Voice & Matter - Communication, Development and the Cultural Return

This book contains a collection of articles by renowned academics in the field of communication, cultural, and development studies. The collection seeks to “reinstate the centrality and urgency of Communication for Development as an area of research and a field of practice” as well as contribute to a continuing articulation and re-definition of the theoretical foundation of communication for development.

The contributors to this anthology were all participants in the 2014 Voice & Matter conference, which was the fourth annual Communication for Development conference arranged by Ørecomm – Centre for Communication and Social Change. The conference sought to explore the dynamic relationship – and possible convergence – between voice and matter (referring to the material dimension of development) in the context of communication for development theory and practice. It looked at the question of whether gaining a voice is enough for society to change, and enough for the material conditions we live under to improve, and for other visions of society to thrive. What is the interplay between voice and matter within today’s international development context?

The first two sections of the book offer a selection of essays focusing on positioning the field of communication within ethnographic and cultural studies, particularly in relation to new technologies and the latest development theory and practice. The third section examines Arjun Appadurai’s theory on poverty by unpacking terms such as the “politics of hope” and “capacity to aspire”.

As stated by Clemencia Rodríguez, Professor in Media Studies and Production, Temple University, Philadelphia, United States (US), “Drawing from the lived experiences of collectives and individuals who use media and communication to work toward emancipation and social justice, the chapters in this volume make important contributions to how we think about voice, power, technology, culture, and social change. Taking on the challenge of interrogating the development industries and their inability to detach from market forces and confront power inequities, this volume repositions the agency of subjects who use their own voices and their own media on their own terms – taking matters into their own hands.”

The book contains the following articles:

• Introduction. Why Voice and Matter Matter - Oscar Hemer, Thomas Tufte

I. Reframing Communication in Culture and Development

• Communication and Cultural Identity. An Anthropological Perspective - Francis B. Nyamnjoh
• The Language and Voice of the Oppressed - Linje Manyozo
• Stealing the Fire. Communication for Development from the Margins of Cyberspace - Stefania Milan
• The Political Economy of the Development Industry - Karin Gwinn Wilkins, Kyung Sun Lee
• International Volunteering in Development Assistance. Partnership, Public Diplomacy, or Communication for Development? - Susanne Schech
• Mediating Stuart Hall - Anders Høg Hansen, Faye Ginsburg, Lola Young

II. Ethnography and Agency at the Margins

• When and How Does Voice Matter? And How Do We Know? - Jo Tacchi
• Building Voice and Capacity to Aspire of the Urban Poor. A View from Below - Sheela Patel
• Save us from Saviours. Disrupting Development Narratives of the Rescue and Uplift of the ‘Third World Woman’ - Andrea Cornwall
• Africa’s Voices Versus Big Data? The Value of Citizen Engagement through Interactive Radio - Sharath Srinivasan, Claudia Abreu Lopes
• A History of Cultural Futures. ‘Televisual Sovereignty’ in Contemporary Australian Indigenous Media - Faye Ginsburg
• Gringo Trails, Gringo Tales. Storytelling, Destination Perspectives, and Tourism Globalization - Pegi Vail

III. The Return of the Politics of Hope

• Debating the Politics of Hope. An Introduction - Ronald Stade
• On The Capacity to Aspire. Conversation with Arjun Appadurai - Ronald Stade
• Aspiration as Universal Human Capacity. A Response to Arjun Appadurai - Nigel Rapport
• Is Good Intention Enough to Be Heard? On Appadurai’s ‘Capacity to Aspire’ - Gudrun Dahl
• Hope, Fairness and the Search for the Good Life. A Slightly Oblique Comment to Arjun Appadurai - Thomas Hylland Eriksen