T Jakimow
Biographic Data
| ID | 48160 |
|---|---|
| NAME | T Jakimow |
| GIVEN NAMES | T |
| FAMILY NAME | Jakimow |
| SIGNATURE | JAKIMOW T |
| AFFILIATIONS | UNSW Sydney |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8780-1753 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 54 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 178 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 52 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2006 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
We campaign just by gathering 20 people’: Suboptimal campaigning as a gendered campaign style in Medan, Indonesia
How do we understand the gendered campaign styles of women candidates contesting elections in which they are structurally constrained with a low probability of success? We introduce the term ‘suboptimal campaigning’ as a gendered campaign style to emphasise the accommodations women make due to broader gender orders that put them at an electoral disadvantage. Research with 24 female candidates in the 2024 local legislative elections in Medan, Indo…
Gender and Politics Reimagined: Centring Oceanic and Asian Lenses
This timely collection reflects a coming together of academics, gender and development practitioners and activists to reflect on the gendering of politics. By centring Asia and Oceania and traversing numerous disciplines, the volume disrupts the illusion of certainty and clarity as to what is known about gender and politics. Individual chapters present specific research projects, while providing epistemological, theoretical and methodological ref…
Gender and Politics Reimagined: Centring Oceanic and Asian Lenses
Women’s Inequitable Incorporation into Representative Democracy: An Anthropology of Gendered Exploitation in Local Politics in India
Discarded Candidates: Waste as Metaphor in Local Government Elections in Australia (and Elsewhere)
Elections produce legitimacy, relations between representative and represented, and consent to rule. They are also systems of discarding. Representative democracies require a surplus of candidates who engage in practices and rituals of elections, the majority of which are discarded at the ballot box. Candidates (over)invest in their campaigns, resulting in wasted time, money, and materials. Unsuccessful candidates offer a particular vantage point…
The Gender Ideology of State Ibuism and Women’s Roles in Care Practices at the Rawa Panjang Waste Bank, Bojonggede, Bogor
This article examines women's involvement in community-based waste management through the Waste Bank program. It argues that women’s participation in managing waste banks reflects the state’s gender ideology, which reinforces the reproduction of female labor and caregiving roles within society. Applying Suryakusuma’s (2011) concept of state ibuism, this study explores women’s roles in the Waste Bank program in Rawa Panjang, Citayam, Bogor Regency…
Research Driven Dialogs: A Method for Social and Scholarly Impact
Research Driven Dialogs (RDDs) are a method for collective sense-making and collaborative reflection on research findings by a range of stakeholders hoping to better understand and address a complex problem. Research findings are opened up through a process of dialog; implications for practice and action are co-designed by participants in ways that are compatible with institutional and sociocultural realities. RDDs thereby coproduce knowledge in …
The affective economy of democracy: Women’s adverse incorporation in party politics in Dehradun, North India
Party politics is an affective economy in which the generation and accumulation of positive sentiments achieve electoral success. In Dehradun, North India, party workers undertake activities to build and maintain affective relationships with voters, and to generate political momentum at election time. Both party symbol and labor are required for electoral success, yet the relationship between them is unequal. Examining party politics as a system …
Representation as privilege or burden: Centring pay to achieve gender parity and ‘diversity’ in local government
A lack of diversity within local government in Australia and globally is recognised as a problem. Government efforts to increase the representation of women, youth, racialised minorities, people with disabilities and so on do not, however, address a major impediment to their participation: inadequate remuneration. In this article, we present data from a survey, interviews and ethnographic research to reveal the consequences of not paying councill…
Sites of infrastructure, apprenticeship and possibilities for self: Locating Indonesia's missing women in representative politics
Women are under‐represented in Indonesian legislatures, and those women who are elected are disproportionately from ‘elite’ backgrounds. This research sought to understand the conditions for women to succeed in politics in conditions of patriarchy and clientelist politics. Research in North Sumatera, Indonesia, revealed that many women did not make the conscious decision not to enter politics, but rather found that they had not established the re…
Dirty politics and political care in local politics: Gendered barriers to moral boundary crossing in Dehradun, India
