Economics, Relationality and The Good Life in Chiawa, Zambia

The chapter draws on fieldwork in Chiawa, Zambia, to ask what it means to talk of ‘the good life beyond growth’ in contexts of marginality and economic hardship. The chapter begins with a brief summary of villagers’ own perspectives on what a good life (or ‘wellbeing’) means. These emphasise the centrality of material sufficiency but locate this in a relational context: the importance of ‘taking care’ of others. The following section describes how the poverty of local livelihoods is only one part of the economy of Chiawa. It exists alongside, and is deeply intertwined with, a ‘modern’ development sector of high inputs and high profits. The chapter closes by describing what can be learned from the Chiawa case. Theoretically, it suggests the need to make relationality central to understandings of wellbeing. Substantively, it shows that Chiawa villagers do consider economic development to be a vital component of ‘the good life’, but that this needs to take a form that puts people and the environment, not simply growth and profits, at the centre

Beyond the paradox:religion, family and modernity in contemporary Bangladesh

AbstractThis paper reflects on the apparent ‘paradox’ of a contemporary Bangladesh that appears both ‘more modern’ and ‘more Islamic’, focusing on changes in the family (and the gender and generational orders that it embodies) as a central locus of anxiety and contestation. The paper begins with theory, how the paradox is framed by classical social science expectations of religious decline and how this has been contested by contemporary writers who describe specifically modern forms of piety. It then turns to Bangladesh, where highly publicized symbolic oppositions between ‘religion’ and ‘development’ contrast sharply with people's pragmatic accommodation of development goods in everyday life. Analysis of religious references in interview data reveal the co-existence of very different understandings: a more traditional view of religion as embedded in the moral order; and a more modern deliberate cultivation of a religious life. They also reveal how many of the uses which people make of religion are not specifically religious: to conjure a moral universe, to mark what is important to them, to say things about themselves. The final section returns to theory, reflecting on how this is informed by the findings from Bangladesh, and suggesting that the importance of the private and personal as a site for governance offers a further dimension of why the supposed ‘paradox’ of a religious modernity may not be so paradoxical after all.</jats:p

Crafting a rich and personal blending learning environment: an institutional case study from a STEM perspective

Institutional pressures to make optimal use of lecture halls and classrooms can be powerful motivators to identify resources to develop technology enhanced learning approaches to traditional curricula. From the academic’s perspective, engaging students in active learning and reducing the academic workload are important and complementary drivers. This paper presents a case study of a curriculum development exercise undertaken in a STEM subject area at a research-intensive UK university. A multi-skilled team of academics and learning designers have worked collaboratively to build this module which will be realised as a mix of online and face to face activities. Since the module addresses professional issues, a strong emphasis is being placed on establishing authentic learning activities and realistic use of prominent social tools.The learning designers are working for a cross-institutional initiative to support educational innovations; therefore it is important to carefully document the development process and to identify reusable design patterns which can be easily explained to other academics.<br/

Developing Nations and Developing Surveys: Measuring Inner Wellbeing in Zambia and India, 2010-2013

In the present chapter, we summarize the results of a programme of research that we have undertaken concerning domains of inner wellbeing (i.e., individuals’ feelings and thoughts about what they can do and be) as experienced by individuals in villages within two nations in the global South (i.e., Zambia and India). Results of confirmatory factor analyses for Zambia at Time 1 (in 2010, n = 361) and for India at Time 1 (in 2011, n = 287) indicated that, although we had expected seven to eight intercorrelated domains to emerge, inner wellbeing was best regarded as a unidimensional construct. However, after we engaged in intensive reflection and extensive reconceptualization and measurement of inner wellbeing, results for Zambia Time 2 (in 2012, n = 344) and for India Time 2 (in 2013, n = 335) indicated that inner wellbeing was best regarded as a multidimensional construct with seven intercorrelated domains (i.e., economic confidence, agency/participation, social connections, close relationships, physical/mental health, competence/selfworth, and values/meaning). Implications for the conceptualization and measurement of inner wellbeing within the global South, and for theoretical and methodological issues concerning wellbeing in general, are discussed