Malmö University Journals
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IN THIS ISSUE (MAY 2010)
Get PDFIt is May, 2010 as issue #14 of Glocal Times goes online. Five years have passed since the web magazine’s creation in May 2005, initially named Globala Tider, with the intention to reach beyond the community engaged in teaching, studying and sharing practice at Malmö University’s Master course in Communication for Development. The course, started in June 2000 and bound to celebrate its 10th anniversary soon, is in the process of being revised and expanded to respond to transformations in graduate education in Europe, where Malmö University is located, as well as within communication for development and social change understood as a field of theory and practice that spans worldwide. Glocal Times will follow.Changes under consideration pertain to online form and functionality on the one hand: towards the end of this year, we will be updating the publishing tool to benefit from increased user-friendliness in software and incorporating an e-mail subscription option for readers in order to facilitate dissemination. We will also explore to which extent interaction with users in web 2.0 fashion would add to the web magazine’s core purpose. As regards content, over these five years we have heard the suggestion that Glocal Times should “grow up” to become an academic journal, or otherwise risk being forced to miss out academic contributions completely. The suggestion comes from the proponents’ genuine concern for the web magazine’s future in the context of growing competition for academic positions and research funding and the resulting “publish or perish” culture. It is problematic, however, in that it suggests adapting to the current climate without addressing Glocal Times’ interest in publishing not only papers authored by professors and researchers based in universities, but also articles written by professional practitioners, as well as occasional pieces contributed by policy-makers –while always giving newly graduated Master students a chance to profile their work. New possibilities under consideration, if resources allow, include producing a series of guest-edited special issues, collaborating with a well-established academic publisher for a print edition, and looking into a future in which Glocal Times would combine both invited and peerreviewed pieces. In the meantime, I want to thank each and every contributor to the web magazine to date for their eager, patient and generous participation in the project. While managed by a small, part-time staff of three (Oscar Hemer, Mikael Rundberg and myself), Glocal Times would simply not exist without its contributors. I would also like to thank Jesper Falkheimer, Head of Malmö University’s School of Arts and Communication since 2009, for his interest in the project. And now, onto this issue. Based on a presentation she gave to UNESCO\u27s Information and Communication Sector in October, 2009, Silvia Balit -a pioneer in the practice of communication for development and social change in the United Nations- makes concrete proposals towards the formulation and implementation of a common strategy among UN agencies that recognizes communication as a fundamental component in development.Rasna Warah, a columnist for the Kenyan newspaper Daily Nation and a writer, formerly editor at UN-Habitat (and a graduate of Malmö University’s Master course in Communication for Development), discusses the failures of development in Africa and calls for a much-needed African perspective on the relationship between aid and poverty in the continent. Anders Høg Hansen, senior lecturer at Malmö University’s School of Arts and Communication and a staff member of the Master course in Communication for Development, approaches the concept of participation from an educational perspective, exploring ways in which users appropriate and even change topic and technology in the context of specific social practices with educational gains. Katja Svensson, a long-time guest lecturer of Malmö University’s Master course in Communication for Development with expertise in gender and human security, identifies the communicational challenges implied in working on human rights issues internationally through the case of female genital mutilation. Last but not least, Jordi de Miguel, a graduate from Malmö University’s Master course in Communication for Development and community manager at the Spanish NGO Fundación Chandra, provokingly looks into ‘oppression at home’ by studying an experience that applies Augusto Boal’s “theatre of the oppressed” techniques to a life story of migrant discrimination in Catalonia. The next issue of Glocal Times will be published in November 2010. In the meantime, your reactions and suggestions are welcome at [email protected]
THE DEVELOPMENT MYTH
Get PDFIn this essay, Rasna Warah argues that advocates of more aid to Africa fail to address social and historical injustices that are among the root causes of poverty and under-development in the continent. The author provides a much-needed African perspective on the development industry, and discusses why it has failed so miserably in lifting millions of people out of poverty
PROMOTING SOCIAL CHANGE: THE CASE OF FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION
Get PDFAddressing human rights issues internationally raises multiple challenges. Putting the existing legal framework of conventions that detail specific rights to be promoted and protected into effect as policy and practice is rarely straightforward: conflict between the internationally agreed values and differing cultural contexts may arise and need to be met
SOCIAL AND NON-FORMAL LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS. Educational approaches to the notion of \u27participation\u27
Get PDFThe cases introduced in this essay were initially used in teaching for the course “Educational Communication” taught at the University of Guelph, in Canada (spring of 2010) as a trigger for the students to think of degrees of participatory communication, situated learning and interaction
