Featured image for ““Donor-Researchers” and “Recipient-Researchers”: Bridging the Gap between Researchers from the Global North and Global South”

“Donor-Researchers” and “Recipient-Researchers”: Bridging the Gap between Researchers from the Global North and Global South

August 31, 2021
Next up in this series of posts from the Bukavu workshops, we get into the nuts and bolts of the power differentials within the research ‘supply chain’, with Judith Nshobole. Introduction to the Bukavu series here. Search on ‘Bukavu’ for the other posts in the series. Original post here. Power imbalances between “donor-researchers” and “recipient-researchers” at the outset of a
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Featured image for “Epistemological Rupture, Detachment, and Decentring: Requirements When Doing Research “At Home””

Epistemological Rupture, Detachment, and Decentring: Requirements When Doing Research “At Home”

August 26, 2021
Next up in this series of posts from the Bukavu workshops, Francine Mudunga discusses some messy issues that face many researchers. Original post here. A researcher is, first and foremost, a human being. As such, she is a product of her society. She is defined by a particular worldview, a specific collection of values and beliefs, and a certain frame
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Featured image for “When You Become Pombe Yangu (“My Beer”): Dealing with the Financial Expectations of Research Participants”

When You Become Pombe Yangu (“My Beer”): Dealing with the Financial Expectations of Research Participants

August 25, 2021
Next up in this series of posts from the Bukavu workshops, Jérémie Mapatano Byakumbwa  discusses some messy issues that face many researchers. Original post here. In my own experience as a researcher in eastern DRC, there have been numerous occasions on which I have had to deal with explicit demands for money (or for some sort of tip) from my
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Featured image for “Invisible Voices in the Production of Knowledge: Introducing the Bukavu series”

Invisible Voices in the Production of Knowledge: Introducing the Bukavu series

August 24, 2021
There’s a lot of attention on this blog to localizing aid (increasing the power and resources in the hands of local organizations rather than white men in shorts), but what about localization of research? For the next few weeks, I am largely handing over the blog to the Bukavu Series, a set of blog posts (and now a book) written
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Links I Liked

August 23, 2021
Some fine gallows humour from Naila Kabeer. ‘Clearly the Taliban have not caught up with the feminist critique of ‘manels’.’ Anyone care to add the David Hasselhof meme? How did Covid-19 affect women’s autonomy & access to healthcare in Pakistan? From 2020 to 2021, as a car crash. Ht Josh Warburton This is Nuts. ‘Europe receiving 10M COVID-19 vaccine doses
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Featured image for “Development Nutshell: round-up (17m) of FP2P posts, w/b 16th August”

Development Nutshell: round-up (17m) of FP2P posts, w/b 16th August

August 21, 2021
No excerpt
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Featured image for “How to Write About Afghanistan: A Style Guide for Western Journalists”

How to Write About Afghanistan: A Style Guide for Western Journalists

August 20, 2021
I loved this blistering twitter thread by Justin Podur (@justinpodur) so much, I turned into a blogpost for the untwittered. ‘(In homage to Binyavanga Wainaina) First, the opening. All good articles about Afghanistan start with a few lines from a poem by British imperialist poet Rudyard Kipling. You know the one, “the women come out to cut up what remains,
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Featured image for “8 mistakes to avoid in reporting an INGO’s contributions to the SDGs”

8 mistakes to avoid in reporting an INGO’s contributions to the SDGs

August 19, 2021
Guest post from Ximena Echeverria Magariños and Jay Goulden, of CARE International INGOs have for many years felt the need to communicate how many people their programs reach in a year, but the numbers of people our programs “touch” doesn’t tell us anything about the difference they make in people’s lives. Increasingly, INGOs are seeking to report numbers of people
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Featured image for “What to Read on Afghanistan? Some of the best stuff I’ve read so far – please suggest more”

What to Read on Afghanistan? Some of the best stuff I’ve read so far – please suggest more

August 18, 2021
On Monday, exasperated by the nature of the coverage of the fall of Kabul, I tweeted a request for links: ‘What to read on Afghanistan? Interested in power analysis/stakeholder mapping of domestic players, which Afghan groups support/oppose Taliban, informed speculation about what comes next.’ Here are some extracts from what came back (plus of course, the ever-reliable Wikipedia). Do please
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Featured image for “Some Good ideas on Promoting locally-led development in the UK aid system”

Some Good ideas on Promoting locally-led development in the UK aid system

August 17, 2021
The British NGO network BOND recently published a report on ‘catalysing locally-led development in the UK aid system’, which summarizes a six month project involving dozens of people from different aid organizations. I have to confess that I started reading with low expectations – there are a lot of pious exhortations on localization, which all too often ignore crucial issues
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Featured image for “Links I Liked”

Links I Liked

August 16, 2021
An Equitable Olympics medal table, weighted for population, looks very different from the standard one. Go San Marino (shooting x2 + wrestling) An evangelical pastor in rural South Sudan recounts a personal story of travelling ‘under the water’ to ‘the land of demons’. Ryan O’Byrne on the pitfalls of outsider researchers trying to ‘make sense’ of religious experience Full listing
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Featured image for “Development Nutshell: round-up (16m) of FP2P posts, w/b 9th August”

Development Nutshell: round-up (16m) of FP2P posts, w/b 9th August

August 14, 2021
No excerpt
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