{"title":"Introduction: Development, Young People, and the Social Production of Aspirations.","authors":"Roy Huijsmans, Nicola Ansell, Peggy Froerer","doi":"10.1057/s41287-020-00337-1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1057/s41287-020-00337-1","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>In this editorial introduction to the Special Issue Youth, Aspirations and the Life Course: Development and the social production of aspirations in young people's lives, we put the work presented in this collection in conversation with the wider literature on development, youth and aspirations. Aspiration we define as an orientation towards a desired future. We elaborate on our conceptualisation of aspirations as socially produced and reflect on the methodological challenges in researching young people's aspirations in development. While mindful of the various critiques of aspiration research we argue that aspirations constitute fertile terrain for theorising the temporal dynamics of being young and growing up in contexts of development.</p>","PeriodicalId":506319,"journal":{"name":"The European Journal of Development Research","volume":"33 1","pages":"1-15"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1057/s41287-020-00337-1","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"38637358","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Potential for Upgrading in Financialised Agri-food Chains: The Case of Ghanaian Cocoa.","authors":"Sophie van Huellen, Fuad Mohammed Abubakar","doi":"10.1057/s41287-020-00351-3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1057/s41287-020-00351-3","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>We revisit functional upgrading opportunities for developing and emerging market companies in the context of highly financialised food systems. We argue that the assessment of upgrading potential within the global value chain literature lacks consideration of constraints posed by financialisation, not only of the sector within which upgrading takes place but also by the global financial architecture more broadly. For the Ghanaian cocoa-chocolate sector, we show that financialisation acts as limiting factor to upgrading, with contradicting tendencies. First, financialisation of lead firms, eager to outsource non-core activities, has promoted cocoa processing in Ghana, but the resulting consolidation of power hinders further functional upgrading. Second, Ghana's dependency on cocoa for foreign exchange earnings necessitates upgrading into higher value-added segments, while also undermining feasible upgrading strategies that build on domestic or regional markets first. These contradicting tendencies constitute a middle value-added trap, which is difficult but not impossible to overcome.</p>","PeriodicalId":506319,"journal":{"name":"The European Journal of Development Research","volume":"33 2","pages":"227-252"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7859721/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"25346759","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Bringing Production Back into Development: An introduction.","authors":"Ha-Joon Chang, Antonio Andreoni","doi":"10.1057/s41287-021-00359-3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1057/s41287-021-00359-3","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Production was at the heart of economics from the days of Classical economics. However, with the rise of Neoclassical economics in the late 19th century, production has lost its status as the ultimate interest of economics. Several opportunities for fruitful integration of alternative streams of economics research-Evolutionary, Structuralist and Keynesian in particular-have been also missed. Even the humanist approaches to development, such as Sen's Human Capability Approach, paid little attention to the domain of production. In this article, we argue that the fragmentation of the production-centred paradigm has weakened both academic research and policy-making related to economic development. We introduce and discuss eight articles developed around the special issue theme of Bringing Production Back into Development. We argue that a renewed 'productionist' agenda is essential to address the structural challenges faced by developing countries, even more so after the revelation of structural weaknesses by the pandemic.</p>","PeriodicalId":506319,"journal":{"name":"The European Journal of Development Research","volume":"33 2","pages":"165-178"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7921821/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"25452642","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Correction to: A New Normal or Business-as-Usual? Lessons for COVID-19 from Financial Crises in East and Southeast Asia.","authors":"O Fiona Yap","doi":"10.1057/s41287-020-00336-2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1057/s41287-020-00336-2","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1057/s41287-020-00327-3.].