Book critique by Skype: academics take on practitioners
No full textWhen you publish you feel a bit exposed. If you write in a personal style it feels like you are sharing your personal journal with people you don’t know. You cannot help but wonder how your writing will be received. Last year we published a book that is both personal and reflective: Communication for another development: Listening before telling (Zed Books, 2009). By doing this, we knew we were laying ourselves open to all kinds of review. Mostly (phew), we can say the experience has not been too stressful. In July 2010 we were asked to join the IAMCR congress to take place in Braga, Portugal for a panel discussion of our book. On one end: Thomas Jacobson (School of Communications and Theater, Temple University, US), Thomas Tufte (Roskilde University, Denmark), and Karin Wilkins (University of Texas at Austin, US). Also a panelist was one practitioner, Silvia Balit, formerly responsible for FAO’s program of communication for development (based in Italy)
Getting it together
Get PDFIn April 2010, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) released a Guidance Note entitled “Getting it together: Strengthening transparency, accountability, participation and non-discrimination with communication methods”. The document’s purpose is to provide recommendations on when and how communication can be used as a means to promote enhanced accountability, transparency and citizen participation without discrimination, understood as requirements for aid and development effectiveness. Methods for enabling inhabitants in a country to influence the work of government and public bodies are in focus
THINKING TRANSNATIONAL
Get PDFTransnational communication is one of the key factors in the present global transformational processes. Cultural globalization, as a consequence of migration, increasing flows of cultural commodities and global interconnectivity through ICTs, is rapidly transforming life-styles, social networks and forms of identification in the entire world. Yet both social sciences and humanities are still framed by the notion of the nationstate and a corollary national culture. Literary studies, in particular, are almost exclusively focused on domestic literature, but this observation applies in varying to degrees to all the fine arts and to cultural studies in general. A specific area where the constraints of the national perspective are most limiting, yet hardly even reflected upon, is the field of international development cooperation. It is still largely organized at bilateral basis, government to government, while financial flows, remittances and – increasingly- non-governmental agencies are transnational. Even the over-arching multilateral system of the United Nations is founded on this basic assumption of the nation-state and inter-national relations. Transnational is, in the minds of many, a suspect notion, associated with global capital flows and irresponsible transnational corporations. Transnational human flows (migration) are generally regarded as a problem, not a resource.How, then, does this apply to Communication for Development? I believe that the notion of ‘transnationalism’ is absolutely crucial, and a true challenge for both research and practice. Thinking transnational is a formidable challenge, because our entire imagination is so conditioned by this national mindset. I am well aware that the word ‘our’ here may disclose a Eurocentric perspective. The notion of the nation differs in different contexts and thinking beyond it is certainly easier at hand in for example India or Latin America than in Europe. And as in literature and the arts, the impulses for renewal will most probably come from the margins, not the centre, of the alleged world system. Transnationalism is one of the strands of research that the Ørecomm Consortium for Glocal Change, based at the universities of Malmö in Sweden and Roskilde in Denmark, wishes to explore in the coming years. Until a presentation of this initiative is made in Glocal Times, take a thorough look at its website, http://orecomm.net Transnationalism in practice, of sorts, was demonstrated at a recent joint ComDev seminar held simultaneously at Malmö University in Sweden and Guelph University in Canada, linking not only students and staff from the two partner universities, with a five-hour difference, but also participants scattered all over the world. The seminar’s theme was “Media, Conflict and Development” and among the speakers were Gordon Adam, visiting in Malmö, Ricardo Ramirez in Guelph, and Wendy Quarry in Ottawa, connected via Skype. I briefly mentioned Ricardo and Wendy’sresurrection of ‘Alternative development’ in my previous editorial, on “the development turn”. In this issue, they speak about what they learnt at the seminar, and so does Gordon. Enjoy
MARKET VERSUS MALL. Catalysing public debate through new media technologies
Get PDFThe Warwick Junction precinct, in Central Durban, is a major transportation hub: 560.000 people, most of them poor, pass through it daily. There, the Early Morning Market offers ingredients for a basic meal for a family of five for as little as ZAR 15 (USD 2). When late in 2008 the city of Durban announced its plan to replace the Market with a western-style privately owned shopping mall, the proposed re-development came as a shock
THE ROLE OF MEDIA IN ROLLING OUT DEMOCRACY IN PAKISTAN
Get PDFIn order for Pakistan to make a successful transition to democracy, media must be able to perform its role as a watchdog, is the conclusion of a report from International Media Support
COMMUNICATION, DEVELOPMENT AND… COUNTER TERRORISM
Get PDFHow can participative communication approaches inform the prevention of radicalisation leading to violent extremism in Pakistan? Gordon Adam discusses how he drew on the ideas of participants in Malmö University’s Master in Communication for Development to inform Media Support Solutions\u27 recommendations to the British Government on a sensitive subject