Inspiring stories of The Street Store, a pop-up fashion “store” for the homeless

Posted on 0 min read

In this blog, Luciana dos Santos Duarte, a PhD Researcher at ISS, delves into The Street Store initiative: a pop-up fashion ‘shop’ for the homeless. The Street Store is a pioneering initiative that collects clothing donations, and then sets up a ‘pop-up shop’, so that homeless people can have the experience of shopping for clothes in a store. This means that people are able to choose clothes that they like, and take part in a social, humanizing experience.

Photo: Vitor Colares

I was painting at a Buddhist sanctuary in Koh Yao Noi, Thailand, with other artists from around the world, sponsored by the NGO World Peace Initiative. At the top of the mountain on this peaceful island, just me and an artist from South Africa, Ricky Lee Gordon, were creating our artworks. One of the canvases I did was a crown like a carnival mask, in reference to the shut down in Bangkok, on the revolutionary day of 13/01/2014. Once, we made a Secret Santa out of time, and my colleague got my name. On his knees, Ricky handed me a Nelson Mandela t-shirt, happy to have pulled off “someone with a political conscience”. I have never had a man on his knees happy to give me something. Coincidentally, we took the same flight to Ethiopia. And from there, I returned to Brazil with an inspiration – not artistic, but political. In the same year, I found out about a social project that had started in Cape Town, called The Street Store.

1st The Street Store Belo Horizonte, 2015. Photo: Flávia Viana

In early 2015, I published on my fashion website about this project: engineering students were going to run a ‘street store’ for the homeless, where everything is for free. Twenty students would be volunteers working as if they were salespeople, and homeless people from the area could choose clothes according to their taste, subverting the logic of donation (normally from top to down). A newspaper in Belo Horizonte, one of the largest cities in Brazil, read my blog and then published an article as if they had interviewed me. Consequently, other newspapers published about the project, and I received about 30 emails a day from people wanting to be clothing donors or volunteers!

Thus, I resized the project to have 140 volunteers for the first edition. We served more than 800 homeless people in one day, ‘selling’ hundreds of items clothing. That year, I counted more than 100 reports about the project on TV, radio, in magazines, and on websites. As narratives tend to focus on a heroic individual, which has always bothered me, and this was a team effort, I asked a volunteer to take the lead and attend to the journalists, whilst I would be backstage, sorting clothes, and doing internal communication. My best student (who became a friend) handled the logistics. From 2015 to 2019, we held 10 editions, with more than a thousand registered donors, hundreds of volunteers, and thousands of clothes given to hundreds of homeless people.

2nd The Street Store Belo Horizonte, 2015. Photo: Bruna Teixeira

 

Every shopper has a face and a story

Talking about large numbers takes away from all the wonderful stories we lived. Homeless people who chose a smart suit and then got a job as a security guard, or as a waiter. Young boys choosing backpacks to carry their books to school. A woman that chose clothes for her entire family. One of our most interesting customers, who we met in 2015, was Gleisson. He gave me an origami flower made from cigarette paper in 2016, and after we hugged, he told me that he was wearing an ankle tag having been he was arrested for robbery. In 2018, when I last saw him, he told me he was working, and that he was free.

Gleisson and Luciana, 7th The Street Store Belo Horizonte, 2016. Photo: Silvia Xavier

Another great pleasure was seeing fancy clothes from brands such as Gucci, Prada, Dior, Louis Vuitton, and more, all being given to homeless people for free. Robin Hood, in his own way, must have felt as I did about giving from the (white) rich to the poor.

In the 5th edition, a group of tricksters, not the homeless, decided to pick up most of the clothes before the store officially opened for the day. At the same moment as the crowd of people came to the store, a sensationalist TV presenter arrived to record it and tried to blame the lack of policing. But I reminded all 100 volunteers, and the journalists, of how Jean Valjean, the thief from Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables, had been received by the bishop. After serving the sentence of 19 years in prison for stealing bread, one day he is hosted in by the bishop, but in the middle of the night, he steals the religious’ valuable silverware. However, the police caught him and took him back to the bishop, who said: “But did you take just that? I gave to you much more!” The police immediately set Jean Valjean free, who was now aware of his dignity. I explained that we could not label the homeless as tricksters, and that the clothes were going to be donated to all, regardless who they were. A pity that just one group pick almost everything, without choosing.

The Street Store project that we co-ran received an award in the Generosity category by the Brazilian Architects, in 2015. In 2022, the project was selected by the Netherlands National Programme Open Science. In 2023, the two main volunteers who became leaders— my friends Leonardo Máximo and Priscila Prado— held the 11th edition of the project in Belo Horizonte recently.

Leonardo Máximo, Luciana Duarte, Priscila Prado 10th The Street Store Belo Horizonte, 2019 Photo: Silvia Xavier

 

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the author:

Luciana dos Santos Duarte is doing a double-degree PhD in Production Engineering (Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil) and Development Studies (International Institute of Social Studies, ISS/EUR). She holds a master’s degree in Production Engineering, and a Bachelor degree in Product Design. She is also a lecturer in Industrial Design Engineering at The Hague University of Applied Sciences (THUAS).

 

Are you looking for more content about Global Development and Social Justice? Subscribe to Bliss, the official blog of the International Institute of Social Studies, and stay updated about interesting topics our researchers are working on.

[newsletter]

Development between Extraction and Compassion

Posted on 0 min read

Extraction was central to the colonization of half of the world in the twentieth century, having played a key role in enriching already wealthy countries. But while colonization seems to belong to the past, the extractivist mindset based on the notion of extraction continues to pervade all aspects of our lives. In this blog article, a condensed and partial version of the inaugural lecture given by incumbent ISS Rector Ruard Ganzevoort on 12 October 2023, Ganzevoort discusses how extractivism shapes our lived realities and proposes a radically alternative approach to extractivism rooted in compassion.

In recent years, a new ‘Space Race’ has emerged, but instead of states trying to send rockets to space, this new one is centred on resource extraction. Corporations and start-ups are now seeking to extract resources from neighbouring planets and even asteroids — and programmes are being launched that bring them closer to doing so.

I confess that I am overwhelmed by the technological skills that make such endeavours possible. It is amazing that we can send humans to the moon and even actively envision journeys to other planets. And yet… There is something fundamentally unsettling about this story. What is deeply disturbing about this story is the unencumbered thinking about extraction — treating territories as terra nullius, no one’s land, just because the state or the population is not recognized by us, implementing laws alien to that land, and defending mostly the interests of the colonizers. And especially worrisome are the treaties that colonizing countries conclude in order to divide the territories between them without acknowledging the intrinsic rights of people indigenous to those territories.

Of course, one might object that these territories in space are uninhabited and that there are therefore no humans, animals, or other life forms whose rights might be compromised by our explorations and extractions. But first of all, that was also the argument in the past when the indigenous populations were not recognized as people with rights. It still happens in contemporary land grabbing at the expense of indigenous ethnic minority groups, pastoralists, and peasants who need the land the most. It is still the argument when we discuss the intrinsic rights of nature. And secondly, it is completely beside the point I want to make. That point is that such endeavours are emblematic for the extractivist agenda and attitude that has been so dominant and now is so contested in the development discourse. It is linked to the agenda of neoliberalism.

 

On the origins of extractivism

The concept of extractivism has migrated from its original location in the context of mining and producing raw materials and natural resources, usually shipped out of producing countries without much processing in the country of origin. In colonial times, this was of course the dominant model for North-South international trade. Countries like the Netherlands, England, and Spain would conquer or claim territories on other continents with the main purpose to extract valuable natural resources and produce whatever they could not grow in Europe.

Today, countries don’t officially call these activities colonialism anymore, but the underlying model has not changed. In many places, economic development is defined in terms of trading possibilities and trading is often focused on those resources and products that can be sold to strong economies like Europe and the USA, and increasingly also China. Even when we buy fair trade and organically produced coffee and cocoa (things we want and cannot produce ourselves), even when we improve local economies by stimulating the local processing of these resources, we are still working within the extraction-based economy in which the rest of the world serves the needs of the economic and political centers of power.

But extraction is not yet extractivism[1]. Extractivism refers to a philosophical perspective that questions the broader discourse of the mindset and cultural frameworks of extraction. It is a mindset that is pertinent to our thinking about development, about politics, about economy, and much more. It is a cultural framework underlying a significant part of at least European cultures and that is central to many geopolitical dynamics.

This extractivist approach is found everywhere and it may be helpful to explore some of these fields and reflect on the nature and consequences of extractivism. Beyond the first dimension of extraction — Planet Earth and other territories — we can reflect on extraction in the dimensions of finance, time, data, relationships, religion, and knowledge. Some of these dimensions operate primarily on the systemic or institutional level; other dimensions play out mostly on the individual level, which shows that it is indeed a dominant perspective across our personal, social, and organizational existence. I don’t try to be comprehensive in any way, and I will certainly generalize far too much, but I only aim to show how widespread and taken for granted this perspective is. Below, I briefly show the extractivist approach at work in our daily lives.

 

Financial

The more complex financial systems are, the further they move away from intrinsic value and the more they are part of an extractive system. Extractivism in a financial sense is visible in the accumulation of wealth on the one hand and debt on the other. In fact, following credit theories of money we can claim that money is identical to debt, only seen from the opposite perspective. Development is often financed by loans that create a new dependency and reinforce the dominant economies of the Global North while at the same time creating a market for the North to sell our superfluous or even defected products, thus extracting even more from the Global South under the guise of development. By providing money, we are therefore creating more debts and in fact, global debt (as a share of global GDP) has tripled since the mid-70s.

 

Data

It is well understood by now that there is no such thing as free data.[2] While Big Tech wants us to believe they are creating new possibilities for us to connect and communicate and to access unlimited data and information, the reality is the other way around. By using Facebook, Netflix, Tiktok, and whatever we have on our smartphones, we are allowing these companies to gather data about us and our societies. We are not watching Netflix; Netflix is watching us. The surveillance society that has become possible through data technology is not only a threat for individual privacy. By extracting data, it creates power for the state and for commercial organizations that was formerly unheard of.

 

Time

Extractivism is not only present in the actions and structures of institutional powers. It is also part of our own cultural attitude. At least in the West, I must add, because I don’t want to generalize too much across cultural differences, although cultural globalization is visible everywhere and Western culture remains dominant in many parts of the world and is propagated through commercial activities and especially popular culture. One dimension in which this plays out is how we relate to time. Expressions like “wasted my time” and “you have to get the most out of it” or “YOLO, You only live once” reveal this extractivist mentality.

The idea that time is a commodity of limited supply also leads to a perversion of how we look at ageing, again especially in Western cultures. The older people get, the less productive time they have left and therefore the less value they represent. In contrast, we can also see cultures where old age represents not a lack of future time but a richness of experiences.[3]

 

Relationships

The commodification of time is paralleled in a commodification of relationships. The most dramatic version perhaps is found in forced marriage, sexual or domestic abuse, and marriage murders. But it is much broader. Modernization and industrialization have led to differentiation in tasks and activities and therefore also in relationships. Colleagues, friends, family members, neighbors, caregivers, trade partners… Many or all of these relational categories could coincide in pre-industrial times but are now commonly organized through different and separate relational spheres. And although there is in many cases still a good degree of mutuality and intrinsic value, there is also at least the risk of commodification where relationships are evaluated for their utility in satisfying specific needs.

 

Religion

And then religion, which I mention specifically because my chair here at ISS is in Lived Religion and Development. Religion can easily become part of the extractivist mindset for example when it takes on magical characteristics. Especially in critical circumstances, people may turn to religion trying to avoid imminent danger. In contexts of poverty, there is a strong temptation to follow prosperity preachers who claim that their approach to religion will bring health, material wealth, and much more. Religious leaders may of course act with sincerity, integrity, and humility, but they may also capitalize on their charisma and extract power, honor, and money from the community they are leading.[4]

I may note here one interesting parallel between missionaries and humanitarian aid organizations. Both are not only engaged with a society in need, usually far from their homeland and constituency. They also both typically share stories about their work in the field, highlighting the dire predicament in which they find the people they want to reach, the beneficial effects of their intervention, and the impact of the financial support of their donors. Everybody wins. The receivers of care or mission are supposed to benefit, the donors can feel good, and the missionaries or aid workers remain in business. Good intentions notwithstanding, both missionary and humanitarian work can easily turn out to be extractive sectors, and in fact, examples of white saviourism. The challenge is to explore alternative spaces of local agency.

