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New Donors, New Investments: New Development?
On January 27, 2012, the International Development Studies of Utrecht University organised its eight knowledge for development seminar. The seminar aimed to critically assess the meaning of development in the context of contemporary transformations such as the increased involvement of giants like India and China in development cooperation and the increased role of southern countries in international investment flows. Some key questions were: How do these new relations influence the notion of...
It's the Future Calling
What do you do when the phone rings? You pick up, or let people leave a message on your voicemail and check it soon after. The phone has been ringing for a long time now in the development sector. What do you do when a caller starts conversing? You talk back - if only to say you're going to hang up. We talk a lot in the sector. What do you do when the caller starts shouting? You hang up, even if the other person has a valid reason to shout. In the development sector, we don’t like shouters. W...
Exporting Censorship and Surveillance Technology
Western companies turn a healthy profit by exporting their surveillance technologies and equipment to repressive regimes. This is what Ben Wagner concludes in the Hivos-commissioned report “Exporting Censorship and Surveillance Technology”. Wagner interviewed dozens of people from Europe and North Africa and found that governments there have relied heavily on Western censorship technologies in an attempt to quell the civil unrest during the Arab Spring.
Can Knowledge Trigger Change?
This Briefing Note argues that there is an acute and pressing need for new perspectives and knowledge on the changing terrain and dynamics of development and social change. It contributes to the debate on knowledge and change by sharing and discussing the insights emerging from Hivos’ experiences. Furthermore, it positions Hivos’ knowledge endeavours in the aid and knowledge for development discourse, drawing on a mix of Hivos practice, policy and Knowledge Programme research.
Like a Bridge over Troubled Waters
| Author: | Wenny Ho |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Hivos and IKM Emergent |
| Date: | 2011 |
Like a Bridge over Troubled Waters
In the Think Piece LIKE A BRIDGE OVER TROUBLED WATERS: Dialogues of policy, practitioner and academic knowledges the author Wenny Ho deals with Cross-domain Knowledge Integration (KI) in International Development Cooperation (IDC). KI is understood as processes of knowledge co-creation linking domains particularly those of policy-making, science and practitioners.
Social Movements and Citizenship in Central America: The women’s movement and the struggle for their rights in Nicaragua
| Author: | Elvira Cuadra & Juana Jimenez |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Centro de investigaciones de la Communicacion (CINCO), Nicaragua |
| Date: | July 2010 |
Unpacking Digital Natives from their Shiny Packaging
In this article, the writer supports that China, despite having a plethora of hacker talents, does not conform to the typical paradigm of liberal, usually anti-government, group of digital natives. She explains that the so-called “red hackers” are working hand-in-hand with the dominant ideology, fighting against the enemy abroad while hunting down the enemy within who disrupts the ‘harmony’ (of the nation). Focusing on China’s digital culture, Tsou demonstrates that digital natives, despite...
Open Archives Initiative
All our publications are released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 license. To enable other publishers and parties to use our data, we provide an Open Archives Initiative repository.
On Natives, Norms and Knowledge
Using digital technologies has become so convenient that with the rise of the so called digital revolution arose also the need to reflect it. A very impressive compilation of reflections dealing with the role and impact of the “user” (or digital native, as it is now called) comes in the form of a four book collective called Digital AlterNatives with a Cause? by the Centre for Internet & Society and Hivos. The fourth book features Ben Wagner’s essay Natives, Norms and Knowledge: How Inform...
Digital Native: Twin Manifestations or Co-Located Hybrids
Ben-David’s piece is a well-articulated and informed attempt to resolve two of the several conceptual fuzziness of the term “Digital Native”. She attempts this in a philosophical manner: trying to move away from the ontological “who are Digital Natives?” to an epistemological “when and where are Digital Natives?” Her reasoning is that this perceptive change will allow us to unpack the duplicity of a hybrid term and to understand if it refers to a unique phenomenon in the world worth exploring.
