that kidnapping needs to immediately be contained and all means deployed for the sake of protecting the local population. However, the socio-political and economic conditions of the region and specifically that of the youth must constitute a primary concern. Hundreds of desperate young men mull around on the sidewalks, with no hope for their future, justifying the choice of relying on risky means to air their grievances. Moreover, a better understanding of kidnapping in the Congo could help to understand the meaning of urban violence that is mushrooming across some of the country’s cities.

[1] The Ngomo escarpment is the hazardous route that links Bukavu City to Uvira via Kamanyola. Kamanyola is a growing agglomeration on the side of Congo bordering on Ruzizi Plain and Rwanda-Burundi countries. The escarpment is constituted by steep hills coupled with muddy conditions of the road that cause many accidents. For years, these conditions have ensured that passengers rather choose to go through Rwanda to reach Kamanyola.

[2] I am indebted to Oscar Dunia, a local researcher who keeps an eye on this tragic issue in the region. Oscar has helped to gather the data and provided some insights on the ways kidnapping is organized, and also about motives behind the kidnappings.

[3] Maimai are local armed groups falling under the ‘Autochthonous’ and nationalist fighters. The group is differently spelled into the literature to the extent that they are either called Mai Mai, Mayimayi or simply Mai. Maimai is a Swahili word meaning ‘water’ and expresses historical beliefs in the power of witchcraft to turn bullets into water.

About the author:

Delphin Ntanyoma is a PhD candidateat the ISS. His research falls within Conflict Economics and is part of the Economics of Development & Emerging Markets (EDEM) Program. With a background of Economics and Masters’ of Art in Economics of Development from ISS, the researcher runs an online blog that shares personal views on socio-economic and political landscape of the Democratic Republic of Congo but also that of the African Great Lakes Region. The Eastern Congo Tribune Blog can be found on the following link: www.easterncongotribune.com.

The New World “Order”: Brexit, Trump and the Developing Countries by Peter A.G. van Bergeijk

By ISS Blog Bliss 1 March 201918 May 2020 2860 views

Deglobalisation is not the mirror image of globalisation. The losers of globalisation will thus not be the winners of deglobalisation. Indeed, the vulnerable and poor will be the big losers of deglobalisation both in the Global North and Global South.

In the world economy, the guards are changing: we see the emergence of China as the major trading economy of the world continue and at the same time the crumbling of the economic power of the United States of America. Handing over world economic leadership is always a painful process, and it is certainly not a new phenomenon. The rise of the British Empire ended the period of Dutch hegemony. After the Second World War, the USA became global leader, and now we see China emerging on top of many economic rankings. Both before and during these phases of geo-economic transformation, similar processes occurred that reflected shifts in the costs and benefits of hegemony.[1]

SHIFTING POWER IS PAINFUL

A non-contested hegemon has significant market power and can appropriate a substantial part of the benefits of the rules and regulations of the world order. These benefits enable the hegemon to finance the costs of world order maintenance. However, when an emerging economic power contests the incumbent, the balance of costs and benefits shifts to the detriment of the hegemon. It also becomes apparent that the division of the benefits of the world order are not proportional to the costs. Clearly, US actions currently are being fed by popular sentiments (and also feed these sentiments!), but a rational explanation of what we see happening is certainly not beside the point. Modelling exercises of a great diversity of trade disturbances and trade wars show that the United States hurts itself, but that China has to pay a higher price (Figure 1).

Source: J. Bollen and H. Rojas-Romagosa, 2018, ‘Trade wars: Economic impacts of US tariff increases and retaliations. An international perspective’, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Analysis, The Hague.

Making America the Greatest Again can be done in two ways: either by putting more effort into improving the US economy, or by trying to hurt China more. In the current context, the outcome of the second option is more certain, especially in the short run. Economists therefore cannot but conclude that this form of neomercantilism for the United States in a political sense is quite effective. A trade war that involves the United States, China, and the European Union (the blue bars in figure 1) consistently finds that the negative impact in other regions is always larger than for the United States. For an all-out trade war of the US with all advanced economies (the orange bars in Figure 1), a somewhat different picture emerges, but still China is hurt most.

It is important to recognise that the current context extends well beyond trade disturbances and that this is part of a new long downward phase. Indeed, an important empirical finding is that Make America Great Again and Brexit should be seen as symptoms rather than causes of deglobalisation: already long before the elections and referendum, a significant break could be observed in the pace and direction of internationalisation of leading democratically oriented economies.[2] It is not obvious that a change can be expected with respect to these trends in the near future. Indeed, policy uncertainty is on a clearly upward trend and has entered uncharted territory (Figure 2). This increase in uncertainty already has a negative impact on investment decisions of firms and consumers. Certainly, deglobalisation has a much broader palette than the trade disturbances that presently make the headlines.

Figure 2 Global policy uncertainty (monthly data 2000-2018)

Source: S. J. Davis, 2016. “An Index of Global Economic Policy Uncertainty,” Macroeconomic Review, October, http://www.policyuncertainty.com

The impact of deglobalisation goes further and also includes development cooperation and other international flows. Attacks on global institutions and multilateral agreements is an essential element of neomercantilism and its impact is felt all around the globe. A comprehensive deglobalisation scenario of the International Futures Model shows that the long-run losses are large and always negative (Table 1). The impact in the US in this scenario is relatively limited, and strong losses in income level appear on other continents. A recent study of the German Institute for Development has analysed the impact of Brexit and finds that losses outside the UK are important. In particular, the impact on the least developing countries is significant.[3]

Table 1 Estimated impact of deglobalisation on per capita income in 2035

Source: Hillebrand, E. E., 2010, ‘Deglobalization scenarios: who wins? Who loses?’ Global Economy Journal 10 (2) article 3 available at: http://www.ifsprev.du.edu/assets/documents/hilldeglob.pdf

The European Union can make a difference here. It is clear that developing countries are not part of the conflict between the big powers and that their plight is due to collateral damage. The European Union has always supported trade as a means to achieve development. It should step up efforts to facilitate trade and help the least-developed countries to divert their trade so as to make up for the losses caused by the deglobalisationists.

[1] Z. Olekseyuk and I.O. Rodarte How Brexit Affects Least Developed Countries, Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik, Briefing Paper 2/2019

[2] P.A.G. van Bergeijk, On the brink of deglobalization … again, Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society 11, 59–72. In the same vein China’s support for the multilateral trade and investment system did not come unexpectedly.

[3] P.A.G. van Bergeijk, Deglobalization 2.0: Trade and openness during the Great Depression and the Great Recession, Edward Elgar Cheltenham 2019. https://www.e-elgar.com/shop/deglobalization-2-0 https://www.e-elgar.com/shop/deglobalization-2-0

In 2018, Bliss Blog featured a series on deglobalisation. Articles of this series can be read here, here and here.

About the author:

Peter van Bergeijk (www.petervanbergeijk.org) is Professor of International Economics and Macroeconomics at the ISS.

Creative Development | Rap Against Dictatorship: Thai lessons in history, politics, and belonging by Roy Huijsmans

By ISS Blog Bliss 27 February 20195 October 2020 4165 views

On December 30^th, 2018, when the end-of-year music charts were nearing their annual climax, music history was made in Thailand: the music video of Thai collective Rap Against Dictatorship called Prathet Ku Mi ([What] My Country’s Got) reached 50 million views on YouTube. This blog post explains that appreciating rap as social critique requires going beyond lyrics to contextualise its multiple and at times subtle messages and references.

Thailand has a long history of military coups.[1] The most recent one took place on May 22^nd, 2014. Since then, Thailand has been ruled by the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO), formed by the military. Various observers have expressed concern about the human rights situation in Thailand under the NCPO. In 2018, Freedom House cautioned that the government ‘has exercised unchecked powers granted by the constitution to impose extensive restrictions on civil and political rights, and to suppress dissent’.[2] Next to rewriting the constitution, the NCPO has used various legal instruments to supress critical voices, including a new Computer Crime Act and restrictions on political gatherings.[3]

Within this context, academic conferences are monitored, too. Recently, charges were pressed against Thai academics who protested this at the 2017 International Conference on Thai Studies (Chiang Mai) by holding up handwritten Thai language signs declaring that ‘an academic forum is not a military camp’. This peaceful protest was deemed violating Order No.3/2015 that forbids political gatherings of five people or more.[4]

Rap as critique

The country free of corruption which doesn’t even investigate on it,
The country whose prime minister’s watch is made of corpses
The country whose parliament is the playground of its soldiers,
The country in which a constitution is written so that its army’s paws can trample all over it,
…

This is my country, this is my country.[5]

Holding up some handwritten signs at an academic conference seems gentle protest compared to the language used in Prathet Ku Mi. It thus came as no surprise that within days of its YouTube release (October 22^nd, 2018), the Thai newspaper The Nation reported that ‘police had already been ordered to identify the rappers and explore the option of pressing charges’.[6] The day after, The Nation continued reporting on the song, stating that it ‘went to the top of Thailand’s iTunes download list’ and had already attracted millions of viewers.[7] Possibly because it went viral, to date no actual charges have been pressed against the rappers.

