the important, excellent thing about deaton’s work on aid, and it’s very incomplete overlap with development, is that it reminds me about all that ‘other stuff’ — arms trafficking, subsidies and fair trade, etc, that impinge profoundly on opportunities for economic and human development and capabilities around the globe.
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the problem is, then, that i don’t know what to do. the bits about revamping aid to be more about unconditional technical support i get and can think about and can maybe even do something about. and the need to ground all research work in an awareness of history i get and can think about (it is not so often that i quote paul farmer but his call for us to consistently be historically deep and geographically broad in our work seems apt). this is something i’d like to do more about.
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but i know very (embarrassingly) little about these other global flows and blockages that profoundly affect the people, processes, and outcomes that i study and care about. these are unlikely to be things to which i devote my career but i could certainly do with being more mindful of work that is going on in these areas and how the daily choices in make are bound up in these efforts. so, in my spare time, that is what i would like to read next. suggestions welcome.
Heather E. Lanthorn 