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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
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
Reading Ethiopia (Books)
Suggested reading on Ethiopia. Feel free to send me your additions and I’ll add them to the list. In chronological order: The Ethiopia Books of Travels (1904, translated in 2021) Pasha Ex-Italian Somaliland (1951) S Pankhurst Ethiopia: A Cultural History (1955) S Pankhurst Indo-Ethiopian Relations for Centuries (1961) Muthanna The Blue Nile (1962) Moorehead Wichale XVII: The […]
Social Life of Disease – Smallpox
Pox: An American History (2011) by Willrich provides a wealth of interesting examples of the intersections between public health, epidemiology, society, culture and politics. The context: “All told, during the five-year wave of epidemics around the turn of the century, the federal service counted 164,283 American cases of smallpox. The actual number of cases may […]
The Rational Peasant (1979) Popkin
Popkin’s book offers ideas that, at least at times, directly confront those of James C. Scott (see quotes from one of his works here). This post continues the ‘thought provokers’ series of posts from The Rational Peasant (1979). On assumptions of peasant life: “Some representations of preindustrial society idealize life in peasant villages. These romantic […]
Tags: #Agency #Moral Economics #Myth of the Village #Peasant Studies #Political Economics
New Publication in Forum for Development Studies
Cochrane, L. and Skjerdal, T. (2015) Reading the Narratives: Resettlement, Investment and Development in Ethiopia. Forum for Development Studies. DOI: 10.1080/08039410.2015.1080183 Abstract: This article examines the narratives presented on the subjects of relocation, investment and development in Ethiopia. In particular, we focus upon representations given by the Government of Ethiopia and Human Rights Watch (HRW) […]
Tags: #Development #Ethiopia #Human Rights #Investment #Resettlement
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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