 

Knowledge

Finally, and added here specifically because it regards us as an academic institution, is the role of extractivism in the generation and distribution of knowledge. The contemporary movement of open access and open science is at least trying to correct the perverse system in which public money and the individual drive of researchers have been exploited by commercial organizations.

But there is more. Even an academic institution like ISS that proudly carries the banner of social justice and invests in what we call Recognition and Rewards can in fact perpetuate a competitive rat race for especially younger scholars, whose energy and ambition are being used to further the academic reputation of the institute. Are we really building a nurturing and secure environment in which people can grow under fertile circumstances, or are we just as extractive as we reproach other institutions to be?

And even more seriously. Do we truly embrace different epistemologies and forms of indigenous knowledge, also when they come from other, previously colonized parts of the world? Or do we hold on to our Eurocentric model of knowledge generation and transmission, in which students from the global south are part of our business model, leading to the continuation of North-South knowledge-power dynamics and a potential brain drain from the south? I am not doubting anyone’s intentions, but we also need to reflect on our own role in development studies.

 

Compassion as radical alternative to extractivism

Maybe you are not convinced by every single example that I mentioned, but I hope that you can follow me when I suggest that extractivism is central to the Western mindset and potentially also influences other cultural contexts. It is at least, I would say, very much present in development discourse and practices. Can we reconceive development in non-extractive ways? We can learn from the debates about decoloniality and degrowth or post-growth. But if extractivism is an underlying cultural mindset that plays out across many domains of how we interact with the world around us, then we also need an alternative fundamental mindset that leads to different ways of relating to the world.

This alternative mindset may go by many different names. One concept that I personally find very appealing is compassion. Compassion is not a soft-hearted emotional response; it is a virtue that is developed over time through a long series of warm and painful experiences, hard and daily choices, honest reflection and introspection, and especially concrete actions. It is also a virtue that is central to many global and indigenous worldviews and religious traditions and therefore can be seen as a core element of human wisdom accumulated over many centuries, as religious studies scholar Karen Armstrong (2010) has outlined.

The concept of compassion combines three interrelated aspects that are relevant for our considerations today. First, it takes its starting point in recognizing that everything is connected. Second, the concept of compassion implies being willing to be affected by ‘the other’, be it fellow humans, animals, future generations, or anything else. “Willingness to be affected”. And then the third aspect of compassion is turning that awareness and willingness to be affected into action.

But this action can no longer be the paternalistic expert-driven top-down form of helping that dominated older paradigms of development and care. It must be based in the awareness of interconnectedness and accountability and therefore breathe the values of mutuality, equality, and justice. To quote the famous words of Aboriginal scholar-activist Lilla Watson: “If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”

[1] Riofrancos (2020) offers an even more precise differentiation between extractivism as the policies and ideologies involved in extraction processes and extractivismo as the, especially Latin American, discourse critically reflecting on this.

[2] See Ganzevoort (2020) for further reflections on data and humankind.

[3] Nicely captured in the recent PhD thesis of Constance Dupuis (2023).

[4] See Sanders (2000) for an insightful analysis of charisma in early Christianity and in contemporary cases.

Follow Bliss on LinkedIn.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the author:

Prof.dr. (Ruard) RR Ganzevoort is the rector of the International Institute of Social Studies in Den Haag (part of Erasmus University Rotterdam) as well as professor of Lived Religion and Development.

Are you looking for more content about Global Development and Social Justice? Subscribe to Bliss, the official blog of the International Institute of Social Studies, and stay updated about interesting topics our researchers are working on.

[newsletter]

Common Challenges for All?

Posted on 0 min read

Traditionally, Development Studies has been centred around a demarcation between the global North (Europe and North America) and the global South (Asia, Africa, and Latin America). In recent years, there has been growing clamour to throw out this North-South framework – held as outdated – in favour of a new ‘global’ outlook. It sounds harmless enough, but in our recent open access article published in Development and Change, we map out our concerns.

President Joe Biden speaks with Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari after a meeting on the Build Back Better World initiative, Tuesday, November 2, 2021, during the COP26 U.N. Climate Change Conference at the Scottish Event Campus in Glasgow, Scotland. (Official White House Photo by Adam Schultz).

In the article, we focus on two highly cited ‘pandemic papers’ published by scholars from two of the most influential and well-resourced Development Studies institutes globally in one of the discipline’s leading journals, World Development (see here and here). We take these ‘pandemic papers’ as part of a broader trend towards a new ‘global development’ paradigm that pre-dated the pandemic, but which has gained significant ground since, warranting critical appraisal. The argument underlying the trend is that due to recent and growing North-South convergence, and the troubled colonial past of Development Studies, a global approach is needed to consider development processes and challenges that cover all countries, including those in the global North.

Aligning themselves with post-development scholarship, the papers offer a valuable critique of the Truman version of development, which envisions the global North as developing the South through aid projects. We also agree with the view outlined in the papers that Development Studies should be grounded in more equitable sharing of knowledge and resources.

Reductive accounts of historical origins and current realities of development

Yet in making their call to adopt a universalist, global development framework, the ‘pandemic papers’ obfuscate existing relations of colonial, imperial and structural subordination, and overlook the Southern origins of and justifications for the North-South framework they seek to overturn. Rather than the origin story of development as Truman’s inaugural address in 1949, in which he highlighted his programme for intervention in countries in the global South, Southern-based visions of development have their own origin stories, often associated with a similarly significant event. The 5th Pan African Congress of 1945 and the Bandung Conference of 1955 – eventually leading to the creation of the Non-Aligned Movement in 1961 – provide two such examples.

By failing to acknowledge or engage with these intellectual inheritances and reducing development to the Truman version of Northern aid, the authors erase Southern visions and imaginings of development from sight. For example (but not only), the Southern originating centre-periphery framework which elucidates how Western imperialism creates and sustains a system of dependency and unequal exchange.

If heeded, we argue the call to move towards a ‘global development’ framework risks concealing how development aspirations in the South continue to be disrupted and stifled, and development processes shaped, by the neo-colonial and imperial ambitions and actions of the North, while undermining the ability of future development scholars to engage with and interpret these processes or examine alternative development paths forged.

The danger of ‘universalising’ Development Studies

To illustrate the dangers of universalising approaches to Development Studies in more detail, we draw on three examples from the ‘pandemic papers’ regarding their treatment of global production, financial integration, and social reproduction. In the case of production, a global framework is presented in which all countries confront the same issues in a similar order of magnitude, with little differentiation between them in terms of location within and across global value chains. This runs contrary to a body of global value chain scholarship, which highlights how highly uneven effects across the North‒South divide function to sustain and reproduce inequities and inequalities in global trade and development. Yet these effects are obscured by the global development framework illustrated in the articles, and as such, appear to be analytically disconnected. Similarly, the existing financial architecture and the imperatives of social reproduction underpin the perpetuation of hierarchies, which, if anything, were amplified during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Related to this, the outlined analytical agenda and toolset underpinning the ‘global development’ framework are likely to result in a significant distancing and decoupling from cutting-edge and development-relevant scholarship on capitalist development and global political economy. These are strands of literature that traditionally have contributed much to Development Studies by way of theoretical and empirical contributions. Under its current guise, global development might become increasingly incompatible with, and incapable of dialoguing with and benefiting from, these other strands.

(Re)centring the global South in Development Studies

Through their universalist framings, the two articles mirror the claims of Western governments to ‘global’ solutions, which relegate the continued reproduction of North‒South structural inequalities and inequities to the margins. By affecting a posture of ‘false sameness’ and inscribing a uniform experience of deprivation, the ‘pandemic papers’ contribute to an erasure of centuries of violence on the majority world of predominantly Black and Brown people, and their historic and current positioning in the matrix of global power and subordination. Although both papers call on Development Studies scholars to refocus their attention on the global North, it is difficult to see how re-centring the study of North America and Europe can reverse tensions, and how Europeans studying Europe becomes a route to decolonizing Development Studies.

Rather than de-centring the global North‒South framework, the analytically more useful way forward, in our view, is for Development Studies to seek to (re)centre the global South and use global South lenses to understand the global political economy. The process of (re)centring the global South does not mean setting the remit of Development Studies as being exclusively about the study of contexts considered to be a part of the global South. It rather entails recognizing that global South experiences, theories and lenses are necessary to understand capitalist development globally, foregrounding historical and contemporary hierarchies. Structural imbalances that function to reproduce the North‒South divide, and their historical origins, must remain in the foreground.

While the world no longer consists, for the most part, of explicit colonies and colonial powers, multiple aspects of the global economy reproduce similar geographies of power, influence and subordination. It is thus vital to rethink and recognize capitalist development as historically constituted and politically implicated. Rather than seeking to wish away these histories and divides, Development Studies can strive to show that what goes on in the global South is not only important and distinct from specific contexts of the global North, but that it is a vital viewpoint for understanding the structure and dynamics of the world economy and the majority world.

This blog was first published by Debating Development Research.

Follow Bliss on LinkedIn.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the authors:

Jörg Wiegratz is Lecturer in Political Economy of Global Development at the University of Leeds, UK, Senior Research Associate at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa, and Research Associate at the Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs, United States International University-Africa, Kenya. He specializes in neoliberalism, fraud, commercialization and economic pressure, with a focus on Uganda and Kenya. He is a member of the Editorial Working Group for the Review of African Political Economy (ROAPE).

Pritish Behuria is a Senior Lecturer in the University of Manchester’s Global Development Institute, UK. He primarily researches the politics of economic transformation in East Africa. He has previously worked at the London School of Economics and Political Science and SOAS, University of London, UK.

Christina Laskaridis is Lecturer in Economics at the Open University, Milton Keynes, UK, and Associate Fellow and Lecturer at Saïd Business School and St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford, UK. She works on the political economy of sovereign debt, international organizations and monetary and debt debates. Her work examines the nature of economic expertise from a historical perspective. She is the 2022 recipient of the Joseph Dorfman Best Dissertation Prize by the History of Economics Society.

Lebohang Liepollo Pheko is an activist scholar who is currently a Senior Research Fellow at Trade Collective, Johannesburg, South Africa. She has taught at the University of South Africa, University of Johannesburg, Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute for Technology and Linköping University. Her key scholarly interests are international trade, international development, decolonial feminism, feminist economics and globalization. Her work uses an intersectional approach to explore race, gender and class oppressions, and is rooted in social movement struggles.

Ben Radley is a Lecturer in International Development for the Department of Social and Policy Sciences at the University of Bath, UK.  His research centres on the interplay between so-called green transitions and processes of economic transformation in Central Africa, with a focus on labour dynamics and the role played by Northern corporations. He is a member of the Editorial Working Group for ROAPE, and an affiliated member of the Centre of Mining Research at the Catholic University of Bukavu, DRC.

Sara Stevano is a development and feminist political economist. She is a Senior Lecturer in Economics at SOAS University of London, UK, having held teaching and research positions at the University of the West of England, Bristol, and King’s College London, UK. Her areas of study are the political economy of work, food and nutrition, inequalities and social reproduction. Her work focuses on Africa, with primary research experience in Mozambique and Ghana.

Are you looking for more content about Global Development and Social Justice? Subscribe to Bliss, the official blog of the International Institute of Social Studies, and stay updated about interesting topics our researchers are working on.

[newsletter]

Development Studies cannot become an apology for the status quo

Posted on 0 min read

Development Studies must always be critical, or it becomes just an apology for the status quo, for exploitation, for the reproduction of inequality within and between nations, and for the destruction of the conditions of life on Earth.

We live in times of converging crises, across the economy, democracy, health, the environment and more, with sprawling implications for ways of living around the globe. These crises and their mutual relationships offer the opportunity for new understandings of the problems of development and possible ways forward, which will inevitably be contested. These debates can be examined historically, focusing on the implications for our discipline.

