Next in our IDEA/DEEEP Webinar Series!

Tuesday 15th May at 12noon GMT

Looking for awareness raising in unusual forms and places

This presentation will explore the policy and conceptual implications of ‘looking for awareness raising in unusual forms and places’. A sole focus on ‘learning’ in schools or on education, aid and development organisation led ‘projects’ in the global North means we may miss new opportunities and dynamics in awareness raising in a time of significant global change.  This will be explored by critically reflecting on the presenter’s research and practice around social and environmental impact in Sudan and Dubai, on new research on the military in development work and on research on international volunteering and corporate social responsibility. The presentation will also reflect on the importance of acknowledging ‘accidental’ encounters with development. These examples will provide a platform for discussing how and where we imagine awareness raising and development education, what the problems may be with relocating our understandings and practices, and what conceptual challenges such a change might present. We will also reflect on the opportunities such rethinking may offer in the context of austerity in the global North and the transformation of aid and development politics at a global scale.

About the Speaker, Dr Matt Baillie Smith

Dr Matt Baillie Smith is Director of the Centre for International Development at Northumbria University and co-convenor of the newly formed European Development Research and Training Institutes working group, ‘Global learning meets development’. Before becoming an academic, Matt worked for a development education NGO, and he continues to work in partnership with leading international development NGOs in his research. Matt’s research focuses on development education, international volunteering, NGOs, activism and citizenship, and has been published in leading international journals including Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, Antipode, Journal of Global Ethics, Journal of International Development, Sociological Review and Global Networks.

Register before May 8th with Susan Gallwey: susan@ideaonline.ie