No abstract

The publication of a controversial article in Third World Quarterly and the consequent unveiling and critical questioning of journal practices continue to engender strong negative feelings for many scholars. At a critical juncture within the publication process of this collection, we faced an ethical dilemma regarding how to maintain political and ethical commitments while manoeuvring within a sometimes hostile academic environment. Here we examine the dilemma and its resolutions to reflect on configurations of power in academia. Through the lenses of (dis)comfort, judgement and solidarity, we examine the affective intensities that shaped our individual and collective decisions. Reflections on the process reveal the need to attend to how affects shape the resolution of shared ethical dilemmas in ways that reinforce structural (dis)advantages. We argue that 'comfort' , achieved through solidarities, allows for the navigation of the ethical-political in ways open to multiple possibilities. Decolonial practice should attend to affective practices that privilege some claims over others and limit the capacity of future scholars to shape the ethical terrain of development studies.

Recently emerged as transformative fundraising tools for development causes, crowdfunding platforms leverage the 'feelingful ties' that connect individuals in pursuit of NGO fundraising. Focusing on research conducted in 2018 with Indian platform LetzChange, this article frames crowdfunding platforms as 'intimate technologies for development', exploring how platforms leverage different forms of social and digital capital from their NGO partners to shape power relations within the development sector. By examining how crowdfunding platforms train local NGO staff to market their projects in digitally affective ways on social media, this article demonstrates the influence of modern technological tools that recreate affective social bonds and social capital in digital spaces for the purpose of mobilizing donors. It shows how NGO staff must navigate the complicated landscape of social, digital, and financial inequalities created within the crowdfunding process. Through analysis of specific digital fundraising practices, this article reveals how LetzChange compels its NGO partners to invest emotional labour into crowdfunding campaigns, inevitably creating apprehension from staff around the depletion of social capital. This article argues that affective digital practices like crowdfunding fall short of their inclusive aims and reinforce existing top-down power relations in the development sector by financially instrumentalizing the interpersonal connections of NGO staff.