</p>","PeriodicalId":506319,"journal":{"name":"The European Journal of Development Research","volume":"33 3","pages":"794"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7656895/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"38609651","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"<i>\"</i>Our Generation…\" Aspiration, Desire, and Generation as Discourse Among Highly Educated, Portuguese, Post-austerity Migrants in London.","authors":"Lisa Rodan, Roy Huijsmans","doi":"10.1057/s41287-020-00299-4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1057/s41287-020-00299-4","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Drawing on 18 months of multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork, this paper brings into dialogue empirical material from young, highly educated Portuguese migrants in London, theoretical work on desire in migration studies and sociological approaches to theorising aspirations. The paper argues that young migrants' narratives of migration shed important light on the working of aspirations in the processes of becoming through migration. Such orientations towards the future are shaped by young migrants' engagements with doxic and habituated logics producing aspirations. The analytical lens of desire illuminates the role of discursive self-positioning, emotions, and the embodiment of lived experiences of migration in the enacting of particular migrant subjectivities and associated aspirations. In a context in which competing discourses of generation constitute important registers of meaning about migration and aspirations, mobilising generation discourses is a key temporal practice in young migrants' constructions of narratives of migration.</p>","PeriodicalId":506319,"journal":{"name":"The European Journal of Development Research","volume":"33 1","pages":"147-164"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1057/s41287-020-00299-4","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"38452414","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Unprecedented but not Unpredictable: Effects of the COVID-19 Crisis on Commodity-Dependent Countries.","authors":"Bernhard Tröster, Karin Küblböck","doi":"10.1057/s41287-020-00313-9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1057/s41287-020-00313-9","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The global spread of COVID-19 represents a massive challenge for developing countries. Beyond the health crisis and the sudden stop of domestic economic activities, many countries face turmoil linked to commodity dependence. Commodity prices have reacted strongly to the crisis, reflecting changes in supply and demand due to policy measures to limit contagion. Commodity-dependent developing countries are therefore confronted with an unprecedented combination of shocks. However, the crisis has also exposed structural vulnerabilities of these countries linked above all to commodity price dynamics. In the context of a longstanding debate on commodities and development, we portray recent commodity price developments and underlying drivers and discuss implications for commodity-dependent countries, including the risks of depressed export earnings and of changing global production patterns in the long run. Responses to the crisis have to include measures to stabilize commodity prices as well as strategies for economic diversification.</p>","PeriodicalId":506319,"journal":{"name":"The European Journal of Development Research","volume":"32 5","pages":"1430-1449"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2020-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1057/s41287-020-00313-9","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"38526450","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Intersecting Vulnerabilities: The Impacts of COVID-19 on the Psycho-emotional Lives of Young People in Low- and Middle-Income Countries.","authors":"Prerna Banati, Nicola Jones, Sally Youssef","doi":"10.1057/s41287-020-00325-5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1057/s41287-020-00325-5","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Across diverse contexts, emerging evidence suggests that the COVID-19 pandemic is increasing levels of anxiety and stress. In calling for greater attention to people's psychosocial and emotional well-being, global actors have paid insufficient attention to the realities of the pandemic in low- and middle-income countries, where millions of people are already exposed to intersecting vulnerabilities. Chronic poverty, protracted violence, conflict and displacement, coupled with weak health, education and protection systems, provide the backdrop of many adolescents' lives. Drawing on qualitative in-country telephone interviews with over 500 adolescents in Ethiopia, Côte d'Ivoire and Lebanon, this article unpacks the age and gendered dimensions of COVID-19 and its response. We conclude by discussing the implications for COVID-19 recovery efforts, arguing that embedding adolescent-centred, inclusive approaches in education, community-based health and social protection responses, has the potential to mitigate the psycho-emotional toll of the pandemic on young people and promote resilience.</p>","PeriodicalId":506319,"journal":{"name":"The European Journal of Development Research","volume":"32 5","pages":"1613-1638"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2020-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1057/s41287-020-00325-5","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"38606307","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Spencer Henson, Uma Kambhampati, Tewodaj Mogues, Wendy Olsen, Martin Prowse, Raul Ramos, John Rand, Rasjah Rasiah, Keetie Roelen, Rebecca Tiessen, O Fiona Yap
