Featured image for “Creating new horizons: paths to shift power and imagination in development”

Creating new horizons: paths to shift power and imagination in development

March 30, 2021
Changing power requires us to see the world differently. So as a final burst of energy to round up the lessons, insights and guiding lights from these two years of the Power Shifts project, we have set out to co-create a ‘virtual gallery for shifting power’. Through collaborating with two wonderful illustrators, we’ve attempted to find more creative ways to
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Featured image for “‘El desarrollo’: un recorrido por el arte de desafiar al poder”

‘El desarrollo’: un recorrido por el arte de desafiar al poder

March 24, 2021
Read this in English here. Desafiar al poder fundamentalmente implica cambiar nuestra mirada. La manera en que actuamos en nuestros mundos depende de cómo los vemos, por lo tanto cambiar nuestra forma de ver se convierte en un paso esencial para transformar nuestro actuar. Si no exploramos diversas formas de expresar(nos), de ver(nos) y de (re)crear(nos), limitamos nuestras posibilidades colectivas.
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‘Development’: A visual story of shifting power

March 23, 2021
Leer esta historia en español. The work of shifting power is fundamentally the work of changing our gaze. People act on how they see, and to change how we see, is to radically change how we act. By not exploring other forms of expressing, looking and creating, we’re limiting ourselves.  The development space is fixated on the written word. We
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The dangers of “policy-sising” social change

January 19, 2021
Christopher Choong Weng Wai is the Deputy Director of Research at Khazanah Research Institute in Malaysia and an Atlantic Fellow for Social and Economic Equity at the International Inequalities Institute, London School of Economics. His research interest is in the everyday reproduction of poverty, inequalities and exclusion. He tweets at @chrischoongww. For those of us who work on public policy
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#PowerShifts Resources: The Virus of Gender-Based Violence

November 25, 2020
Maria Faciolince introduces one of her amazing resource lists. 25 November is the International Day to End Violence against Women, kicking off #16DaysofActivism. Once considered a private issue pertaining to ‘family matters’, now it is largely recognized as part of large-scale social issues and systemic oppressions. But to make sense of this day, we have to extend our gaze beyond
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Featured image for “#PowerShifts Resources: Anti-Racism in Development and Aid”

#PowerShifts Resources: Anti-Racism in Development and Aid

June 23, 2020
‘White saviour complex’, ‘poverty porn’, ‘locals’ vs. ‘expats’. These terms are all part of an old conversation that has revived as a result of the mass protests calling for racial justice and anti-racism across the US and globally. Racism in development and aid is not a new issue, so why does it continue to be overlooked? Sadly, I’ve noticed a notable silence from
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Does development have a problem with racism?

June 16, 2020
Given recent events in the United States that have sparked mass protests around the banner of #BlackLivesMatter not only there, but across the world, we ought to talk about this right here. The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed us to rethink solidarity, and these protests calling for racial justice force us to ask questions also of the aid and development sectors.
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Power in the Pandemic: food, farming and coronavirus in the Philippines

June 2, 2020
Throughout the upcoming weeks and months, Power Shifts is partnering with the Oxfam in Depth podcast to share the experiences of people living through the Coronavirus outbreak in our new Power in the Pandemic podcast. We’ll be hearing from people across the world as they tell us how COVID-19 is affecting their lives and how their communities are organizing to tackle the effects of the crisis. 
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Take the FP2P Coronaquiz!

May 29, 2020
So you think you know about Covid and Development? Prove it! It’s Friday, and in an effort to stop week and weekend all blurring into one amorphous blob, let’s take a break from heavy duty analysis. Here’s a Coronavirus quiz (with a development-y angle, obvs) to test if you’ve been paying attention to the news – scroll down for the
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Where is the power in the pandemic?

May 21, 2020
I’ve got some important news for you today. Throughout the upcoming weeks and months, Power Shifts is partnering with the Oxfam in Depth podcast to share the experiences of people living through the Coronavirus outbreak in our new Power in the Pandemic podcast. We’ll be hearing from people across the world as they tell us how COVID-19 is affecting their lives
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Navigating speculation and contagion conspiracies in Africa

May 6, 2020
Adejoke Adeboyejo is a freelance writer based in Lagos, Nigeria. She writes about healthcare, women and other development issues. Since the coronavirus pandemic began, conspiracy theories have flourished and spread like the virus itself. Some believe the virus is bioengineered, while others say the pandemic is a conspiracy of big pharmaceutical companies or a plot hatched by Bill Gates. A
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Corona Cartoon Competition – Vote Now!

May 1, 2020
It’s Friday and weeks in lockdown can be loooong. Time for some fun. We had a lot of it with last month’s Coronavision Song Contest (Bobi Wine just about won that one, thanks to all his Ugandan fans), so to accompany Pablo Suarez’ piece today on the use of humour, it’s time for …[drum roll]… the Corona-Cartoon Competition! Here’s a
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