September 17, 2019
Starting this Friday, young people, their parents and entire communities around the world are mobilising in a special week of action to call for climate justice, 20-27 September. In this post, Harpreet Kaur Paul argues that just as the impacts of climate breakdown are not the same for everyone, neither is the responsibility for financing transformative repairs and solutions. Harpreet
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Why trust and intimacy are vital resources in research
September 12, 2019
Sandrine N’simire is a researcher at the Centre for Public Authority and International Development at the LSE. She discusses the challenge of building trust between researchers and respondents during research in Goma, DRC, and the eventual benefits from approaches that embrace trial and error.This post forms part of a series exploring Going Against the Flow, an ongoing project on water governance
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When democracies die, they die quietly… but what’s the role of Civil Society?
September 6, 2019
Save the Children’s José Manuel Roche has a book he wants you to read. So, it turns out that nowadays democracy seldom dies through violent coup d’état. More commonly (and insidiously), democracy slides gradually into authoritarianism. By the same token, democracy survives when democratic leaders fight for it. This is part of the main thesis behind the insightful book How
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We must stop climate change before it makes Hajj impossible
September 5, 2019
Here’s Shahin Ashraf of Islamic Relief on one reason why the climate emergency should matter to Muslims. The piece brilliantly illustrates Alex Evans’ argument that climate activists need to tap into the deep narratives provided by the world’s major religions if they are to get the drastic changes we need. Like most Muslims who’ve been privileged to perform the holy
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The role of social networks in household survival
September 3, 2019
Despite the lack of banks in Goma to finance old or new enterprises, market stallholders are often able to thrive under difficult circumstances. Papy Muzuri reports on the city’s savings clubs and protection committees, and their ability to support informal markets.
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There is no Africa in African studies
August 27, 2019
In this letter, first published by Africa is a Country, the authors question the validity and fetishization of “African Studies” within British higher education. Wangũi wa Kamonji convenes the collective Afrika Hai from her base in East Africa. Orapeleng Rammala was born in South Africa and raised in England. Jesutofunmi Odugbemi applies her sense of justice, ingenuity, and leadership in areas
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The “local” researcher – merely a data collector?
August 20, 2019
In this post, Stanislas Bisimwa Baganda writes about imbalanced power relations in field research, which can not only have negative impacts on the quality of work, but endanger the lives of local research assistants. He is a researcher in the Groupe d’Etude sur le Conflit et la Sécurité Humaine (GEC-SH) and a consultant in project management. This piece is part
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‘Being a feminist in difficult places’: Balkan Feminism
August 19, 2019
Lately, I’ve enjoyed learning about the development and status of women’s rights movements and the feminist agenda in the Balkan countries, which in many ways sit uncomfortably within geopolitical and developmental binaries like Global South/Global North, developed/developing. Here is a compilation of some stand-out contributions from four of the most prominent women’s rights activists in the Balkans.
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Do remittances reduce poverty?
August 14, 2019
Vishwesh Sundar has recently graduated with an Advanced Master’s degree in International Relations and Diplomacy from Leiden University, The Hague. He was also a research assistant at the Leiden University Institute for Area Studies where he assisted with a project on South-to-West Asia migration governance. We live in a globalised world, and my family is an epitome of that phenomenon.
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“Get Off My Nipple”: How Corporate Power Threatens Women’s Choices in the Global South
August 12, 2019
Felogene Anumo is a pan-African feminist activist who is passionate about using her creativity, politics and intellect to strengthen feminist movements to build collective power. She co-leads the Building Feminist Economies program at the Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID). If you have been on the breastfeeding journey or supported a loved one through it, you may have heard these myths: “Breastmilk alone
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How do we liberate agriculture and development from academic preferences?
August 8, 2019
Charles Dhewa is a knowledge management specialist working at the intersection of formal and informal agricultural markets. The organisation he founded, Knowledge Transfer Africa, has set up a fluid knowledge and information platform called eMKambo, which tracks trends and ensures agricultural value chains are driven by knowledge, technology and innovation. Between key informants and literature reviews, which are the most
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5 Top Tips for Designing Research to change Social Norms on Gender (or anything else)
August 7, 2019
Anam Parvez Butt is a Gender Justice Research Lead in the research team at Oxfam GB. Gopika Bashi is the Asia Campaigner for the Enough Campaign at Oxfam International. As researchers and campaigners in development organisations we constantly grapple with the question of how to design research that is useful to influencing change. At Oxfam, we’ve been thinking a lot
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