An overview can start from the period before the Washington Consensus. Politically, it was marked by a strong anti-communism, with the Soviet model offering a plausible alternative to developing countries going through a rapid process of decolonisation and intense left activity. Economically, the dominant notion of development in the West was related to the idea of modernisation as the pathway to an ideal-type advanced capitalism, illustrated by the USA. In turn, economic policy referred to state intervention to provide the economic infrastructure for industrialisation, including public ownership of key industries, substantial aid distributed according to Western policy imperatives and commercial interests, and support for authoritarian regimes aligned with the West. Although the pre-Washington Consensus would now appear extraordinarily progressive, it was heavily contested by scholarship, with Latin American structuralism and dependency theory figuring prominently, and highlighting the inequitable economic structures, social relations and processes that systematically disadvantaged countries in the Global South.

The Washington Consensus emerged in the late 1970s as a dramatic right-wing reaction against the perceived economic and political weaknesses of the previous Keynesian-developmentalist consensus. The Washington Consensus included three main elements. First, the hegemony of mainstream economics within development theory. Second, the hegemony of the World Bank and the IMF setting the agenda for the study of development and the implementation of development policy and, third, ideologically, the attachment of the Washington Consensus to neoliberalism, including the commitment to a notion of ‘free markets’ standing inconsistently between Hayek and Friedman, but unified in claiming that governments were the source of both inefficiency and corruption. While the Washington Consensus claimed to be leaving as much as possible to the market, what it really did was to rebuild the state to intervene on a discretionary basis to promote a globalising and financialised capitalism.

The Washington Consensus was followed, in the 1990s, by the post-Washington Consensus, which was more sensitive to the non-economic domain, and rationalised the ongoing transitions to political democracy in the Global South through appeals to institution-building and the imperative of good governance to limit corruption. Presumably, these goals would be better achieved in a democracy, leading to the conclusion that democracy was good for growth. The promotion of democracy in the South was supported by a development industry parasitic on the poor countries which, suddenly, found reasons to support the World Bank and the IMF, instead of criticising them from financially parched margins.

 

Financialisation and the degradation of state capacity

Retrospectively, it appears that, from a mainstream perspective, the Washington institutions had stumbled upon the best of all possible worlds: the neoliberal reforms transferred the power to allocate resources to a globalised financial market, while political democracy legitimised the neoliberal state. At the same time, the neoliberal reforms degraded state capacity; multiparty legislatures weakened the Executive; and a supposedly independent judiciary ensured that the neoliberal reforms, an independent central bank, inflation targeting regimes and the conditionalities imposed in return for aid were locked in – all in the name of “democracy” and the “rule of law”.

This arrangement was criticised heavily within Development Studies. The first criticism came through the notion of the developmental state, that was shown to have violated Washington’s prescriptions across the board, for example, through protectionism, directed finance, price and wage controls, and so on. The second criticism focused on the notion of adjustment with a human face, and the impact of the neoliberal reforms on the poor. The third criticism came through the notion of post-development, which highlighted the value and agency of the subaltern.

The field of development has now been transformed again, by the ongoing slowdown in the advanced economies, with global repercussions: even former star performers have been affected, especially since their own transitions to neoliberalism. In parallel, we notice the degradation of neoliberal democracies. They were already circumscribed by an institutional apparatus to insulate economic policy from any form of “interference” by the majority, which dramatically reduced the policy space available to nominally democratic states. The consequence in practice was that those who lost out the most under neoliberalism also tended to be ignored by its institutions.

With the destruction of the left in the previous period, these tensions opened spaces for anti-systemic forces polarised by what may be called ‘spectacular’ authoritarian leaders. These are supposedly ‘strong’ people, that cultivate a politics of resentment, appeal to common sense, claim to be able to ‘get things done’ by force of will, and promise to confront the outsiders who undermine ‘our’ nation and harm ‘our’ people. But, when they reach power, those spectacular leaders always impose policies intensifying neoliberalism, under the veil of nationalism and a more or less explicit racism, and they are often shadowed by the rise of neo-fascist movements. This was the situation until early 2020, and the pandemic only intensified those tensions. Economies imploded, and authoritarian neoliberal systems became catastrophically perverse, often imposing health policies that killed millions and entrenched Covid-19 so it will never be eliminated.

 

Authoritarianism and Environmental Collapse call for a Transformation of Development Studies

Contemporary economic and political systems are being slowly but relentlessly overwhelmed by the environmental crisis. This crisis relates, fundamentally, to the contradiction between the limitless search for profits and the limited capacity of the Earth to sustain a climate compatible with the continuation of life as we know it. In turn, the search for solutions is limited by tensions between the accumulated emissions by leading Western economies and the rising emissions in developing countries claiming the right to development today, and by the structure of the global economy, in which several countries are invested in the production of fossil fuels even though this is unsustainable, but they refuse to exit. These tensions have been intensified by financialisation, that tends to raise emissions and block mitigation because financialisation feeds procyclical behaviours that reinforce existing economic structures, increase volatility, and concentrate income, wealth and power. This is incompatible with climate adaptation, strategic industrial policy, or redistribution.

Development Studies must always be critical, or it becomes just an apology for the status quo, for exploitation, for the reproduction of inequality within and between nations, and for the destruction of the conditions of life on Earth. Today, Development Studies faces a neoliberal modality of capitalism whose prosperity relies on speculation, despoliation, extraction and fraud, and which may be sliding into permanent economic underperformance, new forms of fascism and environmental collapse. It is urgent to advance a transformative agenda from within Development Studies. These crises ought to be confronted together for reasons of practicality and legitimacy, through a democratic economic strategy, including political democracy, focusing on the restoration of a collective sphere of citizenship, the expansion of rights, the distribution of income, wealth and power (focusing on the decommodification and definancialisation of social reproduction, starting with universal public services), and a green transition in the economy.

The difficulty is that those alternatives must be underpinned by new social movements and new structures of representation, from political parties to trade unions to community associations, corresponding to the current mode of existence of a society that has been extensively decomposed domestically, imperfectly integrated globally, that has distinct cultures but is connected through internet-based tools. There is nothing more important for Development Studies, today, than to support these critiques of neoliberalism, and support the new movements to reshape our mode of existence.

This blog was first published by EADI.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the author:

Alfredo Saad-Filho is Professor of Political Economy and International Development at the Department of International Development, King’s College London.

Are you looking for more content about Global Development and Social Justice? Subscribe to Bliss, the official blog of the International Institute of Social Studies, and stay updated about interesting topics our researchers are working on.

[newsletter]

From Awareness to Action: World Heritage in Young Hands

Posted on 0 min read

At a workshop in Bulange, Uganda, held in August 2021 the focus was on how to engage youth in protecting, preserving, and promoting World Heritage. The goal was to sensitise youth about heritage through learning from past legacies, understanding what elders live with today, and what they will pass on to the future generations. With a focus on the UNESCO World Heritage Kasubi Tombs site (No.1022), this workshop was important because cultural and natural heritage are both invaluable sources for life and inspiration, that require actionable innovations to transmit heritage knowledge, create heritage-related employment, and preserve the moral development of societies, while promoting young people’s cultural and intellectual development in a globalised world. In this blog, I make the case for increasing grassroots funding for youth-led activities to protect and preserve heritage, as well as to integrate information computing technology (ICT) to help disseminate heritage knowledge globally in a variety of digital formats.

Tombs of Buganda Kings at Kasubi (Uganda) © UNESCO

What is World Heritage?

World heritage includes places as diverse and unique as the Pyramids of Egypt, the Galápagos Islands in Ecuador, the Taj Mahal in India, the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, the Grand Canyon in the USA, or the Kasubi Tombs in Uganda.[i] They are designated as places that are of outstanding universal value to humanity, and as such have been inscribed in the World Heritage List. Nevertheless, these sites face major problems, such as pollution, earthquakes, and other natural disasters, poaching, armed conflict and war, uncontrolled urbanisation, and unchecked tourist development. Young people, as the future generation, still lack knowledge to contribute to the sustainability of heritage in all forms. But they are the ones who can innovate, through local activities, that can offer potential solutions to protect, preserve, and promote Heritage around them. Moreover, they are also skilled at using new digital communications tools, which, if used effectively, can help in implementing concrete solutions to protect these sites.

As a UNESCO initiative, developed in 1998, the World Heritage in Young Hands Educational Resource Kit, for secondary school teachers, advances heritage sensitisation in schools as one approach towards raising awareness among youth.[ii] This has contributed to the transnational conception of heritage protection, preservation, and promotion. While providing a global tool for schools, those not enrolled are, however, excluded from various forms of engagement in preserving local, national, and world heritage. It is important to equally involve out-of-school youth in the protection of our common cultural as well as natural heritage through increasing youth-led initiatives to protect, preserve, and promote heritage.

Varying Forms of World Heritages

The UNESCO Convention concerning the protection of the World cultural and Natural Heritage[iii], describes heritage in varying forms – the cultural and natural heritage. These two, furthermore vary in the forms of tangible and intangible aspects. Tangible cultural heritage is movable and immovable. Immovables include archaeological sites, architectural works, historical centres, monuments, cultural landscapes, historical parks, and botanical gardens as well as sites of industrial archaeology. Movable tangible heritage on the other hand, includes museum collections, libraries, and archives. Examples of intangible cultural heritage include music, dance, literature, theatre, oral traditions, traditional performances, social practices, traditional know-how, crafts, cultural spaces, and religious ceremonies and for natural heritage. Examples of tangible and immovable heritage are natural and maritime parks of ecological interests, geological and physical formations, and landscapes of outstanding natural beauty.

Protect, Preserve, and Promote

In a UNESCO-funded workshop on “Empowering Ugandan Youth through Culture and Heritage” held in Bulange, Uganda, in August 2021, 35 cultural leaders discussed the role of youth in protecting, conserving, and promoting the Kasubi Tombs built in 1882 (UNESCO’s World Heritage Site No. 1022). Utilising the World Heritage in Young Hands Educational Resource Kit, they concluded that:

  • There is a risk that future generations no longer know much about cultural heritage preservation. If youth are not actively engaged in protecting and promoting heritage sites, they will sooner or later be littered with hotels, stadiums, and arcades that exploit the touristic potential of cultural sites.
  • We need to preserve heritage sites as an expression of humanistic values that ancestors created with the intention of telescoping them to the future, allowing generations to interpret their symbolic meaning, and investigate past customs of human interaction globally.
  • Heritage may not immediately appeal to younger generations. Still, knowledge gaps ought to be addressed, and misconceptions dispelled as an inclusive transition to promote an authentic heritage value system among youth.

The Youth Have Their Say

Workshop participants suggested that a regional transnational governance framework under UNESCO be supported, one that would be designed to promote a grassroots-based system driven by all categories of young people to enable them to act beyond awareness in support of promoting heritage. There could be a potential intra-regional role for the African Union in such an initiative.

While alternatives for young people to protect, preserve, and promote tangible heritage sites were made by speakers, it was also suggested that outreach initiatives such as using cartoons to mobilise youngsters in support of World Heritage protection and promotion be used. In addition, it was proposed that families engage young people in extra-curricular events such as excursions to nearby heritage places of interest, youth camps, cultural festivals, and exhibitions, as well as participate in role play activities to recreate traditional social events, such as processions, ceremonies, youth camps and festivals, using tradition to enable, integrate, and promote youth development for continued World Heritage preservation for future generations.

The way forward

Participants recommended various ways to move from sensitisation to action to protect, preserve, and promote world heritage from the perspective of youth engagement. Firstly, nation states should give responsibility for overseeing the security needs of cultural sites to youth through integrating them more into heritage management. While teaching based on the World Heritage kit by practitioners should include more about the provision of security as an essential factor for youth to innovate in relation to heritage related projects, global leaders should also ensure adequate budgets for heritage funds for youth to tap into and protect world heritage.

Moreover, the UNESCO World Heritage Centre should support custodians of heritage sites in transforming the intangible value of heritage sites into written descriptions. In addition, youth learning centres, or interpretive centres, should be constructed by nation states at bigger sites to facilitate the preservation of heritage. Lastly, there is an urgent need for better use of ICT and social media by Ministries of Culture among member states of UNESCO. This will facilitate the digitalisation of knowledge dissemination on heritage across the world, along with inviting youth to engage in diverse and creative ways for promotion, protection, and preservation of world heritage for the future generations.