The lyrics are only a small part of what makes Prathet Ku Mi such a remarkable song. James Mitchell explains on New Mandala that the real power of the song perhaps lies in the moving images of the music video.[8]

From lyrics to visuals

The music video restages an iconic image of what is known as the Thammasat massacre or the 6 October event. At 3:20 minutes into the clip a guitar solo sets in. The camera zooms in on an electric guitar in the colours of the Thai flag – the only colour scene in the music video. The next scene makes clear what the audience in the background has been cheering to: a hanging, and a young man beating the hanged body with a chair.

On 6 October 1976 Thai state and paramilitary forces violently ended a student protest at Thammasat University in Bangkok. Students protested the (invited) return to Thailand of the former military dictator Thanom Kittikachorn. Suchada Chakpisuth, a then first year student at Thammasat, recalled that the violence was triggered by a mock-hanging students staged to demand justice following an actual hanging of students by state forces. Unfortunately or deliberately, the Thai radio reported it as ‘a play lynching the Crown prince’ by communist students unleashing disproportionate countermeasures.[9]

To date, no one has ever been charged for the violence and many questions have remained unanswered. The music video returns to this moment in Thai history in a musical genre that appeals to the young. As James Mitchell argues, the music video thereby ‘accomplished what the Thai education system cannot’ because school books do not discuss this moment in Thai history in much detail.[10]

Prathet Ku Mi: a statement of belonging

With the long-delayed elections in sight (March 24^th, 2019), Rap Against Dictatorship has released a timely and youthful lesson in political consciousness and citizenship. Their message is one of critique, but a deeply engaged one. This is realised by juxtaposing the listing of criticism with the phrase prathet ku mi (ประเทศกูมี).

Coupling the Thai term prathet (ประเทศ) for country with the first person pronoun ku (กู), the English translation as ‘my country’ does not do justice to the intricate meanings conveyed through this phrase. First, connecting the collective notion of prathet to the personal deviates from common expressions used by politicians such as prathet Thai (ประเทศไทย; Thailand) or prathet rao (ประเทศกเรา; our country). Next to this individual claim on a collective concept, ku is not a neutral personal pronoun. Ku is what is used informally among friends as a means to bond but also to convey anger. This intricate use of language not only fits the style of the rap genre – it also conveys a very firm sense of belonging. It is a personal statement, yet reclaiming the collective. It is informal, yet referring to the formal construct of country. It is full of anger, yet it is all but disengaging. After all these rappers suggest learning from the troubled history of ‘my country’.

Hyperlink to Youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZvzvLiGUtw

[1] https://www.newmandala.org/counting-thailands-coups/

[2] https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2018/thailand

[3] https://asiancorrespondent.com/2016/12/understanding-thailands-revised-computer-crimes-act/

[4] https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/1314859/charges-against-academics-harm-nation

[5] https://lyricstranslate.com/en/%E0%B8%9B%E0%B8%A3%E0%B8%B0%E0%B9%80%E0%B8%97%E0%B8%A8%E0%B8%81%E0%B8%B9%E0%B8%A1%E0%B8%B5-prathet-ku-mi-my-country.html

[6] http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/breakingnews/30357295

[7] http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/breakingnews/30357314

[8] https://www.newmandala.org/thailands-rap-against-dictatorship/

[9] https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/unforgettable-unrememberable-the-thammasat-massacre-in-thailand/#!

[10] https://www.newmandala.org/thailands-rap-against-dictatorship/

This article is part of a series on Creative Development. See the first article of this series here.

Image Credit: Pauliepg. The picture has been cropped.

About the author:

Roy Huijsmans is a teacher/researcher at the ISS.

Between resilience and vulnerability: the dilemma of refugee resettlement by Mahardhika Sjamsoe’oed Sadjad

By ISS Blog Bliss 25 February 201918 May 2020 3537 views

Many of the 25.4 million refugees worldwide are living a life in limbo, forced to face a grave dilemma due to the uncertainty of resettlement: while living a life in transit seems to make them more resilient, this could undermine their chances of being resettled. Based on observations while doing research and working with refugees in Cisarua, Indonesia, this article argues that vulnerability and resilience are actually two sides of the same coin.

When we entered the new year of 2019, many of us gave meaning to this annual change in our Gregorian calendars through new resolutions, resolved disappointments, and exciting future plans. For many of the 25.4 million refugees worldwide, however, the passing of a new year marked more time waiting in limbo. This is certainly the case for most of the estimated 13,840 foreign refugees (UNHCR 2017) currently living in Indonesia, the majority of which come from Afghanistan, Myanmar, and Somalia.

This article wishes to highlight the dilemma many refugees are forced to face due to the increasing uncertainty of resettlement. Many refugees I spoke to felt that their resilience to survive a life of indefinite transit, could undermine their chances of getting resettled. I became aware of this dilemma while spending some months in 2018, working with and doing ethnographic research on the reception of refugees in both Cisarua and Jakarta, Indonesia. While my study focuses on the reactions and responses of Indonesian host communities, it also involved volunteering at the Refugee Learning Centre (RLC) in Cisarua. This article is written based on some of my conversations and observations during this experience.

Not-so-temporary refuge in Indonesia

For most refugees I spoke to, life in Indonesia is often described with a sense of temporariness, a point of transit before being resettled. “If no one comes any more to Indonesia and the number of places for resettlement remain the same, UNHCR will need up to 25 years to resettle everyone,” said a staff member of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) at an information session on 27 April 2018, at RLC in Cisarua. She emphasised again: “If no one else comes, but people are still coming”. Refugees were informed that resettlement opportunities to a third country have become increasingly unavailable and that it is not a right every refugee is entitled to. However, when both voluntary repatriation and local integration are not available options for most refugees living in Indonesia, many still see resettlement as their only means to a life of peace.

During this information session, the UNHCR staff member also explained that they will need to prioritise resettlement for refugees deemed most vulnerable. While all refugees are vulnerable, if only by virtue of the traumas they carry and their precarious legal status in host countries like Indonesia, resettlement opportunities prioritise the most vulnerable among the vulnerable[1]. Unaccompanied minors, people with disabilities and health concerns, survivors of torture and violence, and other groups at risk are meant to get to the top of the ‘priority list’ for resettlement. Considering how countries around the world are increasingly closing their borders to refugees, this need to prioritise is understandable.

However, it also has unintended consequences. When the vulnerable become the deserving, many refugees are forced to face a dilemma between resilience and vulnerability.

Between resilience and vulnerability

Refugees I’ve talked to have expressed concerns that displaying an ‘active’ life in Indonesia might be interpreted as a display of resilience, which might push them down the ‘priority list’ for resettlement. “We need to be active to survive this period of waiting in Indonesia. But if we’re active we aren’t seen as vulnerable, and if we aren’t vulnerable, we can’t get resettled,” said a refugee I spoke to in Cisarua. A manager at RLC in Cisarua where I volunteered told me that some parents even blame the success of refugee-run learning centres for the decrease of resettlement opportunities.

Utas (2005, 408) criticises the portrayal of agency and victimhood as oppositional, and instead uses victimcy to discuss Liberian women’s self-representation as victims of war as means for the social navigation of war zones. Similarly, for refugees, vulnerability can become a tool to navigate resettlement opportunities. Since so much depends on refugees’ narratives of insecurity, the ability to assert one’s vulnerability becomes a means to create space for negotiation (Jansen 2008, 584). However, as the waiting period for resettlement is extended indefinitely, refugees must simultaneously navigate a life of seemingly endless ‘transit’.

One evening, I was invited to dinner by a friend who is also a refugee in Cisarua. His mother showed me with pride her homemade yoghurt and bread – two foods not common in an Indonesian kitchen. According to my friend, refugee women in Cisarua had learned of a local Indonesian blacksmith that could build a similar oven as they used back home to bake bread. In the case of refugees in Cisarua, there is agency in the building of communities with learning centres, networks of shops with spices and foods, and religious holiday rituals that remind them of where they came from.

If refugees’ families are slowly adjusting to life in transit despite the lack of access to formal education and livelihood, will they still be considered for resettlement? The UNHCR has responded to questions such as these by saying that the two are unrelated. When I mentioned this to several refugees at RLC, those I spoke to were unconvinced. One argued it would be impossible to really know why one family gets resettled while another doesn’t, since these decisions are made behind closed doors. When those who don’t get to the top of the priority list may never get resettled and are at risk of being stranded indefinitely, it is easy to empathise with refugees feeling discouraged.

