Thought Provokers
Indigenous Research Methodologies
A number of past posts presented books on decolonization – Fanon on struggles, Ngugi on language, and Smith on methodologies. How might a grounding in decolonization shape research? Margaret Kovach addresses this question in “Indigenous Methodologies: Characteristics, Conversations, and Contexts” (2009). In seeking to understand how Indigenous methodologies have been utilized in research, Kovach presents […]
Tags: #decolonization #Indigenous Methodologies #Indigenous Research Methodologies #Methodologies #Reflexivity
Why Don’t the Poor Rise Up?
An article in the New York Times in 2015 provoked Michael Truscello and Ajamu Nangwaya to bring together the volume: “Why Don’t the Poor Rise Up? Organizing the Twenty-First Century Resistance” (2017). This book is divided into two sections, one on the Global North and another on the Global South, and is an “anthology of […]
Tags: #collective action #people power #Resistance #Social movements #Struggle
False Start in Africa (1962)
Rene Dumont’s “False Start in Africa” (1962) is arguably one of the most influential and widely read texts on agriculture in Africa. The book is more of a conversation, than it is an academic text. However, Dumont was a pioneering voice for identifying key issues such as soil erosion, micronutrient deficiencies, soil type and quality […]
Tags: #Africa #Agriculture #False Start in Africa #Rene Dumont #Rural Development
Citizen Action and National Policy Reform
“Citizen Action and National Policy Reform: Making Change Happen” (2010), edited by Gaventa and McGee, presents a series of case studies of citizen movements and advocacy for national policy change. The book fits well within the “How Change Happens” space. Cases are presented from: South Africa, Philippines, Mexico, Chile, India, Brazil, Morocco and Turkey. The […]
Tags: #Advocacy #Citizen Action #Civil society #How change happens #Policy
Ebola: How a People’s Science Helped End an Epidemic
As other reviewers of this book have mentioned, there is probably few who are better suited to write this book than Paul Richards, with such a depth of knowledge and experience of the areas where the epidemic occurred. In “Ebola: How a People’s Science Helped End an Epidemic” (2016) the author argues that faced “with […]
Tags: #Citizen science #Ebola #Epidemic #Public Health #Social science
The Challenge of Democracy from Below
Edited volumes do not tend to have staying power as a publication – collections of essays pass like most academic articles. Rarely does an edited volume remain an essential reading for decades. “Ethiopia: The Challenge of Democracy from Below” edited by Bahru Zewde and Siegfried Pausewang (2002) is one of those books. A number of […]
Tags: #Democracy #Ethiopia #Governance #Participation #Power
Violence, Justice and Decolonization
If you are looking for a tour de force of colonialism, anti-colonization struggle and decolonization, Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth (1961) should be high on the list. Fanon is a unique voice; in style, content and argument. This work has influenced revolutionaries from Palestine to Sri Lanka and South Africa, as well as […]
Tags: #Colonization #decolonization #Frantz Fanon #Justice #Violence
The Political Basis of Agricultural Policies
Why are policies created they way they are? This question is particularly interesting when the policies do not appear to function well. It may be that the ‘failing’ policies are not actually failing, but serving another, often unstated, purpose. A classic, essential read on this question is “Markets and States in Tropical Africa: The Political […]
Tags: #Agricultural policy #Agriculture #Political Basis of Agricultural Policies #Politics #Power
The Birth of Modern Terrorism?
What were the ideological origins of Al Qaeda and ISIS? Yaroslav Trofimov argues that the answer goes back to 1979, when an uprising occurred in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. For an event that is largely undocumented officially, “The Siege of Mecca: The Forgotten Uprising in Islam’s Holiest Shrine and the Birth of Al Qaeda” (2007) is […]
Tags: #Juhayman #Origins of terrorism #Saudi Arabia #Siege of Mecca #Terrorism
21st Century Economics
Today’s students, the citizens of 2050, are being taught economics rooted in the 1950s, which are based on the theories of 1850. Kate Raworth argues we need a new, 21st century economics, and proposed its seven key features in “Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think like a 21st Century Economist” (2017). In many ways the […]
Tags: #21st Century Economics #21st Century Economist #Development Studies #Doughnut Economics #Economics
About me
Logan Cochrane
Logan is a Professor at HBKU in the College of Public Policy. He is an Associate Fellow of the Ethiopian Academy of Sciences and an Adjunct Professor at Hawassa University (Institute for Policy and Development Research). Over the last twenty years, he has worked in Afghanistan, Benin, Burundi, Canada, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda. Logan acts as a consultant for governmental agencies and non-governmental organizations, seeking to create bridges between research and practice.
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