When I first received the invitation to speak at the IDS fortieth anniversary conference, I wondered what I would say. I am not an academic, nor does my organisation – Focus on the Global South (‘Focus’ for short) – engage in academic research.
I would call myself an ‘activist researcher’ and the main focus of my research is to make sense of the nature and impact of development policy and practice for those most affected by them.
So I decided to share some of the key issues and questions that I, and scores of other researchers like me, struggle with in our attempts to make academic work more activist, and to ensure that activism is informed by well-grounded and accurate research
