From donor State agencies, to WorldBank developmental programmes, to NGO humanitarianism and sustainable enterprises, Aid has become a global industry, effectively generating a body of discourse which counts on an international network of knowledge, institutions and local practices. Always inhabiting the thin border between empowerment and dependency, autonomy and support, liberation and domination, Aid seem to be what can enable political organization towards self-determination or its defeat in the name of new forms of governmentality. Concentrating on contemporary practices in post-colonial urban contexts, prof. AbdouMaliq Simone will lead a discussion on the Paradoxes of Aid and its political implications for the reification or dismantling of former colonial contracts

The Paradoxes of Aid: Seminar with AbdouMaliq Simone
02 December, 11am @ Research Architecture Studio, main building, Goldsmiths

reading:

Edgar Pieterse, "Working notes on a relational model of urban politics"

Diana Mitlin, Sam Hickey and Anthony Bebbington, "Reclaiming Development"

Julia Elyachar, "Empowerment Money: The World Bank, Non-Governmental Organizations, and the Value of Culture in Egypt"