Glossary

M-pesa: Ever-present financial infrastructure in form of a mobile money service launched by Safaricom, Kenya 2008. permits low-cost transfer of digital value via teleconmmunications and cash-in/cash-out agent networks.

supporters M-pesa: means to alleviate poverty aswell as a platform for commercial activities

critics M-pesa: credit it with inaugurating debt crisis and encouraging wealth-extraction from ordinary Kenyans.

Philantrocapitalism: performing philantrophy in the same way business is done in the for-profiit world, AKA use of business models to make a positive impact, charity profits due to incentices, key actors include Rockefeller and Gates. Foundational belief in ability of science to rationally solve a whole range of ills befelling humanity.

pros philantrocapitalism: effective, funds are fundamental in helping those suffering

cons philantrocapitalism: may prioritise profits over systemic change, overlooking community voices.

Plantation: "A plantation is a machine for assembling land, labor, and capital under centralized management for the purpose of making a profit; it is also a political technology that orders territories and populations, produces new subjects, and makes new worlds." - Li & Semedi (2021)

Palm oil: native west-africa, grown in Indonesia and malaysia, properties for food and other uses, grown on plantations. important for earning hard currency for global-south countries.

Civil society: non-family non-government group, enables people to claim rights, shape goc policies, and provide services to the community. Counter-hegemony to gov. and elites, thus critical for maintaining democracy, form development, includes: NGO, Trade Unions, Community Groups

Bretton Woods institution: Economic system established 1944, set up IMF (International Monetary Fund), World Bank, and WTO (World Trade Organization)

Al-Shabab: sunni islamic insurgent group, militant and islamist violent non-state actor that emerged in 2006 and is known for brutal attacks towards civulians, gov. forces, and international entities. Aims to establish an Islamic state under strict sharia law. posesses ultimate authority over much of South and South-West Somalia, using taxes to gain revenue (in addition to extortion, smuggling) and legitimacy over the Somali Central Government by providing services to citizens EG. mobile courts.

Digital divide: inequal access and use of the digital/internet, including censorship,exacerbates socio-economuc inequalities. digital divide does not take into account digital literacy, geographic divides, internet speed.

Colonial medicine: colonial powers intervening in colonised territories, framed as saving colonies with “developed” western health care however it overruled native and traditional practices. important to note colonial powers often introduced the subjugated colonies to western diseases, harmful effects of which likely not helped by inhumane conditions in certain colonies (plantations, slave work)

“Build Back Better”: concept outlining plans to rebuild infrastructures stronger, as to prevent areas from being extensively negatively affected by disasters,

Example “build back better”: Nepal 2015, 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit Gorka district, by rebuilding infrastructure with improved structure in buildings the region may be less affacted by another earthquake.

Climate reparations: proposal that wealthy historically high-emitting nations reimburse countries disroportionately affected by climate change with financial support, payments aiming to adress historical injustices (developing nations contribute least to climate change however suffer the most), and aid in recovery, adaptation, and building of resilient infrastructure, thus fostering global equity and accountability.

Governance:

Good governance: measuring process of goerning determines extent to which public institutions conduct public affairs, manages public resources, realizes human rights, broadly reflecting upon extent in which government delivers on civilian rights

criticism good governance: inappropriate goals for developing countries without funds, institutional capacity, political support or social conditions needed to accomplish said goals, plus it´s measured using western ideas of good governance (GDP dictates specific types production while blinding us to others, global governance project = african gov. invests in appeals courts = functioning rule of law (what the fuck does this even mean???), measured by Ibrahim index which values GDP over others forms of measuring governance

Global south/majority world: political and socio-economic concept, not strictly geographical, used to highlight wealth, power and development disparities compared to global north (europe, north america, parts east asia), homogenizes and can be defined either depending on income/geography (income better suited as EG Japan would not be considered part of the global south due to it´s high development and economic status),