Two sides of the same coin

How refugees are portrayed also influence the reception they receive from local host communities. “Is it true that refugees don’t have to work and still get money?” an angkot[2] driver asked me. A seller at a food stall in Cisarua once commented, “The refugees here aren’t like the ones I see in the news. They are better off than us.”

Most Indonesians I talked to are not aware that many refugees live independently, trying to make the funds they have last as long as possible during their time in transit. While some groups of refugees have escaped structural oppressions that prevented them from obtaining any education and employment, others who escaped conflicts and persecution may have lost their degrees and certificates along the way. Framing refugees’ lives through one-dimensional narratives of vulnerability and victimhood easily leads to misunderstandings, unwarranted suspicions, and prejudices.

Waiting for resettlement is not a passive endeavour. One needs to stay consistently motivated to fill the days and not fall into the depths of depression. RLC is constantly buzzing with activities that refugees organise for themselves: futsal practice and tournaments, GED preparation courses for young people, teaching workshops for teachers, language courses for adults. If there is one lesson to learn from friends at RLC, it is that vulnerability and resilience are not two opposite sides of a spectrum. Instead, they are two sides of the same coin. Demonstrating resilience doesn’t suggest an absence of vulnerability, and surviving a life of vulnerabilities can only be done with a great dose of resilience.

[1] The conversations and presentations I observed during my fieldwork presented refugee resettlement to third countries on the basis of vulnerability. However, it is necessary to acknowledge that countries have different resettlement preferences and resettlement can be granted on the basis of vulnerability and on the basis of merit (Hilhorst and Jansen 2010, 1126-1127).

[2] Local public transportation in the form of small minivans

References:

Hilhorst, Dorothea and Bram J. Jansen (2010) “Humanitarian Space as Arena: A Perspective on the Everyday Politics of Aid,” Development and Change, 41(6): 1117–1139.

Jansen, B. J. (2008) “Between Vulnerability and Assertiveness : Negotiating Resettlement in Kakuma Refugee Camp, Kenya,” African Affairs, 107(429), pp. 569–588.

UNHCR (2017) “2017 Year-end Report: Operation: Indonesia’ (A webpage of UNHCR). Accessed 14 January 2019 http://reporting.unhcr.org/sites/default/files/pdfsummaries/GR2017-Indonesia-eng.pdf

Utas, M. (2005) “Victimcy, Girlfriending, Soldiering: Tactic Agency in a Young Woman’s Social Navigation of the Liberian War Zone,” Anthropological Quarterly, 78(2), pp. 403–430.

About the author:

Mahardhika Sjamsoe’oed Sadjad is a PhD researcher at the International Institute of Social Studies. Her research analyses identity discourses in refugee reception in Indonesia. This article was inspired by conversations she had with Abdullah Sarwari, the Principal of the Refugee Learning Centre and a refugee currently living in Cisarua.

Development Dialogue 2018 | Social acceptance of oil activities in the Ecuadorian Amazon: a long way to go by Alberto Diantini

By ISS Blog Bliss 21 February 201918 May 2020 2912 views

Oil companies are coming to realise that they need a ‘Social Licence to Operate’—the acceptance of locals—to reduce social risk associated with their activities. But how do they achieve this community acceptance, especially in areas of the Amazon forest inhabited by indigenous peoples?

Extractive companies are usually unpopular and mistrusted. For them, it is increasingly evident that a legal, formal licence of operation from governments is not enough. To avoid costly protests, they need a Social Licence to Operate (SLO), generally defined as the acceptance of local communities of their activities. It is a kind of social, unwritten contract that ensures an enterprise’s social risk is reduced as long as priorities and expectations of the local communities are satisfied: the higher the SLO, the lower the risk (Prno & Slocombe, 2012).

Although the SLO concept was developed in Western contexts, it has been increasingly adopted in developing regions as well. In Latin America, for example, in the case of projects affecting indigenous peoples, the main common issues are power imbalances, conflicting worldviews, and informed consent, but these SLO key elements are largely overlooked (Ehrnström-Fuentes & Kröger, 2017).

As a contribution to filling this gap, my research aims to critically analyse the usability of the SLO concept as indicator of community acceptability in Latin America. In particular, I am focusing on the oil context of Block 10, in the Ecuadorian Amazon, managed by the Italian company Eni-Agip. The area is inhabited by indigenous groups, which are mostly Kichwa. Eni-Agip’s good reputation at the national level, its community investments (medical assistance and education programmes), and the apparent low level of conflicts in the block could suggest that the company has obtained an SLO from the locals. But is this the case?

To answer this question, I went to Ecuador and got in touch with researchers from the local university, the Estatal Amazónica of Puyo. Together, we planned a household survey in the villages of the affected area, examining people’s perceptions of positive and negative effects related to Eni-Agip’s operations. We also investigated whether locals perceive that the ‘Free, Prior, Informed Consent’ (FPIC) principle has been applied in this context. FPIC establishes that indigenous communities have the right to participate in the decision-making process pertaining to the activities that affect their territories. Before beginning oil operations, communities should have a full understanding of project’s risks and benefits and freely give informed consent (Hanna & Vanclay, 2013).

In order to facilitate interactions with the community members who don’t speak Spanish at all, a group of Kichwa students attending the university was included in our research team. This enabled me to be more easily accepted inside the communities: since I am Italian, people initially saw me as a potential spy of the Italian government or of the enterprise.

A total number of 346 questionnaires were completed and all villages of the influence area were surveyed. Preliminary results show that most respondents think the presence of the company is compromising the environment and irreversibly changing their culture. On the other hand, people rely on the social programmes previously offered by the oil company which Eni-Agip now claims are the duty of the State.

In effect, the most recent national oil contract stipulates that the government shall now provide these social services, but the State has been unable to meet this responsibility, in part due to the remoteness of these communities.

Almost 87% of the population doesn’t know what FPIC is. In addition, some of the interviewees reported cases in which they have been forced to accept the decisions of the company, with attempts of coercion.

It is noteworthy that during the survey, many people told us they fear that if they criticise Eni-Agip in any way, the company would cut social programs altogether.

In conclusion, despite the low level of conflicts and the good reputation of the company, interviewees reported the same impacts found in many other oil contexts of Ecuador and Latin America, such as cultural changes, dependence on the company, and lack of respect of FPIC procedures. Overall, the evidence of Eni-Agip’s high control of community consent, the absence of the State, and the vulnerability of indigenous communities are elements that seem to limit the genuine achievement of balanced power relationships, the core elements of a social licence. Therefore, caution is necessary prior to claim that a company has achieved an SLO in such a complex and conflicted territory. Much has to be done by the State to meet its responsibilities and by the company for a full respect of indigenous populations’ rights.

References:

Ehrnström-Fuentes, M., & Kröger, M. (2017). In the shadows of social licence to operate: untold investment grievances in latin America. Journal of Cleaner Production, 141, 346–358.

Hanna, P., & Vanclay, F. (2013). Human rights, Indigenous peoples and the concept of Free, Prior and Informed Consent. Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal, 31(2), 146–157.

Prno, J., & Slocombe, D. (2012). Exploring the origins of “social license to operate” in the mining sector: Perspectives from governance and sustainability theories. Resources Policy, 37(3), 346–357.

This blog article is part of a series related to the Development Dialogue 2018 Conference that was recently held at the ISS. Other articles forming part of the series can be read here, here , here, here here, and here.

About the author:

Alberto Diantini is a PhD researcher in Geographical Studies at the University of Padua, Italy, supervised by prof. Massimo De Marchi, coordinator of the “Territories of ecological and cultural diversity” research group. The main objective of Diantini’s research is investigating the usability of the concept of Social Licence to Operate in the oil contexts of the Ecuadorian Amazon.

Cherry Blossom Season

By ISS Blog Bliss 20 February 2019 1361 views

Beauty has so many forms, and I think the most beautiful thing is confidence and loving yourself.

As you may be aware from the proliferation of headlines that end in “…and the internet is very upset about it!” the Internet is constantly very upset about various things. Some of those things provoke quite understandable if not righteous upper. Other times though, the internet just seems bored and looking for something to kick around the ol’ Twitter echo chamber. The world of fashion meanwhile has a long history of provoking, teasing, scandalizing, and, dare we say it, trolling.

Actual scandal-worthy fashion moments aside, it is of little surprise then that occasionally otherwise inoffensive fashion items and objects get caught in the Twitter outrage cycle simply for existing. Would fashion really be doing it’s job in 2017 if it didn’t occasionally provoke such strong reactions online? We have little doubt that that was the point at least some of these designers (we’re looking at you Demna) were trying to make. Others maybe were perhaps just playing catch up on what they perceived as a trend.

