Comments on: Some views from the Global South http://itsgettinghotinhere.org/2008/04/15/some-views-from-the-global-south/ Dispatches from the Youth Climate Movement Fri, 21 Nov 2008 22:04:56 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=MU hourly 1 By: insurgent sociologist http://itsgettinghotinhere.org/2008/04/15/some-views-from-the-global-south/#comment-62731 insurgent sociologist Wed, 16 Apr 2008 23:59:00 +0000 http://itsgettinghotinhere.wordpress.com/?p=4600#comment-62731 For those interested on how the World Bank manipulates research to further its project of "Development". I would recommend sociologist Michael Goldman's unprecedented "ethnography" of the Bank and its employees in his book Imperial Nature. A great history of the shift in the Bank's policy position from sustainability and human rights are "not our business" to claiming that their agenda is the ONLY road to sustainability. By firing researches whose findings contradict their projects, tailoring which parts of reports are published or buried, and withholding raw data as "proprietary" the Bank pushes through dams, indigenous forced relocations, and other projects that make huge profits for western contractors, give developed nations greater access to natural resources, and create disaster for locals. An old professor of mine started using the book around the time the Bank tried to hire him to rubber stamp an assessment of their Indonesian forestry schemes. For those interested on how the World Bank manipulates research to further its project of “Development”. I would recommend sociologist Michael Goldman’s unprecedented “ethnography” of the Bank and its employees in his book Imperial Nature. A great history of the shift in the Bank’s policy position from sustainability and human rights are “not our business” to claiming that their agenda is the ONLY road to sustainability. By firing researches whose findings contradict their projects, tailoring which parts of reports are published or buried, and withholding raw data as “proprietary” the Bank pushes through dams, indigenous forced relocations, and other projects that make huge profits for western contractors, give developed nations greater access to natural resources, and create disaster for locals.

An old professor of mine started using the book around the time the Bank tried to hire him to rubber stamp an assessment of their Indonesian forestry schemes.

]]>