Timmer, C. Peter. 2015: Food Security and Scarcity. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 240 pp. £39. ISBN: 9780812246667.

This article contributes to scholarship on the political nature of feminists’ work in international development NGOs. The case study of Oxfam GB (OGB) is contemporary history, based on compiling a brief history of gender justice work between 1986 and 2014 and 18 months of part-time participant-observation fieldwork during 2014–15. I describe funding pressures and imperatives, contestations of meaning and power struggles within OGB and argue that gender justice becomes entangled in both internal and the external politics of international development. This is part of a wider research programme about how ideas on gender equality norms travel between and around development organizations, so I finally draw conclusions about how norms are contested and embodied. The shapeshifting political nature of feminist work challenges prevailing theories about how norms and ideas travel and take hold within organizations.

Thorbecke, W. and Hsieh, W., editors, 2013: Industrial Restructuring in Asia: Implications of the Global Economic Crisis. Los Angeles: SAGE, xx + 384 pp. $65 (cloth). ISBN: 978-81-321-0958-7.

Harcourt, W., editor, 2016: The Palgrave Handbook of Gender and Development: Critical Engagements in Feminist Theory and Practice. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 660 pp. $210 (hardcover), $159 (digital). ISBN: 978-1-137-38272-6 (hardcover), ISBN: 978-1-137-38273-3 (digital).

Singh, L., Joseph, K. and Johnson, D., editors. 2015: Technology, Innovations and Economic Development: Essays in Honour of Robert E. Evenson. London: SAGE. xxxv + 335 pp. £42.00 (Hardback). ISBN: 978-93-515-0269-2.

This article advances theory and methods for integrating sustainable livelihoods approaches (SLAs) with assessments of adaptive capacity to climate change. The livelihoods concept has been inconsistently applied in research on human dimensions of global environmental change, resulting in limited understanding about how development programmes and policies influence adaptive capacity. Encouraging reflection on the conceptual and methodological overlaps of livelihoods and adaptation, I suggest a process-oriented approach to adaptation that centres on how adaptive capacity is unevenly shaped. Livelihoods analytical frameworks can help visualize complex adaptation pathways, illuminating how households and individuals come to differ in their capacities to adapt to climate change.

Given the intricate link between biodiversity and poverty, this article critically reflects on the role of mainstreaming biodiversity in development policy and practice. In order to better understand the operational challenges ‘on the ground’, we present some of the dominant development frameworks within which development organizations operate, all with a view to better understand how aid ‘thinks’ and ‘works’. The article then examines the concept of Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) as a potential avenue to mainstream biodiversity into development.

This article examines the different roles religion can play when migrants organize for development. We focus on organizing for development, through transnational Islamic charity, formally and informally, and where religion takes on explicit or implicit roles. By taking Muslim religious practices as starting points, different forms of development engagements are revealed, than if starting with a focus on so-called ‘faith-based organizations’ (FBOs). Whereas religion is often seen instrumentally in development studies, we find that the roles of religion are not only functional, but also substantive and relational. The article draws on qualitative data collected in Norway, Pakistan and the UK.

Harvey, P. and Knox, H. 2015: Roads: An Anthropology of Infrastructure and Expertise. New York: Cornell University Press. xiv + 239 pp. $79.95. ISBN: 9780801453236 (Hardcover). $26.95. ISBN: 9780801479649 (Paperback).

The article develops a conceptual approach employing ‘modes’ of home-country business culture to evaluate how transnational corporations (TNCs) active in electricity provision in developing countries interpret and incorporate internationally recognised normative standards for ‘sustainable electricity provision’ (SEP) into their own corporate responsibility (CR) policies. Based on a survey of existing SEP norms, qualitative interviews with corporate managers, and analysis of CR materials, the article evaluates how ‘quality kilowatts’ are conceived and applied in three TNC case studies. The initial findings indicate that variations in how TNCs approach SEP reflect differences in regulatory framework and business culture of their countries of origin.