‘Politics is dirty’ is a truism, a taken-for-granted reality in much of the world, particularly in India. Its implications are likewise seen as inescapable. Scholarship examining women’s political underrepresentation often cites the ‘dirty’ nature of democratic politics as a key disincentive for women to participate. While not disputing that politics is, in some respects, ‘dirty’, I question the mechanisms through which it is said to hinder women…
Broken Pathways to Politics: Clearing a Path from Grassroots to Representative Politics
This article seeks to explain why so few women make the journey from social activism and community work to standing for election. Comparative research in Indonesia and Sri Lanka reveals four operations critical to mending the broken pathway to politics for non-elite women. Transference entails the recognition and valuing of women’s preexisting skills, knowledge and experiences gained through grassroots activity for the political field. Amplificat…
In recognition of councillors: The (in)adequacy of remuneration (during the Covid pandemic) in New South Wales, Australia
Fair and equal pay are basic principles determining appropriate remuneration. Yet expectations that locally elected representatives are motivated by community service justify token compensation. This article presents data from a survey of councillors in New South Wales about the adequacy of current remuneration against the expectations and time commitment of the role. It finds: the majority of councillors feel under-compensated for the time they …
Feeling/Making Democracy: Emotions of Candidates Contesting Dehradun Municipal Elections
Emotions and sentiments are central to explanations of how actual living democracies work, that is, the sustaining and reconfiguring of practices, relations and common-senses that constitute them. Elections are moments of heightened emotions, when democracy breathes life into the streets and pulses through people's veins. While studies in anthropology and political science have shed light on the ways that voters are recruited by and experience th…
Is money an insurmountable barrier to women’s political representation in transactional democracies? Evidence from North Sumatera, Indonesia
Elections are expensive, disadvantaging women with limited access to financial resources. Strategies to address this problem have focused on increasing women’s campaign funds or lowering costs such as nomination fees. While important, such strategies will not overcome the disadvantages women face in countries where “transactional politics” is rife, with voter expectations for gifts and/or cash multiplying the costs of elections. Following the 201…
From campus to legislatures: Women’s experience of electoral politics in Indonesia
The path from student politics to electoral politics is a well-worn one across Asia. Literature examining this pathway overwhelmingly does so from the perspective of men, failing to adequately acknowledge women's relative inability to make the transition from campuses to legislatures in the same way. This article focuses on Indonesian women's experiences to explain why they remain underrepresented in politics and sheds light on the ways its stude…
Vulnerability as ethical practice: Dismantling affective privilege and resilience to transform development hierarchies
This paper introduces new analytical concepts to reveal overlooked dimensions of power inequalities between elite development agents (EDAs), local development agents and the targets of aid. Affective privilege captures the positioning of EDAs within affective patterning that sustains their dominant position. They enjoy a greater capacity to affect others in ways that reproduce structural power. Affective resilience captures their reduced capacity…
(Dis)comfort, judgement and solidarity: Affective politics of academic publishing in development studies
The publication of a controversial article in Third World Quarterly and the consequent unveiling and critical questioning of journal practices continue to engender strong negative feelings for many scholars. At a critical juncture within the publication process of this collection, we faced an ethical dilemma regarding how to maintain political and ethical commitments while manoeuvring within a sometimes hostile academic environment. Here we exami…
Understanding power in development studies through emotion and affect: Promising lines of enquiry
In this volume, the contributors take affect and emotions as a means to cast ‘development’ in fresh light. Recognising that the affective dimensions of life are a critical part of social, political and economic organisation, each contribution draws upon theories of affect and emotion to enrich understandings of power within development studies. This introductory essay critically reflects on dominant understandings of power in the field, outlining…
Life-course and Cohort Impacts in Women’s Pathways to Politics: Post-active Motherhood as a Time of Political Possibility in India
Women’s gendered responsibilities of caring for children and the home is persistently identified as a barrier to gender-equal representation in political office. Rather than solely seeking to help women overcome what are often insurmountable barriers, we argue that we also need to align our strategies with women’s culturally specific life-courses, and the socio-historical conditions of particular cohorts. Drawing upon the experiences of women pol…