 

[i] Definition of World Heritage by UNESCO. (see https://whc.unesco.org/en/faq/19/  retrieved on 11 November 2021)

[ii] UNESCO, World Heritage in Young Hands Educational Resource Kit for secondary school teachers (1998). The resource kit complement other initiatives including World Heritage Youth Forums, World Heritage Adventures cartoon series, Training seminars for educators on the use of the resource Kit, On-site skills-development courses for young people, workshops & conferences, and the World Heritage Volunteers initiative.

[iii] Varying Forms of Heritage are described in the UNESCO Convention concerning the protection of the World cultural and Natural Heritage (1972) see https://whc.unesco.org/en/conventiontext/. Retrieved on 06/12.2021

   

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the author:

Umar Kabanda holds a PhD and a master’s degree in Governance and Regional Integration, as well as a Post Graduate Diploma in Human Rights and a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology. Currently he is the Managing Director of Kalube consults limited and a Policy leader Fellow with the School of Transnational Governance in the European University Institute in Italy.  

Are you looking for more content about Global Development and Social Justice? Subscribe to Bliss, the official blog of the International Institute of Social Studies, and stay updated about interesting topics our researchers are working on.

[newsletter]

Transformative Methodologies | Thinking Transformative Methodologies Collectively

Posted on 0 min read

For research to be called socially transformative, the production of scientific knowledge with the aim of addressing a societal problem is not enough. Research processes themselves must also be socially just, which calls for critical self-examination by researchers of how they do research. A project led by ISS researchers seeks to conceptualise a transformative research methodology that underlines a radically different and morally responsible way of conducting research by identifying and challenging assumptions that perpetuate social injustices in research processes. This post introduces the project and its core premises.

Introduction

The veneration in the academe of a singular ‘expert’ knowledge produced by persons and groups based in academic institutions in the Global North, preferably with white bodies, and the failure to create knowledge with communities who are supposed to benefit from it are perhaps the two central obstacles preventing development research from realising its transformative potential. Knowledge produced without the involvement of those it is supposed to serve is not making the impact that it could – and should.

In response to this significant challenge, critical scholars have called for the development of transformative research methodologies based on the collectively identified aim of enacting social justice through research processes themselves. In our understanding, some of the key questions that arise in this context include:

  • What is the purpose of scientific research?
  • Who benefits from such research?
  • How can transformative social change be achieved?
  • Who enacts such change?
  • What are the intersectional implications of such change?

Asking such critical questions makes it clear that power relations that continue to play a central part in the production of knowledge need to be changed so that research itself can be truly transformative. In particular, the gap between ‘the researcher’ and ‘the researched’ sustained through current research methodologies must be addressed by recognising those we work with to produce scientific knowledge as primary actors in the research process.

Many researchers at the ISS and beyond are already adhering to the core principles of such methodologies through their work, which led us to seek to synthesise the different approaches and methods at the ISS in a bid to create a framework for transformative research. And so, in late 2020, a group of researchers from the Civic Innovation (CI) Research Group put their heads together to explore the possibility of taking initial discussions on transformative methodologies further. Such discussions had taken place frequently over the past few years within the CI group in recognition of the need to increase the societal impact of research through the inclusion of those we work with and serve through our research in the research process.

We agreed that the research methodology researchers employ to guide the research process matters. The research process itself shapes the extent to which the knowledge that is produced makes a lasting and transformative impact. Thus, we developed a project that would explore different transformative elements of our research and bring them together to form the basis of a transformative research methodology. Our point of departure is to critically engage with possibilities for communities that are commonly depicted as benefactors of produced knowledge to become part of the process as experts and co-producers of knowledge.

Our main activity was to organise a workshop in which we could explore transformative methodologies researchers at the ISS have employed. This synthesis of experiences and techniques, we hoped, could inspire other researchers to do the same. But the workshop was also meant to be a space to discuss issues related to transformative methodologies, including things such as our own biases and assumptions, financial and legal constraints, and hazardous fieldwork sites.

Here are some of the things that emerged from the inspiring discussions we had during the workshop:

  1. Coloniality plays a role in perpetuating untransformative research methodologies; to address this, knowledge production processes need to be decolonised. Delphin Ntanyoma, a PhD researcher, proposed that in the light of dominant colonial writings and research and for responsible knowledge production to occur, “researchers need to look backwards and forwards a hundred years”, by which he meant that they need to consider both the historical politics of knowledge production and its long-term consequences for social justice. He gave an example of his own community, the Banyamulenge in DRC: the violent conflicts that affect the Banyamulenge in eastern DRC to date are rooted in constructions of a ‘local’ versus ‘immigrant’ identity that dates back to colonial writings.
  2. A focus on individual achievement in the academe, related in part to the well-known ‘publish or perish’ adage, has come to overshadow the notion of collective responsibility that is a crucial premise of a truly transformative methodology. These structures in academia focusing on performance and prestige rather than impact catalyse ‘(extr)activist’ development research that instrumentalises marginalised communities for the benefit of furthering academic careers. Knowledge is extracted from research communities, never to be seen again.
  3. Things might have been different if researchers were to be considered responsible for the impact of their research, including how it is used, and indeed for the effect of the research methodology itself on the research communities they engage with. One workshop participant highlighted how researchers from the Global North have made careers out of writing about the contradictions within indigenous communities in India – a process that has exacerbated prejudices against these already heavily marginalised communities.
  4. For researchers who see themselves as scholar activists and whose deep connection with a specific group of people directs their research, responsibility and commitments in research would also be something to learn from and develop together with the community. During the workshop, Silke Heumann and Karin Astrid Siegmann for instance explained how their collaboration with sex worker groups taught them that the framing of sex work matters: ‘whore stigma’ has been used to justify sex workers’ exclusion from relevant policy discourses, such as those on human trafficking and labour rights. Such and similar relationships to marginalised communities constantly remind researchers to rethink the meaning of what counts as valid knowledge and who is regarded and respected as a knower. This reflective process has been understood as getting closer to ‘strong objectivity’ by feminist theorists like Harding.
  1. Engaged scholarship carries risks that may threaten the ability of methodologies to be transformative. For instance, allying with the LGBTI+ movement has led to serious threats to both researchers and research participants. Workshop participants, including Cathy Wilcock and Natalia Lozano Arevalo, shared how they have used art-based research methods and humour to try to provide a safe space for those actors they work with to share their experiences without the fear of being prosecuted or stigmatised. These forms of data collection can also be seen as more engaging alternatives to conventional forms of doing and communicating research.
  2. An important, yet, difficult step to move forward in the conversation on transformative research is to critically interrogate the role of our research institutions in shaping how we do academic research. Besides assumptions about who can be identified and respected as a knower, coloniality shapes how authorship and budgets are distributed between development researchers in Northern universities and their collaborators in the Global South. In this context, it is extremely important to implement and guarantee a clear ethical, respectful, and responsible no-harm policy.

Keeping these humbling experiences in mind, researchers’ moves out of the individualistic academic ivory tower towards a collective of researchers and activists that shape research and its outcomes together may still be a crucial first step towards transformative research. To be able to engage with transformative methodologies in research and discuss challenges such as those mentioned above, it is important to attempt to create a collective space where instead of individualism and competitive careerism, a meaningful relationship between collective research and activism is promoted. While giving space to issues of intersectionality, identity, and diversity within academia, it is equally relevant to prioritise larger structural issues that threaten the existence of collective communities.

There is still a long way to go to in the dialogue towards evolving scientific research methodologies that would help us maximise their transformative potential. This project on transformative methodologies is one picture that we hope can form part of what will hopefully become a collage of meaningful engagement informing research practice and making it truly transformative.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the authors:

Sreerekha Sathi is assistant professor at the International Institute of Social Studies.

Karin Astrid Siegmann is Associate Professor in Labour and Gender Economics at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS).

Cynthia Embido Bejeno is a PhD candidate in Development Studies at the International Institute of Social Studies.

Lize Swartz

Lize Swartz is a PhD researcher at the International Institute of Social Studies.

Richard Toppo is external PhD candidate at International Institute of Social Studies.

Are you looking for more content about Global Development and Social Justice? Subscribe to Bliss, the official blog of the International Institute of Social Studies, and stay updated about interesting topics our researchers are working on.

[newsletter]

Studying the aspirations of youth can tell us a lot more about their worlds

Posted on 0 min read

Aspiration is an implicit element of development that inspires action for change. Yet there are increasing concerns about the individualised and instrumental use of aspirations in development practice. In a recent special issue of the European Journal of Development Research focusing on youths’ aspirations that I guest-edited along with Nicola Ansell and Peggy Froerer, we argue that aspirations should be recognised as socially produced and as positionings by young people in presents shaped by remnants of pasts and the uncertainty of futures. In this post we detail what’s inside the special issue.

Development discourse is thick with aspirations (Frye 2012; Jakimow 2016). Planning for and bringing about desired change is key to development practice and the longing for a better life constitutes a main driving force for people’s continued engagement with development interventions despite their all-too-frequent disappointments (De Vries 2007; High 2014). Thus, aspiration is an implicit element of the very idea of development.

Yet, increasingly the concept of aspiration has come to feature explicitly in the development studies literature. Reflecting trends in the Global North, this is perhaps most evident in studies focusing on children and youth (see for example: Morrow 2013). Now that some years of schooling have become the norm for most young people the world over, raising aspirations has become a policy mantra to increase learning outcomes, while in other contexts young people’s aspirations are seen as unrealistic because they are ‘aiming too high’.

The academic challenge of working with aspirations is that it may end up promoting ‘individual investment in institutional pathways for self-improvement while protecting these same institutions from blame when these pathways do not lead to the imagined outcomes’ (Frye 2019: 724). At the same time, futures do matter and are unavoidable. This is especially true for children and youth who often spend considerable time in future-oriented institutions such as schools.

These challenges necessitate the need to discuss aspirations more deeply, appraise what it has to offer for studying children and youth in context of development, while also being mindful of problematic uses of the concept. To this end, the European Journal of Development Research has created a Special Issue titled ‘Youth, aspiration and the life course: development and the social production of aspirations in young people’s lives’ that Nicola Ansell, Peggy Froerer and I guest-edited.

We recognised the need to find some answers to basic questions that include:

  • What do we mean when talking about the term ‘aspiration’?
  • How do we conceptualise it from a social sciences perspective?
  • And what is its analytical value in studying young people’s aspirations in contexts of development?

The collection builds on Arjun Appadurai’s (2004) oft-cited text ‘The capacity to aspire’. He pointed out that aspirations ‘are never simply individual’, but ‘always formed in interaction and in the thick of social life’ (2004: 67). We have developed this starting point further on the basis of recent philosophical, sociological and anthropological work on theorising aspiration and desire.

On this basis, the Special Issue takes a critical stance against strands of development research that merely treat aspirations as ‘mental models’ that can be tweaked easily by having people watch certain videos, send them regular text messages, etc. The case in point is the 2015 World Development Report titled ‘Mind, Society, and Behavior’ (World Bank 2015). The World Development Report draws on behavioural economics, neuroscience and social psychology and presents interventions seeking to raise or redirect aspirations as a relatively inexpensive addition to the development practitioner’s toolkit.

The articles in the Special Issue are based on research that problematises the normative and instrumental approach to aspirations that underpins the World Development Report. Rather than judging young people’s aspirations as too high, too low, or of the wrong kind, the authors set out to understand young people’s orientations towards desired futures – whatever these might be, and however these might be expressed. These could be longer-term futures related to desired occupations, but also more immediate futures in which an orientation towards a desired future emerges as important for asserting a particular identity in the present.

Ultimately, we sought to make a balanced intervention in research and practice focusing on aspirations in relation to young people in development. One of the questions that was asked (and answered) is:

How are aspirations socially produced as part of young people’s lives? And what can we learn from this?

Young people’s aspirations do not predict futures. In fact, the work of aspirations is an ever-unfolding dynamic through which possible futures and particular pasts come to have a bearing on the lived moment of the present. Gaining some control over this, however fragile, vague or illusive this may be, is key to making life meaningful, perhaps especially so in adverse and rapidly changing circumstances.

