Suchergebnisse

The established rhetoric of opposition between state and NGOs as development agents has shifted to one of complementarity and common interest. Along with this, the 'comparative advantage' claimed for NGOs has expanded from economic and welfare benefits to encompass also the political goods of civil society and popular participation. This paper reviews these developments in the context of Bangladesh. It argues that they need to be assessed critically in ways which are both theoretically informed and locally contextualized. While recognizing that there are, indeed, areas of common experience and interest between the state and NGOs in Bangladesh, it questions whether these necessarily coincide with the interests of those they all invoke: the poor.

Verlagsinfo: "The authors challenge conventional psychological perspectives on happiness and subjective wellbeing, presenting an emergent, more socially grounded approach: relational wellbeing. Addressing the growing interest in happiness and wellbeing in public policy and practice, this edited collection combines critical conceptual analysis with case studies from across Africa, Asia, Latin America and the UK. It draws on different disciplines and explores wellbeing in relation to diverse aspects of life: health and physical activity; religion; migration; economic life; family relationships; landmine impact; national surveys and indigenous community identities. Highlighting the politics of research methodologies, the contributions explore complementarities and tensions between quantitative and qualitative methods; the significance of gender, life-course and place; and the role of culture and researchers' identities in shaping the accounts of wellbeing produced. Underlying the volume is a strong commitment to person-centred approaches which enable people to express what is important for wellbeing in their own terms"--

This paper explores the politics of agency expressed through child participation in international development. Empirically it focuses on Bangladesh, highlighting in particular the experience of one children's organisation. It asks how dynamics have changed over time, and what participation has meant for the children and their families. It raises three major challenges for the current practice of child participation: the need to re-emphasise the priority of survival rights; the danger of 'projectisation', and the need to pay critical attention to the resources through which children's agency is built, and the very different models of development they reflect.