Middle-aged Women and Intergenerational Aspirations in Dehradun, India: Mobility as Social Achievement During Post-active Motherhood
Post-active motherhood can be a period of flourishing for many women. Aspirations for social achievement beyond the domestic sphere become imaginable or realisable as women are released from the more intensive work of raising children. This article examines this period of life for a cohort of women in Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India. After years of social service and political activities, these women seek social advancement through the formal status…
The Familiar Face of the State: Affect, Emotion and Citizen Entitlements in Dehradun, India
Municipal Councillors (MCs) are the 'familiar face of the state' in Dehradun, India: the first port of call for citizens seeking to claim entitlements from the state. The way MCs respond to the requests of their constituents is a major factor in the uneven distribution of government welfare and services. This article seeks to contribute to understandings of citizen entitlements by drawing attention to the role of affect and emotion in shaping the…
The Ethics of Social Care in Indonesia: Women’s Perspectives on Care in Politics, Development and Policy
This article draws on feminist scholarship to examine the ethics of “social care” in Indonesia. We explore three different relationships of care: between politicians and their constituents, between women health-care workers and villagers, and between volunteers and the recipients of government benefits. Through a comparison of our three case studies, we demonstrate the diverse meanings attached to “care”, and the consequences of these differences…
The "Servants" of Dehradun: A Changing Relationship between Municipal Councillors and Voters in India
The “typical” municipal councillor in India is usually portrayed in the literature as a political entrepreneur in a clientelistic relationship with voters, providing privileged access to the state in return for electoral support. This article arose out of a lack of familiarity with this portrait and the municipal councillors (known locally as Parshads) of Dehradun. Ethnographic research and the co-construction of in-depth profiles with women Pars…
A moral atmosphere of development as a share: Consequences for urban development in Indonesia
Clinging to Hope through Education: The Consequences of Hope for Rural Laborers in Telangana, India
Education is for marginalized people in agrarian Telangana, India,themeans to getting ahead, at the same time that structural conditions have diminished its potential. This article considers the consequences of education's failures for parents' positioning within a society that is purported to be "moving forward." I draw upon Berlant (2011) and Ahmed (2010) as a starting point to explore the possibility that the idea of progress through education…
Empowering Women: A Critique of the Blueprint for Self-help Groups in India
Development agencies have increasingly regarded ‘empowerment’ as an essential objective to improve the well-being of marginalised women in India. The perceived success of self-help group (SHG) programmes in this project has encouraged their widespread application across India, becoming the primary mechanism to empower women. However, this success has often been assumed rather than proven, with evaluations generally lacking a conceptualisation of …
Breaking the backbone of farmers: Contestations in a Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme
This paper examines narratives about the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGA) to reveal people's interpretations of changes to agrarian relations in Andhra Pradesh. Through narratives, we are able to reveal more than just the material relations of production, unveiling internalised modes of control, how these have come under threat in recent times, and discursive strategies to restore them - albeit in modified form.…
The "Servants" of Dehradun: A Changing Relationship between Municipal Councillors and Voters in India
The “typical” municipal councillor in India is usually portrayed in the literature as a political entrepreneur in a clientelistic relationship with voters, providing privileged access to the state in return for electoral support. This article arose out of a lack of familiarity with this portrait and the municipal councillors (known locally as Parshads) of Dehradun. Ethnographic research and the co-construction of in-depth profiles with women Pars…
Negotiating the Boundaries of Voluntarism: Values in the Indian NGO Sector
Values are an essential part of the identity of non-government organizations (NGOs), distinguishing them from other sectors and contributing to their legitimacy. Values are neither uncontested nor wholly self-determined, but rather are products of the broader social and political environment. The meaning of values must be negotiated with multiple actors, such as funding agencies, the state, and the general public including their “clients.” This p…
Vulnerability as ethical practice: Dismantling affective privilege and resilience to transform development hierarchies