Fall decorating presents the opportunity to revel in luxury. Fabrics become more substantial, color palettes transition to rich hues, and just about every design decision for the season revolves around cultivating a cozy living environment. In an effort to help you make your space ideal for fall, a group of design tastemakers reveal the decor trends to expect in homes across the country this season, along with a few lessons you’ll want to consider.Actual scandal-worthy fashion moments aside, it is of little surprise then that occasionally otherwise inoffensive fashion items and objects get caught in the Twitter outrage cycle simply for existing. Would fashion really be doing it’s job in 2017 if it didn’t occasionally provoke such strong reactions online?

Beauty has so many forms, and I think the most beautiful thing is confidence and loving yourself.

Mike Rowe, host of Discovery Channel’s Dirty Jobs, entered into the world online fashion critic earlier this year when he discovered a pair of $425 jeans on sale at Nordstrom’s from the brand PRPS. He positioned them as another volley in “our country’s War on Work.” He continued, “They’re not even fashion. They’re a costume for wealthy people who see work as ironic – not iconic.” Fair point. Really though we were also a bit offended that DSquared2 already did the whole purposefully muddied jeans a few years ago. In fact, Gwen Stefani was spotted wearing the originals when she first started dating Blake Shelton. See, there.

“Up until that point, people had been hearing exercise messages for the better part of the decade, but they weren’t sure what they were supposed to do,” says Shelly McKenzie, PhD, author of Getting Physical: The Rise of Fitness Culture in America. Cooper offered practical workout guidelines—setting the stage for what would eventually become a national fitness obsession. The 1960s also saw the birth of the modern barre industry. The workout was invented by Lotte Berk, a retired German dancer who combined ballet moves, yoga and rehabilitative exercises to help herself recover from a back injury. She discovered that the workout helped her stay strong and supple, and in 1959, opened a small basement studio on Manchester Street in London, where she attracted a star-studded clientele.

Mixing urban attitude, boho elegance and rock ‘n’ roll spirit, she delivers a genuine French allure.

“We can’t afford not to educate girls and give women the power and the access that they need.”

We get why people would be outraged from a certain view, but we also think at least some of these designers are in on the joke. Maybe the only question is what exactly the punchline is. Then again, when you think about it the entire world of high fashion is taking something mundane (clothing; we all have to wear it), and turning it into coveted and cutting-edge luxury items.

Life experience brings out different emotions and different perspectives on things.

People were absolutely astounded, at least in between that time that they read the Tweet or headline and when they actually go to the details, that Prada was selling a $150 “paper clip.” In reality, of course, it was a sterling silver money clip shaped like a paper clip (and when you really think about it, all clips really do the same thing). $150 is a lot for a paper clip, but it’s actually not that eye boggling when you look at other high-end money clips.

Questioning the ‘local’ in ‘localisation’: A multi-local reply by Samantha Melis

By ISS Blog Bliss 18 February 201918 May 2020 3873 views

The localisation agenda, which aims to localise funds and responsibilities to local actors in humanitarian responses, retains an ambiguous concept of ‘the local’. The inclusion of power relations at multiple local governance levels in the localisation debate is needed for a more realistic approach to locally led responses to disasters, argues Samantha Melis.

The localisation debate in humanitarian aid is not new, but it has regained momentum after the 2016 World Humanitarian Summit and the thereupon following Grand Bargain, where the commitment to direct more resources and responsibilities to local actors was a key element. However, both ‘the local’ and the action of localisation are more complex than what the policies might suggest. It is important to better understand who the local actors are and how a more locally led response is negotiated by all actors involved.

Horizontal and vertical perspectives of the local

While the localisation agenda focuses mainly on the direction of funds and the building of local capacity, others have also emphasised the need to shift power to local actors. Granted, all these are important for changes to a system that is still mostly top-down and often excludes the voices of the local actors. However, for a more realistic view of the complexities that underly the localisation debate, the perspective of the local and the definition of what localisation means in practice needs to be further researched and contextualised.

The definition of ‘the local’ remains obscure and needs to go beyond local NGO partners. After a disaster, many different types of local responders are involved. Some might have a presence before, but others will be new and temporary, such as certain public and private sector groups, religious institutions, and other individual philanthropists. Also, in each case, civil society, and their role, will be different. Therefore, ‘the local’ varies depending on the context. Within a particular setting, these can be defined as the horizontal locals.

Localisation is usually discussed from a top-down, outsider perspective, with international actors focusing on the locality of the actors that are closer to the disaster and yet not integrated (sufficiently) of the ‘insider group’ of the international community. From a bottom-up perspective, some actors that would be considered local by the international community, such as the national government, are not always considered local by the communities. This often depends on whether they are seen as ‘part of’ or ‘outside’ their group boundaries. These are the top-down and bottom-up vertical locals.

Not one localised response, but multi-local governance

In my research on disaster response in post-conflict countries, this has direct implications for localisation. Localisation is, to a large extent, about resources and power relations, not only between the international and national, but also between different local actors on multiple levels of local governance. If the local governance levels are disconnected, or tensions exist between the horizontal and vertical locals, then localisation becomes even more challenging. These are obstacles that can only be overcome when horizontal and vertical locals are included in the debate and the relations between multiple local governance levels are better understood.

Opening up the conversation

The debate on localisation will benefit from a more layered approach, wherein the local is not only seen as one entity or as detached from the local and international perspective. Studying practical examples of locally led responses will contribute to more realistic and context-appropriate changes in current top-down humanitarian approaches. The concept of ‘the local’ and ‘localisation’ are not as clear cut as they seem to be, and adding depth to the debate opens up more questions that need answers, and continues the conversation in a more inclusive manner.

About the authors:

Samantha Melis (The Netherlands) is a PhD candidate at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), The Hague, of Erasmus University (EUR). She is currently involved in the project “When disasters meet conflict”, funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). Within this project, she focuses on the response to disasters in post-conflict scenarios.

Are we ready for the robotic revolution? by Oane Visser and Pieter Medendorp

By ISS Blog Bliss 15 February 201918 May 2020 4083 views

Japan has a hotel where guests are served by robots, and in Australia self-driving tractors autonomously harvest crops, day and night. Robots help with care for residents in some Dutch nursing homes; once in your house, they can order you a taxi, order your food, or mow your lawn. Robots of all shapes and sizes are beginning to penetrate our lives. Do they generate smarter, happier lives? What are the implications of a robotic revolution for our freedom and autonomy?

For long, views on future robotisation in films, novels and public debate have been divided between utopian and dystopian visions. In 1921, robots appeared in the play R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots) by Karel Čapek; the word is derived from the Czech word ‘robota’, which translates to ‘toiling and servitude’. In ‘I, Robot’—Isamov’s classic 1969 science fiction novel—robots start off as a helpful comrades, but end up controlling humans.

Discussing the positive effects of robotisation, next to convenience—such as robots taking over household chores—medical applications come to mind. Robot radiologists could be analysing your X-rays possibly much better than your doctor. Robotic surgery is already common practice, easing a surgeon’s work. Rehabilitation robotics makes good progress and helps the paralysed to walk. New research shows paralysed patients who steer robotic arms and legs with their thoughts, based on the decoding of the neural signals that are converted into robotic guidance. Concurrently, advances in robotisation cause concerns about the expansion of surveillance and the erosion of (mental) privacy and identity.

When discussing societal impacts of robotisation, two starting points could be helpful. First, we should look beyond visible incarnations of automation-like robots. The algorithms within robots are increasingly central in everything we do online, as well as within the internet of things, from machines, cars, refrigerators to smart cities—everything gets connected and exchanges data. Second, a distinction between a person’s role either as consumer, employee, or citizen facilitates the categorisation of the manifold effects of such automation.

Algorithmic society

As (online) consumers, we tend to be winners. An ever-increasing range of products is just a mouse click away due to the rapid sophistication in online ordering algorithms and the massive investments in the ‘last mile’ of consumer product logistics. ‘The client is king’ already seems outdated; the consumer is turned into an ‘emperor’. The flipside of this apparent consumer Valhalla with almost real-time delivery constitutes the worsening labour conditions of workers in the value chains enabling it. In the distribution centres of companies like Amazon, underpaid workers often operate under a regime of unrealistic work targets, rigid digital surveillance, and a work pace that is set by robots. Even farms are affected—in India, the rise of e-agriculture has been found to contribute to agrarian distress (Stone 2011).

As citizens, our agency and physical and mental privacy seems to be increasingly under threat as both Big Tech and governments try to target or nudge citizens with algorithms which are unregulated and lack transparency. Think about the targeted advertisements in your web browser for weeks after visiting once an online shoe store. It is increasingly difficult to escape individual media bubbles or corporate surveillance, let alone the mass surveillance of those living under authoritarian regimes. In such an algorithm-led society, will people end up as emperors without clothes?

