Tiina Kontinen

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• PhD
• Professor at University of Jyväskylä

Purpose The effectiveness of scientific seasonal weather forecasts as a tool to help rural communities in Zimbabwe make decisions is under continuous debate. This persists due to rural communities' ongoing difficulty accessing scientific weather forecasts, early warning systems and remote sensing technologies. As a result, rural people continue to...

Our latest publication zooms in on how a Korean village development model, Saemaul Undong (known as samwiri odongo in the community) inspires and catapults a rural village in western Uganda to tangible hope and achievements amidst a dearth of state provisioning.

This concluding chapter summarizes the key findings of the individual chapters. It recaps the diverse conceptualizations of civic space used, as well as the restrictions and civil society responses identified. The chapter concludes with reflections on other perspectives not elaborated in this particular volume and on potential agendas for future re...

This introductory chapter contextualizes how the volume resonates to current global trends and research debates concerning democracy, civil society, and civic space. The chapter shows how the debates on the decline of democracy, civil society actors, and changing civil spaces underpin the book’s agenda of exploring civil society responses to civic...

This chapter argues that civil society organizations (CSOs) engage in continuous legitimacy negotiations that both shape and are shaped by civic space. It focuses on President John Magufuli’s term in Tanzania, which was labelled as an authoritarian turn characterized by shrinking civic space. The chapter employs broad definitions: of civic space as...

This Introduction to special issue provides a context for the Nordic Development Research Conference 2021 (NorDev21). It introduces the contents of the conference and contributions within the issue revolved around two main themes of (1) Learning, education, Covid-19 pandemic and decolonizing and (2) State, Democracy, and Citizenship.

The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are based on the Agenda 2030 according to which ‘no one is left behind’, highlighting the need for inclusive citizenship at all levels. This article examines self-help groups in rural Tanzania as potential arenas for inclusive citizenship, which is defined as bottom-up practices of membership...

At a time when uneven power dynamics are high on development actors agenda, this book will be an important contribution to researchers and practitioners working on innovation in development and civil society. While there is much discussion of localization, decolonization and shifting power in civil society collaborations in development, the debate...

This concluding chapter returns to the questions posed in the introductory chapter, reflects on the answers to these provided by the individual chapters, and reviews the main insights emerging from the five sections of the book. It also discusses an agenda for further exploration, research, design, and experimentation concerning reimagining civil s...

This chapter introduces current debate on civil society collaborations in development and summarizes the contributions of this book to that debate. It relates these contributions to identified needs for transformation in the collaborations between civil society organizations from Global South and those from the Global North and reviews initiatives...

This chapter establishes a conceptual foundation for investigating the reimagining of roles, relations, and processes in collaborations among civil society organizations in development. The chapter starts by introducing the notion of imagination. It then proceeds to review the existing research literature on challenges related to power and privileg...

The article spotlights the impediments of the localization agenda in the Rohingya response in Bangladesh through the notion of humanitarian space. The Rohingyas rely entirely on material aid and humanitarian services in the camps, mainly stemming from international actors committed to the localization agenda, which, however, has not been effectivel...

The strengthening of civil societies is an important goal in Finland’s development policy and a means to achieve other development policy goals. Supporting civil societies is important in the current world political situation, where civic spaces are shrinking and autocratization is on the rise. This commissioned study for the Ministry for Foreign A...

In this chapter, we offer a background to the edited volume, the research project that produced it and its content—a series of investigations of the contested notions of citizenship and learning, and their interconnections. We set the agenda for exploring citizenship and learning as defined in philosophical traditions, and as experienced and descri...

This chapter focuses on three intertwined dimensions central to contemporary studies of citizenship: the material, the cultural and the political. Based on these, it develops an account of citizenship learning that draws on socio-cultural and socio-material theories of learning and emphasizes everyday encounters and practices as spaces central to l...

This chapter contributes to the debates concerning contextualized conceptualizations of citizenship. Based on the work of pragmatist philosopher John Dewey, it offers a definition of citizenship as constructed in everyday communities in the course of taking care of shared issues. Further, it examines the habits of citizenship that are both acquired...

This chapter examines the ways in which members of a rural community in Western Uganda perceive and conceptualize diverse ways of learning to be a good citizen. It analyzes data generated by means of a tool called the ‘ladder of citizenship’, which facilitated explication of local ideas concerning good citizenship, and reflections on how one can ‘c...

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are premised on the principles of ‘leaving no one behind’ and transformative development. Achieving the goals requires active citizens that are engaged in community development and claiming their rights. The chapter explores the ways in which a local NGO uses Saemaul Undong (SMU), a Korean community developm...

See: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9780429279171?fbclid=IwAR1BbsU0jLo1dmk_ZO16eCBaolp-RoHLTsSysUACNptfuMwgYhOf69cE3aU

Research on hybrid organizations, that is, organizations combining multiple institutional logics has gained traction in recent years. The literature has identified various organizational responses to different institutional logics. In this article, we focus on the response of selective coupling defined as purposeful enactment of intact elements of...

Knowledge production and its possibilities and pitfalls in North–South research partnerships have gained increasing attention. The previous literature has identified certain pervasive challenges, and suggested a variety of ways to change partnerships, ranging from improvement of current collaboration activities to fundamental transformation of the...

One of the frequently mentioned manifestations of asymmetrical relationships in North–South research collaboration has been challenges in co-authoring joint international publications. We critically reflect on our attempt to counteract this tendency and analyse a process of producing an edited volume on practices of citizenship in East Africa, whic...