Digital AlterNatives Video Contest
The Centre for Internet and Society and Hivos are pleased to announce the Digital AlterNatives video contest. There are hundreds of stories of the Everyday Digital Native - people who are always connected, or on the fringes, or groups that bond over causes but don’t really care for the ‘Digital Native’ tag & hype. Tell us their story through your video! Deadline for your proposals is the 8th of January 2012.
Policy Brief Gender Mainstreaming 2.0
This policy brief aims to deepen our understanding and provide new insights in order to bring gender mainstreaming to the next level. Synthesis papers and cases studies have been produced in four policy areas to learn more about the ways in which GM has been implemented. These range from violence against women to micro-finance, and from value chain development to the aid architecture. In this policy brief we present the experiences in these specific policy domains, share our key insights on g...
From Facebook revolution to surveillance technology
In the beginning of 2011 the Arab Spring took the world by surprise. Around the world people were confronted and inspired by millions of brave citizens who stood up, ousted two dictators and demanded democratic reforms. (Inter) nationally technology like Twitter and Facebook have been praised for these web 2.0 revolutions. While the Facebook revolution discourse has been much debated, the flip side to the technology coin has been ignored.
Small, competitive and resilient - How small-scale producers contribute to food security
Food insecurity threatens almost one billion people, especially in rural areas in developing countries, where four out of five people go hungry every day. Scientists estimate that the world’s population will grow to 9.1 billion by 2050. Since natural resources are already dangerously degraded, fossil fuels are becoming scarce, and climate change has become an impending reality, this poses a serious challenge. To nourish the growing population and meet the challenges of climate change, it is n...
Civic Driven change:Bringing Politics back in
Politics is central to development discourse, yet remains peripheral. And, over some twenty years, a civil society narrative has not fulfilled its potential to ‘bring politics back in’. Reasons can be found in conceptual confusion, in selectivity in donor thinking and policies towards civil society and in the growth-driven political economy of NGO-ism.
“Digital Natives with a Cause?” newsletter, volume VIII
This issue touches upon new dilemma’s of the digital era. Guest editor Nilofar Ansher writes a compelling piece that questions what come’s first: the members of a group of the group itself? She makes her argument through explaining what happens when she deletes all her posts from the Facebook group wall. She asks the questions, when she erases all the traces of her posts, does this matter to the group and to the people that came after her?
Social movements and NGO interaction
Are we entering a post-NGO era in development? Aid critics very much suggest so. Hailed as a magic bullet for development two decades ago, NGOs are increasingly criticized for being ineffective agents of change, out of touch with broader social currents in society and operating in a fragmented way. Under pressure to show results, NGOs and their donors are increasingly attempting to align with social movements in a bid to scale up their impact. Social moveme...
Participation for What:Social change or social control?
'Participation for What' is about meaningful participation in development. How and when does it work? What are the downsides? And what does it imply for development practice and research? This book brings together a rich collection of essays on participation by Phd - students from the Institute of Social Studies
Synthesis studies
Here you find all synthesis studies and mapping papers that the Hivos-ISS programme producedBooks
Here you can download all book publications from the Hivos-ISS Knowledge programme, including background material and separate chaptersRethinking Development in an age of Scarcity and Uncertainty
04/10/2011 The session, facilitated by Wendy Hartcourt of SID, was conducted as an open discussion on the new publishing arrangements with the coming of the digital age among development journals looking at both the opportunities and the current squeeze for resources.The discussion looked at the new possibilities offered by on-line and digital publishing. The discussed focused on how to ensure scholarship and rigour while using the new open forms of communication through social networking and new...
Report: The role of Intermediaries in Bridging Policy, Research and Practice
04/10/2011 Jon Gregson, Head of IDS Knowledge Services, opened the session by asking participants whether they worked for a knowledge intermediary organisation. Three quarters of the room raised their hands, which suggests in theory that the room was pretty knowledgeable about what an intermediary is. It’s a term that’s very much open to different interpretations so I was interested to see where the session discussion would go. Ananya Raihan from the Development Research Network (D.Net) began...