2018: a watershed year

Looking back, 2018 seemed a watershed in the public debate. It shifted from Tech companies as drivers of technological innovation (for consumers) and subsequently freedom (benefiting us as citizens), to these companies’ troublesome record in preventing fake news, let alone respecting privacy and democracy. With a recurring pattern of irresponsible conduct regarding privacy and fake news, Facebook has come to symbolise the downsides of an algorithm-led society.

Regarding the impact on us as employees, international agencies like the OECD recently issued unsettling reports on the effects of automatisation for labour, which are likely to exacerbate inequalities both within countries as well as between the Global South and North. Finally, policy action has been stepped up in the past year, with the EU taking the lead for instance with the GDPR regulations on privacy and law proposals to curb the excessive power of Big Tech.

Robotisation has arrived and will continue to change the way we consume, work, and live. As with all technologies, it can be used for good and for bad. Robotisation can be used to augment us, help us innovate, and can help address many of society’s grand challenges, yet it can also put us in undesirable competitions, eroding privacy, dignity, and identity. To make robotisation, algorithms, and data science beneficial and inclusive, it is time that governments, tech companies, civic organisations, hospitals, ethicists, and (social) scientists start having a serious dialogue on how to make this digital revolution ‘the best rather than the worst thing, ever to happen to humanity’.[1]

[1] We loosely paraphrase Stephen Hawking [hyperlink: https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/the-best-or-worst-thing-to-happen-to-humanity-stephen-hawking-launches-centre-for-the-future-of%5D

Image credit: Franck V. on Unsplash

About the authors:

Prof. dr. Pieter Medendorp is a professor of Sensorimotor Neuroscience, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Director Centre for Cognition, Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands.

Dr. Oane Visser (associate professor, Political Ecology research group, ISS) leads an international research project on the socio-economic effects of -and responses to- big data and automatization in agriculture.

Religion within development, or development within religion? by Fernande Pool

By ISS Blog Bliss 14 February 20195 October 2020 2684 views

Religion should not be considered one among many wellbeing dimensions that development enables people to engage in, but one among many ontological sources that enables people to engage in development, Fernande Pool, postdoctoral researcher at the ISS, argues. A truly inclusive and respectful dialogue on development would go beyond a secular/religious binary and allow for alternative sources and conceptualisations, whether embedded in religious or non-religious sources.

What is the place of religion in development? Since the 1970s, development practitioners and theorists have gone ‘beyond GDP’ to describe people’s wellbeing. Committed to value-driven, human development, they have started to pay attention to religion. In human development, religion is no longer merely considered an obstruction to, or instrumental to, development, but itself is a valuable part of wellbeing. Yet, if religion is regarded as one dimension of wellbeing, the development framework usually remains secular, whereas this does not align with the lived reality everywhere. So I argue that we still need a cognitive turn.

Engaging development through religion

My contribution is based on two years of ethnographic research with devout Muslims in an Indian village I call Joygram. I suggest that religion should, when appropriate, not (only) be considered a sub-category of development—something development allows people to engage in. Instead, it can form the basis from which to engage with development to begin with. Human development implies some normative ideas of what being human means and what kind of society would allow one to be ‘more human’.

For the research participants, notions of what being human means, and the ethical freedom to discuss these normative ideas, are embedded in the Islamic dharma. To approach religion as a sub-category in an otherwise secular development framework excludes these religious life experiences and ideas from the outset. The scope of this blog is merely to show how different ontological notions underpinning human development can be, and that a proper understanding of these differences requires a cognitive turn.

Including different ontologies

A next question to ask would be: if secular and religious ideas of being would be considered as equally valid in an inclusive dialogue on worthwhile development, would development interventions be not only morally better as a process but also better in terms of their outcomes? A brief example from Joygram seems to suggest so.

In Joygram, the values driving development, including conceptualisations of the human person, life, and society as mentioned above, are embedded in what I call the Islamic dharma: the locally specific, all-encompassing ethics of justice and order to which religion—in this case Islam—is integral. Muslims in Joygram foster a dynamic concept of the human as emerging from divine submission and constant interactions within social networks. First, humanity emerges from the acknowledgment of the eternal indebtedness to the creator-god for the gift of life. Subsequently, the being is made a ‘human person’ through exchanges within a network of social relationships.

So, Joygramis believe that relationality comes into existence before the individual. This doesn’t take away, however, that every person has a right to the same human dignity. It is just that the human is conceptualised differently from, for instance, the human as a sovereign individual in most liberal theories. What it means to be human is deeply embedded in dharma, which includes religion. So without the notion of dharma as the basis for dialogue, one cannot even begin to talk about humans, let alone human development. Indeed, outside dharma, there is no humanity, because there are no values. So, if development in Joygram is to be worthwhile, it has to be embedded in dharma, too. Development dialogues outside the space of dharma would be reduced to purely technocratic and instrumental measures.

The need for a cognitive turn

A dialogue on development that would include and respect the Islamic dharma would require a cognitive turn, otherwise the starting position of a discussion is still within the hegemonic secular ontology. This is not unlike the cognitive turn required to shift the focus from GDP to individual capabilities. Perhaps development should not merely take religious values into account, or enable or liberate people to engage in religion. A development dialogue could be more inclusive if it acknowledges that the entire meaning of the world, the human, and key values like freedom and dignity may be informed by religious ideas and experiences. This means allowing for alternative conceptualisations of being human, but also of autonomy, relationships, and so on.

This does not mean, however, that universal values have to be discarded in favour of cultural relativism. It means, rather, that certain universal values or development goals, such as Martha Nussbaum’s list of basic capabilities, may be pursued on the basis of different ontological grounds. The Joygrami worldview and Nussbaum’s capability approach are not incompatible, even if they are based on different notions of what being human means. Yet in Joygram, the capabilities would be striven after within dharma, not as side by side with dharma, because then they would lose their ultimate value.

I reiterate that religion is more a complex social phenomenon than a static and compartmentalised set of norms and symbols, and dynamic religious ideas of being and sociality interact with ideas of being and sociality outside of that discreet religion—if there ever was one. Religions constantly change, partly because of those interactions, but also because of internal reasoning. Moreover, religion is nothing special, yet central: it seems likely that every human being lives with ideas of being and sociality, whether consciously or not, and there are always elements that transcend everyday life, whether directly associated with a particular religion or not. A truly inclusive and respectful dialogue on development would go beyond a secular/religious binary and allow for alternative sources and conceptualisations, whether embedded in religious or non-religious sources.

Image Credit: Jorge Royan / http://www.royan.com.ar / CC BY-SA 3.0

About the author:

Fernande Pool is a Marie Skłodowksa Curie “Leading” Fellow at ISS. Her current ethnographic research with Muslims in the Netherlands aims to destabilise hegemonic conceptualisations of religion and secularism, wellbeing and development. Her PhD thesis, completed in March 2016 at the London School of Economics anthropology department, explored the ethical life of Muslims in West Bengal, India. She is the co-founder and co-director of Lived Religion Project and AltVisions

Symbiosis in Russia’s and Ukraine’s agricutural sectors by Natalia Mamonova

By ISS Blog Bliss 11 February 201918 May 2020 2018 views

One of the main characteristics of agriculture in the post-socialist countries is its dualistic structure—large- and small-scale farms coexist in countries such as Russia or Ukraine. ISS alumna Natalia Mamonova in this interview explains the relationship between these two forms of farming, examining whether they cooperate or compete against each other.

Why is the structure of agricultural production in most post-socialist countries dualistic, where large- and small-scale food producers coexist?

The contemporary bimodal agricultural structure is rooted in the Soviet past, particularly in the failure of collective agriculture to provide enough food for everyone. In order to deal with food shortages and the peasant unrest after the cruel collectivization campaign of the 1930s, the Soviet government allowed rural dwellers to cultivate their household plots for personal consumption. Since then, the so-called ‘personal subsidiary farming’ has been playing an important role in the Soviet and, later, post-Soviet agriculture. Just prior to the USSR’s collapse in 1990, rural households contributed to 27% of the gross agricultural product, while kolkhozes and sovkhozes (collective and state farms) produced the rest.

Today, this bifurcation has become even stronger. For example, the share of personal subsidiary farming in Russia and Ukraine is about 40% of the total output, while large-farm enterprises contribute to nearly 50%. There are many explanations for why the bimodal agricultural structure was preserved and even reinforced in these countries. The main reason is the failure of the post-socialist land reform to create commercially oriented private family farms. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the land of kolkhozes and sovkhozes was distributed among rural dwellers by means of land share certificates. However, rural dwellers were unable to use them. The distributed land was concentrated in the hands of local rural elites, and later, in the early 2000s, domestic and foreign land investors accumulated it.

How do you explain this peaceful coexistence from the economic and governance perspectives?

