A change of pace to break up a pattern
In the midst of data analysis and writing up results focused on one of the key insights emerging from the masses of information hidden within the remote resilience project’s datasets means making a change of pace from the rather frantic reading and writing I’d been lately doing. I’ve discovered, via experimentation, that the two are […]
Will Africans lead innovation in resilience tech for sustainable lifestyles on a shoestring?
A Tanzanian startup offering a smart hydroponics kit for urban farming in limited spaces that costs around $500. Reading about the system yesterday – invented by founders Praygod Japhet and Dickson Mallya – I was moved to create a hashtag #resiliencetech on Twitter. Something about the topic made me feel that I should be keeping […]
Reflecting on Béné’s review of important concepts for local food systems resilience in context of systemic shocks
Béné’s (May, 2020) review last year of the most important concepts for thinking about resilience of local food systems, in context of the pandemic and other shocks provides frameworks for situating empirical data on the resilience strategies employed by informal economic actors in the last mile of Nairobi’s urban food system specializing in fresh produce […]
Reflections on Kate Meagher’s work
Meagher’s work (1990) clearly demonstrates that what I would go on to see 25 years later at the borderland of Uganda and Kenya, she had already seen at the borderland of Uganda and then Zaire (now DRC). Possibly the only difference in our interpretation and narratives is due to our own positional frame of reference […]
Literature as Waymarkers: A New Series of Shorter Posts
Yesterday’s post was almost 2000 words long, I might as well just send it off to a journal. To find a compromise between the facilitation of thinking and writing that blogging offers me, and an optimal length of writing and extracting content references, I’m exploring a new approach. It fits where I’m at now in […]
This one’s on me
Sing for me a word song, he said. One of those magical ones you craft with the music of your keyboard as the accompaniment. Write for me the the words that would capture the magic of being freed from constraints and limitations, to let the mind roam as free as the fingers do on the […]
Strategy Tools for Value Creation by Including Informal Entrepreneurial Ecosystems
There is a lot to unpack in the title of this post and not all of it might happen here today. Consider this the amuse bouche of my current thinking and writing, with the unexpected side effect of releasing the first faint sounds of music that’s been long hidden in my keyboard. The phrasing of […]
Keep looking for the rhythm of the magic, don’t let it go
When I forget why I’m here and what I’m looking for, I forget to keep looking for it. I was drawn back to the keyboard to write this post today, after giving up for the umpteenth time to craft a coherent blogpost in the analytical style. I’ve got at least 4 different drafts saved with […]
Writing for pleasure
6 weeks into full-fledged blogging, I find myself approaching the keyboard for the sheer pleasure of writing again. Have I found the music of my word song that I was looking for? I don’t know. I haven’t actually thought about it recently, I’ve just been writing. The barrier to sitting down to write – for […]
Working Progress
I have come to deeply appreciate the role of the bystander, who stands there and smokes while watching the artist’s working progress.
