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1 |
ID:
128882
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Publication |
2013.
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Summary/Abstract |
The humanitarian response to the disaster caused by Cyclone Nargis that hit the Ayeyarwady Delta region of Myanmar in 2008 is a pertinent example of a very specific phase in humanitarian response at the transition between emergency and development. The author shows that this phase, known as 'early recovery', being built on the specific characteristics of the emergency (lack of time and lack of means and input) and oriented towards development, is one in which the humanitarian aid agency is relatively restricted to the humanitarian sphere itself. As a result, the ideological discourse lengthily denounced by the post-structuralist anthropology of development - as a set of Western values imposed on the 'developing' countries to assert a new form of dominion - is actually powerful and quasi-monolithic in shaping the consequences of humanitarian aid. While there is no 'arena' for the 'beneficiaries' to discuss the aid's agency, a 'methodological populism' approach reveals, on the one hand, the antagonisms between a humanitarian ideology conveying considerations such as 'horizontal' communities versus 'hierarchical bonds' and, on the other, the similarity of its socioeconomic consequences on the Delta's society to those of the British colonial period.
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2 |
ID:
141519
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Summary/Abstract |
The article is based on a longitudinal study of Chinese college students who studied abroad as part of their BA programme in Preschool Education. It first examines the Chinese discourse on preschool education in order to understand the current situation in the students’ professional field. The main section then discusses students’ attitudes to what they perceived to be key values and principles in early childhood education in the West: freedom, individual rights, equality, and creativity. Students generally expressed strong support for these values and wanted to reform Chinese institutions accordingly. The article argues, based on this case, that while Chinese students abroad may not see themselves as the vanguard of macro-level political reforms, some of them certainly want to play a role in the gradual transformation of Chinese institutions in their respective professional fields.
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