These points were unravelled on the basis of research with widely diverse groups of children and young people, and in relation to varying development issues. The list of contributing articles includes research with:

In addition, two articles focus on youth in China. One concentrates on youth in vocational schools who are often considered as ‘non-aspirational’ (Ole Johannes Kaland), whereas the other focuses on young people who did enter university. This latter illuminates the high price young people end up paying for realising China’s national aspiration of educational expansion (Willy Sier).

And finally, one article moves the lens away from young people themselves and critically discusses development organisations’ knowledge claims about rural youth’s aspirations about farming futures (Ben White).

Collectively, the articles underscore the importance of appreciating aspirations as socially produced, and therefore never just an individual property. In contexts of development characterised by rapid and dramatic change, strategies for realising a realistic future that were valid in the recent past are rapidly becoming irrelevant, obsolete, or may have become closed-off altogether. This emphasises the importance of conducting research with young people themselves and taking seriously their aspirations as they are positioning themselves in presents shaped by remnants of the past and uncertain futures. The Special Issue is a dedicated effort to furthering this research agenda.

This text is a highly condensed version of the editorial introduction of the Special Issue.

References

Appadurai, A. 2004. “The Capacity to Aspire: Culture and the terms of recognition.” Pp. 59-84 in Culture and Public Action, edited by V. Rao and M. Walton. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

De Vries, P. 2007. “Don’t Compromise Your Desire for Development! A Lacanian/Deleuzian rethinking of the anti-politics machine.” Third World Quarterly 28(1):25-43.

Frye, M. 2019. “The Myth of Agency and the Misattribution of Blame in Collective Imaginaries of the Future.” The British Journal of Sociology 70(3):721-730.

High, H. 2014. Fields of Desire: Poverty and policy in Laos. Singapore: NUS Press.

Morrow, V. 2013. “Whose Values? Young people’s aspirations and experiences of schooling in Andhra Pradesh, India.” Children & Society 27(4):258-269.

World Bank. 2015. “World Development Report 2015. Mind, Society, and Behavior.” Washington: International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / The World Bank.

About the author:

Roy Huijsmans is a teacher/researcher at the ISS.

Are you looking for more content about Global Development and Social Justice? Subscribe to Bliss, the official blog of the International Institute of Social Studies, and stay updated about interesting topics our researchers are working on.

[newsletter]

Covid-19 | How moving (academic) conferences online could help address social injustices

Posted on 0 min read
Video conference

Curtailing the movement of people around the world in a bid to control and eventually stop the spread of Covid-19 has forced many, including academics, to gather online. A recent online conference of the European Consortium for Political Research I attended shows that such conferences can not only be a roaring success, but can also help address social injustices, in particular economic and social barriers to participation. Yet these practices should become the ‘new norm’ to ensure that these barriers are broken down once and for all.

Video conference

In August 2020 the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) held its first virtual general conference. This event also marked its 50-year anniversary. Remarkably, despite the restrictions, it still managed to virtually bring together over 2,000 researchers to discuss political science, including the politics of the Covid-19 crisis.

As a conference participant coming from an institution whose key focus is social justice, the important social justice dimensions of the event did not elude me. In this article, I highlight some of these dimensions to proffer what I believe may be cardinal collateral gains towards social justice within academia emerging from the otherwise unfortunate outbreak of the corona virus. Using the ECPR case example, I seek to make a global argument that these gains would be maximised if they are immediately and widely consolidated as a feature of such conferences.

As early as April 14th, 2020 the World Health Organisation had issued an alert on mass international gatherings in light of the Covid-19 pandemic. This alert, which has led to a new global norm on limiting the gathering of a large number of people, therefore meant that the ECPR’s conference, if held physically, was going to raise many eyebrows. The body thus decided to take the conference online, attracting a perhaps unprecedented number of participants. The ECPR president noted that the virtual conference hosted more participants than the previous physical general conference. So it was probably a good decision to have the conference run virtually.

In my view, the idea to have a virtual rather than a physical conference had two main gains that help to address some of the social injustices that for a long time have been entrenched within the academic sphere.  For readers that may be new to the idea of social justice, it is a critical political and philosophical view of society that is concerned with the fair and just relations between individuals in society. This issue became salient at the ECPR’s event because the virtual nature of the conference broke down two of the barriers that disable some academics from taking full advantage of such academically stimulating platforms: an economic barrier and a social barrier.

The conference broke down an economic barrier by providing easy access to participants who may not have had the financial resources required to travel and pitch camp in a physical location. Here, I refer to the huge flight and hotel costs that would have been a deal-breaker for many of such people, including myself. In addition, conference registration costs can run up to several hundred euros. Groups that usually suffer from such setbacks include students, both at the Master’s and PhD level, as well as academics from less-financially-endowed institutions or countries.

Yet, members from these groups contribute some of the most original and case-sensitive analyses of social and political science, thereby contributing to the academic debates upon which associations such as the ECPR thrive. For a long time, barriers of this calibre have limited some of these voices in these discourses, and perhaps this new virtualisation of academic life is the pathway to raising their voices.

 For the ECPR specifically, the Western European origins of the consortium has for a long time kept researchers from Eastern Europe from fully participating in these conferences. Yet, they were ubiquitous this time round on almost all the 15 panels that I participated in. As a researcher interested in the politics of conflicts, I gathered the most relevant insights from these Eastern European participants and other participants from the Middle East. It is likely that physical conferences may have created a lot more barriers to their participation.

Second, the conference broke down a social barrier, particularly one preventing females from participating in conferences, rooted in the absence of females in academia in general. Perhaps readers may be aware of the so-called leaky pipeline phenomenon characterising how women fall out of the scene as they progress in their academic careers. This a significant social justice issue that many responsible organisations are trying to deal with, including the ECPR. As the president’s anniversary address acknowledges, there are many more women involved in the ECPR’s activities both at administrative and academic levels. Indeed, throughout the conference, female panellists were a frequent encounter that I welcomed. Yet, I could not help but wonder how difficult it must be for many of them to juggle their child-rearing duties with spending a week away, possibly on another continent, to attend an academic conference.

With this in mind, it is clear to me how the Covid-19-induced virtualisation of academic life may provide some opportunity to academics and researchers with such responsibilities to actively participate in the academic fraternity whilst tending to their role in home economics. Of course, conferencing online from home is no walk in the park either, but in my view, it is less of a burden to have to return to those duties just after one hour of online engagement than having to be way for a whole week for the same purpose.

Whilst highlighting these gains, I am not oblivious of the other forms of injustices that virtual conferences also present. Here I refer to the loss of jobs in the hospitality industry that hosts conferences, or the outrageous financial gains these virtualizations rake in for owners of online communication platforms. Nevertheless, I am also persuaded by the campaigns led by some senior colleagues at my university to tone down the current climatically and financially unsustainable model of flying thousands of participants every year to conferences.

Already, deep voices within the scientific community are predicting that the ‘new normal’ is expected to stay. Yet I am concerned that perhaps these gains exemplified by the ECPR’s virtual general conference may not be consolidated, at least not in the immediate future. From the plenary address and the post-conference questionnaire, I can gather that the ECPR is already considering at least some physical meeting during next year’s general conference. Other conferences may possibly be considering doing the same.

Yet, it is my view that the failure to immediately entrench the above-highlighted Covid-19-induced shifts to improving social justice within the academe would be ‘one step forward, two steps backward’. I hope it won’t be.

About the author:

Dennis Penu (penu@iss.nl) is a PhD Research Fellow at the International Institute of Social Studies of the Erasmus University Rotterdam with research interests in the links between political geography and conflicts studied with qualitative comparative methods.

Are you looking for more content about Global Development and Social Justice? Subscribe to Bliss, the official blog of the International Institute of Social Studies, and stay updated about interesting topics our researchers are working on.

[newsletter]

Disasters, Dilemmas and Decisions: Notes from a monsoon fieldwork in Assam, India

Posted on 0 min read

Taking an ethnographic route to study disaster-affected communities makes us grow deeply aware of seething worldly inequalities that disasters bring forth. At the same time, it makes us compassionate towards the world outside. It is imperative we reserve a piece of that compassion for our own selves, too, writes Mausumi Chetia.

On a summer night eleven monsoons ago, sleep evaded me. Outside, the winds were growing stronger by the hour and the rain refused to stop pouring. My sleepless thoughts held the image of a family and an incessantly shaking, Kare Okum (chang-ghar in Assamese) or stilt houses built over a flowing channel of water. I was in Majuli, a densely populated island in the Brahmaputra river of Assam, my home state in northeast India. I was collecting data for my Master’s dissertation around the time the monsoons began, bringing the annual floods to our state.

A few days later, my then research supervisor pulled me out of the field site. With a calm, but commanding voice, she asked me to return to ‘safety’ at the earliest. With partially collected data, mixed emotions and a river that was continuously expanding (due to massive erosion of its banks), I left Majuli for my home’s ‘safety’.

Fast forward to fieldwork for my current research in Assam in 2019. I was faced once again with the ethical dilemma of applying a methodological approach focusing on people first and foremost vs prioritising my own safety as a researcher. They were the very puzzles I had left behind in Majuli when I left a decade ago. Research is a deeply political process, but it is a humanising journey, too, as I would come to see (and as Kikon 2019 explains).

The half-written story of a monsoon auto ride: taking a submerged path

My fieldwork in June 2019 took me to one of Assam’s severely flood-prone districts. The geographical location was chosen based on longstanding professional relationships and empirical familiarity with that region.

Map of Assam
Figure 1: Map of Assam, India

A local humanitarian organisation aided me in accessing the research site. I found an accommodation in the district town, about 45 kilometres away from the actual site of study. My research populations lived about 15 to 25 kilometres away from a national highway, on a rehabilitated government-owned piece of land situated along the banks of a river.

The initial fieldwork days were about establishing access and meeting key contacts. The weather was mostly cloudy with occasional showers. One day looked particularly promising, with the sun high up in a clear, blue morning sky. Predictably, the sky got dark in no time. Despite warnings of rising water levels, our auto-rickshaw driver decided to risk continuing the trip. Then the drizzling started.

I could see a blurring silver line across the trees. It was the water. My heart skipped a beat as I remembered the last time I was in a heavily flooded river in a steamer boat, almost two monsoons past. Some thatched houses appeared inundated already. Buffaloes and cows were clutching at tiny islands that had formed in the paddy fields, which in turn resembled huge lakes on either side of the road.

Stranded animals Assam
Figure 2: Stranded animals on islands of submerged paddy fields (photograph taken by the author, July 10th, 2019).

Gradually, it felt like we were surrounded by a sea of water. There came a point where the road ahead looked completely submerged. Our auto-rickshaw came to a halt. A few vehicles had stopped ahead of us. The rain continued pouring. There was chaos and confusion. People needed to cross the submerged part of the road to reach their homes. But the prospect of crossing the waist-deep water with their luggage, infants and children delayed their decision. Three of my fellow passengers told me that they were indeed afraid of the water. Nonetheless, they had to cross it on foot. Devoid of alternatives, two women and a teenaged boy started marching ahead. Many, like them, were from villages as far ahead as 15 kilometres.

An ethical-methodological dilemma

I continued standing there next to our auto-rickshaw, almost in a stupor. A billion thoughts crossed my mind. And here was my dilemma. By design, understanding the ‘everydayness’ of the research population was at the heart of my research methodology. By that virtue, even the present situation of crossing a flooded area should theoretically have been something I would have had to prepare for. However, faced with the disaster first-hand, I was anything but prepared to encounter the ‘lived experiences’ of my research population. I found myself debating whether loyalty to my research methodology was more crucial than my personal safety or, more importantly, whether being an empathetic researcher and registering the real difficulties faced by the research population, in hosting me in their flooded homes, was the most important objective.

The first thing that was stopping me from stepping into the waters was not the fear of the water itself. We were witnessing people crossing the submerged road. And in all fairness, it was not an ‘alarming flood situation’ by any measure, while perhaps only moving towards that. My concern was one of return: my rapport with these families had not matured adequately to a point that I could stay unannounced in my interviewees’ homes. At the same time, if the rains continued (which was most likely), it would have been risky to return. The families were already struggling with minimal living spaces. Basic amenities like food, drinking water, public transport access, markets, hospitals, etc. were already limited and at far-off distances. With rising waters, it would be inappropriate to obligate them to accommodate an additional person, that person being myself.