The rural households are not completely independent food producers. Their phenomenal productivity is partly a result of their symbiosis with large farms. In the Soviet time, kolkhozes and sovkhozes used to help rural dwellers with various farm inputs and outputs (such as seeds, fertilisers, machinery, etc.). Moreover, rural dwellers could take some ‘for free’ without any permission. The contemporary large agribusiness often continues practicing such productive symbiosis under their corporate social responsibility programs. In general, lots of former Soviet structures and networks remain vital in the contemporary post-Soviet countryside, which largely influenced the societal attitudes towards large-scale agricultural development.

Another reason for the peaceful coexistence of large-scale industrial agriculture and smallholder farming in the post-Soviet countryside is a division in agricultural markets. Large-scale agribusinesses are specialised in monocrop export-oriented agriculture (predominantly grain) and have more recently started to invest in industrial style meat (poultry and pork) production. In contrast, rural households engage in labour-intensive and time-consuming production of potatoes, vegetables, milk, and meat for family consumption and sale in local markets. Until these two forms of farming do not compete with each other for land and markets, they are able to coexist side by side.

What about the attitudes of small landholders toward large-scale investors?

Some critical researchers and journalists call the post-Soviet land accumulation process an instance of land grabbing. Indeed, the land redistribution was often accompanied by deprivation of land rights of local population and various frauds. However, I would not necessarily use the term ‘land grabbing’ because of the lack of resistance to land deals among the rural population. I conducted a lot of interviews with Russian and Ukrainian villagers—the majority of them do not oppose large-scale land accumulations. Contrarily, they often welcome land investors in their villages. Why? The answer is in the bimodal agricultural structure.

Land grabbing remains one of the key focus areas at the ISS, with many researchers in the Political Ecology research group devoting their attention to this area of research. Natalia’s ISS PhD dissertation focused on land grabbing and agrarian change in Russia and the Ukraine. Her dissertation can be viewed at https://repub.eur.nl/pub/94152.

View the original article here.

Image Credit: www.volganet.ru

About the author:

Natalia Mamonova is a Research Fellow at the Russia and Eurasia Programme, Swedish Institute of International Affairs (UI) and Affiliated researcher at the Institute for Russian and Eurasian Studies (IRES) of Uppsala University, Sweden. She received her PhD degree from ISS in 2016. Since then, she was a visiting scholar at the University of Oxford, the New Europe College in Bucharest, and the University of Helsinki.

Let’s think twice about orphanages and volunteering by Manasi Nikam

By ISS Blog Bliss 6 February 201918 May 2020 3712 views

Volunteers jump at the chance of going to developing countries to help orphans, believing that they will make a difference in the lives of these children. But there is a dark side to orphanages, that is orphanage tourism, and ISS scholars are increasingly advising against engaging in this pursuit.

Studies indicate that 80% of children in orphanages have at least one living parent[1]. The next question that springs to mind is: Why are they living in orphanages, then? The answer is obvious—poverty. Parents often choose to send their children to a residential caring facility hoping that the children will have access to better nutrition, education, and healthcare. But I want to raise the question: Are orphanages actually as virtuous as we believe them to be? Are there other ways of supporting children other than institutionalizing them? By donating to or volunteering in orphanages, are we really helping the children? Do we like the feel good factor in supporting orphanages, or do we really want to make a difference?

The Orphan Industry

Kristen Cheney from ISS was invited as a speaker at The Hague Talks on November 20, 2018. She voiced her concerns on orphanage tourism, a phenomenon that is taking over across sub-Saharan Africa. She pointed out that in the 1990s, when sub-Saharan Africa was severely affected by AIDS, there were about 3,000 orphans in institutional care in Uganda. By 2017, the number of children in institutional care shot up to 40,000. The massive increase in the number of orphans is linked to interests of Westerners, especially youngsters, who want to do something meaningful, so they opt to volunteer in developing countries.

This rather benevolent sentiment soon became commodified and there was a proliferation of companies that promised to give Western youngsters ‘vacation with a difference’ for a fee. On the other hand, children belonging to poor families are being pulled away from their parents by orphanages in order to raise funds, making running an orphanage a lucrative business. This phenomenon is not just limited to sub-Saharan Africa. In Kerala, India, orphanages have mushroomed that purchase children belonging to poor families for meager sums of 1000 or 3000 Rupees and collect donations from Gulf countries.

Volunteering: Are we really making a difference?

As for the volunteers who want to help communities, they unwittingly become a part of the problem that keeps children in orphanages. When I volunteered in an orphanage in India for about two years, I witnessed the various issues that arise in context of interaction of youngsters with children. Children would often get attached to volunteers without realising that their presence is only temporal. And I believe that although each volunteer cared for the children to the best of their abilities, we fell short of providing the children with the kind of emotional support that they need following abandonment, family tragedies, or poverty. There were also instances of sexual abuse by older children on younger ones. Give that it was an all-boys shelter, the children were not exposed to the female gender on a daily basis, as a result of which they were unsure of how to behave around women and girls their age. There have been occasions where the children had remarked inappropriately on my appearance and other women such as the cook, as we were the only females that the children were exposed to on a regular basis. In a family or community environment, children are sensitised about interacting with the opposite sex and develop socialising skills. Their behaviour receives individualised attention, something that an institution does not provide; therefore their actions go uncorrected.

Abuse endured by children in orphanages

Besides, children in orphanages are easy prey for sexual predators within as well as outside the institution. The case of Bihar, where 34 out of 42 girls aged between 7 and 17 in a shelter were raped by the custodian of the shelter as well as outsiders, shed light on the unspeakable abuse the children suffered. The accused in the case also included the child protection officer appointed by the local governing body. After the shelter in Bihar was exposed, a spate of similar crimes in other states surfaced in the media. Plainly, orphanages are not as virtuous as we believe them to be.

What now?

Orphanages have an intuitive and emotional appeal. They after all shelter the most vulnerable sections of society. But we all know that the orphanage is not the best place to raise a child. A familial environment is required to meet a child’s emotional, psychological, and developmental needs. The Netherlands is considering banning foreign adoption, given that it leads to institutionalisation of children and can also hamper the development of robust child protection systems in the children’s native countries.

The International Institute of Social Studies has given due recognizance this problem. It is the first educational institution in The Netherlands to sign the pledge against orphanage volunteering. The pledge is an initiative undertaken by the Better Care Network and London School of Economics Volunteer Centre that can be adopted by institutions for higher education. The Better Care Network has also produced a movie ‘The Love You Give’ that shows how volunteers unwittingly are breaking up families and harming the very children that they want to help.

Clearly, it’s high time we rethink the role played by volunteers, donations and childcare institutions in the lives of children and think of more holistic solutions. Before signing off, I only hope I have given you enough food for thought and enough reasons to stop and think before you make a donation to an orphanage or volunteer.

[1] The Love you Give Partner Toolkit (2018), Better Care Network.

References

Nanjappa, V. (2014). Kerala’s orphan industry sell’s kids in the Gulf’. rediffNEWS (online) Accessed on 8 December 2018.

Cheney, K. (2018) ‘Combatting the Orphan Industrial Complex’ Hague Talks (online)

Cheney, K. (2016). ‘The Netherlands’ proposed ban on foreign adoption and the (ab)uses of ‘scientific expertise’. Open Democracy (online). As accessed on 19^th December 2018.

Biswas, S. (2018). The horror story inside an Indian children’s home. BBC News (online). Accessed on 8 December 2018.

McCann, C. (2017). #StopOrphanTrips. ISS is first in the Netherlands to join the global campaign to stop orphanage volunteering. Stahili Foundation. (online) As accessed on 19 December 2018.

About the author:

Manasi Nikam is a student of MA in Social Policy for Development at ISS. She has co-authored ‘Children of India’ a chapter on the status of well-being of children, for Public Affairs Index 2018.

Creative Development | Migration and musical mobilities in Sudan and Laos by Roy Huijsmans, Katarzyna Grabska and Cathy Wilcock

By ISS Blog Bliss 31 January 20195 October 2020 3752 views

How are belonging, citizenship, and rights contested through creative practices such as music and dance? What role do the creative industry, international cultural institutions, and the mobilities of performing artists play in this? And what is the significance of all this for rethinking development in post-conflict settings such as Sudan and Laos? This article briefly reflects on these questions that are driving a new ISS-funded research project.

Researching development through creative practice

A new research project led by ISS researchers Katarzyna Grabska, Roy Huijsmans, and Cathy Wilcock called Creative Development: Migration and musical mobilities in Sudan and Laos seeks to investigate the intersection of migration and creative practice. The project commences in 2019 and involves qualitative, arts-based and ethnographic field research in France, Laos, Sudan, and the UK. This research will contribute to an emerging body of work studying the relations between arts, popular culture, migration, and development.

