Development Remix: Representing Poverty, Culture, and Agency in the Developing World

Abstract

The development remix, a project initiated at Georgetown University, is a six‐ to eight‐minute‐long digital narrative that mixes or edits existing literary or audiovisual representations. The remix project enables development students, scholars, and practitioners to prepare their own narratives about the developing world, through experiencing existing narratives closely, and makes them empathic and critical while humanizing the cultural conditions of poverty in the developing world. The digital remix also actively engages scholars and practitioners with audiovisual representations, rather than as silent observers or readers of fictional texts and visual dramas. After a brief conceptualization on circulation of narratives about the developing world, the article presents the remix technique for the development scholar. The remix is, in effect, a translation with several strengths: it foregrounds the remixer's reflexivity, humanizes the conditions in the developing world, locates voice and agency in development narratives, and presents all narratives as culturally hybrid. These issues have been the subject of not just development research but also social sciences in general, especially on the use of films and fiction in pedagogic practices. Therefore, the usefulness of preparing remixed narratives extends beyond international development studies.

Visual Literacy in International Relations: Teaching Critical Evaluative Skills through Fictional Television

“…Singh (2013), for example, has shown how encouraging students to become the producers and editors of video rather than their passive consumer can achieve this. …”

Developing student capacity to produce digital scholarship in the humanities

“…There is a need to expand research focused explicitly on student learning related to technology-enhanced assessments (Bond et al, 2020; Keppell et al, 2015), including how students learn and how to measure growth in both content knowledge and digital skills. There is some evidence of effective use of technology-enhanced assessments, including scholarly digital storytelling, across disciplines (Fletcher and Cambre, 2009; Keppel et al, 2015; Schrum et al, 2021; Singh, 2014) and this research could be expanded. Faculty could be encouraged to share examples of technology-enhanced assessments, including assignments, rubrics, and student work, to promote adoption and adaptation and to continue expanding this field of knowledge.…”

“…The word “scholarly” is fundamental to this practice as it is designed to engage students in what Burdick, et al, define as the “intertwinings of scholarly method, computational capacity, and new modes of knowledge formation” (2012: 5). Researchers have found benefits to teaching with scholarly digital storytelling, including student engagement (Benmayor, 2008; Clarke and Adam, 2012; Fletcher and Cambre, 2009; Singh, 2014), intellectual growth (Coventry, 2008; Nesteruk, 2015), and digital literacy (Gachago et al, 2015) as well as challenges, including frustration with technical problems (Bedenlier et al, 2020; Gachago et al, 2015; Snelson, 2018).…”

“…The work of editing, for example, is “productive and generative” and it shapes and defines a scholarly argument (Burdick et al, 2012). Scholarly digital storytelling can engage students in negotiating their own agency and authority, require visual thinking and manipulation that may be less familiar in text-based disciplines (Fletcher and Cambre, 2009), and teach students to craft scholarly arguments in the humanities in new ways (Coventry, 2008; Oppermann, 2008; Singh, 2014).…”