Democratic reversal/backsliding: global increase of autocratization, 72% world population lives in autocracies, democratization boomed post 1980s + cold war however this trend has reversed since the mid 2000s

Disaster Capitalism: use of catastrophe (both natural and human-made, inc postconflict situations) to promote and empower private neoliberal capitalist interests, coined by Naomi Klein. views diasaster as both an opportunity for profit via private actors benefitting from disasters and through opportunity for policy reform during/post-disaster, offering opportunity for “change and development”

Example disaster capitalism: New Orleans post hurricane Katrina not rebuilding public housing destroyed and instead transforming land originally reserved for public housing into private expensive condos or no-contest contracts with private companies

Dualist informality: approach towards informality viewing informal economy as a separate marginal economy, delinked from the formal economy

Female empowerment: desire to empower women, however the focus on the future that disregards structural and historical roots of female marginalisation, empowernment defined by western feminists not being considerate of intersectionality thus only making it relevant to other groups,

Feminization of poverty: term for increasing unequal living standards on the basis of gender, gender segmentation øeads to structural discrimination of the labor market + welfare systems, gender imbalance in care work/unpaid labour contributes to likelyhood of women being affacted by poverty.

Grameen Bank: Provided loans to women in Bangladesh when they didn´t posess collateral by creating groups and distributing loans, and then groups could only get new loans if every member of said froup had given back all the money from previous loans.

criticism Grameen bank: While argued to help empower women + alleviate poverty, it was mostly weaponized shame and avoided directly adressing poverty. additionally most women did not possess control of their money as family member took over w the women having little power to stop said family members.

Gender and development: critique of WID, rekecting market approach (marxist) while focusing on relations between men and women, structural cause of inequality, attempting to widen participation in development to be more diverse, while promising in concept it has not been successful in practice

Hard currency: currencies maintaining value over time, widely accepted internationally and thus can be traded, can be used to pay back loans, and can be contrasted to soft currencies that do not tend to be internationally desirable.

Hybrid governments: power struggle between actors upon lack of agreed authority relations, often percieved as fragile and indicates that the central government is too weak however assumption this kind of state is automatically illegitimate diminishes ability to develop inclusively

example hybrid government: somalia, power fractures between fovernment, al-Shabaab, violent NSAs like ISIS, commercial + international actors

Indigeneity: tribal peoples in independent countries whos cinditions are different socially, economically and culturallly, distinguishing them from other sectors of national community. regarded as indigenous based on descent from populations during era of colonisation, risk of essentialising indigenous people by assuming they are essentially different. (eg just because you´re indigenous you will take care of the land)

Infrastructure: organisational mechanisms built into our lives to facilitate everyday activities like movement and consumption, needed for operation of a society or enterprise

Informality (informal economy): economic activity not subjected ti government regulation/taxation (in reality a lot of informal work is taxed however it is not regularised), diverse+complex+growing area of activity that sustains a large part of the world´s workforce. growth urban population not formally unemployed associated with growth of fevelas etc.,

Internet shutdowns: limiting/complete shutdown of internet access, form censorship and control, government justify it by citing misinformation and violence as the reason however it is often a form of authoritarian control that prevents protests and criticism of government.

Milennium Development Goals (MDG): 2000-1015, 8 main goals with 21 targets and 69 measurable indicators. huge effect on funding received by projects and NGOs

MDG 8 goals: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, achieve universal primary education, promote gender equality and empower women, reduce child mortality, improve maternal health, combat HIV/Aids, malaria, and other diseases, ensure environmental sustainability, global partnership for development

Military coups: on the rise, often due to poor governance, lack of legitimacy/accountability, insurrectionary challenges, personal ambition, foreign meddling, climate change. rarely leads to more stability.

Modernization theory: idea that all societies go through the same stafes and will eventually reach ´peak civilization´ by increased formalization, infrastructure, technology-use etc. EG walter rostows stages of economic development

Criticism modernization theory: pedestalizing western societies and infantilizing those civilizations that are not peak civilizations

Monocropping: farming practice where same crop is grown on same land for years, eg soybeans, strips the sil of nutrients and incentivises farmers to use harmful pesticides due to crops vulnerability to crops being heightened due to lacking nutrition in soil, can contribute to water and air pollution, alongside reduced biodiversity

Multilateral aid: aid from international agencies to countries EG United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, received in from of loans or grants

Bilateral aid: aid from country to country via individual countries egencies, eg UK Aid or FCDO (foreign, commonwealth and development office).

NGO: non-profit organization operating independently of government, purpose being to address social economc and enviornmental issues, focusing often on humanitarian assistance in form of food, shelter, equipment and medicine to vulnerable people and places. EG Amnesty International, Red Cross, Salvation Army.

Politics of Pity/spectacle of suffering: little concern for justice, refugees and victims face dehistoricisation/depoliticisation, idea of emergency leaves little room for questions towards achieving justice due to loss ofn egency, voice, no way of holding perpetrator to account, exarcebated with media´s use of photos without context, explination and recount of the experience between the photos.

dehistoricisation: seperation/removal from historical contexr

depoliticisation: changing context/presentation so it´s not controlled/influenced by politics

Re-primarization: country economy goes back to focusing on production/export primary commodities (raw materials, minerals and agricultural products), aka focus on secondary (manufacturing) and tertiary (services) sectors being abandoned in favour of primary (natural resources and agriculture) sector

benefits re-primarization: short-term profit

cons re-primarization: vulnerable to global market prices, decreases complexity in trade relations and skilled labour opportunities thus making economy less resilient. social and environmental impacts include displacement of food crops and impacts of extractives monocultural production.

Reproductive justice: call to decolonize health agenda to encompass dominant pro-abortion campaigns of white feminists and take up concerns of rights to having children + right to parenting in a safe and healthy enviornment, takes up concerns of marginalised and racialised women,

Saviour complexes and weaponization of gender: western feminists dominate feminist sector, portrays women from the Global South as victims of culture while excluding them from feminist conversations simultaneously, ´saving women´ projects use emotive images of women as victims to call men into action, used to justify harmful intervention

Sustainable Development Goals (SDG): sustainable development goals, 17 goals call to action end pf poverty, inequality and protection of the planet, goals cover 3 pillars of development: economic, social, and environmental

Social contract/accountability: implicit agreements of what governments provided to people in exchange for public legitimacy, involves people sacrificing natural freedom to obtain benefits of a political order, when social contract is broken citizens can withdraw obligation to obey OR change leadership through democratic processes or violence.

Third wave of autocratization: global trend of political systems declining democratic quality/reversing towards autocratic regimes since turn of 21st century, more gradual decline tied to legal erosion of democracy from within regime in comparison to previous autocratisation regimes.

Uncivil society: challenges liberal democratic values, often linked to violence, viewed as disruptive and threatening, eg Al-shabaab who gained power against the government by using violence while offering form of governance by providing services

Violent Non-state actors (VNSAs): NSAA (non state armed actor) + NSAG (non state armed groups), individual groups and individuaols who are partially independent from governments and use violence to achieve foals.

Washington consensus: policy prescriptions based on free market principles and monetary discipline

Témoignage: core concept MSF, Humanitarian aid organization (doctors without borders) different from Red Cross bc it emphasizes importance of witnessing/advocacy, argues it is their duty as humanitarian organizations to raise awareness and make political statements concerning situations they are involced in. rejects idea that humanitarianism must be neutral, stems from criticism of the red cross for failure to denounce holocaust.

Women in development: neo-liberal approach to aiding households out of poverty. pro-market approaches are argued to have reinforced mass poverty/underdevelopment between GN and GS, criticized for failure to consider structural disadvantages and focusing on women solely on the individual level. EG household aid will not lift women out of poverty because funds will not be distrubuted equally and will favour the men.