This paper introduces new analytical concepts to reveal overlooked dimensions of power inequalities between elite development agents (EDAs), local development agents and the targets of aid. Affective privilege captures the positioning of EDAs within affective patterning that sustains their dominant position. They enjoy a greater capacity to affect others in ways that reproduce structural power. Affective resilience captures their reduced capacity…
Affective registers in qualitative team research: Interpreting the self in encounters with the state
Purpose This paper presents an approach to enhance understandings of personhood and self-becoming through an affective reading of field notes and interview transcripts in cross-cultural research teams. Design/methodology/approach A research team in Medan, Indonesia, captured the affective and emotive aspects of a research scene in field notes that were subsequently shared. Through prompting and elaboration, researchers were able to reveal the pat…
Moral sentiments in Aidland: Aid and development as moral experience
This short article introduces the special section "Morality in Aidland," which brings together three articles exploring the work of moral sentiments in social actors' understandings of and engagements with local, national, and international aid and development practices
Gaji Sejuta: Moral experiences and the possibilities for self in a community-driven development program in Indonesia
This article explores the moral experiences of volunteers working in a 'community driven development' program in Medan, Indonesia. Reframing development as a moral experience helps to illuminate its potential as a site for self-becoming: a potential that lies not only in the ethical dilemmas that development provokes but also in the affective and emotive responses made possible in scenes of development. For low class volunteers who are excluded f…
Being harmed while doing good: Affective injuries in a community development programme, Medan, Indonesia
Complaints, accusations, and failures of gratitude are everyday experiences for volunteers in community-driven development in Medan, Indonesia. In this article I develop the analytic of 'affective injury' to describe the force of such encounters: the sensation of having one's ethical self questioned or put at risk that manifests as an immediate force or lingering hurt. While humanitarian and development workers are all susceptible to affective in…
Gambling on Livelihoods
“Farming is just like gambling” is a common saying among villagers in Telangana, India, and Central Lombok, Indonesia. Commercial cultivation has made agriculture more risky, as well as potentially more profitable; it contains the possibility for both ruin and fortune. This paper aims to shed light on how farmers experience this uncertainty by going beyond material conditions to pay attention to hopes, desires and fears. The translocal study exam…
Broken Pathways to Politics: Clearing a Path from Grassroots to Representative Politics
This article seeks to explain why so few women make the journey from social activism and community work to standing for election. Comparative research in Indonesia and Sri Lanka reveals four operations critical to mending the broken pathway to politics for non-elite women. Transference entails the recognition and valuing of women’s preexisting skills, knowledge and experiences gained through grassroots activity for the political field. Amplificat…
Beyond 'State Ibuism: Empowerment Effects in State-led Development in Indonesia
This article examines the ways women's processes of self-formation are indicative (or not) of new possibilities for women's gendered selves in the post-Reformasi period in Indonesia. It focuses on the development arena to reveal how shifts in state rhetoric, from top-down guidance based on a patriarchal familial model to bottom-up, inclusive development based on empowerment, have transformed what is referred to as the 'topography for self'. The a…
Becoming a Developer: Processes of Personhood in Urban Community-driven Development, Indonesia
Community-driven development in Indonesia requires the recruitment of volunteers: local residents with the will to develop themselves and others. By revealing the processes of personhood in light of volunteers’ own theories of self, I aim to disrupt simple readings of subjectification in the anthropology of development. Local volunteers understand their recruitment as having the opportunity to occupy a social position that is aligned with their j…
Spoiling the situation: Reflections on the Development and Research Field
The development field as a site for research and practice has largely escaped critical scrutiny in development studies. Accounts of the conceptualisation of the field have not been complemented with an examination of the practices that maintain the field as a site conducive to development. This paper draws on experiences working with small, local NGOs in India to examine how the field is maintained, and the underlying logic that underpins the rel…
Peddlers of Information: Unintended Consequences of Information-Centred Development for North Indian Non-Government Organizations
Information and knowledge have re-emerged as essential resources in the fight against poverty, with new opportunities for their dissemination seen to empower the poor and the agencies that work with them. While optimism is high, little empirical evidence exists as to the actual effect of these changes within localized development contexts. This article contributes to overcoming this lacuna by exploring the role of local non-government organizatio…
