Initial reflections on the past year’s work…

Well, I’m back in the UK and it’s been quite a year.  I have had the opportunity to carry out my work and research in/with Seva Mandir across a range of programmes, processes, contexts, issues, scales, and so on. I have engaged with diverse theoretical perspectives and an endless stream of questions emerging from my [...]

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State employment, economic and environmental justice, growth and political organisation

Is the National Rural Employment Gurantee Act (NREGA) simply government handouts or is it really an upliftment programme. What does it mean that the government is giving employment to people? Is this an ideal model? Is state ‘employment’ a permanent feature? How is payment by the state exchanged for productivity? What are the terms of [...]

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silence

It has been an empty few months… absolutely packed full of thoughts, emotions, experiences, conversations, interactions and meaning. But there has been nothing to post. How can so much be going on and yet the urge to communicate anything about it all be so reluctant to emerge? Why the silence? This is a question that [...]

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drawing to a close

The term has now ended. Officially. Tomorrow my parents will come to Brighton and we will spend a couple of days together, talking, walking, looking, eating, laughing and connecting. After that, I will be heading to London where I will, with fingers crossed, successfully brave the process of getting my new work visa for India. [...]

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What I’ve been doing

The way that can be described is not the absolute way…
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A sense of belonging

N.B. This piece has been taken from my reflective writing journal and should be understood as tentative and incomplete
After our group session this morning [actually on October 28th], which surfaced many questions for me, I had a good long (much appreciated and really valuable) chat with one of my co-learners… It’s hard to [...]

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Back in England… Future Uncertain

It’s been a while since I last put a post up and this lull has coincided with my transition back to England. Amazingly, after two years at a stretch in India, I have not had any adjustment issues (at least, nothing serious). I have been gorging on my mum’s fantastic food, propounding my theories about [...]

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community based organisations vs. organised communities

So, I’ve had this long-standing thought about working with communities… I have this notion that it’s not particularly original but all the same it strikes me as worth noting down – especially as I’m in need the middle of preparing a proposal that builds on this idea.
Most of the development discourse – and I suppose [...]

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Am I in a bubble?

Every once in a while, confusion sets in… and when it does, it tends to be everything at once. This leads me to believe that confusion is more about a state of mind than it is in relation to specific things… Though I may be off the mark here… In any case, a little bit [...]

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