Mitgefuehl

The literal translation of this word is “with-feeling” (i.e. empathy) and that’s what my Bolivian colleagues and I discussed yesterday, when planning our focus group discussion with poor people to find our more about the multiple dimensions of poverty. We are still in the process of deciding whether we’ll rather focus on the “logistical” aspect (as [...]

Jennifer Hauck asks: Who is actually `the community`?

When writing a contribution for a conference my colleague Eva Youkhana and I came across a number of authors who complain, that communities or target groups are usually homogenised. Villages are perceived to be entities, user groups, such as fishermen are grouped together based on their activities. During our research on rural water use and [...]

What does it mean to be poor?

Being poor is more than just not having money. When I was a student, there were times, when I didn’t have money and had to count my Pfennige to see if I could buy myself some plain and basic food. But I was never a poor person in the way that “the poor” are poor. [...]

Costs and Benefits of Networking

Today I had a discussion with colleagues at the International Resources Group here in Washington and they pointed out an interesting dilemma to me: Yes, if you want to be strategic in your networking, it is important to realize who could be how influential in achieving your goal. But you also have to keep in [...]

Can kids net-map?

I don’t know. A colleague asked me the other day: Have you ever tried this out with kids? Honestly, I haven’t and in my current life situation, I am not surrounded by any children in a suitable age range to use as guinnea pigs. Though I would love to. And I am convinced that teaching [...]

Net-Map in Himalaya, Hidukush, Pamir

Those of you, who read German, can follow Melanie Mast und Bianca Herrlin, who report in their blog about their experience using Net-Map to understand mountain governance in China. If you don’t (read German), you can enjoy the pictures. I hope to encourage the participants of the ASA Program to contribute to this blog, once [...]

Make sure you know what they mean by this…

Today I tried to make sense of Net-Maps that workshop participants drew some weeks back in individual silent sessions. We had discussed the procedure, the general question, kinds of links, meaning of influence with the group, but mapping the networks was something that each participant did on their own. During the workshop we used the [...]

Who stops women?

Do you also have a hundred projects in the back of your mind that you would love to do and in the end only time and resources for about 5 or so? Ok, here is another one that I would find really interesting but at the moment neither have the time nor the funding to [...]