A site for the empowerment of women? The clash of patriarchal values and development norms in a family-based NGO
Patriarchal norms of the Indian family and normative development goals of gender equity and women's empowerment make uncomfortable bedfellows. This article examines the processes of institutional bricolage that occur with the overlap of these two institutional spaces using ethnographic evidence from two family-based NGOs. It finds that although there is evidence of decoupling between formal structures and actual practices, this does not discount …
Answering the critics: The Potential and Limitations of the Knowledge Agenda as a Practical Response to Post-Development Critiques
Post-development critiques and subsequent debates have sparked revision in the development sector, influencing recent approaches to knowledge in development. This article examines the extent to which the ‘knowledge strategies’ applied to development agencies are compatible with the normative characteristics of ‘reflexive development’. It argues that although development agencies are seemingly in a process of transforming thinking and practice, re…
Is money an insurmountable barrier to women’s political representation in transactional democracies? Evidence from North Sumatera, Indonesia
Elections are expensive, disadvantaging women with limited access to financial resources. Strategies to address this problem have focused on increasing women’s campaign funds or lowering costs such as nomination fees. While important, such strategies will not overcome the disadvantages women face in countries where “transactional politics” is rife, with voter expectations for gifts and/or cash multiplying the costs of elections. Following the 201…
(Dis)comfort, judgement and solidarity: Affective politics of academic publishing in development studies
The publication of a controversial article in Third World Quarterly and the consequent unveiling and critical questioning of journal practices continue to engender strong negative feelings for many scholars. At a critical juncture within the publication process of this collection, we faced an ethical dilemma regarding how to maintain political and ethical commitments while manoeuvring within a sometimes hostile academic environment. Here we exami…
Understanding power in development studies through emotion and affect: Promising lines of enquiry
In this volume, the contributors take affect and emotions as a means to cast ‘development’ in fresh light. Recognising that the affective dimensions of life are a critical part of social, political and economic organisation, each contribution draws upon theories of affect and emotion to enrich understandings of power within development studies. This introductory essay critically reflects on dominant understandings of power in the field, outlining…
The Familiar Face of the State: Affect, Emotion and Citizen Entitlements in Dehradun, India
Municipal Councillors (MCs) are the 'familiar face of the state' in Dehradun, India: the first port of call for citizens seeking to claim entitlements from the state. The way MCs respond to the requests of their constituents is a major factor in the uneven distribution of government welfare and services. This article seeks to contribute to understandings of citizen entitlements by drawing attention to the role of affect and emotion in shaping the…
A moral atmosphere of development as a share: Consequences for urban development in Indonesia
NGOs, ‘Straddler’ Organisations and the Possibilities of ‘Channelling’ in Indonesia: New Possibilities for State–NGO Collaboration
The Badan Keswadayaan Masyarakat (BKM—Board for Community Self-reliance) are organisations established by the state as implementing agents of a community-driven development programme in Medan, Indonesia. Members are elected from the local population, but they continue to be supported by, and associated with the state. They are therefore ‘straddler’ organisations: organisations that span the state–civil society divide. This paper seeks to answer t…
Sightings of the State, Reflections of Self as Citizen: Self-Becoming in Development Encounters
Empowering Women: A Critique of the Blueprint for Self-help Groups in India
Development agencies have increasingly regarded ‘empowerment’ as an essential objective to improve the well-being of marginalised women in India. The perceived success of self-help group (SHG) programmes in this project has encouraged their widespread application across India, becoming the primary mechanism to empower women. However, this success has often been assumed rather than proven, with evaluations generally lacking a conceptualisation of …
The End of Poverty: How we can make it happen in our lifetime
The Rationale of Self-help in Development Interventions: A Case Study of a Self-help Group Programme in Tamil Nadu
Self-help is often perceived as a valuable, if not essential, element to development programmes. At the same time, as a concept it has generally escaped scrutiny. Two types of claims are made about the benefits of selfhelp programmes. First, it is suggested that self-help empowers its participants more so than other externally directed or implemented programmes. The second less vocal claim is the compatibility of self-help with cost-reduction str…
