Randomistas

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An editorial in the Guardian praises the work of Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee – the ‘randomistas’ – in conducting randomised control trials on development initiatives. Would like to see Ben Goldacre’s comment on the quality of their trials, as it’s one of his areas of specialty.

Particularly interested in the mention of their research into whether recipients of free mosquito nets value them – ‘an emphatic yes’. Kudos to them for questioning the simplistic (and non-evidence-based) idea that people only value things they have to pay money for; a convenient fiction for the interests that want to charge for goods and services (like water).

In praise of … Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee
Through lots of microstudies, they make a subtle case for one big argument: aid really can help poor people
6 June 2011

Since the banking crisis broke, the different schools of economic thought have gained much exposure. You’ve heard of the Keynesians, the monetarists, the behaviouralists. Well, now meet the randomistas. The nickname given to the work done by MIT economists Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo refers to their use of randomised control trials, familiar to whitecoats working in science labs but not so common among crumpled development analysts in, say, West Bengal. Yet Banerjee and Duflo put the random trial to excellent use to find out what works. Want poor families in north India to immunise their children? Offer the parents a small bag of lentils as an incentive and vaccination rates make a startling jump, from around 5% to almost 40%. Or take the question of whether poor Africans really value mosquito nets they are given free. Much debated within university faculties, it took a randomista to go out to west Kenya and find the answer (an emphatic yes). Duflo and Banerjee tell these stories in a lovely new book called Poor Economics. As they admit, randomistas cannot answer some big questions – how to tackle food prices, for instance. But through lots of microstudies, they make a subtle case for one big argument: aid really can help poor people, provided the money follows the evidence. The economists back home lining up to warn George Osborne his plan isn’t working must wish there was some simple experiment to settle the manner, without making guinea pigs of us all.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jun/06/praise-esther-duflo-abhijit-banerjee

The politics of toilets in South Africa

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David Smith in the Guardian, 17 May 2011:

Why is South Africa still providing ‘apartheid toilets’?
How can a nation that builds five-star hotels and airports and hosted a successful World Cup still fail to provide decent sanitation?

… Like the Reverend Wright’s fiery sermons, or Gordon Brown’s “bigot” gaffe, unexpected bumps in the road can change the course of election campaigns, and so it is that televisions and newspapers in South Africa are full of images of toilets ahead of tomorrow’s local government vote. The image has come to symbolise the post-apartheid state’s continued inability to deliver electricity, running water, sanitation or housing to millions of people. It has left many wondering how a nation that can build five-star hotels and airports, host a successful football World Cup and enshrine human rights in its constitution can violate the basic right to defecate in private.

Toilets are the battleground between the two principal rivals for South Africans’ votes. The African National Congress (ANC), 17 years in power, has come to regard itself as the natural party of government with overwhelming support from the black majority. The opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) – which controls Cape Town and claims it is the best-run city in the country – is striving to bury its reputation as the bastion of the white elite. First there was an open lavatory scandal in the DA’s backyard. Cape Town was condemned in a recent court judgment for building 50 unenclosed loos in the Makhaza section of Khayelitsha. The gleeful ANC claimed this proved what it had been saying all along: that the DA protects the privilege of Cape Town’s affluent suburbanites while kicking its township dwellers in the teeth. These were “apartheid toilets built by racist whites who don’t respect blacks”…

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/17/south-africa-toilets-david-smith

Donor trips to the developing world

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Sophie Arie writing in the Guardian, 10 May 2011.

NGO package tours – holidays with a conscience?
A growing number of NGOs are offering package tours to developing countries so that donors can see their work in action.

…So is this the future for development agencies? To show people and not just tell people how hard life is for the poorest of the world’s population? And will this become the ultimate way for the discerning donor to decide if an agency deserves his or her support?

For some time, aid agencies specialising in child sponsorship have made ad hoc arrangements, despite the time and resources this demands of local staff, for individual donors to meet the child they support. Many also take major donors, board members and policy-makers on “immersion” trips. And many run volunteer working trips and fundraising adventure holidays…

http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2011/may/10/ngo-package-tours-holidays-conscience

Compare to my findings about the elastic membrane in my PhD.

Shigeru Ban disavowing novelty

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A reporter for The New York Times posed the question to Japanese designer Shigeru Ban: “Katrina. The Asian Tsunami. Haiti. Every time a natural disaster of this order occurs, designers present innovative ideas for shelters that never get built. Why not?”

Shigeru Ban replied: “We don’t need innovative ideas. We just need to build normal things that can be made easily and quickly. A house is a house”.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/24/garden/24qna.html

See also paper in ‘Design for Need’ re. disaster relief.

Introduction

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My name is Ralph Borland, and I’m an artist, curator and researcher based in Cape Town, South Africa. I am currently (in late 2025) artist-in-residence with EthicsLab at the Neuroscience Institute, University of Cape Town. I was a researcher with HUMA, the Institute for Humanities in Africa at the University of Cape Town (UCT) from March 2021 – February 2023. I have held two postdoctoral fellowships at UCT, first with the Public Culture CityLab at the African Centre for Cities (2012 – 2014) and subsequently on the international research project Global Arenas of Knowledge (2014 – 2017) which investigates ‘Southern Theory‘. My independent interventionist art project for several years is African Robots and SPACECRAFT. This site houses my PhD thesis, and my continuing research – for more information, please see the About page. This is my journal, where I keep track of items of interest to my work. You can use the ‘Categories’ menu in the sidebar to navigate through posts – ‘Objects‘ for example. Please feel free to send me links to examples of interesting objects and ideas or anything else related to my research – you can contact me here. Subscribe to this blog by clicking here. For my wider work please visit ralphborland.net and follow me on Instagram @ralphborland and on Twitter @ralphborland

Postdoc

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I have been a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Cape Town, first with the Public Culture CityLab at the African Centre for Cities (2012 – 2014) and subsequently on the international research project Global Arenas of Knowledge (2014 – 2017) which investigates ‘Southern Theory‘ (you can see a review of a related book ‘Africa-centred Knowledges‘ co-authored by my research leader Robert Morrell here). I interviewed climate change researchers in the Energy Research Centre at UCT, and co-authored a paper from our research ‘Southern Agency: Navigating Local and Global Imperatives in Climate Research‘ published by MIT Press’ Global Environmental Politics in August 2018.

Most of the posts in this category of my website are from my postdoctoral fellowship with the African Centre for Cities (ACC), which ‘seeks to facilitate critical urban research and policy discourses for the promotion of vibrant, democratic and sustainable urban development in the global South from an African perspective’. I worked on issues around public art, design and culture, especially in the context of Cape Town as World Design Capital 2014. My position was the ‘Max-Planck/ACC Super-diversity Postdoctoral Research Fellowship’, funded by the Max-Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity in Gottingen, Germany.

Below are posts from my Journal related to my postdoc work.