Thought Provokers

The Colonizer and the Colonized (1957)

Published in 1957, this book is authored by a Tunisian living under French colonial rule. Albert Memmi’s wrote as European colonization was falling. It provides broader insight into oppressor-oppressed relationships: On the system: “Racism appears then, not as an incidental detail, but as a consubstantial part of colonialism. It is the highest expression of the colonial system […]

Tags: #Albert Memmi #Colonized #Colonizer #Oppression #Power

Thought Provokers Dec 6

Foreign Intervention in Africa – The Cold War

Elizabeth Schmidt is a professor of history at Loyola University. The following thought provoking quotes are taken from her 2013 book “Foreign Intervention in Africa: From the Cold War to the War on Terror.” The context: “For many outsiders, the word Africa conjures up images of a continent in crisis, riddled with war and corruption, […]

Tags: #Cold War #Elizabeth Schmidt #Foreign Intervention #Power #Privilege

Thought Provokers Nov 30

Foreign Intervention in Africa – The Colonial Legacy

Tags: #Africa #Assassination #Colonial legacy #Colonialism #Foreign Intervention

Thought Provokers Nov 25

Imagined Communities (1983) Anderson

Quotes from Anderson’s book, an essential read for those interested in nations, nation-states and nationality: The idea: “I propose the following definition of the nation: it is an imagined political community – and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign.” (5) “…it is an imagined as a community, because , regardless of the actual inequality […]

Tags: #Anderson #Imagined Communities #Nation-state #Nationality #nationality-ism

Thought Provokers Nov 16

Seeing Like A State – Prescribing Society

Thought provoking quotes from Scott’s (1998) Seeing Like A State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition have Failed. The rationale: “The publicly stated rationale for planned settlement schemes was almost always couched in the discourse of orderly development and social services (such as the provision of health clinics, sanitation, adequate housing, education, clean […]

Tags: #Development #International development #James C. Scott #Prescribing Society #Seeing Like a State

Thought Provokers Nov 12

Seeing Like A State – Describing Society

Thought provoking quotes from Scott’s (1998) Seeing Like A State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition have Failed. On simplification: “… state simplifications, the basic givens of modern statecraft, were, I began to realize, rather like abridged maps. They did not successfully represent the actual activity of the society they depicted, nor were […]

Tags: #Describing Society #James C. Scott #Legibility #Seeing Like a State #Simplification

Thought Provokers Nov 6

Creating Capabilities (Nussbaum, 2011)

The following quotes are taken from Nussbaum’s Creating Capabilities: The Human Development Approach, 2011. Largely building on Sen, and forging new paths for the capabilities approach, in this book Nussbaum attempts to summarize the approach for broader audiences, as it is often bogged down in weighty philosophical texts. On the Capabilities Approach: “The Capabilities Approach […]

Tags: #Capabilities Approach #Creating Capabilities #Human Development Approach #Nussbaum #Sen

Thought Provokers Oct 27

U.S. Development as Foreign Policy in Ethiopia (McVety, 2012)

On US foreign aid: “In its most optimistic moments, the U.S. government truly believed that by doing good it could indeed do well. The problem is that foreign aid seems to have done more harm than it has good, which means that the United States has not done nearly as well as it hoped.” (p. […]

Tags: #Ethiopia #Expectations of Development #Foreign Aid #Foreign Policy #politics of famine

Thought Provokers Oct 22

Practicing “Development” (Ferguson, 1990)

Following an earlier post on the construction of “development”, the following are thought provoking quotes from Ferguson’s (1990) The Anti-Politics Machine on the practice of “development”: Context: “The argument, in brief, is the following: “development” institutions generate their own form of discourse, and this discourse simultaneously constructs Lesotho as a particular kind of object of […]

Tags: #(a)political #Development #Ferguson #Practice of Development #Practicing Development

Thought Provokers Oct 13

Constructing “Development” (Ferguson, 1990)

Quotes on the construction of “development” from Ferguson’s influential Anti-Politics Machine (1990): “The argument, in brief, is the following: “development” institutions generate their own form of discourse, and this discourse simultaneously constructs Lesotho as a particular kind of object of knowledge, and creates a structure of knowledge around that object. Interventions are then organized on […]

Tags: #Constructing Development #Development discourse #Framing Development #Politics of Development

Thought Provokers Oct 9

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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.

Logan Cochrane