A Tale of Two Mediterraneans

Photo by Dimitris Panagiotaras on Unsplash

Written by Irene Garcia

This year has seen unprecedented amounts of migrants arriving at the Balearic Islands. So far in 2021, 91 boats with more than 1400 people have arrived on the shores of these islands. This year has also seen unprecedented numbers of Spanish tourists in the Balearics – in some islands it was up to double the numbers of 2019. Over the summer, I took part in the University of Warwick Undergraduate Research Support Scheme (URSS). Focusing specifically on Spain, I investigated the dominant representations of the Mediterranean in Spanish popular culture and how they exclude and dehumanise the experiences of migrants. I did this by looking at popular culture materials which portray images of the ‘hospitable Mediterranean’, as well as existing migrant testimonies describing their experience of arrival in Spain. Through a discourse analysis of these materials, I looked at how migrant testimonies can challenge dominant views of the Mediterranean, and how these struggles can shape the way the Mediterranean is represented.

Mediterráneamente

The mainstream representation of the Mediterranean is evident in the advertising campaign by the beer company, Estrella Damm, which released yearly advertising campaigns in the summer under the slogan “Mediterráneamente”. This translates as “in a Mediterranean way”, submitting so-called Mediterranean values alongside images of a picture-perfect summer and a catchy song. These adverts have become an important part of Spanish television culture – the 2021 advert accumulated 14 million views in the two months after it was released, an incredibly high figure for a television advertisement.

The key theme of the beer advertisement is the ‘Mediterranean way of life’, based on values such as hospitality, respect and altruism. This appears throughout the plot of the video advertisement, which follows a woman at the beach who appears to have fallen for a famous actor standing on the other side of the beach. In the end, the main character does not walk up to the famous actor, and instead approaches a volunteer who is cleaning the ocean just behind him. The volunteer is described as generous, willing to act and change the status quo, and a good person. Arguably, these are the kind of Mediterranean values that the advert is trying to transmit, values which correlate with the findings of the Anna Lindh survey on intercultural trends in the Mediterranean region, in which Spanish respondents answered that hospitality, the ‘Mediterranean way of life and food’, and the ‘common cultural heritage’ best describe the region.

As the beach-goers gossip about the possible relationship between the woman and the famous actor, they remark that she is out of his league. In this context, one of the characters says that “certain borders cannot be crossed”, meaning that they see no future for the pair. However, another character says that he is about to be witness to a “love without barriers”. Using words like “border” is not accidental and has to be considered within a climate in which migration has been highly politicised by certain political parties and groups in Spain. Interestingly, in the advert, these connotations happily coexist with the picture-perfect beach in the background. Highly charged concepts are, in this way, instrumentalised and used as props to further the advertisement’s plot.

Migrant perspectives on the Mediterranean

I also examined a series of migrant testimonies collated by the Spanish Commission of Help for Refugees (CEAR), a Spanish NGO dedicated to defending the rights of refugees, stateless people, and migrants who need international protection or are at risk of social exclusion. In their 2018 campaign “The Other Sound of the Sea”, the organisation interviewed 6 migrants who survived their trip across the Mediterranean fleeing poverty or war. The migrants were asked about their experiences of the crossing and the sounds that they associate with the sea. CEAR then placed these audio recordings in seashells and left them in various Spanish beaches to showcase migrant experiences.

In contrast to the Estrella advert, these testimonies evidence a distorted sense of hospitality. Migrants describe how they are expected to be grateful for having the opportunity to build a life in Spain yet are not given the space to voice their traumatic experiences or denounce the state’s abuse towards them. In one of the interviews, for example, Ibrahim explains that there is a lot of abuse in the detention centres upon arrival. He uses impersonal verbs and does not specify who is the abuser. For example, he states that “there is abuse in these centres” and that “not everyone treats people well”. Moreover, he ends these remarks by emphasising that “not all of them are bad, but there are some that don’t speak well to you”. It is impossible to know why he shifts towards a softer tone and a use of impersonal verbs here, but it might have something to do with the context in which the interview took place, that is, he is being interviewed by a Spanish organisation on Spanish soil. It is possible that he does not want to be overly critical and seen as attacking their host, that is, the Spanish state. A man called Kurami also speaks of his experiences at the detention centres, which held 1500 people at the time despite only having space for 400. He explains how some people spend six months in these centres, and that he had to stay there for 54 days. He finishes by simply saying “we are lucky”.

These testimonies are reminiscent of a warped relationship between a host and guest. Migrants are under pressure to show gratitude for having the opportunity to make a life in the country yet are not given the space nor the power to voice traumatic experiences or to hold the state accountable for the way that they have been treated. The experiences of migrants contradict the kind of image that the Estrella Damm advertisement is trying to portray. Migrants may speak of Spain as a secure place, in comparison with their home countries, but not necessarily as a hospitable place. The values of generosity, kindness, hospitality or altruism do not appear in migrant testimonies describing deathly journeys across the Mediterranean, only to be abused and treated with disdain upon their arrival on European shores. Listening to migrant voices and centring their experiences is key in highlighting what is ignored by dominant narratives. The narratives of those who are excluded directly challenges established assumptions; the imagery portrayed in the Estrella Damm advertisement turns sour when contrasted with the lived experiences of migrants.

Author Bio

Irene Garcia is an undergraduate student, studying History and Politics at the University of Warwick. Her areas of interest include migration, the history of Latin America and the contemporary history of Spain. She is currently preparing her dissertation on the experiences of Spanish migrants in Mexico in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War.

Mouzayian Khalil : 28 Oct 2021 00:39 |  Tags: Mediterranean Values Migration Popular Culture Refugees Stateless People |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Degrees of separation: examining space and place in international jurisdiction trials

(Credit: Alex Jeffrey)

Written by Alex Jeffrey & Briony Jones[1]

The concept of international jurisdiction purportedly erases the role of space in deciding which acts are appropriate for legal action. But in the operation of judicial processes the role of space plays a crucial role in the possibility and success of trials. Work over recent years has focused on the challenge of giving or gathering testimony across international boundaries, reflected on the role of different legal cultures in creating barriers to the completion of trials, and debate over the location of trials for both logistical and/or symbolic reasons. This blog reflects on an expert discussion held on the 3^rd of May. Bringing together academics and practitioners[2] we focused on two key areas: evidence and expertise; and court location and legitimacy. For the first area we were interested in discussing how issues of proximity and distance, materiality and embodiment shape the possibilities of gathering testimony or accumulating evidence, as well as how particular kinds of knowledge become legally legible and useful. For the second area we were interested in discussing the implications of trial location and what the consequences are of distance between the alleged crime and the site of legal redress.

The two concepts of proximity and distance were central to the discussions. The idea of proximity is often attached to questions of intimacy, of embodiment, of place. Distance is often understood through ideas of separation, of being dispassionate, of being technical or instrumental in ways in which legal processes unfold. The questions of proximity and distance feed into a whole array of further issues of the very unequal landscapes of power that international legal processes unfold within. So, when we think about proximity and distance we quickly arrive at questions of the relationship between legal processes and peacebuilding; of what kind of justice is being pursued – restorative, retributive, distributive justice; of technical issues surrounding the organisation of legal processes; of how the issues of proximity and distance play out within the unfolding of trials, for example, or the organisation of court spaces; and of which kinds of knowledge are drawn upon in how the legal processes are organised and unfold.

Our discussions quickly identified a tension between international jurisdiction and continued presence or pressure of bounded territory and their applicable laws. We first heard from Sara Kendall and Jennifer Burrell who offered insights from the National Sciences Foundation (United States) funded project ‘Evidentiary Dilemmas and Emergent Publics: How Contestations Over New Geospatial Technologies are Shaping International Justice’. International jurisdiction such as the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, the International Criminal Court, and the Special Court for Sierra Leone have used satellite imagery before, but the status of Geo-Spatial evidence gathered by other actors such as civil society organisation and the family members of disappeared persons raises new questions about evidence and expertise. For international bodies such as the International Criminal Court, evidence has traditionally been the preserve of experts, governed by strict standards of admissibility. However, work by civil society and families of victims gathering Geo-Spatial data, for example on the location of graves, raises questions about the different constituencies in accountability projects: in whose name, by whom, and for whom is justice carried out? What constitutes evidence and how should it be sourced? Such developments and the questions they prompted have led to changes in the legal landscape. There has been an increase in technical training for using such technology, the development of apps by civil society organisations to establish chains of custody in crowdsourced evidence, and the establishment of a Scientific Advisory Board at the International Criminal Court. There has also been a challenge to previous ideas of the ‘expert’ as families of the disappeared develop knowledge of Geo-Spatial technologies that go beyond the knowledge of prosecutors.

