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Una Vida Sin Palabras?: Disability, Subalternity and the Sandinista Revolution

BURKE, Lucy
RUDMAN, Thomas
2016

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This paper offers an analysis of the documentary film, Una Vida Sin Palabras [A life without words] (2011). The film follows a short period in the lives of a campesino family living in a rural area of Nicaragua as a teacher of Nicaraguan sign language, working for a local NGO, endeavours to teach three deaf siblings how to sign. Bringing together the critical practices of Disability and Subaltern studies in the specific context of contemporary Nicaragua, the paper argues: (1) that the film ultimately re-inscribes and reinforces the subalternity of the disabled subjects it sets out to portray; and (2) that the hierarchy it produces between its object – the deaf family – and its implied educated, metropolitan audience replays some influential (but, we would argue, politically limited) critiques of the failure of the first Sandinista Government (1979-1990) and other broad based radical political movements to represent the national popular. In so doing, the paper also makes a case for the political and intellectual importance of bringing a Critical Disability Studies perspective to the field of Subaltern Studies, and argues that an engagement with the problems that are presented by this film at the level of both form and content raise some important questions for both fields of enquiry.

 

Disability & the Global South (DGS), 2016, Vol. 3 No. 1

Evaluating capacity development : experiences from research and development organizations around the world

HORTON, Douglas
et al
2003

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This book is the result of the Evaluating Capacity Development (ECD) Project, begun by ISNAR in January 2000, which aimed to improve capacity development efforts in research and development organizations through the use of evaluation. It explains how the project used an action-learning approach, bringing together people from various countries and different types of organisations. Six evaluation studies were conducted over the course of three years: exploring capacity development in a rural development NGO in Bangladesh; towards strategic management in a Cuban agricultural research institute; understanding capacity development in a plant genetic resources centre in Ghana; assessing organisational change in an agricultural faculty in Nicaragua; strengthening participatory research capacities in a Philippines root crops research centre; and expanding capacities in a rural development institute in Vietnam. Chapter 1 provides background reading on the ECD project that gave rise to the book. Chapter 2 discusses basic concepts of organisational capacity, capacity development and evaluation. Chapter 3 addresses two fundamental issues: why managers should be concerned with organisational capacity development and why they should evaluate capacity development efforts. Chapter 4 discusses issues related to the 'how' of capacity development. Chapter 5 discusses partnerships for capacity development while 6 outlines approaches and methods for evaluating organisational capacity development. Chapter 7 discusses how to utilize evaluation processes and results to advance capacity development and performance in an organisation

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