Tuesday 12 October 2010

Armchair traveller

I've always been a bit of an armchair traveller - I can sit on the sofa and gaze at maps for hours. Now, it seems, it has been become my profession. This month alone (it is less than half gone) I have written about, or edited papers on, rural development in China and Brazil, the displacement effect of dam building in Uganda, a sustainable building project for Togo, a grant application for a pro-poor, pro-climate, project in Afghanistan and closer to home farmers' decision-making in the Gelderse Vallei. This afternoon I am seeing clients with whom I have worked on Europeanisation discourses in heritage projects in Greece, Lithuania and the Netherlands (his PhD defence) and HIV messages in Suriname. I'm in regular e mail contact with clients who are or have been in Peru, Mexico, Switzerland, Sweden and China. In this sense I feel proud to be a global citizen. The down side is it's all a bit virtual. Save for a recent holiday in France, a couple of weekends in Brussels and many trips to London to deal with family affairs I've hardly been beyond these city walls in the past three years.

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