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Social Movements and Market Transformations

In the 1990s and into the 2000s, there were effective treatments for AIDS, yet the poorest countries and people did not have access to them. How did the global transformation come about whereby treatments became more readily available, and in most countries in the Global South free? Kapstein and Busby outline how this transformation took […]

Thought Provokers

The Italo-Ethiopian War (1935-41)

In back alleys and old book shops in Ethiopia, you can occasionally stumble across old gems. A recent example I found was “The Italo-Ethiopian War (1935-41) Genesis Ordeal Victory”, published by the Ministry of Information in 1975. It is a 28-page pamphlet that includes a large set of images. For a historian, the pamphlet is […]

Thought Provokers

Resistance and Decolonization

Amilcar Cabral (1924-1973) is one of Africa’s great anti- and de-colonial activists and writers, and led the struggle for the independence of Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde. Another post, on Davidson’s “No Fish is Big Enough to Hide the Sky“, also covers Cabral. This post focuses upon a collection of his ideas in “Resistance and […]

Thought Provokers

Why We Lie About Aid

“Why We Lie About Aid” (2018) appeared all over development studies social media in 2018, at one point topping Amazon’s best seller list for the sub-category. For those who do not think aid is political, or who sit on the fence of development being political, Pablo Yanguas’ book is an essential read. The book makes […]

Thought Provokers

Civil Society: Challenging Western Models

Edited volumes seems to have a shorter shelf life than books, similar to academic articles. I recently picked up the somewhat dated (1996) edited volume of “Civil Society: Challenging Western Models”, edited by Chris Hann and Elizabeth Dunn, to see what it might offer. It was written at a time when literature on civil society […]

Thought Provokers

How One Small Tow Banned Pesticides

Philip Ackerman-Leist’s “A Precautionary Tale: How One Small Town Banned Pesticides, Preserved its Food Heritage, and Inspired a Movement” (2017) takes a deep dive into one northern Italian town wherein farmers became activists and voted to ban pesticides. The book is a bit heavy on the storytelling, but it does not claim to be academic […]

Thought Provokers

Call for Submissions: Chapters in “Ethiopia: Social, Economic and Political Issues”

Call for Submissions: Book Chapters in “Ethiopia: Social, Economic and Political Issues” There have been significant social, economic and political changes in in Ethiopia in recent decades. Healthcare coverage has rapidly expanded but much progress is still needed; access to education has improved but there are questions of quality and employment; macro-economic growth has been […]

Research

Organizing Women Workers in the Informal Economy

Naila Kabeer, Ratna Sudarshan and Kirsty Milward edited “Organizing Women Workers in the Informal Economy: Beyond the Weapons of the Weak” (2013), which presents a series of cases from around the world. The book “shifts the analytical focus from individual women engaged in these informal forms of work to organizations that have set out to […]

Thought Provokers

New Publication: Enabling Collaborative Synthesis in Multi-Partner Programmes

Cochrane, L. and Cundill, G. (2018) Enabling Collaborative Synthesis in Multi-Partner Programmes. Development in Practice. DOI: 10.1080/09614524.2018.1480706 Abstract: Multi-partner consortia have emerged as an important modality for knowledge generation to address complex sustainability challenges. Establishing effective multi-partner consortia involves significant investment. This article shares lessons from the Collaborative Adaptation Research Initiative in Africa and Asia (CARIAA), […]

Research

Introducing Liberation Theology

Over the last decades, one of the sources of inspiration for new thinking in development practice has been liberation theology. Dr. Paul Farmer has utilized the ideas (in a less overtly religious form) and conveyed them to a broader audience, as the preferential option for the poor. What is liberation theology? Leonardo Boff and Clodovis […]

Thought Provokers