Ch. 8 Journal

'Wars'

[War] like disease, exhibits the capacity to mutate, and mutates fastest in the face of efforts to control or eliminate it. War is collective killing for some collective purpose; that is as far as I would go in attempting to describe it" (Keagan, 1998 p. 165).

My thoughts: the number of wars had risen in the 1990s, many due to ethnic conflict and this is unfortunate because war kills many people, causes strife, a collapse of infrastructure, security, the education system, and decreases livelihoods. It can also cause deep bitterness between two parties and many innocent bystanders are trapped in a fight that they had no say in. I agree with Keagan that wars have the capacity to mutate in its forms and origins, because there will always be disagreements in the world. However if careful deliberation and decisions take place, wars can be avoided, just like diseases can be stopped from spreading. In measuring the evolution of wars, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) has coined definitions for 'major armed conflict,' 'intermediate armed conflict,' and 'minor armed conflict.'

1994 marked the year of massive genocide and after that the world's perception of civil war had changed. 800,000 people were killed in Rwanda and the single most largest exodus of 200,000 refugees fled to Tanzania. Epic fail on the international community's part. The UN Security council refused to take any action when they heard that genocide was taking place, and refused to establish the UN peace-keeping force in the country. People were dying like flies in Goma, the refugee camps due to the spread of cholera.

"Counter-productive conflicts between international NGOs were well documented for most of the main African emergencies in the 1980s, including those in the Sahel, Uganda, Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique" (p. 182).

My thoughts: Reading quotes like these make it seem like everyone and everything has failed Africa. The attempts of support and aid has led to more corruption... interventions are not sustainable, creation of aid dependency and supporting the enemy and common themes that emerge when it comes to NGO intervention. The book says that "scores of agencies fell over each other, occasionally going so far as to deliberately undermine what were perceived as being rival projects" (p. 182). There seems to have been a mad rush to help... but too much of any good thing is detrimental. I guess this applies to aid without proper management and direction. It is tough to distinguish between maintaining national sovereignty/territorial integrity and maintaining international peace and security (Article One of the UN Charter).

New modes of fighting. In the post Cold War era, there were new forms of fighting being developed, as well as new ways to accumulate weapons, arms and equipment. Therefore the discipline of warring between groups is less important and insurgents might terrorize civilians more explicitly and arm the local people to fight rebels. New military tactics have been developed such as land mines which traumatize populations. Children can learn how to operate AK-47s.

Characteristics of contemporary war:

• economic exclusion
• decline of state institutions
• ethnic essentialism - where ethnic views are considered to be the only option
• the media - refugees spread info about atrocities, the book says that refugees "engender sympathy" (p. 175). Can sympathy be engendered? I believe refugees may engender helplessness, despair or hunger. The author must mean that refugees provoke biased sympathy, but can sympathy really be one-sided during a war, and in a refugee camp...?

Summary: War is a complicated thing. Internally displaced people are not technically refugees and we cannot judge the scale of contemporary warfare based on refugee numbers. In conclusion, there does not seem to have been a massive increase of wars since 1990 and most of the wars being fought are not between states, rather they occur in the poorer parts of the world that cannot recover quickly from war's destruction (p. 172).

Ch. 5 Journal

'Unemployment and Making a Living'

Summary: 1) Work is characterized by its relationship between paid and unpaid work.

2) Unemployment statistics do not give an accurate picture of those in work and those who need increased income to make a living.

3) Statistics do not accurately portray unpaid labor force, a large amount which is women.

4) In the global South, there are higher amounts of subsistence agriculture and petty commodity production.

5) A major issue with work is that despite working extremely hard, many workers yield low production levels, thus receiving low pay and remaining in poverty.

6) We need to understand the relation between products and labor (what is produced, how, for whom?)

Definitions:

unemployment- being without work but currently available for employment

employment- paid employment for others or self-employment performing work for profit or family gain

economic activity- all persons who furnish the supply of labor for the production of economic goods and services

work- the expenditure of energy for a purpose, includes paid and unpaid labor

The informal sector means casual and informal wage work. Often they are illegal because they are not officially registered businesses. Or, those unable to find a job will seek work in this sector. They tend to be labor intensive with low capital investments and unregulated.

The social division of labor means there are different kinds of good and services that are complementary and relate to each other. Also technical division of labor, and sexual division.

"To be registered unemployed, one first needs to be counted. If there are no labor offices in the rural areas or in the shanty urban areas there may well be a zero or low count in those locations. Also, to be counted as unemployed, one usually has to be without employment, currently available for it, and 'seeking' it." There are good reasons why many people may not bother to 'seek' employment" (p. 102).