We then heard from Holly Porter who reflected on the epistemological implications of space and place with reference to the trial and conviction of Ugandan Dominik Ongwen at the International Criminal Court. In particular she recounted her experience of watching on television the confirmation of charges hearing, whilst sitting in a hotel in Gulu, Northern Uganda, where many of the atrocities Ongwen was convicted of had been committed. During this hearing there was an extension of the crimes to include sexual crimes, and both the prosecution and defence spoke directly to this. When they did so, there was an illuminating contrast between the Latin references of the prosecution, who referred to the rape of women in Roman mythology, and the cultural references of the defence attorney, who referred to the customary ceremonies and performances of marriage. As Holly Porter argued, it was clear that international jurisdiction was bringing together multiple loci of enunciation in one moment. The events were live streamed, and experienced, enunciated, and apprehended, in multiple places at the same time, with different audiences in mind. The technology of livestreaming made this possible, for justice to ‘speak’ from and to different places. This confluence of the local, national, and global was at the heart of this instance of international jurisdiction.

In the following presentation Megan Hirst from Doughty Street Chambers offered a practitioner’s view of the relationship between the physical proximity of the court and victims, and the legitimacy of the court. She spoke with reference to the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, created by a 2001 law to try serious crimes committed during the Khmer Rouge regime from 1975-1979, and the International Criminal Court investigations into Bangladesh-Myanmar. Working on the assumption that there is a connection between legitimacy and victim-centredness[3] Megan reflected on the intimidating physical set-up of international court rooms, of the limited cultural and linguistic local knowledge of international lawyers, and of the need for a court to be accessible to victims in the case of delayed or lengthy justice processes. Community engagement, inclusion of civil parties, opportunities to attend hearings, and opportunities to interact with other victims and lawyers were all cited as ways to approach effective court outreach. Importantly, we need to know more about what individuals’ value about participating in court activities and what individuals who have not participated feel they have missed. This will vary hugely, and as Megan pointed out it is not necessarily only the experience of going to court and testifying which is relevant but the associated interactions which may have value for victims.

In all of the presentations and discussions during the workshop it was clear that proximity per seis not a good thing for victims. Conditions of accessibility to justice processes, of modes of participation, and constructions of expertise all shape the degrees of separation between court and victim and how they are experienced. Moreover, we can think of proximity in multiple ways. There is the proximity of knowing – of how much information is shared, accessible and moving between victims and lawyers. There is the proximity of place – of the physical location of the court and how it might operate outreach activities. And there is the proximity of empathy – how much individuals in the international justice process can understand and empathise with the situations and experiences of victims. The degrees of separation between victims and international justice processes are real and relevant but we need to know much more about how the complexities of distance and varied proximities shape the experience of victims as well as the perceived legitimacy of a given court or justice process.

Author Bios

Alex Jeffrey is a Reader in Human Geography at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Emmanuel College. Alex’s research has focused on the politics of international intervention in post-conflict societies with a particular focus on the role of legal practices and institutions. Alex is author of two single-authored monographs: The Improvised State(Wiley-Blackwell, 2013) and The Edge of Law (Cambridge University Press, 2020).

Dr Briony Jones is a Reader in International Development in the Politics and International Studies Department of the University of Warwick. She is also Co-Director of the Warwick Interdisciplinary Research Centre for International Development. Briony’s research takes place at the intersection between development, peacebuilding and transitional justice with a strong focus on citizenship, the politics of intervention, and the politics of knowledge.

Mouzayian Khalil : 29 Sep 2021 10:16 |  Tags: International Criminal Court International Jurisdiction International Law Justice Peacebuilding |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

‘Brand Modi’ and India's Policy Concerns

Photo by Kremlin.ru; licensed under CC BY 4.0

As India was struggling with its devastating second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, help poured in from expected and unexpected corners of the world. For the first time in 16 years, India began accepting assistance not only from its friendly strategic partners like the US and Russia but also from its fiercest economic and geopolitical competitor, China. However, India has been reluctant to acknowledge the help provided as “aid”. Instead, India’s External Affairs Minister, S Jaishankar, has referred to it as “friendship and support” and as a favour returned for the earlier COVID-19 assistance India provided the world. Even as its socio-economic, public health, democratic freedom and other indicators continue to plummet, India wants to be seen as an equal partner, not in need of aid but rather only “support”. As India resumed trade talks with the UK, EU and others, it continued its wordplay by emphasising the ideal of Vasudhaiva kutumbakam (“the world is one family”) as Modi’s catchphrase Atmanirbhar Bharat ("self-sufficient India") conveniently took a backseat. Such moves reveal India’s excessive preoccupation with maintaining its image both domestically and internationally. What is troubling though is that this posture within India’s ruling elite has also led to the mismanagement of covid crises. The state risked the lives of many by allowing mass religious and political gatherings, irrational vaccination policies, undercounting and underreporting of covid cases and the like. This post delves into why the Modi government is engaging in semantic manipulations to protect its image and how such manipulations harm India.

One possible reason for the BJP bending over backwards with its wordplay is to defend its “Vaccine Maitri” initiative. The initiative, which provided vaccines to countries of the global south, met with immense criticism as India faced vaccine shortages amid its devastating second wave. Two months after the initiative was launched, the government proudly proclaimed in the parliament that more shots were sent out of the country than were administered to its citizens. Thus, as the government was being condemned, framing the aid as a favour returned was essential for party interests, especially as state election campaigns were underway. The government needed to vindicate itself by arguing that the aid it provided was a beneficial foreign policy investment for India.

However, such a defence of vaccine maitri needs to be viewed from the broader BJP agenda of protecting “Brand Modi”. Since the 2014 national elections in India, Hindutva realism has become a mainstay of the BJP’s playbook. The BJP emphasises a strong centralised leadership and a doctrine of self-help or self-reliance. Modi has become the face of BJP’s Hindutva realism. The 2016 demonetisation of Indian currency, the surgical strikes across the Line of Control, abrogation of special status to India’s only Muslim majority state, imposition of a nationwide lockdown with only a few hours’ notice, and Atmanirbhar Bharat are only some projects the government undertook to portray Modi as a fearless leader working for India’s integrity and sovereignty. Even the recent cabinet reshuffle, which saw some of BJP’s top-leadership lose portfolios, was not shown as the government’s acceptance of its failures but rather portrayed Modi as a dynamic Prime Minister, who could punish his own ministers for poor performances. Despite running a heavily centralised administration, where every major policy decision requires his approval, Modi is seen shifting the blame onto his aides.

The BJP government was also pressured into paronomasia due to its obsession with building its brand. As Modi began to depict himself and India as a strong and rising power, Indians in India and abroad began to feel emboldened and prematurely succumbed to the vision of India as a vishwaguru (“ a teacher to the world”). Thus, as India, in a matter of days, was reduced to an aid recipient from its cultivated image of an aid donor, Indians and the Indian diaspora were embarrassed. They were ashamed and resented that the country was brought to its knees. Therefore, in a move to prevent its supporters from feeling disaffected, the BJP began terming the aid received as “friendship”.

The cost of BJP’s rhetoric has been high for India. Firstly, by denying and downplaying the crisis, the Indian political elite had allowed itself to be blindsided in its handling of the crisis. In January this year, instead of preparing for the second wave by ramping up testing and vaccine production, Modi was busy claiming to the world during the 2021 WEF summit that he had crushed the COVID pandemic. As the state can’t fix what it doesn’t recognise as a crisis, India underwent critical failures in governance and administration. Modi proclaiming his victory over the pandemic in both the international and domestic arena also made matters worse as it infused irrational confidence among Indians. Ordinary citizens and political leaders alike, taking Modi’s claims for granted, threw caution to the wind and began attending gatherings in hoards. Millions worshipped their gods at the Kumbh Mela, and their leaders in political rallies with no social distancing or masks putting lives at risk.

Modi’s BJP did not only fail to prevent a crisis, but it failed to mitigate one when it inevitably arrived. The government’s ministries surrendered national interest, democratic freedoms and civil liberties to protect the regime’s interest. As the living begged for oxygen and the dead for a space to lay their bodies, the Government showed little concern for its citizens. It hid its cases and resorted to draconian laws to suppress criticism. The External Affairs Minister also called on his diplomats to counter the apparently “one-sided” criticism of the government by international media. To make matters worse, BJP indulged in medical humbuggery. Vijay Chauthaiwale, the head of the national party's foreign affairs department, encouraged the consumption of bovine urine and turmeric as possible cures. Furthermore, reacting to the criticism over the Kumbh Mela, the Uttarakhand chief minister declared on March 20, “nobody will be stopped in the name of COVID-19 as we are sure the faith in God will overcome the fear of the virus.” National and Global networks need credible data to assess damages and determine disease dynamics and such actions by the government only make policymaking weaker and more difficult. As The Washington Post's aphorism goes, “democracy dies in darkness”.

In the realm of foreign policy, India’s failures have only played to China’s advantage. Not only have China’s doors to South Asia been left unguarded, but Modi’s obsession with image building and photo-ops has made him a liability in dealing with China. Modi had become tone-deaf to Chinese aggression as Xi Jinping met him at least 18 times since 2014 to give him the photo-ops he wanted. This only led to BJP making extremely bold statements such as their intention to take back Aksai Chin from China rather than be vigilant of Chinese transgressions at Eastern Ladakh last year. Instead of taking action, the government was busy denying Chinese occupation. This only let China take control of the public narrative. Though Modi appears to be taking a hard stance on China now, the damage has already been done.

Expectedly, Modi’s excessive preoccupation with protecting his image first and the party’s image second has only decreased India’s standing in the world. As India silences criticism and dissent, with an ever-tightening iron fist, and turns a blind eye to tragedy amidst a “once in a century crisis”, the international and domestic community has now begun to doubt India’s long-standing credentials as a liberal democracy. Modi needs to stop worrying about his image and start working on reality. The BJP is agitated, and perhaps understandably so. However, to save face by sticking its head in the ground is only going to exacerbate the situation.

Author Bio

Manjeeth S P is a Masters student in Political Science and International Relations at Indira Gandhi National Open University in India. His areas of interest are Indian foreign policy, political philosophy, political economies of marginalised communities, climate policy and education. He is currently preparing for the Civil Services Examination in India.

Mouzayian Khalil : 14 Sep 2021 23:46 |  Tags: Aid Covid 19 Support Foreign Policy India Politics Of Vaccines |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Mexican mid–term elections in the context of institutional weaknesses and economic short–sightedness

(Image by Author)

Written by Fabian Tigges

On June 6, 2021, Mexico experienced the largest elections of the country’s history. According to the National Electoral Institute (INE), 93 million Mexicans were eligible to vote on governorships, a new lower house of Congress and thousands of mayoral and local legislator posts. While Mexico’s president Andrés Manuel Lopéz Obrador (known as AMLO) was not on the ballot, last week`s mid-term elections were largely a referendum on his policies and decisive for the remaining three years of his presidency. Central to the success of his term in office will be his ability to deliver on economic development, guiding Mexico out of the Coronavirus slump. So far, however, the Mexican president has been known for his intolerant and impulsive decision-making. Meanwhile, his illiberal populist policies have not only failed to deliver on made campaign promises, but threatened Mexican checks and balances. As the country has been plagued by years of short-sighted and non-inclusive economic development policy, AMLO’s style of politics is paradigmatic of Mexico’s failure to live-up to its economic potential. Instead of developing a long-term strategy, the Mexican president puts personal interests first, promoting a short-sighted and unsuccessful strategy to combat poverty, crime, and corruption.

In 2018, AMLO entered office with a landslide electoral victory, making populist promises to the poor, advocating an economic nationalist stance, and promoting a state-centred economic model. Three years into his presidency there is, however, no sign of economic development, as the Mexican economy stagnated at -0.06 per cent GDP growth in 2019, while suffering a devastating decrease of over 8 per cent in GDP growth in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. However, instead of investing into the education and health system to promote economic development and prospects for Mexico’s youth, AMLO has been cutting down on essential funds in research and development as well as in cultural and social institutions, arbitrarily redirecting the money to Mexico’s poor. For instance, rather than establishing targeted skill development, tutoring or entrepreneurship programmes, and attracting investment to create long-term job opportunities, the Mexican president implemented a programme of non-targeted and unconditional transfer payments to Mexico’s high percentage of youth not in employment, education or training (so called NiNis). Hence, rather than finding long-term solutions to the Mexican economy’s challenges, AMLO convinces his people with populist claims and short-sightedly treats symptoms of a sick economy, which brings in votes but does not provide development prospects for Mexico.

Judging on the first three years of AMLO’s presidency, he is about to join a group of former Mexican presidents – from different political camps – who failed to reach long-term economic growth and inclusive development in the country. Throughout the 1980s, Mexico experienced a drastic shift in economic policy away from a developmentalist approach towards economic liberalisation. In subsequent years, Mexico opened-up its economy, influenced by US-trained technocrats, following the playbook of the Washington Consensus. While in the short-term trade liberalisation had positive effects on increasing exports and FDI inflows, it failed to significantly improve long-term inclusive economic development in Mexico. Over the last two decades, universal access to education was established, yet, there are large regional differences in the quality of education and only half of students attend upper secondary education. In addition, the labour force participation rate for women is far below that of men, and low in comparison to other countries within the OECD as well as in Latin America. Meanwhile, total factor productivity has had no positive impact on overall economic growth, indicating extremely limited productivity growth in the Mexican economy. The consistently high rate of migration to the US can be interpreted as a symptom of the limited economic opportunities in Mexico. While AMLO explained the increasing number of migrants, referring to US president Biden's friendlier migration policies, the motivation of many Mexicans to cross the border rather lies in people’s dissatisfaction with the economic prospects in their home country and the hope for a better life.

Looking back at the mid-term election results, while the president’s ruling party Morena (National Regeneration Movement) has lost its supermajority in the lower house of Congress, it will hold on to power in coalition with the Labour Party and the Ecologist Green Party of Mexico. However, the ruling coalition falls short of a two thirds majority, thus, unable to make amendments to the constitution, which are necessary to push forward the president’s ambitious agenda. Yet, far more significant for the assessment of Mexican development and its state of democracy are the following numbers: since the beginning of campaigns in September 2020, the political risk consultancy firm Etellekt registered 100 assassinations of politicians, 36 of which were candidates, as well as over 900 acts of violence against politicians, ranging from verbal threats to kidnapping of and violent attacks on politicians and their family members. The violence is mainly motivated by drug cartels, seeking strategic power in local municipalities.

For decades, Mexican governments have struggled to put an end to organised crime and violence. Yet, insufficient economic opportunities in the formal economy and weak state institutions create patterns of incentives that strengthen the power of drug cartels. In addition, the ties of organised crime go deep into Mexican politics. In one of his morning press conferences, AMLO stated that there is no war on drug trafficking anymore. Unlike his predecessors, the Mexican president changed the strategy to tackle organised crime with “hugs not bullets”. In other words, he follows the approach of alleviating poverty and thereby diminishing the incentives to turn to drug groups in absence of state presence. Yet, his strategy lacks clear measures to directly address the power of organised crime in Mexico. On the contrary, instances like the bungled and brief capture of the son of Mexican drug boss “El Chapo” Guzmán in October 2019, or AMLO’s controversial handshake with Guzmán’s mother raise doubts about the Mexican president’s allegiance. In addition, various candidates of Morena are wanted in the United States. For instance, in the state of Guerrero, Félix Salgado Macedonio (Morena), the former candidate to the governorship and father of the new governor-elect, Evelyn Salgado (Morena), has been investigated for being involved in organised crime in the state’s largest city of Acapulco as well as on various accounts of violence and abuse. Despite these heavy allegations, AMLO defended Salgado. Furthermore, Mexico’s impunity rate of over 90 per cent gives drug cartels plenty of rope.

All in all, Mexico still has a way to go on the route to development, as it faces deep gender inequalities, significant deficiencies in the education system and lacking economic perspectives for its youth. Changing governments have not allowed for continuity and a long-term strategy in economic development that is focused on creating economic opportunities for its people. Meanwhile, the influential position Mexican drug cartels hold in politics and society is incentivised through patterns of corruption and impunity, and lies at the root of Mexico’s problems. Yet, instead of fighting the power of drug cartels through strengthening state institutions and the rule of law, the ties of organised crime go deep into the ruling party’s members.

Author’s Bio

Fabian Tigges is a Postgraduate student of International Political Economy at the University of Warwick and of Politics and Public Administration at the University of Konstanz. His MA dissertation was titled “From Austerity to Recovery Spending: Contemporary Economic Thought in Times of Crisis”. Since October 2020, he is an executive board member of the Warwick Global Development Society (WGDS). He is also a student Research Assistant at the chair of Political Science and International Politics of the University of Konstanz.

Mouzayian Khalil : 25 Aug 2021 14:00 |  Tags: Democracy Elections Mexico |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

A Climate Reality Check, on Social Collapse and Public Knowledge

‘Global Food Prices are Already Higher than for Most of Modern History’

Written by Alastair Smith

The Theory of Civilisational Collapse

Extinction and Rebellion, the global Climate Emergency campaign network, believe that Global Heating and associated Climate Breakdown has already locked in a likely “Social Collapse” (Reed 2020; Hallam 2019). To understand the potential for this, leading speakers such as Rodger Hallam argue, look at the failed state of Somalia (2019).

Potential pathways for such an unravelling of so-called “civilisation” include the collapse of asset prices for coastal property and the “fiscal crisis of the state”: the scenario in which ecologically catalysed recession is so deep, that the legitimacy of government evaporates as its capacity to fund welfare amid deep inequality is neutralised, and the poor cannot afford food (Hallam 2019). Based on their academic research and scholarship, Rupert Reed, Professor of Philosophy at the University of East Anglia, and Rodger Hallam, previously a researcher at King’s Collage London, also outline that we know exactly what happens to social stability when poor people lack food: they understandably secure their livelihoods in any way they can (Hallam 2019).

The ultimate end, Hallam (2019) suggests in talks given across the UK, is war. This might be across borders as hungry migrants move on scales the world has never seen (MPI 2020); it might be through internal conflict as citizens riot for food, facing little resistance where a police force and military have gone unpaid for long enough. If there is one robust law of social science, it is the one promulgated decades ago: revolutions happen when the masses go hungry (Risbridger 2018).

The Limits of Public Knowledge

For many, the sort of dystopian or apocalyptic visioning promoted by Extinction and Rebellion is inappropriate. Critiques refer to the fallacy of such a Malthusian’esk and neo-Malthusian theory that predicts significant social fallout when food demand outstrips food production. Commentators who prefer to celebrate the gains of human development, highlight that humanity has always triumphed in difficult times: “adversity is the mother of invention”, or so goes the often used, yet little reflected on saying of convenience.

Indeed, this is a privileged defence given that:

“The [UN’s] latest edition of the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World…estimates that almost 690 million people went hungry in 2019 - up by 10 million from 2018, and by nearly 60 million in five years. High costs and low affordability also mean billions cannot eat healthily or nutritiously”(FAO 2020).

Not only has the frequency of malnutrition grown in recent years, much of the most intensive nutritional deprivation is also inextricably interconnected with violent conflict (GAIN 2020). The causation between food availability and violence is of course complex, but only those with the fortune not to experience this nexus for themselves have the privilege to dismiss its relevance out of hand.

Moreover, the vast majority of the world has failed to notice a dual indictment of the current nature of human “progress through innovation”: that illustrated by the role of information, knowledge and education, a much-praised characteristic of democratic organisation and widely hailed as part of the “white” Northern world’s defence against social collapse.

Empirical Realities of Food Markets in 2021

As part of my scholarship for research-led teaching on food, security, sovereignty and sustainability, I have paid constant attention to the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organisation’s (FAO) regular reports on crop production, consumption and stocks, as well as their individual and collective prices (FAO various). In classes, I have elicited students’ current knowledge of food dynamics before challenging them with the more accurate realties. As part of this exercise, those learners thinking of themselves as well-informed find most headlines and graphical representations rather unsurprising.

To take a few examples of the insights we all might find familiar:

• “As more go hungry and malnutrition persists, achieving Zero Hunger by 2030 in doubt, UN report warns” (FAO 2020).
• “Prices are at the highest since 2014, risking faster inflation” (Bloomberg, May 2021).
• “Global food prices rise for 10th month in a row (April ReliefWeb 2021)”.
• “Most food commodity prices are gaining momentum as end-2020 approaches” (World Bank 2020).

Since I started writing this blog, some analysis has started to become more pertinent, with the more accurate soundbites that:

• “UN: Cost of food rises at fastest pace in over a decade” (BBC 2021)
• “Global food prices post biggest jump in decade” (Financial Times 2021)
• “Global Food Prices Keep Rising…The May figure is the highest of any month in almost ten years”.

Sadly, while more precise than previous accounts, this messaging still misses the simple statistical observation that obliterates the relevance of this coverage. Reviewing the “real” price of food over time – expressed as an index relative to a base year, rather than the nominal value in currency, which makes comparison harder due to inflation – the only relevant way to capture today’s status of global food prices is to say that:

‘It is on average harder to buy food today in 2021, than it has been since 2012, and in fact for most of the noughties, the entire decade of the 1990s, andthe 1980s; mostof the 1970s, and every year of the 1960s! Food is more expensive today than it has been for most of the modern recorded history’.

Even though the FAO has not coined this summary, its own graphic representations show the gravity of our current reality. While the FAO’s version can be seen at the bottom of their recent webpage (2021), below is my most recent reproduction, as I share with my students. Here the graph shows the most recent 2021price index calculation in blue, thus allowing easy visual comparison with the historical trend, shown in grey.

Here we see that apart from the food price crisis of 2012, and the oil price crisis of the 1970s, today’s real costs of buying food are higher than almost the entire period since records began in 1961. This also means that the real price is also now higher than in 2010, when food shortages and interrelated price crisis gave rise to what the European media labelled as the “Arab Spring”, in which multiple North African governments were overthrown (Zurayk 2011).

Beyond this, knowledge creators and distributors have been fixated on COVID as the reason for recent price increases. This is again as well illustrated by a Google search for information, which returns summaries such as:

“Global food commodity prices in a post-COVID world” (World Bank 2020)

“The prices of raw materials that go into morning staples have surged since the start of the pandemic” (FT May 2021).

It is certainly true that COVID has disrupted global food supply (Loborde et al 2020), however, this framing disregards a much more prominent theme, identified by FAO crop reports that provide explanations about the dynamics of supply and demand. For the most part, these regular briefings are written in fairly technically and arguably obscurantist language: here you’ll find expressions that attribute price rises to “increasingly tight global supply with lower-than-earlier-expected production and stock estimates…”.

However, when you move past these broad expressions you find others that explain the problems of food production: “Concerns over dryness in South America” (FAO 2021), “owing to poor weather conditions that curtailed yields” (2021a), “continued dry weather has partially curbed prospects, and field reports confirm inferior crop conditions compared to the average” (2021a). Put simply, one of the most prominent themes in FAO analysis has been the unpredictability of weather and the manifest inability of technology to full mitigate for this.

It is of course important not to be alarmist. This analysis is not sufficient to conclude that unpredicted weather results from climate breakdown, which is already undermining our collective ability to produce enough food. It is true that in recent years declining supply of some key commodities - such as cereals that provide nutrition for c.50% of the human species – has been outstripped by growing demand, therefore literally eating into global buffer stocks. However, buffer stocks do exist for this very purpose and there will always be periods of over demand: the situation remains stable because supply is sufficient to meet needs over the longer term.

What this empirical reality does clearly demonstrate however, is that when weather is hard to predict, for example where long-term climate patterns change, and continue to change as is increasingly predicted by leaked updated IPCC consensus science (Harvey 2021), producing enough food to feed a growing population will be increasingly challenging.

In summary, five overall conclusions emerge:

1. It is indisputably now harder to buy food in 2021, than it has been for most of modern history, and this should be reflected in headlines and sound bites. Moreover, malnutrition is growing not declining, and many of the most severe situations are interlinked with violent conflict. This is a damming indictment of the much-celebrated human potential.
2. Climate breakdown will continue for decades irrespective of any actions taken now or soon, and there is evidenced risk to our food systems and supply will be compromised in the future. It is likely that buffer stocks will be consumed, and prices will rise, therefore excluding more and more of the world’s poorest people, creating a context for local and international social instability (FAO 2020).
3. The end of “civilisation”, if and when it comes, very likely involves food riots and conflicts of a significant magnitude; a situation potentially catalysed by global pandemic (Bostrom & Cirkovic 2011). We will only know which crisis will be the last when it’s far too late to act.
4. Minimising further climate breakdown is an essential risk management strategy to avoid risks to our food system, and everyone has the responsibility to pressure for radical changes by those meeting at the Conference of the Paris (COP) 26 event in Glasgow this year.
5. Finally, we like to think we know about the Climate Emergency and its impact on our lives. However, the institutions we trust to provide appropriate information do not always tell us the whole story. Look past the headlines and the received opinion: your ability to see social collapse before it arrives might well depend on it.

Author Bio:

Alastair Smith is a Senior Teaching Fellow, in Global Sustainable Development, University of Warwick and Academic Lead for the Food Global Research Priority.

Mouzayian Khalil : 17 Aug 2021 09:36 |  Tags: Climate Change Food Security Global Food Prices |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Labour in the time of Covid–19: the intersecting struggles of India’s return migrants

Photo Credit: Sunil Kumar Aledia

Written by Avinash Kumar

Due to the global crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, almost every country in the world placed restrictions on economic activities and curbed the movement of people through the imposition of lockdowns. Migrant workers in the informal economy have faced immense challenges during this period of economic uncertainty and restricted mobility. What impact do job losses in the city have on their household incomes? What struggles do migrants face if they decide to return home? How do their households cope under these circumstances? This piece attempts to explore some of these questions drawing on interviews with return migrants across different states of India.

Perilous journeys to uncertain futures: migrant narratives

In India, a tragic situation arose during the first lockdown announced in March 2020. For internal migrant workers, many of whom are employed in the informal economy with no social security, lockdown implied immediate loss of jobs and shelter. Without access to proper transportation and resources, these workers were left with no choice but to return home on foot. The physical strain of these long journeys caused a huge loss of life among migrants and their families, including pregnant women, infants, and elderly people.

Recently, I conducted telephone interviews with ten returnee migrants based in different states in India with the aim of understanding how migrants manage their livelihoods after coming home from cities.[i] Many of the research participants discussed their treacherous journeys from cities to their homes. A resident of Uttar Pradesh described how he still feels the physical consequences of the journey. He said:

“Even after one year passed, I am still not well and there is a swelling in my leg because of the long journey on foot. I didn’t get food properly for 22 days while I was traveling. How do I work and feed my child and other members of my family? (March 28, 2021).

Others I spoke to mentioned that they have resumed agricultural work but are unable to make ends meet with such jobs. One said:

“The situation is getting worse because of unavailability of work. Sometimes I work as an agricultural laborer on someone else’s land and in return get Rs.60 a day which is not enough for survival with three children along with mother and wife” (May 17, 2021).

Many migrants informally employed in cities belong to Schedule Castes (SC), Schedule Tribes (ST), and Other Backward Classes (OBC)—groups with the least landed assets in the country. None of the return migrants I interviewed owned more than one acre of land, which is insufficient to produce the amount of grain needed to feed the family. A migrant, from Bihar said:

“I don’t have agricultural land so I work as a construction worker but work is not regularly available. It’s very difficult to manage the everyday household expenditure by working alone. Therefore, my wife also works on someone else’s land and in return gets some amount of grains” (March 15, 2021).

These narratives corroborate the fact that India faces a deep crisis in rural employment. Evidently, this crisis worsened during the pandemic in 2020. According to monthly Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy data, the rural unemployment rate in India shot up 7.69 percent in June 2019 to 21.11 percent in May 2020. This explains why most people I spoke to confirmed that they do not have any choice but to return to work in the cities.

Gendered impacts of reverse migration

The impact of reverse migration has notably affected the women of the household, their burden of housework and domestic violence has increased. The women I spoke with didn’t disclose their experiences of domestic violence[ii], but many spoke of an increased burden of housework. A woman resident of West Bengal explained,

“I am the only person who does all the household and agricultural work. I also have to take care of animals in the house. We have three children and mother in law to be taken care of” (May 17, 2021).

Another woman from Bihar working as a primary teacher in a government school explained that even though she is currently the sole-breadwinner in her family, providing unpaid reproductive labour is still expected of her.

“I am a school teacher but along with it, I also have to do all the household work. I have one child to be taken care of. My husband was working outside but he quit his job because of the covid crisis, no I am only earning member in my family. We cut our expenditure on food, traveling and clothes to manage the day-to-day household expenditure” (April 3, 2021).

Some women reflected upon the patriarchal norms that ensure that the burdens of day-to-day household work are not divided equally between women and men. A woman resident of Jharkhand argued:

“What does a man have to do? He only has to earn money. We have to do all the housework and look after the needs of the house. We also have taken care of our children” (May 18, 2021).

Concluding thoughts

The difficulties faced by migrants and their households during the Covid-19 pandemic provide an opportunity for policymakers to refocus their attention towards the wellbeing of migrants. For socially disadvantaged communities, staying at home renders them more vulnerable due to the unavailability of employment and being landless. Most SCs, STS and OBCs suffer due to their economic and social conditions despite various affirmative action programs. The government needs to prioritise the provision of special protection to them through caste-based social security support within existing labour laws in India. Similarly, women in the household are also victims of patriarchal discrimination; they are considered as free labourers at home and paid less in the workplace. Special emphasis on social, economic, and legal protection for women through various social security measures are needed to curb domestic violence and economic dependency on male members of the family.

Author Bio

Avinash Kumar completed his master’s degree in Development Studies at Dr. B. R. Ambedkar University Delhi in July 2020. His master’s dissertation titled “Migration, informality, and conditions of existence: A focus on Delhi”, examines the participation of socially disadvantaged groups (SCs, STs and OBCs) in informal migrant work and to examine their housing and living conditions. Currently, he is applying for PhD programmes.

Mouzayian Khalil : 27 Jul 2021 14:55 |  Tags: Coronavirus Pandemic Gender And Labour India Informal Economy Migrant Workers Shadow Pandemic |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

By the West, for the West: Deconstructing the Development Discourse

Photo by Bjørn Christian Tørrissen; licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

Written by Shreyanshi Upadhyaya

The term development is hard to define because, over the years, it has come to connote different things: in the realm of economics as an objective such as modernisation, capital growth, poverty eradication; in the realm of ideas as a meta-narrative, discourse, or grand strategy; in the realm of development agencies as aid; and finally, for leaders of the developing countries development has meant a beacon of hope for prosperity. Despite these different meanings, in the realm of common-sense understandings, development has always had a positive connotation. Developing countries have adopted numerous development paths and the UN grandiose Development Goals. However, despite these makeovers, development has failed to produce any successful process of eradicating global poverty or inequality. Then why do we still believe that development works?

The invention of ‘underdevelopment’ and ‘global poverty’

In 1949, US President Truman advanced his Point Four Program wherein he made it the West’s self-ascribed agenda to deal with ‘poverty’ in ‘underdeveloped’ areas. It is in the context of the Cold War competition for world domination between the West and the East that the ‘grand strategy’ of Western-style development was advanced by the US, where development aid was sent to the newly independent countries in exchange for their loyalty.

The development discourse during the Cold War became a force that the leaders of the ‘underdeveloped’ world genuinely believed in. Development promised to them a world where they could be as prosperous as their former colonisers. Their colonial experience had taught them that there was no space for demonstrated weakness and vulnerabilities such as insecure systems of food, health, trade, etc., in the international arena, which was already taken care of in the developed West. To undo this insecurity, development presented a beacon of hope. Hence, as E.P. Thompson notes, the people who were objects of development during the colonial times and had ended up in a situation of depravity due to its very functioning, came to fight “not against development but about it”. Such was the hope that was eschewed by the ideology.

Even in the neoliberal era, bullied by the IMF and World Bank for decades, developing countries adopted American institutions and policies under Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) to learn “good” economic practices to get a sip out of the elixir of development which was the stronghold of the West. Even as they witnessed, for instance, during the East Asian crisis, the coercion of these fellow developing countries by the US and the IMF to reduce government welfare expenditure—even as it resulted in the resurgence of AIDS in Thailand and curtailed food subsidies for the starving in Indonesia—they were told it would be painful at first, but in the end, they will emerge ‘developed’. Adopting SAPs on the recommendation of these international financial institutions led to similar adverse consequences for the African economies, at times heightening unemployment and social insecurity. The developing world held onto the hope of development even as, a decade after, the same policies—increased government spending, massive deficits, bailing out of banks, interest rates as low as zero—that they were lectured about being against growth were adopted by the US to deal with its own 2008 crisis, aided by some of the same officials at the IMF and the World Bank. Why, despite this, did the non-West continued to follow the linear path to development?

With Truman’s speech in 1949, two billion people suddenly came to homogenously identify themselves as ‘underdeveloped’. Failing to note what they possessed—cultural diversity, talented population, and biodiversity—they came to see themselves in terms of what they were lacking: development. The term ‘underdevelopment’ had never before been used to classify entire populations into a hierarchy, where the developed were superior and the ‘underdeveloped’ inferior. The term was thus the creation of the development discourse advanced by the West. The development discourse helped solidify a specific perception into a fact that suddenly dichotomised the world and spoke to the vulnerability of the newly independent countries. Hence, the discourse of development was enticing because it not only made the achievement of Western-style development seem attainable for the ‘underdeveloped’, but also created the desirability of such development in the first place.

Similarly, global poverty—which rendered two-thirds of the world poor—was a phenomenon that was the construction of the development discourse. Poor people had always existed in all societies—which, as highlighted by Mustapha Kamal Pasha, kept devising vernacular methods for their support—but they had never become a feature that characterised countries in this manner before. Global poverty meant that the ‘underdeveloped’ countries came to be defined in relation to the standard of prosperity set by the ‘developed’ countries.

The development discourse led to the construction of ‘underdevelopment’ and ‘global poverty’, both of which ushered the creation of new discourses and practices that shaped the reality to which they referred. Faced with this new social reality where their existence came to be defined in terms of ‘poverty’ and ‘underdevelopment’, the discourse of development came to be naturalised as the necessary response for the leaders of the Global South, which they believed must be followed at any cost. Hence, development can be understood as a pervasive discourse, through which, the West influences and produces social reality for the non-West.

‘Benign’ Remodelling of non-Western Societies through ‘Science’ and ‘Objectivity’

At the heart of the Western discourse of development lies the normative need to compare non-Western societies to those of the West and frame the difference in terms of something the former is lacking and should aspire to achieve. It is what they lack, and the West possesses, is precisely what makes the non-West ‘underdeveloped’. Since the West holds, through virtue of experience (which itself is abstracted from history), the secrets to development, the path to development cannot be walked without an external intervention by the West.

Hence, the discourse of development encourages a study of the non-Western society by the knowledge-bearers and experts of the West. These interventions have produced descriptions and statistics—which cannot help but remind one of the colonial practices of census for resource exploitation—of the ‘underdeveloped’ that convey the various standards in which the non-West is lacking against entirely Western-centric rubrics. Therefore, the discourse of development has attempted to normalise the world in terms of the developed West’s experience and expectations.

However, the failure to meet these standards is not taken kindly to in the development discourse. Prescriptions given by development institutions, abstracted from any relation to colonialism, indicate that the ‘underdeveloped’ are oppressed by their own lack of initiatives, primitive societies, traditions, and overpopulation. These adjectives are also repeated endlessly as the root cause of ‘problems’ in the developing countries. For instance, framing of the ‘crises’ of African agriculture by the World Bank rests on the seemingly obvious connection between “more people/less land/ lower productivity/less food” which are merely vast generalisations that not only ignore the historical experience and difference in social structures but also end up caricaturing Africa because of its population.

Timothy Mitchel has shown that USAID’s development texts on Egypt have continually portrayed the Nile Valley and the peasantry living there as external to the political and economic transformations of the twentieth century, and hence, static over centuries. Portrayed as primitive and unchanging, then, agriculture at Nile Valley understandably needs the influx of Western technology and expertise. Jonathan Crush blames the development discourse for the propagation of the idea that societies evolved in a linear fashion, which then allowed development professionals to assume certain societies as static or being stuck in the past.

Given the ‘problems’ of the ‘underdeveloped’ countries in meeting the Western standards of development, the development discourse benevolently takes it upon itself to share its knowledge, science, and expertise to tackle them. Arturo Escobar highlights that development thinking has led to a conception of the social life in the non-West as a technical problem which requires the intervention of experts and science to rescue itself from its own stagnation. Every aspect of life—even the poor themselves—is subjected to the eyes of the experts and in military language, ‘action plans’ are drawn to impose on such societies. This trust in experts is combined with a blind faith in science, technology, planning, international organisations, and aid agencies, which are all seen as neutral and inevitably beneficial since their value has already been proven by the Western achievement of development.

Though development presents itself as essential, it seldom produces any new knowledge to tackle the problems it had set out to. Mark Duffield has shown that since 1950s, development reports carry the same recommendations: check population growth, modernise agriculture, reforestation, increase aid spending, renewed focus on poverty reduction, etc. Hence, the ‘technical’ study of societies through development analyses leads to a common diagnosis of problems in diverse societies, which, in turn, leads to the transfer of standardised policies from one country to another to tackle them.

This uniform application of development techniques has had irreversible consequences for the societies and cultures within the non-West. The use of buzzwords such as ‘participation’ and ‘empowerment’ to denote the upliftment and involvement of communities in the development processes—which attach a moral feel-good character to the cause—has led to the legitimisation of many development interventions. However, the reality of the development discourse goes against the very idea of involving communities, who are continually ignored in the process. Stacy Leigh Pigg points out that in development planning, though it is widely assumed that villagers are “people who don’t understand”, there is an implicit sense that villagers must be labelled as ignorant not due to their absence of knowledge, but because of “the presence of too much locally-instilled belief”. Hence, the price of development has been the destruction of history and cultural traditions for two thirds of the world’s people.

The development discourse—by reducing people to data points, by destroying many historical practices of the non-West and tainting their cultures, by remodelling the non-Western societies according to Western standards, and by regarding percentage point decreases as an indication of poverty and inequality reduction—does violence to the very hope of a future without poverty and inequality. Thus, the development discourse advanced by the West works for the advancement of the West.

Author Bio

Shreyanshi Upadhyaya is a part-time Research Assistant at WICID and a full-time MA International Relations student at Warwick University. She draws inspiration from Postcolonial and Feminist International Relations theories, and her current research interests centre on optics, popular culture, and the construction of the national security environment in India.

Mouzayian Khalil : 15 Jul 2021 15:48 |  Tags: Development Development Discourse Global Poverty Underdevelopment |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Studying international development during the Covid–19 pandemic

Written by: Dana Unzicker and Fabian Tigges

Term One: International Development Group Photo (Source: authors)

The advent of the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020 radically changed the setting and conditions in which we study and think about international development. In this article, we want to reflect on how these extraordinary circumstances impacted our postgraduate studies in international development that took place at the University of Warwick. Despite the limitations on teaching that came with government guidance and national lockdowns, we made incredible progress as students of international development in an ambivalent study setting, where, on the one hand, we were virtually connected to students and scholars across the globe, but, on the other, were physically bound to our desks at home.

It is evident that the research object of development studies has been deeply impacted by the effects of the pandemic. Besides the obvious and disastrous impact on global health, the pandemic pushed more people into poverty, increased the global shortfall of employment, and reinforced and exacerbated existing inequalities. Furthermore, the interruption of global value chains challenged processes of ever-increasing global economic integration.

It was in this setting that we studied and discussed current issues and actors in international development, covering topics like globalisation, gender, poverty, inequality, trade, structural adjustment policies, food security, the everyday political economy of microfinance, and many more. All these issues were affected in one way or another by the pandemic. Some have experienced the acceleration of existing trends such as a shift in power relations in the globalisation debate, in others, the pandemicincreased awareness of already existing human crises as in the case of food security. Yet, the study of international development post-2020 goes far beyond the effects of the Covid-19 crisis, despite its unprecedented nature and omnipresence in public and academic debates. A key lesson learned from the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic has been its effect of drawing our attention to the invisible. For instance, the pandemic has shed light on critical issues along the lines of race and gender inequality as well as economic inequality and (inter-)dependence in the construction of global value chains. Our wonderful professor taught us the importance of visibility in the study of international development; how paying attention to the numerous invisible actors and their relations to a visible decision-making elite is essential when reflecting upon power relations in the global political economy. Beyond that, in impacting the ways in which we study and research, the pandemic not only drew attention to visibility but also, and crucially, to who is heard in the discourse of international development.

While visibility of issues and actors in international development was the key take-away from this year of study during the pandemic, it also closely relates to the overarching concept of space that accompanied us throughout the year. While we started our programme in international development in face-to-face classes on campus in Coventry, the winter lockdown sent us back to online teaching for the whole of spring term, where different living rooms became visible – or not, when cameras remained switched off. Many student homes became a place of both rest and study, as our classroom transformed into a virtual space.

International Development Symposium (Source: authors)

Throughout the year, we engaged with scholars from across the globe, making our classroom virtual and also global. The year culminated in the Warwick Symposium for International Development in the last week of spring term at the University of Warwick, where we discussed the study of international development in times of Covid-19, listening to inspiring presentations and talks by students and scholars, and findings from the WICID everyday in lockdown project. The pandemic thus created a somewhat ambivalent offsetting for our seminars. On one hand, we remained connected to our coursemates (some in the UK, some overseas) as well as with scholars from different parts of Europe, Hawaii, Canada, and India. On the other hand, the national lockdown bound us to our desks at home, making it our place of study and living. Hence, we were in a position, in which we communicated with the world, discussing international development and the global economy, while we were unable to freely leave the house and explore our local cities.

This was and is, of course, a challenging situation. However, it also serves to emphasise that our perspectives are limited in certain ways, framed through agenda-setting of powerful actors, and focused on particular regions and actors in the world. It highlights that we tend to view the world through particular lenses and angles that facilitate and allow us to see and hear certain actors and challenges, while at the same time preventing us from seeing and hearing other voices that are marginalised by different means. In a sense, this draws attention to the importance of space: To reflect on where we stand in different spaces but also to re-think space in order to render visible or hide challenges and connections between them, and to amplify or exclude different voices.

From scholars in the field, we learnt that the pandemic required a reconsideration of the role of the researcher and different research methods. This allowed us as students and our teachers to reconsider how we study development. Shifting the classroom to the virtual space made it possible to connect with scholars across the world to exchange ideas and research findings. This experience gave us new ideas for how to overcome some barriers to the global conversation on development, connecting people from different cultural and geographical backgrounds, but also, and crucially, made us aware of the barriers that remain. For instance, we speak different languages, live in varying time zones, and not all of us are privileged enough to have access to the technology required to connect to the world or to the funds necessary to pay university tuition fees.Thus, some barriers – shaped by (postcolonial and gendered) power relations – remain, and we need to be aware ofthem, when studying and thinking about development.

In a nutshell, the past year of studying international development during a pandemic has stressed the importance of reflecting on our own positionality as well as on what is visible and whose voice is heard when thinking about and doing research in the field of development studies. It is a challenging time to study international development as the pandemic put numerous constraints on research and exacerbated pre-pandemic problematics. Nevertheless, the pandemic also opened spaces to render visible the invisible, to challenge power relations, and to provide a momentum for change. Finally, we are incredibly grateful for the opportunity to learn from our classmates, scholars from around the world and the opportunity to make the best out of a tough year!

Authors’ Bios:

Dana Unzicker is a Postgraduate student of International Political Economy at Warwick. Her research interests are centred around globalisation and inequality. She studied “Theories and Issues in International Development” as an optional module and is a member of the Warwick Global Development Society exec board. In October, she will continue her studies at the University of Konstanz to obtain a Double Degree in Politics and Public Administration from Konstanz and Warwick.

Fabian Tigges is a Postgraduate student of International Political Economy at the University of Warwick and of Politics and Public Administration at the University of Konstanz. He is currently working on his MA dissertation with the title “From Austerity to Recovery Spending: Contemporary Economic Thought in Times of Crisis”. Since October 2020, he is an executive board member of the Warwick Global Development Society. He is also a student research assistant at the chair of political science and international politics of the University of Konstanz.

Mouzayian Khalil : 30 Jun 2021 10:55 |  Tags: Coronavirus Pandemic Studying During Covid-19 Studying International Development |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Studying international development during the Covid–19 pandemic

Studying international development during the Covid-19 pandemic

Written by: Dana Unzicker and Fabian Tigges

Term One: International Development Group Photo (Source: authors)

The advent of the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020 radically changed the setting and conditions in which we study and think about international development. In this article, we want to reflect on how these extraordinary circumstances impacted our postgraduate studies in international development that took place at the University of Warwick. Despite the limitations on teaching that came with government guidance and national lockdowns, we made incredible progress as students of international development in an ambivalent study setting, where, on the one hand, we were virtually connected to students and scholars across the globe, but, on the other, were physically bound to our desks at home.

International Development Symposium (Source: authors)

It is evident that the research object of development studies has been deeply impacted by the effects of the pandemic. Besides the obvious and disastrous impact on global health, the pandemic pushed more people into poverty, increased the global shortfall of employment, and reinforced and exacerbated existing inequalities. Furthermore, the interruption of global value chains challenged processes of ever-increasing global economic integration.

It was in this setting that we studied and discussed current issues and actors in international development, covering topics like globalisation, gender, poverty, inequality, trade, structural adjustment policies, food security, the everyday political economy of microfinance, and many more. All these issues were affected in one way or another by the pandemic. Some have experienced the acceleration of existing trends such as a shift in power relationsin the globalisation debate, in others, the pandemicincreased awareness of already existing human crises as in the case of food security. Yet, the study of international development post-2020 goes far beyond the effects of the Covid-19 crisis, despite its unprecedented nature and omnipresence in public and academic debates. A key lesson learned from the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic has been its effect of drawing our attention to the invisible. For instance, the pandemic has shed light on critical issues along the lines of raceand gender inequality as well as economic inequalityand (inter-)dependence in the construction of global value chains. Our wonderful professor taught us the importance of visibility in the study of international development; how paying attention to the numerous invisible actors and their relations to a visible decision-making elite is essential when reflecting upon power relations in the global political economy. Beyond that, in impacting the ways in which we study and research, the pandemic not only drew attention to visibility but also, and crucially, to who is heard in the discourse of international development.

While visibility of issues and actors in international development was the key take-away from this year of study during the pandemic, it also closely relates to the overarching concept of space that accompanied us throughout the year. While we started our programme in international development in face-to-face classes on campus in Coventry, the winter lockdown sent us back to online teaching for the whole of spring term, where different living rooms became visible – or not, when cameras remained switched off. Many student homes became a place of both rest and study, as our classroom transformed into a virtual space.

Throughout the year, we engaged with scholars from across the globe, making our classroom virtual and also global. The year culminated in the Warwick Symposium for International Development in the last week of spring term at the University of Warwick, where we discussed the study of international development in times of Covid-19, listening to inspiring presentations and talks by students and scholars, and findings from the WICID everyday in lockdownproject. The pandemic thus created a somewhat ambivalent offsetting for our seminars. On one hand, we remained connected to our coursemates (some in the UK, some overseas) as well as with scholars from different parts of Europe, Hawaii, Canada, and India. On the other hand, the national lockdown bound us to our desks at home, making it our place of study and living. Hence, we were in a position, in which we communicated with the world, discussing international development and the global economy, while we were unable to freely leave the house and explore our local cities.

This was and is, of course, a challenging situation. However, it also serves to emphasise that our perspectives are limited in certain ways, framed through agenda-setting of powerful actors, and focused on particular regions and actors in the world. It highlights that we tend to view the world through particular lenses and angles that facilitate and allow us to see and hear certain actors and challenges, while at the same time preventing us from seeing and hearing other voices that are marginalised by different means. In a sense, this draws attention to the importance of space: To reflect on where we stand in different spaces but also to re-think space in order to render visible or hide challenges and connections between them, and to amplify or exclude different voices.

From scholars in the field, we learnt that the pandemic required a reconsideration of the role of the researcher and different research methods. This allowed us as students and our teachers to reconsider how we study development. Shifting the classroom to the virtual space made it possible to connect with scholars across the world to exchange ideas and research findings. This experience gave us new ideas for how to overcome some barriers to the global conversation on development, connecting people from different cultural and geographical backgrounds, but also, and crucially, made us aware of the barriers that remain. For instance, we speak different languages, live in varying time zones, and not all of us are privileged enough to have access to the technology required to connect to the world or to the funds necessary to pay university tuition fees.Thus, some barriers – shaped by (postcolonial and gendered) power relations – remain, and we need to be aware ofthem, when studying and thinking about development.

In a nutshell, the past year of studying international development during a pandemic has stressed the importance of reflecting on our own positionality as well as on what is visible and whose voice is heard when thinking about and doing research in the field of development studies. It is a challenging time to study international development as the pandemic put numerous constraints on research and exacerbated pre-pandemic problematics. Nevertheless, the pandemic also opened spaces to render visible the invisible, to challenge power relations, and to provide a momentum for change. Finally, we are incredibly grateful for the opportunity to learn from our classmates, scholars from around the world and the opportunity to make the best out of a tough year!

Authors’ Bios:

Dana Unzicker is a Postgraduate student of International Political Economy at Warwick. Her research interests are centred around globalisation and inequality. She studied “Theories and Issues in International Development” as an optional module and is a member of the Warwick Global Development Society exec board. In October, she will continue her studies at the University of Konstanz to obtain a Double Degree in Politics and Public Administration from Konstanz and Warwick.

Fabian Tiggesis a Postgraduate student of International Political Economy at the University of Warwick and of Politics and Public Administration at the University of Konstanz. He is currently working on his MA dissertation with the title “From Austerity to Recovery Spending: Contemporary Economic Thought in Times of Crisis”. Since October 2020, he is an executive board member of the Warwick Global Development Society. He is also a student research assistant at the chair of political science and international politics of the University of Konstanz.

Mouzayian Khalil : 30 Jun 2021 10:46 |  Tags: Coronavirus Pandemic International Development Student Experience |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Navigating an interdisciplinary, multilingual project during the pandemic: teamwork is key

Project Team members (Source: author)

Written by: Bronwen Webster

Whilst working as a research assistant for Dr Briony Jones in November 2019, I joined a project team exploring the search for victims of enforced disappearance in Colombia and El Salvador, specifically the legal frameworks and search mechanisms available for families and friends as they search for their disappeared loved ones. The team consisted of researchers from search organisations in Colombia and El Salvador, namely Dejustica and Pro Búsqueda, the practice-oriented research institute swisspeace and the universities of Lausanne and Warwick. The project was funded by the Swiss Network for International Studies (SNIS). Considering the global scope of the project, it was managed by a remarkably small team of ten members. Five of them were working in Dejustica and Pro Búsqueda and played a vital part in the project by conducting the interviews of eleven different relatives and civil society actors in Colombia and El Salvador. Assessing these interviews alongside the legal frameworks and the actors involved in the search formed the basis of the project’s analysis.

Although the project team managed to meet a few times in person, it relied to a great degree on online collaboration from the start due to its international scope. As such, not much seemed to change when the world first plunged into lockdown back in March 2020. Whilst technology would always be necessary for a global project, the pandemic made online video calls even more essential. However, the ease with which the team worked together makes it easy to overlook the challenge of pulling-off an interdisciplinary, multilingual project, spanning organisations, time zones and languages, not forgetting the small issue of a global pandemic. So, what exactly made the project tick?

Throughout my time working with the team, I have noticed that the willingness of team members to learn from one another is crucial to the project’s success. Being part of an interdisciplinary project requires that you step out of your comfort zone, that being the discipline in which you are trained, and learn about a topic from a new and different angle. The range of disciplines within the project was diverse, spanning from practitioners and academics who were psychologists to traditionally trained lawyers and to political scientists. This allowed the team to analyse the experiences of the families and friends of the disappeared through three main paradigms: the legal, the psychosocial and the political. Regular communication, as a whole and in break-out groups, was not just a requirement but a necessity. It enabled the team to draw out how exactly these paradigms overlapped and combined to produce a lived experience for the victims of enforced disappearance. This was coupled with an open approach, which provided each team member the space and guidance they needed to understand such a complex topic. Personally, coming from a political science background, I found the team’s constant willingness to explain the legal frameworks at play really encouraged me to cultivate my own ideas, and feel at ease in communicating them.

When lockdown hit, we were lucky to have already been working together for a year, so the online environment did not faze us. In fact, not only did the team seamlessly continue in its work, but the regular meetings became a much-needed point of familiarity during the uncertainty of those first lockdown days. This enabled meetings to feel fluid and allowed for spontaneity within meetings as we brainstormed ideas. This is crucial when analysing a difficult and emotional topic through not just one, but three distinctly different disciplines.

The importance of cultivating this interdisciplinarity has become increasingly apparent to me as I have been helping to write the last of the three resulting papers. The paper explores the intersection between the legal and social definitions of what it means to be a ‘victim’ of enforced disappearance. Six members of the team have helped to write the paper, which is based on the methodological guidance of Mina, a Swiss-based academic specialising in psychology, and Lisa, a Swiss-based lawyer, who coordinates the whole project. I wrote the introduction, delving into the sociological definitions of the victim’s identity: Alejandro, a Colombian lawyer, and Ana, a Swiss-based lawyer, complemented this with outlines of the legal developments in both countries. Pamela, a Salvadorian psychologist, and Mina then analysed the interviews of the victims. Following this, Mina and Lisa edited the paper as a whole. All of our work on the paper took place through online conversations to explore the legal concepts and perceptions that victims had referred to across the disciplines, languages, and local contexts. Co-drafting a document on Google Drive meant that each of us could edit and see the edits of others in real-time, allowing us to work simultaneously on the paper and streamline our arguments. This short description provides a snapshot of the workings of an interdisciplinary project in reality.

Finally, what stood out most for me was the team’s warm and welcoming attitude. This attitude lies at the heart of the project’s success as a multi- and interdisciplinary project. Each team member not only brought something uniquely valuable to the table but was encouraged to actively develop their ideas across the disciplines; it is precisely this collage of different disciplines that has led to such rich analyses and conclusions.

Author’s Bio:

Bronwen Webster completed her Masters in International Development at the University of Warwick in September 2020, during which time she became involved in the SNIS project whilst working as a research assistant for Dr Briony Jones. She also holds a Bachelors from the University of Warwick in German and English.

Links to project pages:

WICID

Swiss Network for International Studies

swisspeace

Dejustica’s “virtual museum”, which the project helped bring to life.

Mouzayian Khalil : 25 May 2021 11:10 |  Tags: Columbia Coronavirus Pandemic El-Salvador Interdisciplinary Research Multilingual Projects Victim Search |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem