So, after 4 years - or maybe it was three - studying international development and social change, and now starting to become more and more active and ask more and more questions - I keep coming across contradicting examples for certain "theories" i learned.
Unfortunately, I never had examples to begin with, so I can contradict these examples
with case studies showing the otherside.
A recent example...
While in Vietnam, I went to the board dinner of the Asia Pacific Roundtable on Sustainable Consumption and Production - at a nice little vietnamese restaurant where, as I soon realized was usual, the waitresses all wear traditional long robes of beautiful silk, without patterns.
I was intrigued by the fact that when working, everyone wore these elegant traditional garm, but when not working, they wore jeans and high-heels and t-shirts!
So at this dinner I sat next to a very well educated Sri Lankan man who has been working in international development for decades.
I mentioned something regarding the problem with professionals being trained in Sri Lankan Universities and then leaving the country to work elsewhere for better wages and how it's an intellectual drain on the country and benefits "developed" countries. I had learned this in my Tales From The Far Side International Development Class.
ON THE CONTRARY: He said that they want their people to go and work and move abroad because they don't have enough jobs for the people they are training - and if you send them abroad - they will send incredible amounts of money back home!
We had quite insufficiently explored this - and without case studies!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment