Paper short abstract

This paper explores the institutional agency of indigenous women-led organisations in Kenya, Namibia, Nigeria and Uganda. It examines the power dynamics between funders and beneficiary institutions and the implications this has for long-term development benefits and transformation for women.

Paper long abstract

The power imbalance in international politics has undoubtedly permeated the international development ecosystem. The question is: Are recipients of development assistance in the Global South trapped in the neo-colonial establishment? The intersection of race and gender within the discourse suggests that the politicisation of development assistance may worst hit women-led organisations in Africa. Thus, the dynamics of global development need to be probed to uncover the power-play between the rich Global North and developing countries in the southern hemisphere who are forced by their poor socio-political and economic circumstances to go cap-in-hand seeking foreign development aid to support even the most basic human development programs. Sadly, the current political landscape of countries of the Global South projects an image of dis-solidarity, desperation, and vulnerability, which is a breeding ground for gross inequality in the negotiations surrounding aid administration. This paper, therefore, examines the practice of grant-seeking and making within the backdrop of the current political and socio-economic context within which Indigenous Women-led Organisations (IWLOs) in Africa operate. The article further dissects the power dynamics and the long-term benefits of development assistance. Interviews with decision- makers of IWLOs in Africa and women of African descent employed by donor agencies in the Global North answered two key questions:How can IWLOs advance their visions/missions under covert or overt donor agendas and remain true to their causes and stakeholders? How can aid administration to (women) beneficiaries in the Global South be more equitable, non-predatory, and transformative?

Paper short abstract

This research examines the 'shrinking humanitarian space' in Cameroon’s Anglophone conflict through the 2021 MSF suspension, showing how contested neutrality, historical distrust, and state security concerns converge, and argues for context-specific, decolonised humanitarian frameworks.

Paper long abstract

This paper examines the ‘shrinking humanitarian space’ in Cameroon’ Anglophone Conflict through the lens of the 2021 Doctor Without Borders (DWB) suspension by engaging with literature on contested neutrality (Fiona, 2000; Brauman, 2000) and State-INGO tensions (authoritarianism) (Walton 2015; Cunningham and Healy, 2025). The paper focuses primarily on Cameroon as a critical study although drawing parallels to contexts like Greece and Chad. Through document analysis of reports from DWB, personal field experience and statements from the government of Cameroon, the paper identifies three key drivers of humanitarian restriction which are; conflicting interpretations of neutrality, overlooked impact of historical relationship between the west and the global south and territorial integrity-focused security policies. The paper builds on and advances existing literature by exposing how these factors converge uniquely in Cameroon, while questioning the selective use of labels like ‘authoritarian regimes’. The paper proposes context-specific solutions such as the need to recalibrate the neutrality principle, decolonization of aid governance through prioritization on local inclusion. The paper offers pathways to preserving humanitarian access without sweeping aside legitmate concerns of the state.

Paper short abstract

This paper explores the significance of reflective practice for resource-constrained charities and community organisations in supporting their volunteers, bringing together critical reflection theory and practice.

Paper long abstract

Since the pandemic and cost of living crisis, organisations in Since the pandemic and cost of living crisis, organisations in the nonprofit sector (NPOs) in the UK have experienced a perfect storm of challenges, experienced particularly acutely by small NPOs. This paper explores the significance of reflective practice for resource-constrained charities and community organisations in supporting their volunteers, bringing together theory and practice. It draws on the early stages of an ongoing research project, undertaken January 2023 – September 2024 to explore whether and how models of reflective practice could support small charities or NPOs working with their volunteers. The wider purpose is to consider what happens at this critical juncture when researchers attempt to translate theoretical knowledge about volunteering into practice.

Paper short abstract

In zones of protracted conflict and occupation, SMEs operate where traditional development frameworks are either absent or obstructed. Yet, a variety of adaptive, resource efficient, and circular practices are emerging not as environmental luxuries but as strategic necessities.

Paper long abstract

This paper investigates how SMEs survive in contexts of Palestine experience. It critically examines whether, how, and under what conditions SMEs not only sustain themselves but also contribute meaningfully to national development including through job creation, improved balance of payments, and social stability, despite enduring structural violence and systemic obstruction. In stead of assuming the presence or success of circular economy (CE) strategies, the panel seeks to explore to which extent such strategies actually emerge in these settings. In environments where formal development infrastructures are denied or destroyed, CE practices may arise not through policy design but through necessity, improvisation, and inherited local knowledge.

By exploring these issues through SMEs strategies, researchers, and comparative regional insights, this opens a deeper conversation about the limits and possibilities of circularity as a developmental framework in colonised, conflict affected regions, mainly through investigation the Palestinian context.