In development studies, there is some recognition of the role of popular culture in development practice, perhaps most noticeable in research on the phenomenon of ‘celebrities’ as goodwill ambassadors (e.g. David Beckham, Shakira, Angelina Jolie). In migration and refugee studies, the engagement with the arts has been more profound and has gone beyond a focus on the rich and famous, also breaking with a western-centric view of development.

A good example is the collaborative project led by Dave Lumenta at Universitas Indonesia. The project is entitled ‘Performing out of Limbo’. It is a musical/research collaboration between Oromo refugee youth from Ethiopia and musicians, students and academics from Indonesia (see a short YouTube clip here, and a write up here).

Music and dance as acts of citizenship

The project’s conceptualisation of citizenship and belonging draws on the work of Engin Isin. In the social sciences, citizenship is mostly treated as a ‘status’. In their 2008, book ‘Acts of Citizenship, Isin and Neilsen depart from such a view and approach citizenship as an act. Such a conceptualisation of citizenship enables us to rethink ‘who’ can be a citizen based on ‘collective and individual deeds that rupture socio-historical patterns’ (p13).

This approach enables viewing music and dance performances as acts of citizenship, as explored by Aoileann Ní Mhurchú in her article ‘Unfamiliar Acts of Citizenship’. Here she engages with the experiences of young migrants in Ireland and their engagement with hip hop and vernacular languages. Their practices do not fit into conventional categories of belonging based on language use, ethnicity, or nationality, and are better described as processes facilitating ‘creative hybrid refashioning of self’ (p163) through which political identities and relations of belonging are renegotiated. Although these songs, like much hip hop, come with a message, the focus on processes and effects lead us to go beyond a discursive analysis of the lyrics to ask what senses of belonging those involved in these musical practices realised through them.

Creative development and contested acts of national belonging in Laos and Sudan

This research project will build on the work of Ní Mhurchú and others through examining music and dance as acts of citizenship in post-conflict settings. With recent histories of violent internal conflict, followed by regime change Laos and Sudan offer fertile terrain for studying acts of citizenship in and through (re)emerging creative practices.

In both Laos and Sudan, questions of national belonging are delicate matters. Expressions of citizenship are not only regulated through legal practices, but also actively promoted through national education curricula and state-censored media. This indicates that citizenship in these contexts is much more than a matter of status, but also a matter of conduct, and one that comes with a strong national(ist) morality. From such a perspective, it is not difficult to see why a music video by the popular Thai national country singer Lumyai shot in the Lao tourist site of Vang Vieng stirred debate in Laos. Although the lyrics hardly refer to national belonging, other elements of the clip do. The music video is shot in a famous rural Lao location, and in her dance moves Lumyai weaves together elements from the traditional Lam Fong dance with sexually provocative moves. As such, Lumyai transgressed norms about proper (gendered) conduct on Lao soil.

Emplacement and movement in creative development

Due to recent histories of violent conflict, there are significant Lao and Sudanese diaspora, and the diaspora play an active role in the creative scene. Migration, like popular culture, is a transnational phenomenon. Moreover, culture is also transnationalised through international cultural institutions. This is evident from the work of the Institut Français in Laos and in Sudan and the Goethe Institute in Sudan. Culture has always flown, but this is particularly true in the present-day social media landscape. In addition, diaspora networks and international cultural institutions also facilitate the movement of artists and creative development. At the same time, dance and citizenship become acts of citizenship when they are emplaced—that is, when these creative expressions become meaningful in relation to more territorialised relations of belonging. Hence, the research project will pay close attention to the dynamics of mobilities and placemaking in the manifestations of creative development under study. Stay tuned!

On 5 February 2019, the ISS will host a workshop on ‘Moving methods: creative approaches to experiences of displacement, migration, social justice and belonging’.

Roy Huijsmans is a teacher/researcher at the ISS.

Katarzyna (Kasia) Grabska is a lecturer/researcher at the ISS and a filmmaker.’

Cathy Wilcock is a postdoctoral researcher at the ISS, with a background in critical development studies. In her role at ISS, she is continuing her work on political belonging in the context of forced migration.

The ‘Economic Trauma’ that Zimbabwe faces by Susan Wyatt

By ISS Blog Bliss 28 January 201918 May 2020 3359 views

Zimbabwe, once considered the breadbasket of Africa, now lies in an economic flux. A new term, ‘Economic Trauma’, is proposed in this blog to draw attention to the societal impacts of historical, perpetuating, and contextual lines of trauma that influence the current situation.

We use language like economic hardship, economic turmoil, or economic crises, but seldom if at all do we talk about Economic Trauma. We think of trauma in terms of confronting direct, physical acts and their consequences. We recognise emotional and mental trauma as being damaging to a person’s psyche. However, bubbling away in Zimbabwe for some time is something I’ve recently experienced a first-hand assault in – Economic Trauma.

Quite literally one morning we woke up and the money in our bank account was valued at less than a quarter of its worth compared to the day before. Wait … what? How does that happen? Well, it’s complicated and depends on many variables. Most of these the average citizen doesn’t understand, not because they’re uneducated, but because it’s complex and layered between propaganda, historical and cultural narratives, speculation, ineffective processes, and fear. A lot of fear. So aren’t we just talking about bad economics here? The short answer is no. And here’s why.

Back in the 2000s the Zimbabwean economy went through an almost total collapse. There have been attempts at reform since, and in recent years improvements have been made. But in September and October this year (2018), there was episodic hyperinflation again due to various reasons including short-sighted government decisions, unwavering national debt, a fluctuating import/export market and, again, fear. Even though the economy was still better than it had been in recent years, Zimbabwean citizens had a severe reaction to the situation. There was panic buying, queues at fuel stations, and general despair across the nation. The people were experiencing Economic Trauma … but what is this, and how does it affect the economy?

Trauma is a circumstance that brings about a feeling that your safety has been violated and your trust broken. It causes anxiety, shame, intense reactions when triggered, ambivalence about hope for the future, and a sense of vulnerability and lack of control. These feelings or outcomes are currently exhibited in most citizens in Zimbabwe relating to the economy and decision made about it. The hysterical stocking up of basic commodities. The dread at the news of daily rates and inflation. The deep anticipation and apprehension of what the next day brings—will there be relief, or more relentless, disappointing news?

If this extent of hyperinflation hadn’t been seen for a few years, why are the people across the country experiencing such extreme reactions? Well, they’re reacting based on how they felt when facing the dire economics of 2008 or the banking crisis of 2015.

It is collective trauma, with endless parallels to other recognised traumas. We see a societal level symptomatology akin to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. A trauma that makes you personally invisible in the sea of economic trauma around you. It makes your strife and hardship inconsequential and, for the most part, ineffective. It de-identifies you in your own personal struggle because everyone is going through it, too. The ripple effects of economic trauma into one’s relationships, business interactions, community, and eventually one’s society are palpable. Yet we don’t see a human rights declaration that places value or weight on safeguarding individuals from the impacts of economic trauma (even though it’s manmade and therefore could and should be controllable.) Instead, we see headlines blaming the ‘economic migrant’ for searching for a better life. And, let’s be honest, wouldn’t you? It’s a much more passive and discrete way of stripping away a person’s dignity and self-determination. It allows for blame to be shifted and diluted away from the epicentre of where the trauma stems from and how it is perpetuated.

The Zimbabwe situation, like many other old colonies and young countries, is in its entirety a complex one. By no means can it be unpacked and understood in one blog post. But in an effort to understand what we see happening in front of us, and to unashamedly open a dialogue to facilitate healing within our societies, I offer up three simplified points as navigational milestones relating to this current economic trauma. Although written as separate points, they require interrelated projects:

Historical lines of Economic Trauma:

Colonisation, tribal conflicts, historical disempowerment, and intergenerational trauma are all significant contributors to our current situation. There is an incredible need for different avenues of reconciliation and healing, inclusive of pathways into economic opportunities through structural reforms to rectify the loss experienced by the previous generations.

Perpetuating lines of Economic Trauma:

Aid, investments, development funds, and international monetary systems are structured to advantage the western, corporate business model, or are used for political gain. They are in fact harming and taking advantage of our economy. What we need are mutually beneficial profit-sharing agreements, business and environmental accountability, and safeguarded local investment and development, inclusive of pan-African business, and social support structures to facilitate resilience.

Contextual lines of Economic Trauma:

Understanding the factors that have and continue to contribute to our turbulent situation is critical. But at some stage we need to take control of our own healing. We can no longer blame everyone else for all our current issues. Current-day corruption, lack of accountability or transparency, and unmet basic human needs are prevalent. We cannot heal as a nation until we are all healed.

It’ll never be a quick and easy recovery, but it’s what is needed in Zimbabwe. Without it, our economy continues to suffer, and in turn, so do we. We cannot do one type of healing or recovery without the other. We cannot expect people to participate in reconciliation programs, anti-corruption programs and development programs when they are struggling economically. And we cannot expect the country to make a sustained economic recovery with unhealed trauma’s lurking. They are the two sides of the same coin that is Economic Trauma.