{"title":"The Development Impacts of COVID-19 at Home and Abroad: Politics and Implications of Government Action.","authors":"Spencer Henson, Uma Kambhampati, Tewodaj Mogues, Wendy Olsen, Martin Prowse, Raul Ramos, John Rand, Rasjah Rasiah, Keetie Roelen, Rebecca Tiessen, O Fiona Yap","doi":"10.1057/s41287-020-00334-4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1057/s41287-020-00334-4","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>What is COVID-19's impact on development? What lessons can be drawn from development studies regarding the effects of and recovery from COVID-19? The unprecedented scale and scope of government interventions carry implications at all levels: global, national, and local. In this introduction, our team of Editors underline the importance of systematic substantive study to further knowledge acquisition, and rigorous global-, national-, or context-specific evaluation to inform evidence-based policymaking. The 12 articles summarised here capture these values and sense of \"high quality\". In particular, despite early considerations in the first year of the pandemic, they illuminate the need for diverse responses beyond business-as-usual, attention to the multiplicity of impact of policies formulated, and progressive strategies to counteract the impacts of this disaster around the world. The path of future research is clear: studies need to consider and give voice to marginalised groups to counteract the short- and long-term impacts of the pandemic.</p>","PeriodicalId":506319,"journal":{"name":"The European Journal of Development Research","volume":"32 5","pages":"1339-1352"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2020-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1057/s41287-020-00334-4","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"38637357","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Economic Costs of COVID-19 in Sub-Saharan Africa: Insights from a Simulation Exercise for Ghana.","authors":"Sena Amewu, Seth Asante, Karl Pauw, James Thurlow","doi":"10.1057/s41287-020-00332-6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1057/s41287-020-00332-6","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Globally, countries have resorted to social distancing, travel restrictions and economic lockdowns to reduce transmission of COVID-19. The socioeconomic costs of these blunt measures are expected to be high, especially in sub-Saharan Africa where many live hand-to-mouth and lack social safety nets. Social Accounting Matrix multiplier model results show that Ghana's urban lockdown, although in force for only three weeks in April 2020, has likely caused GDP to fall by 27.9% during that period, while an additional 3.8 million Ghanaians temporarily became poor. Compared to the government's revised GDP growth rate of 1.5% for 2020, the model predicts a contraction of 0.6 to 6.3% for 2020, depending on the speed of the recovery. The US$200 million budgeted for Ghana's Coronavirus Alleviation Program will close only a small part of the estimated US$ 2.3 billion GDP gap between the fast recovery scenario and government's revised GDP trajectory.</p>","PeriodicalId":506319,"journal":{"name":"The European Journal of Development Research","volume":"32 5","pages":"1353-1378"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2020-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1057/s41287-020-00332-6","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"38564814","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Emerging Medium-Scale Tenant Farming, Gig Economies, and the COVID-19 Disruption: The Case of Commercial Vegetable Clusters in Ethiopia.","authors":"Bart Minten, Belay Mohammed, Seneshaw Tamru","doi":"10.1057/s41287-020-00315-7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1057/s41287-020-00315-7","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Driven by the fast spread of private irrigation pumps, there has been a rapid expansion of intensive vegetable cultivation in the central Rift Valley in Ethiopia, making it the most important commercial vegetable production cluster in the country. Supporting that \"quiet revolution\" has been an inflow of migrant laborers-paid through daily, monthly, or piecemeal contracts, with few employment benefits attached to them-and a gig economy as widely used contractors organize, among others, mechanized land preparation, the digging of wells and ponds, seedling propagation, and loading of trucks. Almost 60% of the irrigated area is cultivated by medium-scale tenant farmers relying on short-term rental contracts. It seems that gig economies characterized by flexible contract arrangements implemented by outside contractors, which are increasingly fueling sophisticated sectors in developed countries, are important in these commercial agrarian settings in Africa as well. We further find that the COVID-19 pandemic has led to significant disruptions of this model, as seen by more limited access to services and the unavailability or high price increases in factor markets, especially for labor, and large but heterogenous price changes in output markets.</p>","PeriodicalId":506319,"journal":{"name":"The European Journal of Development Research","volume":"32 5","pages":"1402-1429"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2020-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1057/s41287-020-00315-7","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"38526452","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}