The discussion will bridge academic and practitioner perspectives, including voices of SME owners in Palestine, to critically assess how CE discourses must be decolonised and adapted for fragile and militarised contexts.

We particularly will open discussion on:

- SMEs survival and development in conflict war zones.

- Case studies highlighting the strategic agency of SMEs under siege.

- CE practices as adaptive responses to conflict, blockade, or occupation.

- Comparative insights from conflict-affected states.

By situating circularity within conditions of structural violence, this discussion opens space for rethinking resilience, sovereignty, and economic imagination in the margins of global development.

Paper short abstract

The global NGOs crisis is jeopardising civil society infrastructures as we know it, undermining its capacity to operate and exposing the sector's limitations. Activists in authoritarian regimes navigate the crisis by trying to reimagine nonprofit architectures centring local agency and agendas.

Paper long abstract

NGOs face a global decline in international support and legitimacy in consequence of the crisis of liberal democracy, which is further exposing the limitations of classic conceptualisations of civil society, previously observed in explorations of state-civil society relations in neoliberal-authoritarian regimes (Cavatorta, 2012; Ruiz de Elvira, 2024). Questions around the capacity of civil society to emerge and operate distinctly from the state in the context of declining international support are especially relevant in authoritarian regimes, such as Egypt and Syria, where civil society has emerged despite consolidated patterns of repression and co-optation, and NGOs have sometimes served as abeyance structures (Taylor, 1989) through local activists’ capacity to elicit support from the global nonprofit industry. As international support for the NGO model is fading, activists’ strategies for navigating the crisis interrogate the role of individual agency within global civil society economies.

Combining WPR analysis with interviews with Egyptian and Syrian activists, I explore the conditions under which NGOs in authoritarian regimes can function as abeyance structures, arguing that their effectiveness is contingent upon navigating the complex landscape of international cooperation politics and local patterns of civic sphere co-optation and repression.

Paper short abstract

Using Myanmar case, this study explains that armed groups secure funding by manipulating donor perceptions through three strategies: access, leggitimacy and information management. (modified on 8 July)

Paper long abstract

Not only states, but non-state actors—such as diaspora groups and international aid organizations—also supply funds and humanitarian relief materials under armed conflict. Such humanitarian aid is frequently delivered to local populations through specific armed groups or their affiliated entities. Humanitarian aid serves not merely as a source of material resources but also as a political asset that bolsters the legitimacy of the recipient organization.

It is often argued that armed groups possessing their own resources—and thus not dependent on the local population—are prone to abusing civilians. Conversely, donors (particularly those from the West) generally wish to avoid supporting groups that commit human rights violations.

Yet, in reality, donors do provide support to armed groups implicated in human rights abuses. Why is this the case? Political motives—such as a desire to support pro-democracy groups—may play a role. However, even when multiple pro-democracy groups exist, a specific one is often selected, and that chosen group is not necessarily free from a record of human rights violations.

This study explains three strategies armed groups employ to manipulate donor perceptions and secure funding. The first is establishing strong connections with donors. The second is emphasizing their status as the legitimate representative organization for the region. The third is information management—such as portraying themselves as distinct from the group's military wing or concealing information regarding human rights abuses.

This study illustrates these three strategies using the case of Chin State in Myanmar. Aid organization can exacerbate the conflict through delivering aid. (Modified July 8)

Paper short abstract

The paper raises important questions in relation to transnational humanitarian action in a global crisis (Covid-19), and the ways in which local networks of support and solidarity, at national and transnational level, pose an alternative to established humanitarian actors in the navigation of those.

Paper long abstract

This paper focuses on the everyday humanitarianism and emerging forms of solidarity in times of crisis among

migrant communities with liminal status in three cities in the Horn of Africa: Nairobi, Addis Ababa, and Khartoum. It is framed around the concept of lived citizenship, defined as a means to secure wellbeing through everyday acts and practices for those who lack formal rights and entitlements. Based on an analysis of comparative interview data among Eritrean and Ethiopian migrant communities in each city, the article takes the example of the Covid-19 pandemic as an unexpected crisis. It argues that Covid-19 has impacted lived citizenship practices to different degrees, linked to previous forms of precarity, and the means and networks of coping with those. Disruptions of transnational support

networks resulted in a turn towards local networks and everyday practices of solidarity. These forms of everyday humanitarianism range from spontaneous to more organised forms, united by a perceived lack of involvement by international humanitarian actors and the local state. The paper raises important questions in relation to transnational humanitarian action in a global crisis, and the ways in which local networks of support and solidarity, at national and transnational level, may .

Paper short abstract

This longitudinal study shows how French newspapers framed three major protest movements through shifting negative lenses that constrained grassroots agency. Over 15 years, limited supportive frames reveal how media power shaped and restricted possibilities for solidarity.