My thoughts: The above quote show the complexity of the work force by the strict definition of unemployment. In many developing countries a social system does not exist, nor benefits or job security, so many people would not bother to register to be counted as unemployed. That is why 'seek' is in quotes because there are many barriers preventing workers from seeking jobs. Many people make their living and survive on work that is not officially counted as 'employment' such as women's unpaid labor in the home. Therefore many times the unemployment factor is overestimated, because the population is still active in providing for their needs. For example on page 105, the proportion of Andean women in agricultural work was 21% instead of the reported %3. The book states that this is a common underestimation because these numbers affect women from the poorer strata and are closely tied to their background and socio-economic status.

Why women's work is underestimated: pp. 106-7

• it is difficult to differentiate between domestic work and unpaid work
• censuses classify workers according to occupation
• some activities are performed by women at home though they are clearly tied to market

Notes: What causes unemployment? It is not a single process therefore involves many things: closing down of organizations, relocation, outsourcing, intensifying labor with fewer workers, increased flexibility of work negotiations (i.e. casualization), technical change, demographics (i.e. rural areas), land alienation through privatization.

"One early development policy is that there is a high level of 'disguised' unemployment (or underemployment) in the rural areas in the global South that could be used for new development projects" (p. 120).

My thoughts: It is important to note the difference between unemployment (when capable people seeking a job cannot find it) and underemployment, people in work that limits their skills and capacities. The above quotes cautions against using unemployment as a reason to start projects without first investigating the root of the problem, the culture, the history of their market and exchanges. Policies can be dangerous and cause more harm than good when they impose solutions to unemployment, when it is really just 'underemployment' or an issue that is portrayed worse than it actually is.

Ch. 4 Journal

'Diseases of Poverty"

Summary:

According to the WHO, health is defined as "a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not just the absence of disease" (p. 75). The book cautions that disease analysis through numbers can be persuasive, misleading and often based on assumptions. Death rate, under-five mortality rate (U5MR), infant mortality rate and life expectancy are proxies for determining a population's risk of disease. There are many many variable of health: age, gender, urban vs. rural, education, poverty. Selective biomedical interventions include vaccinations for malaria, measles, tetanus, rehydration salts and vitamins, and treatment for diarrhea. Two challenges that arise from these interventions is that often the health sector is poor and cannot provide the resources, and also that embracing these interventions and changing behaviors is not sustainable.

"China's performance... teaches an important general lesson: large improvements in the health of the population can be achieved of there is a broad and lasting political commitment, with a consistent emphasis on preventive measures and basic curative care. In other words, social progress is not merely a by-product of economic development. Policies matter" (World Bank 1990 p. 89).

I completely agree that the health of a nation is shaped by policies. However people can choose to adapt a health lifestyle, therefore health goes two-ways. It is the responsibility of the individual and also the government.

AIDS is a disease of poverty. HIV/AIDS causes huge amounts of mortality, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. The virus can be spread through sexual intercourse, needle sharing, blood transfusions, syringes by injecting drug users. Using a condom is one way to protect against the spread of disease. There is a picture on p.91 in the text that shows a grandmother with 2 grandchildren Thailand, since their parents died of AIDS. There is a huge generation gap between grand-parents and grandchildren because the parents are dying. This places increased pressure on the older generation to provide for an increasing amount of young. Also this affects how the younger generation is raised, because resources are limited and can affect their health, education and living conditions.

"The World Bank has recently estimated that 15-20% of all HIV infections in Africa now occur in infants that have been infected by their mothers" (p.91). This statistic is very unfortunate because the unborn child is at risk and has no choice in his/her fate. I believe if mothers go to clinics and the necessary precautions and medication to prevent transmission, rates will drop. This is more easily said and done and success relies upon increased government involvement through spending, education campaigns and response from the people. Prenatal counseling by maternity nurses can go a long way and this type of transmission can be prevented if the right steps are taken, mainly through policies that provide resources and education to expectant mothers.

Ch. 3 Journal

'Understanding Famine and Hunger'

"Chronic hunger is rarely given international media coverage but it may kill more people globally than the acute crisis of famine does" (p.52).

My thoughts: chronic hunger is a very real problem that is still prevalent in the world today. We often hear news of famine through international media in its final stages, providing pictures of refugee camps and the needs from aid organizations. However this is only the end point of famine. It is important focus on the causes of famine to understand how to better cope, prepare for and avoid future famines as well as improve health conditions like crowding and the spread of diseases at refugee camps. Hunger is exacerbated by unstable governments and wars and this problem is usually restricted to developing countries. Chronic hunger seems irrelevant in the Western world, but other chronic diseases are emphasized like heart disease, diabetes, obesity etc. While hunger has less spotlight in the developed world, chronic diseases are still rampant worldwide. In connection to present day, the general public would not have known the plight of Haiti, or that the majority of the public live on less than $1/day unless something catastrophic happened and media covered it. There would not have been such a great response for aid in Haiti if there wasn't an earthquake.

