UC Berkeley Center for Science Technology Medicine & Society:
Call for Papers
The promise and politics of provincializing experts, models, and knowledge in the 21st century
Development, understood as a set of aspirations, an organizational field, sets of expertise, or a guiding imaginary has shifted in response to the post-colonial growth of democracy in the South, the rise of multi-stakeholder partnerships and sustainability discourses, and the frenzied search for innovative models by policy makers worldwide. The North to South transfer of aid and tools, a process in which Northern experts were central, has opened up to the transfer of policies – like impact assessments, ecosystem services, or public health programs – in which Southern experts are increasingly involved. A ‘local’ view of the world has been promoted as more sensitive and appropriate to local, real-world needs and customs for many decades by development scholars and practitioners. However, we are now seeing not only ‘local’ models and policies being developed in situ in democratic countries such as Chile, but we are also seeing the rise of ‘Southern’-led international cooperation agreements, and ‘Southern’ models travelling to the ‘North’. For example, transport policies from Bogota are being implemented in San Francisco, while multiple African nations are receiving development aid from Brazil and technical advice from Bolivia.
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Fatima Tlisova is an investigative journalist, researcher and expert on the North Caucasus region of Russia. She has written extensively on Circassian nationalism, the role of Islam in regional affairs, human rights abuses during the military operations in the North Caucasus, torture, disappearances and corruption. She was Editor in Chief of the Regnum News Agency, worked as a special correspondent of Novaya Gazeta, and reported for RFE/RL and for the Associated Press.
Dele Olojede is the publisher of NEXT, NextOnSunday and 234NEXT.com, which provide news and informed opinion primarily for a Nigerian audience to further the common good. A winner of the Pulitzer Prize and a former foreign editor at New York Newsday, he is chairman of the Global Network Initiative International Advisory Council and a member of the governing board of the Aspen Institute's Africa Leadership Initiative.
Ethan Zuckerman served a fellow of the Berkman Center from 2003 through 2009. Since 2009, he's been a senior researcher at the center, working on projects that focus on the impact of technology and media on the developing world and on quantitative analysis of media. With Hal Roberts, he is working on comparative studies of tools for censorship circumvention, techniques for blocking-resistant publishing for human rights sites and on the Media Cloud framework for quantitative study of digital media.
Colin M. Maclay is the Managing Director of the Berkman Center, where he is privileged to work in diverse capacities with its faculty, staff, fellows and extended community to realize its ambitious goals. His broad aim is to effectively and appropriately integrate information and communication technologies (ICTs) with social and economic development, focusing on the changes Internet technologies foster in society, policy and institutions.
Ivan Sigal is the Executive Director of Global Voices (
Jon Sawyer is founding director of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, a non-profit organization that funds independent reporting with the intent of raising the standard of media coverage and engaging the broadest possible public in global affairs. In its first five years the Center has funded nearly 200 international reporting projects, partnering with major newspapers, magazines, broadcast and online outlets as well as universities and high schools across the country. Jon was previously the Washington bureau chief for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, for which he reported from five dozen countries. He was selected three years in a row for the National Press Club's award for best foreign reporting.