PODCAST · business
Agency & Development - Do Individuals Matter?
by PlanetWorka
Contemporary international development practice is shaped by politics and extends historical assumptions, concepts and narratives that specify ways of working for professional and practitioners in international and 'local' NGOs. This series explores the theoretical and ethical issues in contemporary development organisations and their discourse, and how development NGO workers are 'captured' by this discourse. planetworka.substack.com
Episodes
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Concluding Thoughts - Can Practitioners Have Agency?
Is there space for individual agency within the confines of developmentalism? Only if we actively dismantle the two pillars of this ideology - neliberalism and institutionalisation - and confront the power of technocratic elites and INGOs... This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss...
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Do practitioners have individual agency?
Considering what we have covered in this podcast series, do Plan CDFs exert agency as individual actors? As this episode argues, they cannot, as this is a misreading of 'agency' as an expression of individual action or attributes that is central to developmentalist discourse. This is a public...
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Performatist Tropes - Project Media
Publicising development in the form of projects fulfils important needs of developmentalism. On the one hand it serves northern donors with expressions of the success of development subjects, while simultaneously re-legitimising the INGO as an enabling actor in this success. To do so, project…
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Performatist Tropes - The Project Visit
NGO, donor and local government project visits are ceremonious and ritualised, imbuing the event with important political symbolism essential to the legitimacy of actors and their relative status. For the development actors, these events maintain developmental continuity in their areas of...
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Performatist Tropes - The Sponsor Visit
Child sponsorship is essentially a virtual experience, played out through communication and marketing intermediaries. These programs do, however, offer the opportunity for a sponsor to visit 'their' sponsored child. The sponsor visit becomes a microcosm of neo-colonial arrangements and...
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Performatist Tropes - Partnership
Partnership is an essential part of contemporary INGO practice and a central trope of developmentalist discourse. Yet, the interaction between INGOs and local actors is replete with contradiction, embedded power imbalance, and reproduction of traditional roles. In fact, the process and…
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Performatist Tropes - 'Planning Development'
Developmentalist practice involves the performance of well-worn tropes. One of these is 'planning development', with highly stylised processes to design and conduct participatory design workshops. This episode examines this iconic development trope. This is a public episode. If you would like to...
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Developmentalism in Operational Practice
The field setting is where developmentalism finds expression in the everyday operations of organisations and the daily lives of practitioners. This episode sets the scene for the reality of operational practice of NGO community practice teams in Tanzania. This is a public episode. If you would…
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From Individual Sponsorship to Community Development
Towards and into the 2000s, the shift from individualist charity - in the form of child sponsorship - to collective modes of community development accelerated in INGOs like Plan International. PlanetWorka explores how this was influenced by development trends, as well as insitutional pressures to...
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The Girl Effect, Neoliberal Feminism & Developmentalism
The Girl Effect, and a focus of development effort on the 'girl of the South', has become a dominant theme in international NGOs and development institutions. Driven by neoliberal feminism in the North, this narrative seeks to redefine the identity of women in the South, and legitimise neoliberal...
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Child Sponsorship
Child sponsorship pre-dates the development decades, and the era of community development. As such, it appears as an anachronism to the dominant collective discourse of contemporary development, yet remains remarkably resilient as a development and fundraising modality. PlanetWorka traces the...
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The Reflexive Practitioner
In an attempt to resolve the contradictions inherent in the 'developer's' role, development ideology promotes reflexivity in practice. In a context of developmentalism, does it matter? As they become more aware of their role can development practitioners adapt in a manner that is meaningful? This...
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Development Practitioners in International NGOs
International NGOs employ a range of development staff, stratified carefully between operations and 'program' in country offices. Within the 'program' staff, expertise is differentiated bewteen professional at the national head office and local development facilitators. Moreover, most…
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Professionalisation and Devaluing the 'Local'
Professionalisation has brought a powerful dynamic into the world of the development practitioner, creating an epistemic divide between the transnational 'expert' and the 'local' development practitioner. The former elevated to a powerful role, the latter constrained by their positionality and...
