Hope, Play, Relate: Changing narratives for greater solidarity and open civic space

By Nicole Walshe and Anne Mai Baan | EADI/ISS Blog Series

Narratives or the stories we use to set our perceptions and experiences in a larger context of meaning are powerful tools for both supporting civic space and engagement and oppressing them. As we are often not even aware of these narratives, changing them is not easy and requires much more than spreading information. A roundtable at the recent EADI/ISS conference “Solidarity, Peace and Social Justice” explored successful practical examples how a deeper change of narratives can take place in favour of positive social change and freedom of expression. Nicole Walshe and Anne Mai Baan summarize its recommendations.
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Some steps for decolonising international research-for-development partnerships

By Katarzyna Cieslik, Shreya Sinha, Cees Leeuwis, Tania Eulalia Martínez-Cruz, Nivedita Narain and Bhaskar Vira | EADI/ISS Blog Series

While partnerships between researchers and practitioners from the Global North and Global South can be and often are intellectually and socially impactful, they remain highly unequal. Coloniality pervades these partnerships, influencing who leads research projects implemented in the Global South and whose interests are represented. Here, the conveners and panellists of a roundtable discussion on partnerships in academia that formed part of the recent EADI ISS Conference 2021 propose some steps for decolonising international research partnerships. Continue reading “Some steps for decolonising international research-for-development partnerships”

How social accountability initiatives are helping pursue social justice

By Elsbet Lodenstein and Sylvia I. Bergh | EADI/ISS Blog Series

 Achieving social justice in service delivery in the health, social welfare, and humanitarian sectors is still a formidable challenge in most developing countries. Poor and marginalised people generally lack the voice to make their demands heard and the awareness to claim their rights. However, social accountability initiatives have become a promising way to address these issues. Continue reading “How social accountability initiatives are helping pursue social justice”

Development researchers as advocates: eight tips for more engaged scholarship

By Adinda Ceelen | EADI/ISS Blog Series

Research impact has become a strategic priority for many research institutes around the world, with an increasing focus on “bridging the gap” between research and society and positioning research in a way that ensures the knowledge it produces can contribute to bringing about change. Development researchers often find themselves straddling two worlds: the academic sector on the one hand, and the development sector on the other. But is there a moral imperative for development researchers to bridge these two realms by acting as advocates in ‘the real world’? If so, how can they best share knowledge in ways that contribute to solidarity, peace, and social justice? Continue reading “Development researchers as advocates: eight tips for more engaged scholarship”

Risk dumping in field research: some researchers are safer than others

By Linda Johnson and Rodrigo Mena | EADI/ISS Blog Series

A quick glance at who is out collecting data in ‘the field’, including in remote and sometimes hazardous environments, is enough to make our point clear: the main executors of in-situ research (also known as fieldwork research) are local researchers and research assistants, sometimes together with junior or PhD researchers from research institutions in the Global North. These groups are being systematically and disproportionately exposed to safety and security issues linked to field research. Continue reading “Risk dumping in field research: some researchers are safer than others”