Transnational reflections on transnational research projects on men, boys and gender relations

This article reflects on the research project, ‘Engaging South African and Finnish youth towards new traditions of non-violence, equality and social well-being’, funded by the Finnish and South African national research councils, in the context of wider debates on research, projects and transnational processes. The project is located within a broader analysis of research projects and projectization (the reduction of research to separate projects), and the increasing tendencies for research to be framed within and as projects, with their own specific temporal and organizational characteristics. This approach is developed further in terms of different understandings of research across borders: international, comparative, multinational and transnational. Special attention is given to differences between research projects that are in the Europe and the EU, and projects that are between the global North and the global South. The theoretical, political and practical challenges of the North-South research project are discussed

'This is not America': Cultural mythscapes, media representation and the anatomy of the Surveillance School in Australia

Schools have exhibited a demonstrable predilection for surveillance technologies in recent years. While much attention has been paid to the globalized diffusion of surveillance and security practices, in contrast, the ways in which artefacts of surveillance surface and take root unevenly internationally has not received much scholarly attention. Drawing on the media representation of emergent school surveillance technologies in Australia, this article seeks to illuminate how distinctive cultural dynamics interact with acceptability, reverence and rejection of surveillance apparatus in the educational context. Far from revealing homogeneity in the manifestation of surveillance practices, the findings show that cultural context and specificity are central to understanding the materiality of surveillance apparatus and regimes

Comparison of one-site vs. multi-sites calibration schemes for hydrological modelling of nested catchments in the West African Sahel

Runoff simulation in highly anthropized catchments is complex, but essential for water management, especially in poorly gauged and data-scarce hydrosystems of the West African Sahel. This study aims to evaluate the effect of different calibration schemes on runoff simulation. The physically-based and semi-distributed hydrological SWAT (Soil and Water Assessment Tool) model is used to simulate daily runoff in the Nakanbé catchment at Wayen station in Burkina Faso (in the West African Sahel) over the period 2006–2012. Four (4) hydrometric stations (Dombré, Rambo, Ramsa and Wayen) gauging 4 nested catchments (ranging from 1060 to 21 178 km2 in size) are considered. The added value of the consideration of nested catchments is assessed through the following 3 calibration schemes: one-site (OS) at the entire catchment outlet (Wayen); multi-sites with nested sub-catchments (MS1); and multi-sites without considering nested sub-catchments (MS2). The results indicate that OS and MS2 schemes perform well (KGE &gt; 0.7, |PBIAS|&lt;3 %), with MS2 scheme being superior (KGE, PBIAS). However, the MS1 scheme (KGE = 0.68; PBIAS = −22.9 %) performed worse in comparison to the traditional OS scheme. The comparison of the three modelling schemes provides evidence that accounting for nested sub-catchments does not necessarily improve the quality of rainfall-runoff simulations. Yet, multi-site calibration should be favoured when catchments are not nested.</p

Country Concepts and the Rational Actor Trap: Limitations to Strategic Management of International NGOs

Growing criticism of inefficient development aid demanded new planning instruments of donors, including international NGOs (INGOs). A reorientation from isolated project-planning towards holistic country concepts and the increasing rationality of a result-orientated planning process were seen as answer. However, whether these country concepts - newly introduced by major INGOs too - have increased the efficiency of development cooperation is open to question. Firstly, there have been counteracting external factors, like the globalization of the aid business, that demanded structural changes in the composition of INGO portfolios towards growing short-term humanitarian aid; this was hardly compatible with the requirements of medium-term country planning. Secondly, the underlying vision of rationality as a remedy for the major ills of development aid was in itself a fallacy. A major change in the methodology of planning, closely connected with a shift of emphasis in the approach to development cooperation, away from project planning and service delivery, towards supporting the socio-cultural and political environment of the recipient communities, demands a reorientation of aid management: The most urgent change needed is by donors, away from the blinkers of result-orientated planning towards participative organizational cultures of learning.Des critiques croissantes de l'aide au développement inefficace exigent de nouveaux instruments de planification des bailleurs de fonds, y compris les ONG internationales (ONGI). Une réorientation de la planification des projets isolés vers des concepts holistiques de la planification de l’aide par pays ainsi que la rationalité croissante d'un processus de planification orientée vers les résultats ont été considérés comme réponse. Toutefois, si ces concepts de pays - nouvellement introduites par les grandes OING eux aussi - ont augmenté l'efficacité de la coopération au développement est ouvert à la question. Tout d'abord, il y a eu l’impact des facteurs externes, comme la mondialisation de l'entreprise de l'aide, qui a exigé des changements structurels dans la composition des portefeuilles des OING vers la croissance de l'aide humanitaire à court terme. Cela était difficilement compatible avec les exigences de l'aménagement du territoire à moyen terme. Deuxièmement, la vision sous-jacente de la rationalité accrue de la planification, concentré sur les resultats, comme un remède pour les grands maux de l'aide au développement était en soi une erreur. Un changement majeur dans la méthodologie de la planification, étroitement liée à un changement d'orientation dans l'approche de la coopération au développement, qui n’est pas concentrer sur planification du projet et la prestation de services, mais qui soutienne l'environnement socio-culturel et politique des communautés bénéficiaires, exige une réorientation de la gestion de l’aide: Le changement le plus urgent est un changement par les donateurs eux-mêmes, qui devrait implanter des cultures de collaboration étroit avec les partenaires et la population locale

Against the epistemicide. : Itinerant curriculum theory and the reiteration of an epistemology of liberation

Echoing Ettore Scola metaphor “Bruti, Sporchi & Cativi”, this chapter challenges how hegemonic and specific (or so called) counter hegemonic curriculum platforms – so connected with Western Eurocentric Modernity – have been able to colonize the field without any prudency to “fabricate” and impose a classed, raced and gendered philosophy of praxis, as unique, that drives the field to an ideological surrealism and collective suicide. Such collective suicide framed by a theoretical timesharing unleashed by both dominant and specific counter dominant platforms that tenaciously controlled the circuits of cultural production grooms the field as a ghetto, flooded with rudeness, and miserable ambitions, a theoretical caliphate that wipes out any episteme beyond the Western Eurocentric Modern terrain, insolently droving to sewage of society the needs and desires of students, teachers and the community. Drawing from key decolonial thinkers, this chapter examines the way Western eugenic curriculum of modernity created an abyssal thinking in which ‘this side’ of the line is legitimate and ‘the other side’ has been produced as ‘non-existent’ (Sousa Santos B, Another knowledge is possible. Verso, London, 2007). The paper suggests the need to move a post-abyssal curriculum that challenges dominant and counter dominant traditions within ‘this side’ of the line, and respects ‘the other’ side of the line. The paper challenges curriculum studies to assume a non-abyssal position one that respects epistemological diversity. This requires an Itinerant Curriculum Theory (Paraskeva JM, Conflicts in curriculum theory: Challenging hegemonic epistemologies. Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2011), which is a commitment and a ruthless epistemological critique of every existing epistemology