I’ll be in China from August 27th until September 15th at a workshop on NTFP Commercialization organized by INBAR. Then Bangkok from September 15th to September 19th for the World Bamboo Congress. I hope to be pretty much connected throughout, but may be slow to respond to some things.
Kieran Healy on performativity and just feeling yucky
Performativity is like those deep-fried Mars bars you get in Glasgow chippies. An unexpected juxtaposition of properties. Off-putting yet strangely intriguing. You taste it and it makes you feel a little weird. You promise yourself you won’t try that again. The following week you’re on the way home from the pub and you buy another one.
links for 2009-08-10
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Very, very cool. Real outlines in Google Docs using a little CSS.
Are we allowed to talk about the self-interest of NGO officials? (Aid Watch)
So why are we so reluctant to have the same realism about NGO officials? Many condemn any discussion of their motives being anything besides selfless devotion to the poor as hopeless cynicism. But why can’t we do political economy on NGOs?
via Are we allowed to talk about the self-interest of NGO officials? (Aid Watch).
It seems to me that Aid Watch has not been talking to the right people. Having worked in development and studied development for years, it is baffling to hear anybody assert that nobody is asking about the self-interest of NGOs. In my experience, it happens every day, both in print and in hallway discussions. Naturally, press releases and policy reports produced by NGOs don’t ask tough questions, but would we ever expect them to?
Quick searches on Google Scholar leads to a number of interesting leads: here and here
links for 2009-08-09
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List of various bamboo species.
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Interesting (and ongoing) attempt to map the world's soils and make the data available.
links for 2009-08-08
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Upcoming Green Building conference in Toronto. Can't imagine being able to make it there in September.
QDA Software and my messy life
Oh how I wish that I had a personal research secretary! I’ve been spending this weekend going through transcripts, untranscribed interviews, research notes, photos, and clippings for my research and the result is increasingly looking like a big mess. I’ve been planning to use some sort of QDA package for all of this when it comes time to coding and analysing—I am nowhere near there yet!—and would ideally like to begin to ‘park’ all of my stuff in one place and begin to work on it as I go along.
For my last couple of projects, including the work that I did with my supervisor on Business Improvement Associations, I used a wonderful open source Mac program called TAMS Analyser. It has a built-in transcribing tool, uses a transparent coding language (which seems to turn some people off) and is generally rock solid. But I fear that my reliance on PDFs, photos and other data will end of pushing me to use it and other software (Tinderbox….I’ve tried…I really have!). So I am now trying out Atlas Ti. It looks like it will do all that I need, though it may be a little too structured to use as a parking lot. But I do like the Google Earth integration! Will report back on this as I go.
links for 2009-08-06
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Regional Training Centre – Organizing an upcoming training course in Hanoi August 18th
On the trail of Tre Gai
I’m now in Quang Nam, trying to learn something about Tre Gai, among other things. Tre Gai is a local species of bamboo that is used primarily in the South of the country for some nice export quality furniture and home construction. There’s a lot of it in Quang Nai, and no some much in Quang Nam. One of the problems of Tre Gai is that it is a high quality bamboo—and seems to fetch a decent price—but is hard to gather and grows in small batches. Quite unlike Luong in Thanh Hoa, which is probably closer to a crop than an NTFP.
I’m also running into the most typical of difficulties when speaking with District officials here – when I ask about prices of bamboo, they simply respond that it is illegal to gather and sell in the District in order to protect the forest. Being illegal, of course, doesn’t stop a lot of traders, but makes them a little more difficult to contact.
