Malawi

The Epistemicide of USAID: A Call to Action for Global Knowledge Communities

Urgent call to action in the USAID and the new burning of the books in digital and ideological epistemicide. A call to action-article by Sarah Cummings, PhD (she, her), Nancy Wright White and Bruce Boyes on the epistemicide taking place through the gutting of USAID, including its invaluable knowledge resources:

“In summary, removal and destruction of USAID’s knowledge should be identified as epistemicide. It should be stopped. It violates the fundamental understanding that all knowledges and unheard voices must be included if we are to solve complex problems. Undermining this knowledge will lead to less effective development. It will bolster ignorance that will hurt many initiatives and approaches. We must examine these actions in the context of a wider epistemicide, including the purge of diversity and inclusion initiatives, ending access to critical health data, and the rewriting of science to exclude reference to gender.”

Read more...
Posted by Aldo de Moor in Ideas, Projects, 0 comments

New publication: Participatory Collaboration Mapping in Malawi: Making Mike’s Community Informatics Idea(l)s Work

A. de Moor (2018).  Participatory Collaboration Mapping in Malawi: Making Mike’s Community Informatics Idea(l)s Work, The Journal of Community Informatics, 14(2-3):109-115.

Abstract

In this tribute to Michael Gurstein, we first summarize three of his key concepts: Community Informatics, Effective Use, and Community Innovation. We then apply his ideas to a case on participatory collaboration mapping in Malawi. We end the tribute with a reflection and re-iterating Mike’s call for Community Informatics research and action to keep meeting.

Posted by Aldo de Moor in Publications, 1 comment

PechaKucha presentation on “The Power of Communities”

Last week, I gave a presentation at the 12th edition of the PechaKucha Tilburg event.  PechaKucha is a lively presentation format in which anybody can share an idea(l), project or passion close to their heart. The challenge is that this has to take place in 20 slides of 20 seconds each, so you really need to be very focused in telling your story in exactly (and only…) 6 minutes and 40 seconds! As the photos attest, the event taking place in the Tilburg theatre De Nieuwe Vorst was packed and the atmosphere was vibrant.

In my presentation, I talk about the need for new ways to look at and address the multitude of “wicked problems” such as climate change, biodiversity loss, poverty, and migration that humanity has to deal with.… Read more...

Posted by Aldo de Moor in Ideas, Presentations, 0 comments

PARTICIPATORY mapping of agricultural collaborations in Malawi

[Scroll down below for the full VISUAL story]

A first seed action to be further nurtured that came out of mapping the INGENAES Global Symposium and Learning Exchange conference was to use the combined CommunitySensor methodology and online Kumu network visualization tool for the participatory mapping of agricultural stakeholder collaborations in Malawi.

This Southern African country has an agricultural governance system consisting of many layers of organizational structures between the national and the village levels. This can result in collaboration inefficiencies if not carefully coordinated. In a joint initiative by INGENAES (Integrating Gender and Nutrition within Agricultural Extension Services)  and the Malawi-based SANE (Strengthening Agricultural and Nutrition Extension) sister project – both being implemented by the University of Illinois –  a pilot was started to use participatory collaboration mapping to strengthen the District Agriculture Extension Services System (DAESS).… Read more...

Posted by Aldo de Moor in Projects, 2 comments