Generating my own living-theory: an interim report

This paper offers an account of my on-going learning and educational development as a living-theorist development-economist. In it I clarify my understanding and meaning of educational development starting from my values and my living standards of judgment (Laidlaw, 1996). I shed light on what being a living-theorist development-economist means to me and to the people I work for in developing countries. Thus my writing is developing together with my ideas and my practical experiences. I focus on my practice as a development practitioner having worked in Afghanistan, Ethiopia and Georgia and currently Albania. The emphasis on my original contribution to knowledge is on the explanatory principles I use to describe my educational development and the living standards of judgment I use to judge the validity of this contribution to knowledge. My practice involves sharing and collaborating, as I try to create peace and peaceful spaces where people feel at ease and secure, able to foster their own capabilities, inspire and learn from each other, and work for a fairer world in which resources are equally shared. The project I am working on in Albania represents an evidence-based example of how my practical work evolves, together with my embodied and developmental values. I show how these aspects of my humanity can influence the people and the social formations I work with and how these have an influence on my daily work in the developing world and on myself.