Answering the critics: The Potential and Limitations of the Knowledge Agenda as a Practical Response to Post-Development Critiques
Post-development critiques and subsequent debates have sparked revision in the development sector, influencing recent approaches to knowledge in development. This article examines the extent to which the ‘knowledge strategies’ applied to development agencies are compatible with the normative characteristics of ‘reflexive development’. It argues that although development agencies are seemingly in a process of transforming thinking and practice, re…
Non-Government Organisations, Self-Help Groups and Neo-Liberal Discourses
In India the presence of a large number of non-government organisations (NGOs) is often seen to attest to the strength of its civil society. It is claimed that NGOs' close links with marginalised p
Negotiating the Boundaries of Voluntarism: Values in the Indian NGO Sector
Values are an essential part of the identity of non-government organizations (NGOs), distinguishing them from other sectors and contributing to their legitimacy. Values are neither uncontested nor wholly self-determined, but rather are products of the broader social and political environment. The meaning of values must be negotiated with multiple actors, such as funding agencies, the state, and the general public including their “clients.” This p…
Cultivating model developing citizens: Exposing the grassroots to the MDGs
Research about the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) has tended to view them through the lens of policy-makers and development practitioners. Ignored is the question of how the people who are the ‘targets’ of development programmes – the poor and marginalized – experience the MDGs. Based on ethnographic research of a local non-government development organization (NGDO) in North India, I use the example of a village meeting to explore how policy…
Serious Games in Livelihood Analysis: Reflections from the Case of Agricultural Wage Labourers in Andhra Pradesh
This article presents an approach to anticipating future livelihood portfolios through Sherry Ortner's model of ‘serious games’. The value of the model is to draw attention to the (always shifting) purposes and intentions that direct people's lives, within a social, cultural and material context that differentially constrains and enables. Power is central to the approach, and to the understanding of processes of social reproduction and transforma…
Peddlers of Information: Unintended Consequences of Information-Centred Development for North Indian Non-Government Organizations
Information and knowledge have re-emerged as essential resources in the fight against poverty, with new opportunities for their dissemination seen to empower the poor and the agencies that work with them. While optimism is high, little empirical evidence exists as to the actual effect of these changes within localized development contexts. This article contributes to overcoming this lacuna by exploring the role of local non-government organizatio…
A site for the empowerment of women? The clash of patriarchal values and development norms in a family-based NGO
Patriarchal norms of the Indian family and normative development goals of gender equity and women's empowerment make uncomfortable bedfellows. This article examines the processes of institutional bricolage that occur with the overlap of these two institutional spaces using ethnographic evidence from two family-based NGOs. It finds that although there is evidence of decoupling between formal structures and actual practices, this does not discount …
Spoiling the situation: Reflections on the Development and Research Field
The development field as a site for research and practice has largely escaped critical scrutiny in development studies. Accounts of the conceptualisation of the field have not been complemented with an examination of the practices that maintain the field as a site conducive to development. This paper draws on experiences working with small, local NGOs in India to examine how the field is maintained, and the underlying logic that underpins the rel…
Decentralised Governance as Sites for Self-Formation: A Comparison of Practices of Welfare Distribution in Telangana, India, and Central Lombok, Indonesia
Studies that examine the effects of decentralisation for social change or stasis have placed necessary attention on its institutional dynamics: the ways social institutions have transformed as a result of new governance regimes, or alternatively, how the existing institutional context and attendant power relations determine its actualisation. The second facet of the structure/agency dialectic is often overlooked however, that is, the actors thems…
Gambling on Livelihoods
“Farming is just like gambling” is a common saying among villagers in Telangana, India, and Central Lombok, Indonesia. Commercial cultivation has made agriculture more risky, as well as potentially more profitable; it contains the possibility for both ruin and fortune. This paper aims to shed light on how farmers experience this uncertainty by going beyond material conditions to pay attention to hopes, desires and fears. The translocal study exam…
