Thought Provokers
How Change Happens: Climate Change
Naomi Klien believes in the power of the people, and of collective action, to change the world. As outlined in “This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs The Climate” (2014), she writes: “Slavery wasn’t a crisis for British and American elites until abolitionism turned it into one. Racial discrimination want a crisis until the civil rights movement […]
Tags: #Building alliances #Change #Climate change #Community control #How change happens
Capitalism vs The Climate
Naomi Klien’s “This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs The Climate” (2014) is not a case for how climate change is real or important to consider, it is a call to action. From a research perspective, I was not overly impressed with the book. However, a few chapters into my reading I realized I had approached the […]
Tags: #Capitalism #Climate change #Democracy #How change happens #Naomi Klein
Engaging in a Complex World
In development studies and practice there are some key voices advocating for organizational changes. Ben Ramalingam, Duncan Green, Danny Burns and Stuart Worsley, Dave Algoso, and the USAID Learning Lab. They are calling for complexity and systems thinking to support more informed adaptive and iterative decision making and management. As these voices gain traction, and more […]
Tags: #Adaptive management #Complexity #Leadership #Shared consciousness #Team of Teams
Whose Reality Counts?
Twenty years ago Robert Chambers published “Whose Reality Counts? Putting the First Last” (1997). He challenges the academics and professionals to turn how they work upside down. His earlier book, Rural Development (1983) did similarly. In doing so, however, Chambers is not the angry dissident disowning ‘development’, rather he offers an optimistic vision: “That the […]
Tags: #Development Studies #International development #Professionalism #Robert Chambers #Whose Reality Counts
Reflections from Benedict Anderson
Benedict Anderson, author of the well-read “Imagined Communities” (1983), has authored a short autobiography / set of reflections called “A Life Beyond Boundaries” (2016). The book is an interesting read about his journey toward, and through, academia. The book was inspired by a request to share this experience with a Japanese audience, which was published in […]
Tags: #Benedict Anderson #Fieldwork #Language #Positionality #Research questions
How Migration Shaped Our World and Will Define Our Future
Open doors or build walls? Immigration is one of the most politicized issues. Thus, the value of the book by Goldin, Cameron and Balarajan (2011): “Exceptional People – How Migration Shaped Our World and Will Define Our Future”. Before delving into the detail, this book was likely written for an undergraduate audience – those moderately […]
Tags: #Citizenship #Development #Exceptional People #Immigration #Migration #Policy
How Migration Shaped Our World and Will Define Our Future
Open doors or build walls? Immigration is one of the most politicized issues. Thus, the value of the book by Goldin, Cameron and Balarajan (2011): “Exceptional People – How Migration Shaped Our World and Will Define Our Future”. Before delving into the detail, this book was likely written for an undergraduate audience – those moderately […]
Tags: #Citizenship #Development #Exceptional People #Immigration #Migration #Policy
Global Inequality
Inequality is headline news. Recently Oxfam reported that only 8 individuals own as much as the poorest half of the world’s population. In 2014, Piketty published a widely read book on the subject, taking a historical economics approach. But, this question is not new. Amin addressed it in his 1976 book “Unequal Development“, the greater […]
Tags: #Globalization #Historical economics #Inequality #International development #Policy
How Non-conformists Move the World
Some advice from Grant’s (2016) widely read “Originals: How Non-conformists Move the World” – at least those that may apply for researchers: Write a lot. Not because if you don’t publish you will perish, but because it makes your work better. “It is widely assumed that there’s a tradeoff between quality and quantity – if […]
Tags: #Academic writing #Creativity #Limitations #Originals #Procrastination
Kicking Away the Ladder
Cambridge professor of development studies, Ha-Joon Chang, is likely more known is the ‘Global South’ than within universities in North America or Europe – mainly because his writing takes a different approach, sometimes rather boldly so. Of his long list of publications, “Kicking Away the Ladder: Development Strategy in Historical Perspective” (2002) is the most […]
Tags: #Capitalism #Development economics #Development policy #Ha-Joon Chang #Kicking away the ladder
About me
Logan Cochrane
Associate 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 fifteen 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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