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 […]
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. […]
Cochrane, L. and Chellan, W. (2015) “We Were Extremely Poor But We Were Pious”: Exploring the Interrelationships between Religious Adherence and Economic Status in the Muslim World. Global Humanities 2: 112-128. Abstract: This paper analyzes theological, quantitative and qualitative data regarding the relationships between economic status and religious adherence, with specific reference to Islam and […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 Attempt […]
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 […]
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 […]
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) […]
For anyone interested in international development, this is essential reading. The opening chapters of the book are academic, and I suspect this has contributed to it mostly being engaged with by academics. However, Li’s book is highly recommended for practitioners, even if that means skimming some parts. What follows is not a summary of The […]