Term Paper: Critical Analysis of NGO and Adult Education/Learning in the Global South
NGO-led adult education/learning and development/politicization (service provision and/or social activism work).
10-12 page (excluding references) critical-analytical paper (one of the three given below)
(i)utilizing McEwan and Wilson readings (and related others—postcolonial analysis), how are DNGOs (e.g. World Vision, CARE, Save the Children etc.) reproducing racism/development racism vis-à-vis discourse/representation and/or programs/practices, including their educational work (this includes “public/donor education” for fundraising) while perpetuating silence (or ignorance) pertaining to neo/colonial dispossession/exploitation/oppression in these regions and the active development of underdevelopment proposition (North-South axis)?
(ii)utilizing neo/colonial analysis (e.g. Langan, Rist, Rodney, War on Want/Hunger Games etc.), how are NGOs engaged in extending colonial relations/dispossession and exploitation in the name of aid/development work? And/or racial/capitalist neo/Marxist critiques (e.g. Petras, Kundnani, Leech, Choudry, Kapoor etc.) and the suggestion that big NGOs are reproducing racialized accumulation by dispossession (ABD) (social relations of capitalism) in the rural/urban periphery? What might all this mean for the role of NGOs in relation to movements of the dispossessed/displaced/exploited and oppressed and in a general when it comes to “development work” (North-South)?
(iii) utilizing the NGOization of social movements critique (e.g. Jad, Choudry & Kapoor or see Sonia Alvarez’s work in South America on the same), speak to how NGOs sometimes work to de-politicize (antipolitics machine) social movements of the exploited and dispossessed.
Following format to be used :
A thesis statement which suggests the main proposition for the paper (analytical focus)—what is it that you are hoping to demonstrate and why and how is it significant? Prior to introducing the thesis statement, a brief contextualizing introductory segment would help bring the reader in to the area of interest/focus;
2. An overview of the paper in relation to point (1)—how are you going to go about addressing the thesis statement? ;
3. A brief description of the history/background of the NGO(s)/sector concerned;
4. NGO(s) details/analysis: Describe the NGO (or NGOs if you wish/sectoral approach) and its’ developmental/activist engagement(s) (e.g. key program initiatives) and the role/explicit adult education/learning in relation to same; if it is working for/with certain popular movements, what role is it playing here and why?
5. Develop a reflective conceptual-theoretical analytical critique of the NGO’s work engaging course-related critique/debates/readings (and beyond if required, for developing other critiques)some examples have been provided above.
6. Given the various critique/s, what is a productive role for NGOs and NGO-led adult education/learning in rural/urban contexts of dispossession and marginalization (or in general) in the South and why/not?
7. A summary/tie-up and concluding section with final reflection(s) in relation to the thesis for this paper.