Paper long abstract

This longitudinal study examines how seven major French national newspapers—Le Monde, Le Figaro, Aujourd’hui en France, La Croix, L’Humanité, Libération, and Les Échos—framed three major protest movements in contemporary France: the Banlieue Riots (2005), Nuit Debout (2016), and the Gilets Jaunes (2018–19). Drawing on a quantitative content analysis of news articles across a 15-year period, the study assesses protest visibility and 40 framing categories derived from the literature on media representations of social movements, and evenly split between positive and negative sentiment. The analysis is situated within broader critiques of protest reporting in France, including overreliance on official sources, the marginalisation of structural grievances, and declining trust in the press. Findings show that French protest coverage is consistently more negative than positive, though the balance and logic of negativity shift over time. In the Banlieue Riots, negative framing is dominated by a rigid law-and-order and accountability logic. By Nuit Debout, this evolves into a more political and ideological critique structured around cynicism, radicalisation, and diminished emphasis on security. During the Gilets Jaunes, negativity becomes hybrid, combining the blame-oriented lens of 2005 with the political mistrust of 2016. Positive frames increase across the cycles but remain largely emotional rather than structurally supportive. Despite clear ideological differences—where left-leaning outlets emphasise solidarity and social inequality, and right-leaning and financial papers prioritise stability and economic disruption—the press as a whole adheres to a common moral framework that views protest as legitimate but bounded by expectations of social stability.

Paper short abstract

This paper interrogates the causes and consequences of the proliferation of gender justice NGOs in India. Using empirical case studies of two grassroots NGOs, it argues for the need to reclaim grassroots agency and power, re-envisioning community participants and field staff as agents of change.

Paper long abstract

The 1970s-80s marked the proliferation of NGOs, particularly in the gender justice arena. In the Indian context, this was followed by the advent of neoliberal economic reforms. As governments began outsourcing several developmental functions to NGOs, the latter grew increasingly dependent on funding agencies to implement their grassroots interventions. Consequently, neoliberal forms of accountability influenced the functioning of grassroots organisations, signalling the shift to output and outcome-driven approaches.

This paper draws upon my fieldwork with two case study NGOs in New Delhi which have their origins in the contemporary Indian women's movement of the 1970s-80s. It delves deeper into the pull factors which encouraged movement activists to institutionalise their autonomous groups into NGOs. Further, interviews, focus groups and observational data suggested institutionalisation, donor dependency, and professionalisation as key consequences of NGO-isation. These were seen to have implications for empowerment of both communities and field staff. A service delivery model risks reduction of community participants to passive ‘beneficiaries’. Another finding concerned the disempowerment of field staff stemming from low status within the organisational hierarchy, the pressures resulting from donor demands, and lower levels of professional skills.

This paper argues for the need for grassroots NGOs to reclaim their transformatory potential. Promoting grassroots agency and power entails reimagining community participants as active agents of change, and field staff as leaders.

This paper aims a theoretical contribution to the literature on the development sector in India and the global South, and an empirical contribution to perspectives and practices of NGOs in civil society.

Paper short abstract

During ICE raids in Los Angeles, grassroots groups provided food, health, and housing support through trust-based networks. Using CBPAR, this paper shows how informal care systems operate as urban welfare infrastructures and alternative forms of governance.

Paper long abstract

Informality is a defining feature of urban life across the Global South, shaping housing, livelihoods, and service provision where state systems are absent, exclusionary, or coercive. This paper brings that scholarship into conversation with a Global North case, asking what Global South theories of urban informality reveal about informal welfare infrastructures in immigrant neighborhoods of Los Angeles. The paper does not equate Los Angeles with the Global South; rather, it uses informality as an analytic to examine how marginalized communities govern survival in a context of public disinvestment and intensified immigration enforcement.

Drawing on community-based participatory action research conducted during the 2025 ICE raids, the study documents how grassroots organizations, faith groups, and mutual aid networks deliver food, health navigation, childcare support, housing advocacy, and crisis communication through trust-based, non-bureaucratic systems. These practices operate outside formal state provision yet are deeply shaped by state power: surveillance, enforcement, and policing pressures constrain movement, fragment access, and restructure how assistance circulates. In response, community actors adapt service routes, communication channels, and partnership networks; forms of collective action that resemble, in mechanism, informal service provisioning documented in Global South cities.

The paper argues that informal care networks constitute durable infrastructures of urban governance and alternative visions of progress grounded in dignity, reciprocity, and belonging. By extending Global South informality frameworks to a North American city without collapsing contexts, it contributes to debates on grassroots agency, co-production, and equitable urban futures.