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Managerialism and Technologies of Control
Contemporary development practice invovles the implementation of highly technical project planning and implementation approaches. Rather than enhancing development outcomes, these represent technologies of control. Implemented as part of a culture of managerialism, these approaches ensure that…
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Development Practice as Norms Transfer
Is the development practitioners role to 'deliver' development, or impose development discourse? Development practitioners are important interlocutors for translating developmentalism into localised norms, calling into question the ethical virtue of their work. This is a public episode. If you...
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The Development 'Practitioner'
If development practice is where developmentalism is cemented, then the development practioner must be the labourer that applies this. Who are these 'practitioners'? In this episode PlanetWorka explores the positionality of the development worker in development, and identifies a growing divide...
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Judith Butler's Notion of Performativity
A powerful gender and identity theorist, Judith Butler has conceptualised human agency as 'performativity'. PlanetWorka examines how this is different from the notion of performance, how performativity refers to the constitution of identity through repeated routines, and how re-signification…
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Giddens and Foucault - Reshaping Agency in Development
Two eminent theorists have shaped our understanding of individual agency in development. Anthony Giddens' theory of Structuration and Michel Foucault's theory of Governmentality are heavy influences on developmentalism. PlanetWorka explores how key ideas in these theories have shaped how…
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Individual Agency in Social Theory
How does the concept of individual agency address the tension between the excessive individualism of liberal theory, and the focus of the collective 'community' in development? PlanetWorka explores how social theory has influenced the notion of individual agency in development, and located this...
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Managerialism and the Technology of Control
Managerialist approaches have overt political objectives and impact on development processes. Highly technical project planning methodologies using rationalist, outcomes prediction techniques like logical framework analysis create external control of complex social situations. This is a public...
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Institutions and Developmentalism
It's tempting to see developmentalism as an ideology impsed by a select number of insitututions based in the North. However, development ideology is remarkable for the way in which it is transitted, reinforced and implemented in practice by thousands of development institutions around the globe....
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The Post-Development Critique
The celebratory narrative of development's successes in the 1990s was characterised by an undercurrent of disquiet. In the face of increasing inequality and disempowerment of the supposed 'beneficiaries' of development, the very architecture came under sustained attack by 'post-development'...
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The Individual and Community Development
"Community Development" is a central trope of developmentalism. How does this relate to the individual, and can the individual only realise 'development' through the collective of 'community'? PlanetWorka explores how the notion of community development relates to the governmentality interests of...
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The Problem of the Nation State
Whereas in previous development decades states were the focus of development effort, the emerging neoliberal ideology of the 1990s sought to 'depoliticise' development and constrain the power of the nation state in development. As an alternative, civil society in the form of NGOs and…
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Shifts in Orientation
By the late 20th century development was experiencing a crisis. Although overall wellbeing of the world's population was improving, so too was inequality and poverty. A new approach was needed and powerful thinkers and institutions started to promote people centred development. Planetworka…
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Development in the 20th Century
The historical shifts in approaches to international in the 20th century are important for understanding contemporary development discourse, and the power of development institutions in the current landscape. Planetworka explores the key historical factors and the emergence of 'developmentalism'...
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Introducing Agency and Development
An introduction to the podcast series on human agency and international development practice. How important are words and concepts for understanding why development organisations and practitioners behave the way they do? Very important, it turns out. In this episode planetworka introduces some of...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Contemporary international development practice is shaped by politics and extends historical assumptions, concepts and narratives that specify ways of working for professional and practitioners in international and 'local' NGOs. This series explores the theoretical and ethical issues in contemporary development organisations and their discourse, and how development NGO workers are 'captured' by this discourse.
planetworka.substack.com
HOSTED BY
PlanetWorka
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Agency & Development - Do Individuals Matter? have?
Agency & Development - Do Individuals Matter? currently has 28 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Agency & Development - Do Individuals Matter? about?
Contemporary international development practice is shaped by politics and extends historical assumptions, concepts and narratives that specify ways of working for professional and practitioners in international and 'local' NGOs. This series explores the theoretical and ethical issues in...
How often does Agency & Development - Do Individuals Matter? release new episodes?
Agency & Development - Do Individuals Matter? has 28 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
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Who hosts Agency & Development - Do Individuals Matter??
Agency & Development - Do Individuals Matter? is created and hosted by PlanetWorka.
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