I was tiptoeing ahead absent-mindedly with all these thoughts in my head when my auto-rickshaw driver called out, asking me to return to the vehicle. Along with a few passengers, he was planning to return to the main highway. He insisted that I must, too, as I looked like an ‘outsider’ and I wouldn’t be able to cross the road like the ‘locals’. With a sense of self-betrayal, I shut my umbrella and got back to the vehicle.

The next morning, we were informed that the entire road till the bank of the river (located at least 15 kms from where we had returned) had been submerged. Even steamer services to Majuli were shut down indefinitely. I realised my return to meet the families would have to wait. This reflected my limited role as an ethnographic researcher – to study the research population during disasters that very much defined the everydayness of their lives.

The ethnographic project is in itself embedded within power relations between the researcher and the researched (Behar, 1993: 31 cited in Prasad, 1998). Empirically speaking, the research population and I share our homeland (of Assam), culture and language, both literally and figuratively, to a considerable extent. Yet we are anything but parallel in the legitimacies of our respective lives. To begin with, for instance, my family or I have never encountered a disaster first-hand. Concurrently, in my research, it is I who determine the design, selection of site, population for study and methodology. This essentially puts me in a position of power and privilege over the research population I study who, in contrast, had no choice in choosing my research through which to share their everyday lives.

Given this inequality, the power (of the researcher) could end up being wielded against the best interests of the researched in ethnographic studies during or after disasters. The delicate balance between prioritising the research methodology and prioritising the research population then becomes crucial for us as disaster researchers. The power divide and our mandate to negotiate these nuances becomes much more apparent during our fieldwork. Critical reflection (Foley and Valenzuela 2005) at this juncture might prove to be a useful exercise.

My fieldwork experience has underlined that remaining empathetic and putting the interests of the research population facing disasters before our own research methodology is fundamental. The classic ethnographic training for young researchers is to become ‘one among them’ (the research population), given all other factors are in place. Thus, from the start, there silently remains a distinction between ‘them and us’. However, coming from the wider socio-cultural horizon of the researched, local researchers like myself must be trusting of one’s own understanding of issues and instincts for making decisions in the field, even if such decisions do not necessarily fit within the our methodological approaches that have been argued to be rooted in western thoughts. Engaging in other aspects of fieldwork then, for instance making contacts with local experts, especially with researchers based and working in the field site for sustained periods, could be fruitful.

Growing together with our research: prioritising researchers’ self-care

More than a year has passed since the field experience elaborated above. Since returning to safety that day, I keep wondering if the decision was methodologically ethical. My choice that morning reflects the power imbalance between the researcher and the researched very clearly. I call it a power imbalance because I had the choice to not move ahead to meet the research population, whereas they themselves had no choice to leave their flooded home and return on a sunnier, drier day. That is their life. These families continue living in similar conditions of high risk and vulnerability, even today.

Auto Rickshaw in monsoon in Assam
Figure 3: Our auto-rickshaw returning towards the highway (photograph taken by the author, July 10th, 2019).

I made my choice balancing the palpable risks of entering a flooded area and as an ostensibly empathetic researcher. That being said, it was also because I prioritised the safety of the self. Many of our decisions as disaster researchers get shaped by our relationship of accountability to our host organisations (if any) and towards our own families and loved ones. Ensuring our own safety is one such challenging decision.

From the dilemmas of my ethnographic fieldwork, I learnt to appreciate that our research is as much about us as human beings/researchers as they are about understanding research populations. As I examine their lives and they examine mine, we grow together. After all, ours is a social and not a controlled laboratory situation. What I seek to reiterate here is this: many aspects of fieldwork are beyond our control. What is in our capacity, however, is to take care of our own research, the research population we engage with and our own selves.

By self-care, I refer to not just the physical and mental/emotional health safety. Beyond such strictly defined medical aspects of health, I emphasise being self-empathetic throughout the period of research while referring to a researcher’s self-care. This is especially true if we engage with disaster-affected populations over long periods. Having and practising contingency plans for safety prior to the fieldwork and regular communication with supervisory teams and our support system is a must for disaster ethnographic researchers. That being said, a researcher’s self-care must be held dearly by none other than the researcher herself.

Traversing the ethnographic road to meet disaster-affected populations

Upon my return from the flooded area, I found that colleagues at my host organisation had been worried about me, as had been my friends and family. I am glad I retraced my steps, albeit guiltily. In hindsight, I question whether I should have changed my methodology considerably for smoother sailing or perhaps should have conducted fieldwork in areas with minimal probability for a disaster. In that case, how true would I remain to my research question and how ethical would that be? My original fieldnote from that day reads,

… this sight (of the flooded paddy fields all around me) is making me question whether my original study population is even living in the same place where I’d met them, or have they already had to move to avoid the rising river? What, then, does it reflect about the (mobile) lives that these (displaced?) families lead and about the credibility of the gaze I want/need to have for this research?

(‘Reflections’ – Fieldnotes of a missed interview, July 10th, 2019)

Such reflexivity helped me reshape aspects of my fieldwork’s methodology in tune with the dynamic external environment. Physical safety and mental health of aid workers are integral to the everyday conversations of the world of humanitarian aid. While discussing reflexivity in her auto-ethnography with disaster-affected communities of Aceh, Indonesia, Rosaria Indah (2018) shares that secondary traumatic stress (STS) could be one of the long-lasting impacts on disaster ethnographers. Thus, this conversation deserves to pick pace within the academic community too, especially for researchers engaging in long-term humanitarian contexts.

Taking an ethnographic road to disaster-affected communities makes us grow deeply aware of seething worldly inequalities that disasters bring forth. At the same time, it makes us compassionate towards the world outside. It is imperative we reserve a piece of that compassion for our own selves too.

This is an edited version of the article that was originally published on the LSE blog.

References

Foley, S. and Valenzuela, A. (2005) Critical ethnography: the politics of collaboration. In: N. Denzin and Y. Lincoln, eds. The Sage handbook of qualitative research. 3rd edn. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, pp. 217–234.

Indah, R. (2018) Probing problems: Dilemmas of conducting an ethnographic study in a disaster-affected area. International journal of disaster risk reduction 31, pp.799-805.

Kikon, D. (2019) On methodology: research and fieldwork in Northeast India. The Highlander 1(1), pp. 37–40

Prasad, P. (1998) When the Ethnographic Subject Speaks Back: Reviewing Ruth Behar’s. Translated Woman. Journal of Management Inquiry 7(1), pp. 31-36.

Mausumi ChetiaAbout the author:

Mausumi Chetia is a PhD researcher with the ISS. Prior to joining academics, she was working as a development and humanitarian aid professional in India.

Are you looking for more content about Global Development and Social Justice? Subscribe to Bliss, the official blog of the International Institute of Social Studies, and stay updated about interesting topics our researchers are working on.

[newsletter]

COVID-19: Should Europe embrace frugality?

Posted on 0 min read
Drawing of doctors wearing masks

The Covid-19 pandemic, emerging in the aftermath of the recent global financial crisis, could potentially further shake the confidence that Europeans have in their institutions. Rigid and slow decision-making processes and an excessive institutional reliance on super-specialisation and protocol-driven scientific evidence can at least partly explain why Europe finds it so difficult to predict disruptions and why it adapts its institutional machineries so slowly. Greater flexibility, including space for experimentation and improvisation, can help Europe to adapt more quickly to future contingencies, write Saradindu Bhaduri and Peter Knorringa.

Drawing of doctors wearing masks

Europe has offered a historically unprecedented degree of stability, prosperity, comfort and reliability to most of its citizens in recent decades. Many of its citizens have grown to take these benefits for granted, even when all this makes Europe a very high-cost economic system. Two recent disruptions, the earlier financial crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic, are unprecedented in the history of Europe, at least since World War II. The pandemic has caused more than 150,000 deaths so far, with a mortality rate in Europe far exceeding that of countries outside the continent. Potentially, these two events could shake the faith of people in the institutional mechanisms of the continent developed brick by brick over the last half a century, especially if such disruptions are expected to recur more frequently in the future.

Understanding the European system

Few would disagree that the present European production and innovation system, inter-country variations notwithstanding, relies extensively on the super-specialisation of work and an overwhelming reliance on strongly protocolised ‘hard scientific evidence’. Together, they are supposed to uphold quality and transparency in economic decision making, even at the cost of being expensive and sticky, i.e. slow in its ability to adapt to changing circumstances. While specialisation and protocols are in themselves indispensable and desirable elements in a modern economy, too much of it creates its own challenges.

In this blog we argue that the excessive institutional reliance on super-specialisation and protocol-driven scientific evidence in all its decision-making processes can, at least partly, explain why Europe finds it so difficult to predict disruptions and is not able to quickly adapt its institutional machineries in the face of a crisis1. A remedy in our view lies in reducing over-formalisation in its decision-making processes and creating more space for experimentation and judicious improvisation. These steps can help Europe to adapt quicker to future contingencies2.

A discourse which has begun highlighting the importance of such experimentations and judicious improvisations is the one on frugality and frugal innovations. They suggest ways to re-introduce such experimentations and improvisations in innovation processes to reduce ‘over-engineering’ and costs while maintaining basic functionality and affordability3. A concurrently emerging discourse on frugality in policy making emphasises the need for improvised decision making based on seasoned, practical, context-specific experience and the importance of ‘experimenting while deciding’4.

Does Covid-19 challenge protocolised hard evidence-driven decision-making?

Indeed, the pandemic struck, and struck hard while the system often continued to wait for a ‘formal go-ahead’ informed by ‘hard evidence’ to be gathered by ‘super-specialised’ actors and processes, to take policy decisions on (i) whether to test ‘asymptomatic patients’, (ii) whether ‘to wear a mask’, (iii) whether it is okay ‘to use hydroxychloroquine’, or (iv) whether ‘to impose a lockdown’. Waiting for ‘hard evidence’ has often been given a priority over also making clever use of readily available ‘soft evidence’ by seasoned practitioners, presumably also not to disturb the comfort of its citizens 5,6,7,8. Moreover, this denial to act upon soft evidence is not specific to the context of the current pandemic; it is rather the routine. Incidentally, later more systematic studies seem to validate the soft evidence of wearing masks, and practising social distance9.

Is the system adapting?

Going beyond ‘super-specialised actors?’

While Europe initially responded slowly to the arrival of Covid-19, we do now observe quite a few deviations from the routine reliance on ‘super-specialisation’ and formal protocols surrounding innovation, production, and validation. Such improvisations are particularly visible in products and services related to public health deliveries, arguably to ensure their timely and affordable access at the time of the pandemic. Examples include the open-source development of a ventilator, where so-called lay persons can also contribute and participate. Similarly, many informal organisations have sprung up across the continent to produce open-source medical equipment and protection gear for patients and healthcare workers10. These organisations are not taking the routine protocolised path of regulatory approval. Instead, in order to ensure timely affordable access, they are relying on the viewpoints of physicians and clinical administrators on ‘whether it works’ in the ‘actual’ environment of their use11.

Going beyond ‘protocolised’ hard evidence?

A sizeable section of physicians and clinical researchers of repute have vouched for including hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) in the treatment protocol of Covid-19 based, once again, only on soft evidence of clinical acumen, ‘prudent observations’, and targeted, non-randomised, small-sample clinical studies12, 13, 14. While the opposition to rely on such soft evidence may be rational, the issue remains that we need fast decisions and therapies to deal with the pandemic, and ‘hard evidence’ of randomised controlled trials does not come fast, nor do they come cheap. Indeed, more than four months into the pandemic, we have conflicting evidence of its (non-) efficacy for advanced-stage treatment. While the WHO has stopped its randomised controlled clinical trial (RCT) citing ‘no benefit’[20], a recent ‘retrospective study’ by the Henry Ford Health System reports significant benefits.[21] For early-stage treatment or as a prophylactic, we are still guided by softer evidence of ‘clinical observations’ and ‘retrospective studies’15.