Sightings of the State, Reflections of Self as Citizen: Self-Becoming in Development Encounters
Breaking the backbone of farmers: Contestations in a Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme
This paper examines narratives about the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGA) to reveal people's interpretations of changes to agrarian relations in Andhra Pradesh. Through narratives, we are able to reveal more than just the material relations of production, unveiling internalised modes of control, how these have come under threat in recent times, and discursive strategies to restore them - albeit in modified form.…
Decentring Development
The ways we understand processes of agrarian change are pressing issues for policy makers and development practitioners. Interpreting changes in two agrarian societies in India and Indonesia, the auth
The State and the Self
Corbridge (2007) uses this evocative scene to argue that even small changes in the way marginal people engage with the state can be significant. It is an encounter with the state in which the widow is positioned not only as subordinate and inferior but also as a citizen. She draws upon the discursive resources that comprise the practice of collecting her entitlement, not only to govern her action, but in ways that can inform her understanding of …
Learning the anthropology of development: The university as a site of knowledge construction and identity formation
Recent work exploring student reactions to the anthropology of development highlights the importance of going beyond simply imparting practical skills, or alternatively delivering content that offers an unrelenting critique (Djohari 2011; Handler 2013). In this paper, I argue that by casting an anthropological eye on the classroom, teachers can provide a learning environment in which students transform into reflective ‘novice’ practitioners equip…
Decentring Development: Understanding Change in Agrarian Societies
Affective registers in qualitative team research: Interpreting the self in encounters with the state
Purpose This paper presents an approach to enhance understandings of personhood and self-becoming through an affective reading of field notes and interview transcripts in cross-cultural research teams. Design/methodology/approach A research team in Medan, Indonesia, captured the affective and emotive aspects of a research scene in field notes that were subsequently shared. Through prompting and elaboration, researchers were able to reveal the pat…
NGOs, ‘Straddler’ Organisations and the Possibilities of ‘Channelling’ in Indonesia: New Possibilities for State–NGO Collaboration
The Badan Keswadayaan Masyarakat (BKM—Board for Community Self-reliance) are organisations established by the state as implementing agents of a community-driven development programme in Medan, Indonesia. Members are elected from the local population, but they continue to be supported by, and associated with the state. They are therefore ‘straddler’ organisations: organisations that span the state–civil society divide. This paper seeks to answer t…
Moral sentiments in Aidland: Aid and development as moral experience
This short article introduces the special section "Morality in Aidland," which brings together three articles exploring the work of moral sentiments in social actors' understandings of and engagements with local, national, and international aid and development practices
Gaji Sejuta: Moral experiences and the possibilities for self in a community-driven development program in Indonesia
This article explores the moral experiences of volunteers working in a 'community driven development' program in Medan, Indonesia. Reframing development as a moral experience helps to illuminate its potential as a site for self-becoming: a potential that lies not only in the ethical dilemmas that development provokes but also in the affective and emotive responses made possible in scenes of development. For low class volunteers who are excluded f…
Clinging to Hope through Education: The Consequences of Hope for Rural Laborers in Telangana, India
Education is for marginalized people in agrarian Telangana, India,themeans to getting ahead, at the same time that structural conditions have diminished its potential. This article considers the consequences of education's failures for parents' positioning within a society that is purported to be "moving forward." I draw upon Berlant (2011) and Ahmed (2010) as a starting point to explore the possibility that the idea of progress through education…
Becoming a Developer: Processes of Personhood in Urban Community-driven Development, Indonesia
Community-driven development in Indonesia requires the recruitment of volunteers: local residents with the will to develop themselves and others. By revealing the processes of personhood in light of volunteers’ own theories of self, I aim to disrupt simple readings of subjectification in the anthropology of development. Local volunteers understand their recruitment as having the opportunity to occupy a social position that is aligned with their j…
Political science (46 works) · Sociology (41 works) · Law (35 works) · Politics (29 works) · Law (27 works) · Psychology (19 works) · Social Psychology (17 works) · Economics (15 works) · Anthropological Studies and Insights (13 works) · Gender Politics and Representation (13 works)