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The Dilemma of Retention

One of the challenges expatriate dependent nations face is how to attract global talent while building capacity nationally. This has often included a mix of nationalization policies along with attraction, development and recruitment policies for the entire workforce. Qatar has a minority citizen population and the large majority of its workforce is expatriate. To assess […]

Tags: #Human Resources #Policy #Qatar #Retention #Talent #Workforce

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The Edible Gardens of Ethiopia

Peveri undertook about a decade of visits to southern Ethiopia between 2004 and 2015, and upon which she basis the book The Edible Gardens of Ethiopia – An Ethnographic Journey into Beauty and Hunger (2020). This book is published by the University of Arizona Press. In these notes I share a couple of sociological insights […]

Tags: #Agriculture #Anthropology #Culture #Ethiopia #Sociology

Thought Provokers

The Black Gold Spies

This is not an academic book, one of those random titles that gets mentioned and peaks curiosity. The author, Gilles Munier, has another book on Iraq and has multiple connections to the Middle East. He spent time in jail for being involved in violations on the sanctions on Iraq. An interesting character. This was published […]

Tags: #CIA #Espionage #Gilles Munier #Iran #Middle East #Spies

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The Structure of Scientific Revolution

Cited 165,000 times (as of today), this 1962 book on the history and sociology of science has been immensely influential. Thomas Kuhn argues that we don’t progress on a step-by-step process (a slow accumulation model to understanding change) but rather paradigm shifts change entire ways of thinking, working and doing (in understanding change, similar to […]

Tags: #History #Paradigm #Philosophy #Science #Sociology #The Structure of Scientific Revolution #Thomas Kuhn

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Building a Global Policy School in Asia

Last month I had the opportunity to visit the LKY Policy School, ranked #3 in the world for Policy Schools. In preparation for the visit, I picked up “Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy – Building a Global Policy School in Asia”. The book was published in 2012, meaning it reflected on the first […]

Tags: #LKY #LKY Policy School #LKY SPP #National University of Singapore #NUS #Policy Schools #Singapore

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Silencing the Past

Written by Michel-Rolph Trouillot in 1995, Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History is a widely cited (more than 11,000 citations as of this post) critique of representation in history. The book brings power to the fore of history, which is often assumed to be apolitical or unbiased. The author passed away in […]

Tags: #Anthropology #History #Narrative #Power #Representation #Silences

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