This chapter describes selected features of the contemporary Tanzania that form the context for learning of citizenship in civil society. The chapter grasps the contextual conditions and circumstances of citizenship in Tanzania by looking at historical evolvement of the notion of development, maendeleo, over the period from colonial eras to the pos...

The chapter examines self-help groups in rural Tanzania as practices in which citizenship habits are formed. Self-help groups are referred as locally organized groups established to address the needs and challenges of the members. From the point of view of pragmatism, self-help groups provide concrete examples of a specific form of associated life...

According to the pragmatist framework of this book, practices in which citizenship is constructed are embedded in certain environments and, accordingly, current citizenship habits have been formulated in the course of a continuity of experiences and in interaction with existing circumstances (Holma & Kontinen, this volume). In this chapter, we prov...

In the paper we attempt to further our current knowledge on hybrid organizations and present a theoretical argument for expanding the institutional logics approach to hybrid organizations (Battilana & Dorado 2010; Thornton et al. 2012) with the postcolonial notion of cultural hybridity (Bhabha 1994). We seek to include a specific perspective on pow...

The chapter discusses the history, dilemmas and future visions of Development Studies in Tanzania, especially from the perspective of Institute of Development Studies in the University of Dar es Salaam. It shows how in the 1970s Development Studies played a significant role in the consolidation of state ideology of African socialism among universit...

This book brings together multiple critical assessments of the current state and future visions of global development studies. It examines how the field engages with new paradigms and narratives, methodologies and scientific impact, and perspectives from the Global South. The authors focus on social and democratic transformation, inclusive developm...

https://www.routledge.com/Learning-and-Forgetting-in-Development-NGOs-Insights-from-Organisational/Kontinen/p/book/9781138089808

This article develops a theoretical framework for analyzing adult learning in projects aiming to strengthen citizenship implemented by nongovernmental organizations, especially in the contexts of sub-Saharan Africa. On the basis of a review of international development research, we suggest that a new framework should address the need for a conceptu...

Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in international development struggle between being actors in the mainstream or representatives of alternatives to it. However, many NGOs all over the world align with the mainstream and are increasingly similar to each other. This homogenization results from institutional isomorphism, which is affected by their...

The new development agenda formulated through the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is rich with issues such as women empowerment, inclusive society, environment and decent work that have been high on the agenda of civil society actors. However, civil society itself gets only a scant attention among other implementing bodies. We argue for nuance...

Can knowledge and evidence work better for non-governmental organisations (NGOs)? Throughout the world, NGOs are under pressure to demonstrate their legitimacy and credibility. How NGOs use knowledge and evidence forms both part of the critique of NGOs and part of the solution. This book unpacks ways in which NGOs – at international, national and l...

Characterized by globalization, increasing pluralism, and new complexities of citizenship, the contemporary world sets challenges to the ways in which we conceptualize the processes of searching for shared solutions to ever-complicated societal problems. Whilst the political rhetoric emphasizes citizen participation, engagement, and “voice”, there...

Equity is frequently cited as one of the key design aspects of environmental governance regimes. In the context of Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+), a forest-based climate change mitigation instrument, the manner in which ‘equity’ is understood will be of critical importance for the impacts and acceptance of REDD...

This article examines recent experiences in North-South research partnerships, at a time when the relevance of traditional dichotomies between “industrialized” and “developing” countries, or between “North” and “South”, is waning. Scientific collaborations between northern and southern researchers are at the crossroads of two organizational fields:...

The recent drives for implementation of results-based management and human rights-based approaches in international development have increased pressures to improve and modify monitoring and evaluation systems in CSOs. On the basis of an analysis of two Finnish civil society organisations (CSOs) committed to participation and empowerment, the articl...

Liminaalitila on antropologiassa määritelty välitilaksi, kynnyksellä olemiseksi. Liminaalisuus on nykypäivän työelämälle ominainen piirre, joka voi näyttäytyä kaaoksena, mutta myös uutta luovana muutosvaiheena.

The concept of equity is increasingly salient in the design of funding mechanisms and multilevel governance regimes for environmental conservation. In the context of Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+), a climate change mitigation instrument based on payments for the maintenance and enhancement of carbon stocks of tr...

Climate change is a major global challenge that elicits diverse and often conflicting views from researchers, policy-makers and civil society activists. Accordingly, the theme of climate change has increasingly entered the domain of development research, policy and practice, thus challenging our conceptualisation of sustainability and sustainable d...

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) occupy an increasingly significant role in international development aid. In tandem with their increasing significance, demands for showing effects and impacts by means of rigorous, most recently experimentalist, evaluation practices have been made; especially by international donors who channel a remarkable po...

The rise of evidence-based policy-making has created pressures on the evaluation activities of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs). In tandem with the demands from outside, NGOs themselves have improved their evaluation activities due to their own desire to learn. This article was motivated by the reflections of Finnish development NGOs on their...

Alvesson and Deetz (2000) call for more empirical studies in critical management and especially for multiple interpretations (ibid. 109) of same phenomenon in the management. Additionally (ibid. 182) they remind that the critical management often sees the organisations as sites of relations of power only, and tend to forget the productive outcomes...

Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have gained an important role in development co-operation during the last two decades. The development funding channelled through NGOs has increased and the number of NGOs engaged in development activities, both North and South, has been growing. Supporting NGOs has been seen as one way to strengthen civil soci...