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Pioneers of Change in Ethiopia

Bahru Zewde has written an excellent book on the history of the student movement in Ethiopia, this book goes back further, to the late 1800s and early 1900s, exploring the activities and impact of the intellectuals of that time period. The book, “Pioneers of Change in Ethiopia: The Reformist Intellectuals of the Early Twentieth Century” […]

Thought Provokers

Peasant Households and their Resource Base

A previous post highlighted a publication from Ethiopia, which tend to be lesser known (and harder to find). This post highlights an old publication, similarly challenging to locate copies of, but may prove quite useful for those looking for historical data points for comparability: “Competition and Co-operation: North Ethiopian Peasant Households and their Resource Base” […]

Thought Provokers

Hunting Causes and Using Them

We frequently read and use claims based on claims of causation. Yet, infrequently do we explore if the claims are well founded, or if the methods are well suited to the claims being made. Nancy Cartwright’s “Hunting Causes and Using Them: Approaches in Philosophy and Economics” (2007) is a valuable resource to better engage with […]

Thought Provokers

Top Posts of 2017

The most read blog posts of 2017: 1. List of Ethiopian Academic Journals 2. Conducting Research in Ethiopia 3. Essential Development Studies Books 4. Whose Reality Counts? 5. PhD Reality Check Looking forward to more in 2018, with a continued focus on book reviews / commentaries (despite the fact that four of the five most […]

Uncategorized

Blueprint for Revolution

Want to know how to use rice pudding, lego men, and other non-violent techniques to galvanize communities, overthrow dictators, or simply change the world? If so, that is the sub-title or Popovic’s “Blueprint for Revolution” (2015). For those familiar with this literature, many of Popovic’s tactics are of the Alinsky type. The book provides a […]

Thought Provokers

New Publication: Average Crop Yield (2001–2017) in Ethiopia

Cochrane, L. and Yeshtila W. B. (2018) Average Crop Yield (2002-2017) in Ethiopia: Trends at National, Regional and Zonal Levels. Data in Brief. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dib.2017.12.039 Abstract: This article presents average agricultural yield data per hectare for key cereal, legume and root crops from 2001 until 2017. Data was obtained from the annual Agricultural Sample Surveys of the […]

Research

Civil Society and the Aid Industry

Civil society is said to provide “the agents of change that will cure a range of social and economic ills left by failures of government and the marketplace: autocracy, poverty, disenfranchisement, oppression, social malaise. Cornucopian expectations for social change have been heaped on this idea and, indeed, for some Northern donors in particular (both official […]

Thought Provokers

The Ethiopian Borderlands

Historians of Ethiopia have rich sets of materials to work with from the empires of the highlands, however the relative abundance of literature from the highlands results in comparatively limited literature on the the other areas (that would become part) of Ethiopia. Pankhurst writes: “Historical studies of Ethiopia, like those of other countries, often tend […]

Thought Provokers

No Fist is Big Enough to Hide the Sky

Decolonization struggles against the Portuguese are often thought about as Angola and Mozambique, far less does one hear about Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde. Basil Davidson brings first-hand experience of that struggle, for which he was praised by none other than Amilcar Cabral himself in the Preface. The book, “No Fist is Big Enough to Hide […]

Thought Provokers

New Publication: Does diversification enhance community resilience? A critical perspective

Cochrane, L. and Cafer, A. (2018) Does Diversification Enhance Community Resilience? A Critical Perspective. Resilience. https://doi.org/10.1080/21693293.2017.1406849 Abstract: Resilience has become a key component of how practitioners and scholars conceptualize sustainable communities. Given sustainability’s focal role in shaping international development funding, policies and programming it is imperative that we critically engage with the concepts embedded within the […]

Research