{"id":121,"date":"2024-10-13T09:30:08","date_gmt":"2024-10-13T09:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wpmu.mau.se\/msm24group7\/?p=121"},"modified":"2024-11-13T04:50:50","modified_gmt":"2024-11-13T04:50:50","slug":"curating-information-as-an-aspiring-communication-for-development-comdev-practitioner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wpmu.mau.se\/msm24group7\/2024\/10\/13\/curating-information-as-an-aspiring-communication-for-development-comdev-practitioner\/","title":{"rendered":"Curating Information as an Aspiring Communication for Development (ComDev) Practitioner"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Manskakisemiils,\u00a0CC BY-SA 4.0<\/a>, via Wikimedia Commons<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Anubhuti Vashist<\/span><\/p>\n

One must relentlessly pursue new knowledge and\u00a0 trends in the development sector. There is just so much to learn! <\/span><\/p>\n

In a world inundated with information, aspiring ComDev practitioners can easily feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of content coming their way. Selection and organization skills are crucial for students like me to manage this constant influx of information and can be used to curate a diverse repository of digital content on ComDev.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I actively bookmark and review sites that help me check, what my professor calls, \u201cthe pulse of … digital networks\u201d (Denskus, 2019). It was his<\/span> blog post <\/span><\/a>that inspired me to reflect critically on my curating practices as a ComDev student.<\/span><\/p>\n

In his blog, <\/span>Aidnography<\/span><\/i><\/a>, Prof. Denskus views curating as a practice with a decolonizing capacity. Describing it as an \u201cinformal way of featuring new and different authors and their stories,\u201d\u00a0 he writes, \u201cEvery tweet, every \u2018Like\u2019 on Facebook, every additional minute spent reading a blogpost \u2026 has the power of \u2018micro-decolonisation\u2019, of embracing new knowledge, of listening to voices outside the loud and powerful information flow, of being reminded of different experiences, be they painful or joyful\u201d (Denskus, 2019).<\/span><\/p>\n

Identifying and curating digital content has allowed me to find materials that reject \u201cepistemological frames furnished by the West\u201d (Shome, 2017).\u00a0 Sources used, referred to, and widely promoted in academic settings often result from a preference for content by experts, academics, or organizations located within the Anglo-American traditions of knowledge production and circulation.<\/span><\/p>\n

For students who are just starting in the field, it is common to read online journals, blogs, and development news websites by multilateral organizations and independent media platforms <\/span>in the \u2018Global North\u2019. These sources are generally regarded as authoritative references for all things development and ComDev. Critics <\/a>argue that many of these sources portray, at times covertly, the role of\u00a0 development and communication for social change from the \u2018savior of the Global South\u2019 perspective. They are frequently criticized by decolonial thinkers for promoting ideas, paradigms, values, practices, and assumptions of the \u2018Global North\u2019 (Shome, 2017; Behar, 2022).<\/p>\n

As this information is commonly available (though not necessarily accessible), I label it as the knowledge that is <\/span>out there <\/span><\/i>and can be found without spending much time and effort. It is the knowledge that search engines display as top results. The information also makes its way to students as core readings selected by their professors. Awareness of this content, which is <\/span>out there<\/span><\/i>, is essential for students to establish themselves as experts in the field. Ironically, this information that will turn us into experts is also largely behind a paywall and requires institutional access.<\/span><\/p>\n

Inspired by the critical discourse within development studies, university reading lists have started to include diverse voices from the \u2018Majority World<\/a>‘,\u2019 but a lot depends on the professor\u2019s familiarity with this scholarship. For instance, it doesn’t surprise me when I encounter, Amitav Ghosh, Dipesh Chakrabarty, or Gayatri Spivak on my course reading lists. Their inclusion indicates to me the ‘canonization’ of scholars from the Global South. It is a reminder of the creative detours needed to include regional and local voices in the non-Western academic and development spaces.<\/span><\/p>\n

It then becomes necessary for ComDev students to train themselves to<\/span> look elsewhere <\/span><\/i>for content that discusses communication for development initiatives from diverse socio-geographical and cultural perspectives. Seeking open-access digital content by people working at the grassroots, can help students undercut the hegemonic knowledge networks shaped by power differentials, organizational agendas, limited knowledge of the scholarship from the \u2018Global South\u2019, selfish interests, educational capital, and economic flows.<\/span><\/p>\n

The motivation to <\/span>look elsewhere<\/span><\/i> comes from a meta-reflection on how we as ComDev students identify, organize, consume, and share information. As an aspiring ComDev practitioner from India, I have continuously engaged with curating as a practice to go beyond what is <\/span>out there<\/span><\/i> by <\/span>looking elsewhere<\/span><\/i>.\u00a0 I also realized while writing this post that I don\u2019t see these practices as binaries and frequently use the latter to complement knowledge derived from the former. Engaging in these practices, provided me with a broader understanding of how communication strategies work or fail within changing social and geographical contexts. For instance, the challenges encountered by dalit or adivasi\u00a0 social workers or journalists wanting to create change at the community level in India.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, I\u2019ve found that curating by <\/span>looking elsewhere <\/span><\/i>can be time-consuming and requires patience. What keeps me going despite these hurdles is the joy of discovering voices I might not have known existed had I not put in the effort and time to seek them out. Most importantly, they give me hope that a lot is happening despite the rapidly exacerbating economic, gender, and social inequalities.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the remainder of the post, I\u2019ll share a list of digital content which I found while <\/span>looking elsewhere<\/span><\/i>.\u00a0 In my content curation journey, I am also guided by personal politics and interests. My interest in digital media for gender development in the Indian context is one of the reasons that led me to these sources. Also, some content will be widely known to Indian students or practitioners working in the social sector. However, I believe that many of these are largely restricted to people connected with development-focused media-sharing networks in India. Using every opportunity to share them with classmates, teachers, and readers increases the chance of cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary engagement.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n