‘Localisation’ became the new buzzword after the World Humanitarian Summit in 2016. However, the nature of the commitment to localisation since has been questioned. What is ‘the local’? How does ...localisation work in practice? With little empirical research, generalities in theory and practice have prevailed, preventing a nuanced approach to conceptualising the local. This study aims to build a foundation for the understanding of connotative, nuanced ‘locals’ and to explore the multiple dimensions of the local in both theory and practice. The methodology of a case study research, with a semi-structured and flexible approach, facilitated the identification of different elements of a locally led response that resounded in each of the cases. Combined with a literature review, this article aims to answer the questions: What underlying assumptions regarding the local are found in localisation rhetoric, and how do multi-local dynamics challenge locally led disaster response in practice? Answering this question necessitates deconstructing the multi-local in theory and critically examining expressions concerning the local in practice. In this study, one dimension of the local that was observed was ‘the local as locale,’ with the local describing primarily national actors as opposed to the international, without taking local power dynamics into account. The local was also seen in terms of governance, where local–national relations and intranational strife characterised locally led responses, and the national focus excluded local actors who were not usually involved in governance. The local also became a source of legitimation, with local, national and international actors all using the discourse of ‘the state in charge’ and ‘the community knows best’ to legitimise their own role as response actors while disputing others’ capacities. The multi-local lens provides a perspective with potential to change current practices and contribute to a more transformative agenda.
A review essay on books by (1) Diana Allan, Refugees of the revolution: experiences of Palestinian exile (2013); (2) Lori Allen, The rise and fall of human rights: cynicism and politics in occupied ...Palestine (2013); (3) Antonio Donini Ed, The golden fleece: manipulation and independence in humanitarian action; (4) Peter Redfield, Life in crisis: the ethical journey of Doctors without Borders (2013); (5) Neil L. Whitehead, Sverker Finnstrom Eds, Virtual war and magical death: technologies and imaginaries for terror and killing (2013).
International aid workers are invisible in the absence of data as to who cleaves to what knowledges and practices about how aid works to be effective. When it is similar or different best practice ...positions that are taken is another unknown, despite what this could tell us about aid effectiveness. This paper identifies through their everyday poetics two of the angles on 'how aid works' that aid workers take. One angle displays a programmatic, or 'like clockwork' aesthetic about how aid is said to 'work' through causal mechanisms, provided only that the right policy and 'the tools we have' are put in place and implemented. The other, a 'like an artwork' aesthetic, puts constitutive institutions and new interpretative understandings to the fore. The aid effectiveness issues and reforms associated with the 2005 Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness and subsequent meetings, the latest in Busan in 2011, do not address many, if any, of the issues raised in this paper. They should.
Semantic codes constitute the world (or parts of it), not in a mechanistic "cause-and-effect" sense but through another type of linkage. This article explores some of the semantic code, the "semantic ...DNA," of mainstream neoclassical economic development policy thinking and writing and looks at what that mode of thinking incorporates into its discourse as "social." The various forms of the "social" in economics discourse add up, from a sociologist's viewpoint, to disappointingly little: they mainly consist of a miscellaneous set of non-economic aspects that mainstream economic thinking can use to blame for the policy-performance gap between what such thinking promises and what it often actually delivers.
Coda Raymond Apthorpe
Adventures in Aidland,
04/2011
Book Chapter
The recent emergence in anthropology-and-development of ʹthe ethnography of aidʹ (ʹaidnographyʹ)² has much to offer in depicting and interpreting the institutional culture of ʹAidlandʹ at large and ...the ʹexpert knowledgesʹ that inculcate and sustain it. Several aspects of these prove to be in some ways more virtual than real – hence the degree of virtual reality of Aidland. Social anthropologically-informed aidnography probes and ponders therepresentations collectivesandclassifications socialesby which Aidmen and Aidwomen say they order and understand their world and work, whether these are virtual or real.
The Aidland in this account is thus a macro construct,
Anthropological interest in new subjects of research and contemporary knowledge practices has turned ethnographic attention to a wide ranging variety of professional fields. Among these the encounter ...with international development has perhaps been longer and more intimate than any of the others. Anthropologists have drawn critical attention to the interfaces and social effects of development's discursive regimes but, oddly enough, have paid scant attention to knowledge producers themselves, despite anthropologists being among them. This is the focus of this volume. It concerns the construction and transmission of knowledge about global poverty and its reduction but is equally interested in the social life of development professionals, in the capacity of ideas to mediate relationships, in networks of experts and communities of aid workers, and in the dilemmas of maintaining professional identities. Going well beyond obsolete debates about 'pure' and 'applied' anthropology, the book examines the transformations that occur as social scientific concepts and practices cross and re-cross the boundary between anthropological and policy making knowledge.
Focuses on 'emancipatory reading' of development and policy writing, which deserves its own place in the spectrum of methods of analysis in development policy studies. Pays particular attention to ...discourse analysis of development policy's discursive activities, and singles out the increasingly recognized stalwarts of 'framing', 'naming', 'numbering' and 'coding'. (Original abstract - amended)
Recent evaluations of humanitarian aid in the Horn and Liberia regions of Africa are, given the circumstances of complex political emergencies, notably positive. ODA reviews and the like would, ...therefore, do well to reflect anew on stability and economic development aid investment, compared with instability and humanitarian relief aid investment. Presents an account of some recent consultancies, exploring some of the other side of the humanitarian aid story. (Original abstract - amended)
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