The evidence of low rates of mortality in places and countries using this therapy have triggered a diverse set of responses from scientists, politicians, and regulatory authorities16,17. Some of them have rejected it outright due to non-availability of ‘gold standard’ evidence from RCTs. Other responses have ranged from agreeing to conduct more elaborate studies (RCTs or otherwise), to continuing with the therapy based on ‘prudent clinical acumen’. Indeed, an emerging view in this context invites us to explore ‘doing while learning’ by integrating the urge of clinical practitioners to use untested therapies, while designing, if necessary, full-fledged protocolised clinical trials to evaluate efficacy of the therapy better18. These propositions challenge the sharp division of super-specialisations between clinical research and clinical practice: “clinical practice and clinical research are addressed by separate institutions, procedures, and funding”19. The crisis has underlined the necessity to adapt this structure.

So, is a new pattern emerging?

Many of the presently successful experiments can be defined as frugal innovations: they are affordable, retain basic functionalities, and are developed through extensive polycentric interactions, involving super-specialised experts as well as seasoned lay practitioners. Similarly, in line with the arguments of the frugality discourse in policy making, decisions are being made by localised, practical experiences of people in the field, focusing more on ‘what works’ rather than ‘what ought to work’, to ensure faster access to protective gear, medical equipment, as well as medicine therapies. Such a process of decision making arguably gives priority to arriving at ‘good-enough’, faster decisions, rather than waiting for a zero-error solution. Of course, we need to be careful here; most of these experiments show that results are contextual, local in their scope and feasibility, and difficult to scale up.

Still, an exclusive reliance on super-specialisation and protocols would hold fort only in an environment where lives and livelihoods are stable, prosperous, comfortable, and reliable. But now that the illusion of a zero-risk and fully controllable society is fading, we propose a more nuanced future orientation that creates space for experimentation and improvisation based on localised knowledges. Recent EU efforts to pay more attention to citizen science and frugal innovation, for example in a Horizon 2020 call, are promising stepping stones in this direction, i.e. to develop rigorous science that is also built on the bottom-up knowledge, practices, and the creativity of EU citizens. This will help make the society more resilient to future contingencies.

1. See for an elaborated account of Europe’s early response to COVID -19 ‘Coronavirus Europe failed the test’, Politico.Last accessed on 1 June 2020.
2. See ‘Better luck next time? How the EU can move faster when disaster strikes’,Sciencebusiness
Last accessed on 10 June 2020.
3. Knorringa, P., Peša, I., Leliveld, A. et al. Frugal Innovation and Development: Aides or Adversaries?. Eur J Dev Res 28, 143–153 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1057/ejdr.2016.3 . Last accessed on 1 June 2020.
4. Patil, K., Bhaduri, S. ‘Zero-error’ versus ‘good-enough’: towards a ‘frugality’ narrative for defence procurement policy. Mind Soc 19, 43–59 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11299-020-00223-7 Last accessed on 1 June 2020.
5. ‘Italy, Pandemic’s New Epicenter, Has Lessons for the World’, New York TImes, especially the section on local experiments. Last accessed on 1 June 2020.
6. ‘Report on face masks’ effectiveness for Covid-19 divides scientists’, The Guardian Last accessed on 6 June 2020.
7. ‘In one Italian town, we showed mass testing could eradicate the coronavirus’, The Guardian Last accessed on 6 June 2020.
8. ‘Up to 30% of coronavirus cases asymptomatic’, DW Last accessed on 6 June 2020.
9. ‘Physical distancing, face masks, and eye protection to prevent person-to-person transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19: a systematic review and meta-analysis’  Last accessed on 6 June 2020.
10. Digital Response to COVID-19. Last accessed on 3 June 2020.
11. ‘Open-Source Medical Hardware: What You Should Know and What You Can Do’, Creative Commons
12. ‘Hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19: What’s the Evidence?’, Medscape Last accessed on 1 June 2020.
13. ‘Hydroxychloroquine prophylaxis for high-risk COVID-19 contacts in India: a prudent approach, The Lancet’. Last accessed on 1 June 2020.
14. See ‘He Was a Science Star. Then He Promoted a Questionable Cure for Covid-19’, The New York Times. Last accessed on 1 June 2020.
15. ‘Preventive use of HCQ in frontline healthcare workers: ICMR study’, The Indian Express. Last accessed on 10 June 2020.
16. ‘A Look at COVID Mortality in Paris, Marseille, New York and Montreal’, Covexit.com
Last accessed on 10 June 2020.
17. ‘Coronavirus: How Turkey took control of Covid-19 emergency,’ BBC. Last accessed on 10 June 2020.
18. ‘Chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine in covid-19′, the BMJ. Last accessed on 1 June 2020.
19. ‘Optimizing the Trade-off Between Learning and Doing in a Pandemic’, JAMA network. Last accessed on 1 June 2020.

20. https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/04-07-2020-who-discontinues-hydroxychloroquine-and-lopinavir-ritonavir-treatment-arms-for-covid-19

22. https://www.henryford.com/news/2020/07/hydro-treatment-study

This article was originally published by the Centre for Frugal Innovation in Africa (CFIA). This article is part of a series about the coronavirus crisis. Read all articles of this series here.

Saradindu BhaduriSaradindu Bhaduri held the Prince Claus Chair in Frugal Innovation for Development and Equity (2015-17) at ISS (EUR). He is Associate Professor at the Centre for Studies in Science Policy, at JNU New Delhi, and the Coordinator of the proposed JNU-CFIA Transdisciplinary Research Cluster on Frugality Studies.Saradindu Bhaduri

Peter Knorringa is a Professor of Private Sector & Development at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) at Erasmus University Rotterdam. Since 2013, Professor Knorringa is the academic director of the Centre for Frugal Innovation in Africa (CFIA).

‘I cannot understand your question’: challenges and opportunities of including persons with disabilities in participatory evaluation

Posted on 5 min read
Colourful Hands

Participatory evaluation has been praised for engaging vulnerable groups such as persons with disabilities (PwD). However, the inclusion of this group can be challenging and even self-defeating if carried out incorrectly. Despite the challenges, evaluators and researchers can follow some strategies to make the evaluation process with PwD as inclusive as possible.

Disability and participatory methods

For a long time, persons with disabilities (PwDs) were socially ostracized and confined to special schools and health centers. Growing pressure from disability rights organizations made possible a shift from an individual and biological view of disability towards a social and inclusive model that focuses on the interaction between individual impairments and social and environmental barriers (Shakespeare, 2006). Since then, international progress has been made to recognize the right of PwDs as full and contributing members of society; the formation of the 2006 UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is an example of a step in the right direction on this front.

In previous decades there has been a shift in research and evaluation methodologies in academia as well. Criticism of the ineffectiveness of the positivist paradigm to include vulnerable groups in research has led to the rise of participatory approaches in which PwDs and other marginalized groups play an important role in shaping research agendas and outcomes (Parry et al., 2001). The alternative bottom-up methodologies became known for challenging power relations and giving voice to marginalized groups, including PwDs (Chambers, 1994).

As a result, participatory methods have been crucial for engaging PwDs in more active roles in the processes of monitoring and evaluation (M&E) and not only as simple research subjects. For instance, many evaluations now involve PwDs organizations in the role of advisers where they can choose data collection instruments (Robinson et al., 2014) and use their expertise to interpret results and provide feedback (Olshanska et al., 2016). Increased participation has been praised for improving the validity and general outcomes of the evaluations (Brandon, 1998).

The challenges of inclusion

Despite recent achievements, many challenges lie ahead for greater inclusive participation of PwDs in program evaluations. One of the most overlooked aspects is the design of inclusive evaluation instruments (surveys, focus groups): evaluators tend to regard PwDs as a homogeneous group. Therefore, the instruments fail to take into consideration the diversity of disability, especially in terms of communication styles.

This creates an under-representation of the least advantaged within the target group. A study of 31 peer-reviewed articles in ten top-ranking evaluation journals shows that people with intellectual and development disabilities were less likely to participate in evaluation processes than people with any other type of disability (Jacobson et al., 2012). Even if they do participate, their answers in most of the cases might be biased or incomplete (Ware, 2004) since they communicate differently than their peers or experience psychological barriers such as low self-esteem.

Conducting evaluation activities in venues with physical barriers or far from the beneficiaries’ houses can hinder the participation of people with a physical disability. Therefore, ineffective M&E planning and instruments could not only bias the results, but also could end up creating negative unintended consequences such as exclusion and disempowerment. However, even if considering the linguistic and cognitive heterogeneity, what are the best alternatives to engage PwDs in participatory evaluation processes? Is inclusive participatory evaluation more time consuming?

Lessons learned: How to overcome the obstacles?

From my experience working with women with disabilities in Nicaragua[1], when it comes to disability, there are no one-size-fits-all solutions. Nonetheless, there are low-cost alternatives that can improve the overall level of participation. Here are some things to keep in mind:

Learn about your target group. An overview of the type of disability and some social variables is crucial to balance participants in focus groups, disaggregate data by categories, and prepare in advance for special requirements (e.g. the use of a sign interpreter, ramps for wheelchairs). It is also key to better understand power dynamics within the group. For instance, women face more discrimination than men, even if they have the same disability.

Be flexible. PwDs have different limitations, but also different sets of skills. Take advantage of the preferred method of communication and be open about the methodology.  For instance, photographs have proven to be effective to communicate with participants with physical, hearing or development disabilities (Jurkowski, 2008). This is an example of an alternative that requires small adjustments and can be easily triangulated with other methods.

Listen. When in doubt, ask the participants what methodology makes them feel more comfortable. Participation is also about listening and learning from others, and PwDs hold the key to understanding what suits them best.

Create capacities. Strengthen the M&E capacity of disability organizations. This will help to develop the organizations and build and share bi-directional knowledge. As a development practitioner, also invest some time educating yourself more about disability. For instance, learn some basic sign language to integrate yourself with people with hearing disabilities.

Be aware of trade-offs. Programs face time constraints, and full participation is not always feasible. Identify the phase of the evaluation that can be participatory and that can also have the most benefits for the participants. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is important to consider that digital tools might not be accessible to some PwDs. Therefore, outcome should be interpreted taking into account the selection bias.

PwDs are one of the most vulnerable groups according to the World Report on Disability; they experience higher rates of poverty and are more likely to be unemployed (World Health Organization, 2011). Thus, PwDs should have the opportunity to have a voice in the evaluation of programs and policies that impact their lives and communities.

References:

Brandon, P. R. (1998). Stakeholder participation for the purpose of helping ensure evaluation validity: Bridging the gap between collaborative and non-collaborative evaluations. American Journal of Evaluation, 19, 325–337.

Chambers, R. (1994). Participatory rural appraisal (PRA): Challenges, potentials and paradigm. World development, 22(10), 1437-1454.

Jacobson, M. R., Azzam, T., & Baez, J. G. (2013). The nature and frequency of inclusion of people with disabilities in program evaluation. American Journal of Evaluation, 34(1), 23-44.

Jurkowski, J. M. (2008). Photovoice as participatory action research tool for engaging people with intellectual disabilities in research and program development. Intellectual and developmental disabilities, 46(1), 1-11.

Olshanska, Z., van Doorn, J., & van Veen, S. C. (2016). My Story My Rights: how individual stories of people with disabilities can contribute to knowledge development for UNCRPD monitoring. Knowledge Management for Development Journal, 11(2), 43-62.

Parry, O., Gnich, W., & Platt, S. (2001). Principles in practice: reflections on a ‘postpositivist’ approach to evaluation research. Health Education Research, 16(2), 215-226.

Robinson, S., Fisher, K. R., & Strike, R. (2014). Participatory and inclusive approaches to disability program evaluation. Australian Social Work, 67(4), 495-508.

Shakespeare, T. (2006). The social model of disability. In L. J. Davis (Ed.), The disability studies reader (2nd ed., pp. 197–204). New York: Routledge.

Ware, J. (2004). Ascertaining the views of people with profound and multiple learning developmental disabilities. British Journal of Learning Disabilities, 32, 175–179.

World Health Organization. (2011). World report on disability. Malta: World Health Organization.

[1] The author worked as M&E officer in a project of empowerment of women with disability in Nicaragua from 2018 to 2019.

About the author:

Gersán Vásquez GutiérrezGersán Vásquez Gutiérrez is an economist and holds a master’s degree in governance and development. He works as an M&E officer in a regional irregular migration prevention program in Nicaragua. His main areas of interest are impact evaluation, migration, and local development.

