ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a collaborative autoethnography of our experiences as beginning researchers during the COVID-19 lockdowns of 2020. Specifically, it explores how completing our doctoral preparation degrees during these unsettled times positively influenced the development of our academic identities. By drawing on transformative learning as a conceptual metaphor, we consider how we connected with our researcher voices online, reimagined our understanding of a virtual research community, and transformed the limitations imposed on our research as an impetus for creativity. We argue that just as we redefined our research and academic identities in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, it is important for academia as a whole to recognise and harness the potential for transformation as it responds to the new COVID-normal. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022.
ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the current and future challenges facing the international development aid system in the face of COVID-19. It provides an overview of the issues the pandemic has generated as they relate to three critical areas of aid-health, food security, and education-as well as cross-sectional issues with gender. The chapter then turns to the linkages between COVID-19 and the looming debt crisis, using this topic to illuminate some of the broader weaknesses in the contemporary global governance of aid and development. The chapter concludes with three direct observations on aid fragmentation, the lack of transparency, and the sustained commitment to traditional aid structures before offering two big take-away messages on the need to “Go Global” and “Global Local” in the future governance of aid for development and humanitarianism. © 2022 selection and editorial matter, Thomas G. Weiss and Rorden Wilkinson;individual chapters, the contributors.