About the author:

Susan Wyatt is Zimbabwean born and raised. She is a Mental Health Occupational Therapist, with a Master’s degree in Anthropology and Development, specialising in Conflict and Development. Her expertise is in transcultural mental health, reconciliation, peace building and development practices. Susan is the director of Tana Consulting, which currently operates out of Harare, Zimbabwe.

All Posts By ISS Blog Bliss

I am grateful to Thierry Schaffauser, STRASS for his thoughtful feedback on an earlier draft of this post.

Source: P.A.G. van Bergeijk, Deglobalization 2.0, updated using IMF WEO April 2020

Marseille in quarantine. A naval officer with his family

The man who brought the plague to Milan

Source: gallica.bnf.fr / BnF (National Library of France)

Buddha tooth relic temple, Singapore. 09 March 2020. Credits: Peter van Leeuwen.

[1] Green allows individuals to travel relatively freely, yellow confines individuals to their homes for isolation, while red indicates individuals with a confirmed COVID-19 case who should be in quarantine.

[2] This comprises medical records, travel history records, and information regarding being in contact with someone diagnosed with COVID-19.

References

Bentham, Jeremy. 1995. Jeremy Bentham: The Panopticon Writings. Edited by Miran Bozovic. London: Verso.

Foucault, Michel. 1975. Surveiller et punir: Naissance de la prison. Paris: Gallimard.

Harari, Yuval Noah. 2020. “Yuval Noah Harari: The World after Coronavirus.” Financial Times, March 20, 2020. https://www.ft.com/content/19d90308-6858-11ea-a3c9-1fe6fedcca75.

Žižek, Slavoj. 2020. “Slavoj Žižek ‘el Coronavirus es un golpe a lo Kill Bill al sistema capitalista.’” Esferapública (blog). March 18, 2020. http://esferapublica.org/nfblog/slavoj-zizek-el-coronavirus-es-un-golpe-a-lo-kill-bill-al-sistema-capitalista/.

Title Image: The new medusa, “it’s a good thing i can’t see myself”. Credits: Richard Scott

[1] Thank you to Duncan Green for mentioning the term ‘critical juncture’ that perfectly sums up the thoughts that I’ve had since the pandemic broke out in February.

[2]She also highlights the failure to recognize that pathogens or microbes become pandemics due to humankind’s encroachment on wildlife habitats.

Source: elaborated from the Fiscal Policy Observatory data (last accessed 7 April 2020 at https://www.observatoriofiscal.org/publicaciones/transparencia-fiscal/file/221-transparencia-fiscal-no-163-marzo-2020.html)

* The main component of this expenditure is on non-contributory social protection (social cash transfers).

** It excludes health expenditure of the social security system.

Sources:

[1] http://cdes.org.ec/web/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/privatizaci%C3%B3n-salud.pdf

[2] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(19)30841-4/fulltext

[3] https://www.cepal.org/es/publicaciones/45337-america-latina-caribe-la-pandemia-covid-19-efectos-economicos-sociales

[4] https://coyunturaisip.wordpress.com/2020/03/28/los-recortes-cobran-factura-al-ecuador-la-inversion-en-salud-se-redujo-un-36-en-2019/

[5] https://www.eluniverso.com/noticias/2019/03/06/nota/7219694/trabajadores-publicos-salud-denuncian-despidos-masivos

[6] https://www.elcomercio.com/actualidad/recorte-personal-contratos-ocasionales-ecuador.html

[7] https://www.elcomercio.com/actualidad/despidos-trabajadores-ministerio-salud-evaluacion.html

[8] https://www.observatoriofiscal.org/publicaciones/estudios-y-an%C3%A1lisis/file/220-n%C3%BAmero-de-servidores-p%C3%BAblicos-del-presupuesto-2018-2019.html

[9] https://www.elcomercio.com/actualidad/asamblea-suspender-pago-deuda-coronavirus.html

[10] https://ww2.elmercurio.com.ec/2020/03/24/la-conaie-pide-al-gobierno-suspender-el-pago-de-la-deuda-externa/

[11] https://www.bourse.lu/issuer/Ecuador/34619 (first link under the notices section)

[12] https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2020/04/03/vs-some-say-there-is-a-trade-off-save-lives-or-save-jobs-this-is-a-false-dilemma

[13] https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/speech/2020/03/04/joint-press-conference-on-covid-19-by-imf-managing-director-and-world-bank-group-president

[14] https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/speech/2020/03/23/remarks-by-world-bank-group-president-david-malpass-on-g20-finance-ministers-conference-call-on-covid-19

Refugee Camp in Bangladesh. Photo: Rod Mena

[1] But now with a global economic recession and an aid system already with a 40% shortfall on the funds needed to assist everyone in need, as presented in the 2019 ‘Global Humanitarian Assistance Report’.

[2] And in many cases not even feasible in western countries like France or the United States.

[ii] This is linked to self-censorship practices, which I discussed with colleague Roanne van Voorst in another blog.

[iii] The term is generally associated with the Copenhagen School.

References

Capie, D. (2012). The Responsibility to Protect Norm in Southeast Asia: Framing, Resistance and the Localization Myth. The Pacific Review, 25(1), 75–93.

Kumar, R. (2015). What’s new with localization. [online] Devex. Available at: https://www.devex.com/news/what-s-new-with-localization-86094 [Accessed 17 Jan. 2020].

McCombs, M. E., & Shaw, D. L. (1993). The evolution of agenda-setting research: Twenty-five years in the marketplace of ideas. Journal of communication, 43(2), 58-67.

UNESCO UIS. (n.d.). Data for Sustainable Development Goals – Myanmar. Available at: http://uis.unesco.org/en/country/mm?theme=science-technology-and-innovation [Accessed 16 Mar. 2020].

Source: https://informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/covid-19-coronavirus-infographic-datapack/

This blog is based on the author’s recent publications:

Messkoub, M. (2017). ‘Population ageing and inter-generational relation in the MENA: what role for social policy?’ Population Horizons, 14(2): 61-72.

Jawad, R., Jones, N. and Messkoub, M. (eds) (2019) Social policy in the Middle East and North Africa: the new social protection paradigm and universal coverage. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar publishers.

Messkoub, M. (2020) ‘Social Policy in the MENA’ in Hakimian, H. (2020) Routledge Handbook on Middle East Economy. London: Routledge.

References:

Silva, J., Levin, V. and M. Morgandi (2013) ‘Inclusion and Resilience: The Way Forward for Social Safety Nets in the Middle East and North Africa’. Washington DC: World Bank.

References

Evans, G. (1998). The Politics of Ritual and Remembrance: Laos since 1975. Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books.

References:

Lorber, J. (1996) ‘Beyond the Binaries: Depolarizing the Categories of Sex, Sexuality, and Gender’, Socological Inquiry 66(2): 143-160.

O’Rourke, C. (2013) Gender Politics in Transitional Justice. Routledge.

Solhjell, R. and T.D. Sayndee (2016) ‘Gender-Based Violence and Access to Justice: Grand Bassa County, Liberia’

Source: Hindustan Times, 16 July 2019

References

[1]‘Delhi Government delivered on 99.5% of doorstep service requests,’ Hindustan Times, 10 September 2019. Access it here.

[1] FNV Representative. 18 June 2018, interviewed by Karin Astrid Siegmann and Petar Ivosevic.

[2] Municipality Westland Presentation, World Horticulture Centre, 19 February 2019.

[3] For instance, the pillar of fair food in the slow food manifesto includes respectful labour conditions.

References

Fountain, & Hütz-Adams. (2015). Cocoa Barometer – Looking for a Living Income. Cocoa Barometer, 42–43.

Fountain, A., & Huetz-Adams, F. (2018). Cocoa Barometer.

In-depth interviews with farmers during data collection from July 2017 to March 2018 in Aponapon and Subiriso communities, Ashanti region, Ghana.

Who is protesting and why

Government’s response

Policy challenges

Transition from violence

Illustration 1: anti-depressant prescriptions in England: another opioid crisis.

Illustration 2: Humour is essential

In Northern Ireland “growth of the illegitimate economy” especially in cross-border areas“.

Cadwalladr also in: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/may/17/dark-money-democracy-billionaires-funding

Image Credit Main Photo: Williams Murray Hamm on Flickr

Publications:

Natascha Wagner, Wil Hout and Rose Namara (2020, forthcoming) ‘Improving Police Integrity in Uganda: Impact Assessment of the Police Accountability and Reform Project’, Review of Development Economics, available at http://hdl.handle.net/1765/121705.

References:

^[2]She also highlights the failure to recognize that pathogens or microbes become pandemics due to humankind’s encroachment on wildlife habitats.