 

Featured

COVID-19 | Remote research in times of COVID-19: considerations, techniques, and risks by Rodrigo Mena and Dorothea Hilhorst

Posted on 5 min read

The current COVID-19 pandemic is preventing many scholars and students, especially those in the social sciences, from visiting identified research sites and interacting with the groups or actors important for their research. Many researchers now plan to shift to forms of remote research where data are gathered without meeting research participants in person. While COVID-19 compels this trend, even before the pandemic scholars have had to conduct remote research when fieldwork is considered risky or difficult, for example in high-conflict or remote contexts. Our research of the interaction of disasters and conflict in Afghanistan and Yemen shows what to keep in mind when conducting remote research.

Remote research refers to research where the principal researcher is not engaging in face-to-face data gathering processes ‘on the ground’. This means that other people can gather data on behalf of the researcher in research locations, or that interviews with research participants are conducted by phone or using the Internet. Whereas quantitative research often uses enumerators to survey, qualitative research usually relies on face-to-face interviews or focus-group discussions that now need to be organized and conducted from a distance. Research shows that it is indeed possible to talk to participants using interfaces like telephones or social media platforms and to obtain rich and qualitative data through these, mostly internet-based, forms of communication[1]. However, the use of technology also needs to be approached with caution and in a reflective manner, as discussed in another blog.

Fundamentals and ethics for sound research still apply

No matter how hard one tries, remote research creates additional challenges, and some research questions beg so much nuance and depth that they better not be considered in remote research. Data gathered by means of remote research is also difficult to triangulate and validate, as a multitude of data sources not considered at the onset of the data collection process may present themselves in the field. Researchers may also come closer to understanding complex dynamics when immersed in the communities they are studying. Otherwise, many other routes can be explored to validate data. Think newspaper articles, GIS or satellite images, secondary sources, consulting other researchers familiar with the area, among others.

Research ethics can also be complicated when research is conducted remotely. Whether data are collected through video-based conversations or by using a third person to conduct the interview, it is important to consider whether informed consent genuinely has been obtained and how confidentiality can be guaranteed. In case of sensitive issues, face-to-face interaction allows one to read participants’ body language to detect whether the interview creates discomfort. It also allows researchers to build a trust relationship with research participants. How can researchers make sure that enough checks and balances support remote interviewing processes to avoid interviews creating anxiety or discomfort?

Finally, we need to think about how to convey the message that the research is in the interest of the research participants. Without the engagement and personal attention of a real encounter, will participants feel that they benefit from the research? Researchers often seek to ‘leave something behind’—stories, information, advice, or perhaps volunteer work for a community or NGO—to ‘give back’ to the research participants. Remote research requires questioning ways in which to move beyond the mere extraction of information that so clearly signals the asymmetric power relations between researchers and researched actors.

Some do’s and don’ts

When these complicated questions have been addressed, the question remains how to do remote research. Here are some pointers that we developed out of our experiences of researching the interaction of disasters and high-intensity conflict in Afghanistan and Yemen:

  • Some research questions cannot be addressed remotely, hence, the research design and questions needed to be adapted for remote research.
  • Ethical board approval is just as important for remote research as it is for fieldwork and cannot be skipped.
  • In order to enrich and triangulate findings, we need to be innovative. For our research, interviews were also conducted with people that recently migrated from the areas of interest to a place where they could be reached physically. Similarly, aid workers active in the area were interviewed during stop-overs at airports.
  • In order to create a broad and in-depth range of data, a multiplicity of methods besides interviews were used. These included digital surveys, the analysis of photographs taken by the participant and voice messages from participants describing places and situations, and many other creative options.
  • To remotely understand the context, relevant news, and everyday life in research areas, talking to people who know the area and reading the news about those places were key. This information allowed for better interviews and better data analysis.
  • Just like in normal interviews, body language is important for creating trust and diminishing anxiety. Sitting too close to your camera can make your presence intimidating, whereas keeping some distance and not filling the screen allows the participants to see your hand movements and background. Participants will see everything, also when you stop being attentive because you want to check some information on your phone, for example. It is therefore important to be mindful of your actions and to try to remain focused and engaged.
  • Rules for asking questions, such as using active language, asking questions one by one, trying to phrase questions and reword them in understandable language, apply even more in remote research.

Remote research is possible, but as students and researchers have to adapt to remote research, so do universities, research institutions, supervisors, and donors. Budget lines for travel may be reduced, but it may be important to provide funds for better computers, webcams, and video-based solutions.

Remote research can also be seen as an opportunity to do research differently, especially in an era where the need for travel must constantly be weighed up against the harm of adding to emissions related to climate change. We can now think of expanding the geographies of our research and reaching people in regions and places that were not considered possible before. For many students and researchers with limited budgets, it also can be a means to reduce the costs of research. However, as mentioned before, all these benefits and the use of remote research need to be weighed against adverse risks.

Which other relevant considerations would you like to share? Please feel free to leave a comment with tips, tricks or concerns.

[1] Bolt N and Tulathimutte T (2016) Remote Research. Rosenfeld Media. Available from: http://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/remote-research/#faq (accessed 1 November 2016). No page.

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

About the authors:

R. Mena (2019)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 places affected by high-intensity conflict, 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. Twitter: @romenaf

Foto kleiner formaatDorothea Hilhorst is Professor of Humanitarian Aid and Reconstruction at the International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam. She is a regular author for Bliss. Read all her posts here.

 

COVID-19 | “Stay safe” conversations that illuminate the glass walls between her and me by Mausumi Chetia

Posted on 5 min read

Disasters are lived in different ways by different classes of people. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the differential impacts of disasters lie in the blurred spaces between populations fortunate enough to focus on ‘productivity-during-lockdown-times’ and others who focus on ‘providing-food-for-their-children-and-having-a-home-during-lockdown-times’. For generationally disaster-prone or disaster-torn populations of India, this global pandemic is only widening the class gaps that have characterized local realities for the Indian society for centuries.

My husband and I recently witnessed thousands of daily-wage workers and families marching towards a bus terminal near our home in Delhi. From there, they would take buses to their hometowns. Many were travelling on foot, too, trying to make their way to their homes hundreds of miles away from Delhi after the entire country was placed under lockdown from 25 March. This involuntary exodus of workers from India’s many cities that has continued despite fatal consequences is an oxymoronic act that seems to oppose the social distancing measures prescribed by the WHO and related suggestions from developed nations. It is not that these workers are unwilling to keep safe—it is simply that a substantial part of India’s population, including these workers, cannot afford to do so, as has been emphasized repeatedly.

My current research looks at the everyday lives of families facing protracted displacement due to the disaster of riverbank erosion along Brahmaputra River in Assam, a state in India. The families I engage with for my research source their income from daily wages. As economic activity suddenly ceased in March, the small stream of income stopped. Consequently, many of the workers were not able to travel back to their families, as they usually would when on leave or a break period. Many male members of these families are currently trapped in the towns within Assam where they work. They were unable to travel to their homes, many miles away, not only because of the physical cost of walking or taking a bus home, but for a different set of reasons as well.

Conversations on care and health that are classes apart

Pic 11
Rita and her friends after collecting firewood for cooking from a neighbouring paddy field. February 2020

A few days after the Delhi exodus, calls from concerned families I work with increased significantly. “You should have just stayed back here with us,” Rita Saikia, a regular caller, often quips. “Come back to the village whenever you can.” Megacities like Delhi have much higher infection rates than rural places, as many of the rural inhabitants I work with recognize.

Besides the exchange of well-intended thoughts and mutual worries, these telephonic conversations are constant reminders of the class differences in the everyday lives of people that surround us, beginning with those of the researched and the researcher. Ironically, despite my power position over the families I work with for my research, they offered me what they thought I did not have in Delhi: a sense of safety they felt in the countryside. Here, thus, they were able to close the distance between the researcher and the researched. Nevertheless, the challenges that these families are facing are colossal in comparison to those I am facing, such as not being able to travel to my university in Europe or being anxious about my inability to work on my dissertation as effectively as I would have liked to from home.

Rita[1] is from one of my host families in one of the villages where I spent time conducting research. With no other choice, she has been managing the household and two children all by herself this entire period. Ajeet, her husband, is a construction worker surviving off daily wages. He is currently stuck at one of his work sites, around 100 kilometers away from his family village. For now, the family is surviving from its meagre savings. Rice has been provided by the children’s school and another one-time ration (of rice) provided by the local government. Quietly hiding away from the eyes of authorities, Rita, along with other women from her village, regularly goes to collect firewood behind their village in the dry paddy field. Refilling the cooking gas cylinder from their savings is a luxury they cannot afford right now.

Ajeet had left the family’s only mobile phone at home, so he calls his family once every three days from his co-worker’s phone. Last night, their younger child of four cried himself to sleep because his father’s call was disconnected before the child could speak to him. The mobile credit had probably run out. The older child of six years smiled and casually said to me, “you know pehi[2], Deuta[3] will not come home now even if the virus dies, but only later. He needs to bring the money home.” This understanding of the daily realities and hardships, and the acceptance of the hardships of life, contrasts sharply with how more privileged people experience the coronavirus pandemic, like any other disaster.

Amidst all of this, the annual season of extreme winds in Assam has begun. Homes of three of the research families have been battered by these winds. The families plan to complete the rebuilding process once the lockdown is relaxed, unable to do so during the lockdown. In addition, come June, the monsoon will make its appearance, inviting the annual visit of the floods, erosion of the banks of Assam’s rivers, landslides and associated socio-economic insecurities that are now compounded by those the lockdown has brought about. A slowing economy post-pandemic and consequential decrease in sources of income, along with exposure to the said disasters, will significantly push these already displaced families further to the brink of poverty.

Living through the intersections of inequalities

Poverty is both a driver and a consequence of disasters[4]. The year 2020 could become one of the most barefaced examples of this. Many socio-economically and politically insecure populations elsewhere in India and in the neighbouring countries of Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, the Philippines, and Indonesia etc. are also disaster-prone or -torn. Once the world gets back on its feet post-COVID-19, these populations are set to face increasing human insecurities in their everyday lives arising due to the pandemic and its after-effects, like the families in Assam.

A society’s many aspects are unclothed in the aftermath of a disaster[5], which continues to reinforce social inequalities[6]. Disasters, therefore, including the current pandemic, hardly manage to break the walls of class structures – political, economic, social, and so forth. If anything, they increase the height and depth of these walls – between societies within a nation, between different nations, and, most definitely, between the researcher and the researched.

Pic 1
The Brahmaputra River at the backyard of one of the families’ home (from the research). January 2020
[1] All names of research participants have been changed
[2] Assamese word for paternal aunt
[3] Assamese word for father
[4] https://www.preventionweb.net/risk/poverty-inequality
[5] Oliver-Smith, Anthony, and Susanna M. Hoffman, eds. The angry earth: disaster in anthropological perspective. Routledge, 2019.
[6] Reid, Megan. “Disasters and social inequalities.” Sociology Compass 7.11 (2013): 984-997.

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

Mausumi ChetiaAbout the author:

Mausumi Chetia is a PhD Researcher at the ISS. Her research looks at the everyday lives of disaster-displaced people in Assam, a northeastern state of India.

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

Posted on 5 min read

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:

JanaJana-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

 

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

Posted on 6 min read

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.

corona graph

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.

16177487_1348685531818526_4418355730312549822_o

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.

bty

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.

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

Posted on 4 min read

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.

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 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.

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

Posted on 4 min read

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.

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:

Kei pasfoto.jpg

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-640x427.jpg

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.

 

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

Posted on 4 min read

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.

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.

Image Credit: Alicia Nijdam on Wikicommons

RMadrueñoAbout 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).josemalarru.jpg

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

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

 

Can technology ‘decode’ developmental problems? by Oane Visser and Manasi Nikam

Posted on 5 min read

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:

Foto-OaneVisser-Balkon-1[1]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

 

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.

 

EADI/ISS Series | Why do we need Solidarity in Development Studies? by Kees Biekart

Posted on 4 min read

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.

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.

_DSC6543

About the author:

Kees Biekart is Associate Professor in Political Sociology at the International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam