Listening to the listeners: intersections of participation, voice, and development in community radio

Community radio has long been considered a “voice for the voiceless”. But what good is a voice if no-one is listening? This thesis explores the role of listening in community radio. Specifically, how community radio broadcasters in India listen to their audiences and how these interactions influence broadcast content and other station activities. In discussing this, this research also examines the effect of a development agenda upon community radio stations in India. Employing an interpretive framework of cognitive justice, this research employs a bricolage-inspired approach to ethnography. The Hindi term jugaad reflects community radio’s contingent, determined, occasionally haphazard spirit, and therefore forms the basis of the methodology. A jugaad approach, in this case, means a multi-sited qualitative study that takes an adaptive approach and utilises methods from ethnography and other approaches as appropriate. In alignment with this jugaad methodology, the methods of data collection included participant observation, interviews, Kusenbach’s (2003) “go-alongs”, and listener storytelling. Three types of indepth, semi-structured interviews were conducted: listener focus groups, staff group interviews, and one-on-one interviews with key informants. The final method was listener storytelling which invited listeners to share personal narratives regarding their relationship and interactions with the radio stations. Data were then analysed using a combination of constructivist grounded theory and narrative analysis. Data collection took place at two rural community radio stations in South India. Though the identities of the stations themselves have been loosely disguised, the general location of this research is within the state of Tamil Nadu in the south of India. The foremost findings of this research relate to the influence of a development agenda on the community radio sector in India. Manyozo’s (2017) concept of "the spectacle of development" provides a useful frame for understanding the insidious ways in which development shapes the lives of so-called 'beneficiaries' at all levels. The spectacle of development was observed throughout the research data through the ways that audiences and station staff interpreted and performed development. Despite the participatory, horizontal flows of communication espoused in community radio literature, there was clear evidence of a modernisation discourse operating through a top-down transmission of information. While the spectacle of development clearly influences the work of community radio stations in India, there were examples of how the spectacle and subsequent spectres can be subverted. One such example was when community radio stations act as amplification of local or indigenous knowledge communication systems. This was observed through the amplification of local technical knowledge, as evidenced by the knowledge sharing practices of farmers, as well as cultural knowledge, which could be seen in the preservation of local traditions and the sharing of various aspects of different cultures. Community radio is intended as a participatory medium, but the spectacle of development and other contextual factors serve to limit who can participate and how. What emerged from the research was the value or meaning that audience members derived from their participation, however limited or restricted it was. Audience members derived value in several areas - voice, ownership, identity, and agency - all of which are collectively termed "meaningful participation”. The final area of findings relates to listening, which emerged as a way of subverting deeply entwined power structures to create new communicative spaces. Creating these spaces requires those in positions of power, such as community radio broadcasters, to relinquish this power and act as "listeners" themselves to work towards political equality. For community radio stations working within a development agenda, audience members most appreciate programming and activities that are deeply embedded within the contextual environment of the community and are based on listening to their needs and interests. The broader implications of these findings offer insight into how stations might design programming and activities to deeply engage with their audiences and embed themselves as an essential part of the local media landscape.</div

Energy ‘access’ for sustainable development: Enabling modern energy practices in rural communities

Modern energy services are a foundation for sustainable development. As recently acknowledged by the multilaterally supported UNDP’s ‘energy access for all’ objective, it is a missing cog for the socio-economic, empowerment, livelihood enhancement and sustainability of more than 2 billion people in developing and less developed countries. Efforts to provide modern energy services, however, face pervasive challenges reflective of wider development efforts, establishing the imperative for greater understanding of their underlying dimensions as a basis for enhancing sustainable development pathways. The thesis pursues this through ethnographic studies of innovative and contrasting energy access pathways in remote areas of Nepal. These were supported by preliminary site visits, semi-structured interviews, participant observation and observant participation with a range of key development actors, led by a reflexive, multi-sited research approach. The research reveals that the challenges and opportunities of effective energy access and sustainable development are embedded in under-recognised social routines and contexts that subsume essential dimensions of daily life. These are dynamic, multi-actor and interconnected through routinised codes, performances and institutions for which social emotions, meanings and relations are integral. Interventions, technologies and impacts interdepend on these mundane interactions and structures, signifying the vital role of social agency and conventions in everyday life. ‘Access’ is a constant (re)negotiation of these within a socio-technical context. The findings demonstrate the value of integrating these dimensions into development approaches through being attentive to, and co-produced by, the plurality of actors, settings and routines. A practice theory informed approach supported the analysis to signify further distinctive policy, research and pathway implications. The thesis thus demonstrates the potential of a social practice approach for enabling a more sensitive and effective framework for enabling energy access for sustainable development

Irrigationalism – the politics and ideology of irrigation development in the Nam Songkhram Basin, Northeast Thailand

ABSTRACT The principal drivers of modern irrigation development in tropical Asia are widely understood to be political economy related factors such as demographics, changing diets, international food prices, globalization, urbanization, national food and energy policies, and increasingly, climate change. Such standard drivers of change tend to dominate mainstream water resources development discourse, embedded in instrumental and functional modes of thought and practice. Contrary to the dominant tendency in professional irrigation literature to rely on engineering or managerialist paradigms to conceptualize the field of water resources development, this thesis takes as its starting point an inherent recognition of the political and ideological nature of irrigation development, seen as an organizational tool for state control of people, society and water. This study is concerned with understanding the exercise of power and authority in societal irrigation development, through the analysis of a complex, cross-scalar, multi-actor case study in the context of Thailand, conceived of as an exemplar of a modern hydraulic society. Examining a single river basin case study (the Nam Songkhram) in Thailand’s marginal Northeast and based on a mixed methods, inter-disciplinary approach, the empirical evidence suggests that a number of powerful actor groups in society, including hydraulic bureaucracies, the military, the private sector, national politicians and the monarchy, form alliances or “strategic groups” that compete to control the process of irrigation development at multiple scales and draw upon a range of material practices and discursive processes to further their individual and collective interests. The research contends that irrigation development is justified by socially constructed narrative framings located within the cultural and historical milieu of Thailand, understood to form part of a resilient and rather static nationalist-linked ideology (termed irrigationalism), employed in the reproduction and outward expansion of state power from the Bangkok-centric core to the periphery

Management Controls for Sustainable Development: Evidence from a Thai Manufacturing Organisation

This thesis aims to empirically investigate the use of management controls in relation to sustainable development within an established manufacturing organisation in Thailand. Situated within the conflicts between formal motivators (e.g., performance measurement and reward systems) which call for economic rationalism and an informally cognitive responsibility for socio-ecological awareness and commitment (Ball and Milne, 2005; Milne, 1996), the existence of formal and informal management controls to support the sustainable development belief and their interplays are examined. An inductive research approach with Laughlin’s (1991) organisational change framework is drawn upon in the analysis of a single case study. The empirical evidence is collected through semi-structured interviews, non-participant observations and document analysis to investigate the organisation's sustainability discourse. This study makes important contributions to the extant social and environmental accounting literature, especially concerning management controls. Little research directs towards how organisations integrate their management controls with the sustainable development concept (Lueg and Radlach, 2016) due to its subjective and disputable nature (Ball and Milne, 2005; Gray, 2010; Milne, 1996). This research goes further to unveil the change journey in quantifiable and religious-based management controls within a Thai manufacturing organisation that encountered complex sustainability challenges. Furthermore, the sustainability concept has been integrated into corporate strategies, organisational culture and key capabilities for value-added activities and innovation. The internal and external disturbances were managed with proper caution and safeguards. The observed formal and informal management controls worked interdependently in line with the organisation’s core values (i.e., interpretive schemes – Laughlin, 1991). These control tools are shown to be built on “measure what can be managed” or achievable-based outcomes with support from multiple specialist work groups

Rivers of the Anthropocene

This exciting volume presents the work and research of the Rivers of the Anthropocene Network, an international collaborative group of scientists, social scientists, humanists, artists, policymakers, and community organizers working to produce innovative transdisciplinary research on global freshwater systems. In an attempt to bridge disciplinary divides, the essays in this volume address the challenge in studying the intersection of biophysical and human sociocultural systems in the age of the Anthropocene, a new geological epoch of humans’ own making. Featuring contributions from authors in a rich diversity of disciplines—from toxicology to archaeology to philosophy— this book is an excellent resource for students and scholars studying both freshwater systems and the Anthropocene

Rivers of the Anthropocene

This exciting volume presents the work and research of the Rivers of the Anthropocene Network, an international collaborative group of scientists, social scientists, humanists, artists, policymakers, and community organizers working to produce innovative transdisciplinary research on global freshwater systems. In an attempt to bridge disciplinary divides, the essays in this volume address the challenge in studying the intersection of biophysical and human sociocultural systems in the age of the Anthropocene, a new geological epoch of humans’ own making. Featuring contributions from authors in a rich diversity of disciplines—from toxicology to archaeology to philosophy— this book is an excellent resource for students and scholars studying both freshwater systems and the Anthropocene

Rivers of the Anthropocene

This exciting volume presents the work and research of the Rivers of the Anthropocene Network, an international collaborative group of scientists, social scientists, humanists, artists, policymakers, and community organizers working to produce innovative transdisciplinary research on global freshwater systems. In an attempt to bridge disciplinary divides, the essays in this volume address the challenge in studying the intersection of biophysical and human sociocultural systems in the age of the Anthropocene, a new geological epoch of humans’ own making. Featuring contributions from authors in a rich diversity of disciplines—from toxicology to archaeology to philosophy— this book is an excellent resource for students and scholars studying both freshwater systems and the Anthropocene

Haste

What does it mean politically to construct climate change as a matter of urgency? We are certainly running out of time to stop climate change. But perhaps this particular understanding of urgency could be at the heart of the problem. When in haste, we make more mistakes, we overlook things, we get tunnel vision. Here we make the case for a ‘slow politics of urgency’. Rather than rushing and speeding up, the sustainable future is arguably better served by us challenging the dominant framings through which we understand time and change in society. Transformation to meet the climate challenge requires multiple temporalities of change, speeding up certain types of change processes but also slowing things down. While recognizing the need for certain types of urgency in climate politics, Haste directs attention to the different and alternative temporalities at play in climate and sustainability politics. It addresses several key issues on climate urgency: How do we accommodate concerns that are undermined by the politics of urgency, such as participation and justice? How do we act upon the urgency of the climate challenge without reproducing the problems that speeding up of social processes has brought? What do the slow politics of urgency look like in practice? Divided into 23 short and accessible chapters, written by both established and emerging scholars from different disciplines, Haste tackles a major problem in contemporary climate change research and offers creative perspectives on pathways out of the climate emergency