"It has to be recognized that even when the prime mover in a famine is a natural occurrence such as a flash flood or a drought, what its impact will be on the population will depend on how society is organized" ( Dreze & Sen p.57).

My thoughts: Again, this quote reminded me of the earthquake in Haiti. The destruction was so bad not because it was a 7.0 earthquake, but it was catastrophic because Haiti did not have an established infrastructure to withstand the quake. Haiti lacked the money to respond quickly, safely and appropriately. If that earthquake were to happen in the United States, Europe or say Japan, the destruction and death toll would not have been so treat. The quake was so destructive as a result of poverty.

Trends from the text: women in South Asia are at a nutritional disadvantage because culturally, men have higher status over women, while women in Africa can be heads of their households, provide food for the family and work independently apart from their husbands. Landless wage laborers are most at risk to hunger due to changing food prices. Absolute numbers of people facing chronic hunger in sub-Saharan Africa has gone up in the past twenty years, whereas numbers in all other regions (East and South-East Asia, Latin America) have been decreasing.

Summary:

Famine in Wollo, Ethiopia from 1984-85 was caused by three factors, stagnant production, the rise in peasantry obligations for food, money and labor, and acute poverty. Production is an interaction between human and nature to transform natural products into goods for human use. Exchange involves the buying and selling of goods and enables specialization, concentration on a specific type of production. Sen's entitlement approach to analyzing famine includes endowment (owned assets to establish entitlements to food) and entitlement (relationships which allows people access to food). Direct means food through self production and consumption, exchange means selling labor to buy food, trade means the sale of produce to buy food.

The book states that there are 4 stages that lead to a famine crisis: 1) shortages immediately leading to a strict economy 2) temporary search of work or food and selling possessions and assets 3) social collapse, migration and dispersal 4) arrival at relief like refugee camps and food distribution centers.

• dearth
• privation
• dispersal
• camp-living

Ch. 2 Journal

'Meanings and Views of Development'

"Development implies an all-encompassing change, not just an improvement in one aspect. It also implies a process that builds on itself, meaning continuous change, and development is a matter of changes occurring at the social level and the individual level at the same time." (p.24)

My thoughts: Development is a simple word but has many implications. The text says that development (which strives for a distinct outcome) is different from progress, which is continuous improvement overall. However people call it, development to me means the efforts that contribute to bettering the economy, which is supposed to alleviate poverty and bridge the gap between rich and poor. The more money the government has, the better it can provide basic services for the people. It means improving technology, education, life expectancy, infrastructure and communication. Overall, the marks of development is seeking to improve life. The United States is a developed country. Our livelihoods has improved over the past few centuries. However, this took lots of time, we made a lot of mistakes, fought some wars, flourished from free slave labor etc. There is no quick fix. So whatever we call development, this process will always be take place because trade must go on. There is no perfect economy and there are always improvements to be made, research being done. Resources and power are shifting daily in the global economy which free some but restrict others, so development will be sticking around for a long time.

"The survival of our civilization, and perhaps our very lives, depends on committing ourselves to an alternative development practice guided by the three basic principles of authentic development: justice, sustainability and inclusiveness- each of which is routinely and systematically violated by current practice." - Korten, 1995 (pp. 32-33)

My thoughts: I agree with adopting an alternative development practice but currently many actions in the world do not reflect these principles. Smaller organizations and social movements have moved forward in advancing these themes, through networking and working outside of the government. It is hard to incorporate these basic principles because their efforts do not make money. Market interests, wealth and politics often overshadow these attempts for people-centered development. Saying that the survival of our civilization depends on alternative development is a bit forward and I sense the author's urgency, but our civilization has been surviving all this time without 'development' for centuries. It's like saying the world is going to end if we don't change our light bulbs to be green and drive hybrid cars. Justice, sustainability and inclusiveness is happening and improving, but perhaps the most difficult one to adopt is inclusiveness.

definitions:

• immanent development means a spontaneous and natural change, so an example of immanent development is capitalism
• intentional development means a deliberate effort, referring to policy reform, state action and development agencies
• empowerment: is when people are given the tools to take direct control of their lives. This is often the goal for NGOs that promote community involvement. This sounds great! However there is the danger that empowerment is linked with democratization, meaning someone has to redistribute power, resources, and teach, but this 'someone' who decides can have slanted views. We need to investigate the 'trusteeship' of organizations, whether they have legitimate interest and capacity.

Summary: This chapter talks about the various views of development from structuralism and neoliberalsim to pro-market and protectionism. There is always a constant struggle between capitalism versus anti-free market. Trusteeship and empowerment are important aspects of 'doing development.' The three main senses from which development is used are 1) as a vision or measure of being a desirable society 2) as a historical process of social change 3) as a deliberate effort aimed to improve governments, agencies, organizations and social movements.