Economy Informatics Vol 18 No. 1/2018 CONTENTS Goalkeeper Analytics Using a Wearable Embedded System Bogdan IANCU 5 The aim of this research is to identify the main metrics linked to soccer goalkeeping that can be computed by using a small embedded device. Based on the identified KPIs, a prototype is created by using an old Android phone in order to compute them based on the values of the three sensors related to positioning: accelerometer, gyroscope and magnetometer. In the final part of this paper, the obtained results are validated in a real case scenario by comparing the values of computed KPIs against some baseline values. The baseline values are extracted from the video recording of the trainings where the goalkeepers used our wearable embedded system. By constructing a cheap and small version of our prototype, we can help small soccer teams to understand and use data to better train their goalkeepers. Keywords: Sport Analytics, Embedded System, IoT, Wearables A scalable architecture for automated monitoring of microservices Radu BONCEA, Alin ZAMFIROIU, Ioan BACIVAROV 13 In this paper we propose an architecture for monitoring microservices by logging key performance metrics at both system and application levels. By using advanced analytics algorithms we can then classify the events in microservice's behaviour and automate the decision processes, thus improving the overall reliability and security. We will be using Prometheus for storing short-live metrics, OpenTSDB for long term retention and RabbitMQ for passing structured messages between various IT components which orchestrate the collection of our microservices. Keywords: Microservice, Distributed Arhitecture, Monitoring, Complexity IT Agile Transformation Cristian Gabriel OLTEANU 23 The paper presents a case study on knowledge management for IT Agile adaptation, based on organizational changes. It includes discussions about future knowledge management challenges and favorable circumstances within Agile transformation process in terms of its pre-requisites. As shown in the research results, the entire organization was impacted by adopting Agile as a project management approach. The conclusions point out some of the most important pre-requisites for Agile transformation, such as: training and workshops, implication of Agile experts, support and effectiveness, establishment of community practice and learning organizational culture. Nevertheless, the endless learning process as a part of the learning organizational culture, was the biggest Agile challenge within companies transformation, which is like a journey without a final destination, always having to adapt to changes. Keywords: Agile implementation, project management, IT organizational change, Agile methods The Way of Cryptocurrency Mircea Constantin ČCHEAU, Pop Čtefan ZAHARIE 32 Cryptocurrency market is estimated at several hundred billion dollars. The number of digital coins has exceeded the threshold of one thousand, each day appearing or disappearing some of them. Volatility, the difficulty in practical operation, high cost, associated risk and particular complexity make it quite difficult to choose one of the products without adequate counseling. Proponents of new technologies presents relevant arguments, while the appellants their call attention to the potential hazards/dangers to which expose themselves the investors. Reality offers us a spectrum that combines measures to limit the phenomenon development with the recognition and support from national and international organisms from which, however, is expected to adopt a joint position on the approach. Born at the end of the first decade of the second millennium, cryptocurrency has begun and continues to raise the interest of financial markets in general and specialized institutions in particular.
In 1957, in his book Mythologies, Roland Barthes recommended mapping the multiple terrains in which various myths and ideologies were spoken (149). This paper follows in those footsteps by examining a pattern of discourse in American films after the events of September 11, 2001. An analysis of three recent films (and a comparison to a film from an earlier era) will reveal that the timbre of our discourse has modulated toward reliance upon (and valorization of) patriarchal authority, and away from reason. The author's fundamental theoretical assumption is that the relationship between American society and its cultural production is interactive, reciprocal, and mutually informing; films not only reflect society, but help to shape it. Since films are the result of conscious acts of representation and not some automatic process of reflection, films should be taken seriously as ideologically driven acts of speech. Million Dollar Baby won the Academy Award for Best Picture of 2004, as well as Oscars for director Clint Eastwood and lead actress Hilary Swank. The religious right criticized the film for its apparent endorsement of euthanasia, but may have missed the point. Million Dollar Baby is actually a film about then-Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld and the Bush Administration's doctrine of preemptive war. The film stars Hilary Swank as Maggie, a bootstrapping, working poor waitress determined to make it as a professional boxer. Clint Eastwood stars as gym owner and boxing coach Frankie Dunn, who reluctantly takes Maggie under his wing. The narration by Morgan Freeman's character, Scrap, obscures the dynamics of the story. Maggie is the million dollar baby of the title, but whose baby is she? She is Frankie's. Indeed, the relationship between Frankie and Maggie becomes familial. Frankie has a grown daughter who returns his letters to her unopened and unread. The origin of the rift between Frankie and his daughter is unexplained by the film; the audience is not told what happened, and all we see are after-effects. Getting only one side of the story encourages us to sympathize with Frankie (at least he is trying to get it right, we reason). Before long, Maggie slips into the role of surrogate daughter. Maggie calls Frankie âBoss,â but âDaddyâ would be more appropriate. Her relations with her own family are frustrating and are an early clue about the film's conservative ideology. When Maggie wins enough money as a boxer, she buys her mother a house. Instead of being grateful, her mother (Margo Martindale) complains that the acquisition of a home is going to upset her welfare scam. Maggie's family also includes her sister Mardell (Riki Lindhome), an unwed mother, and her brother JD (Marcus Chait), soon to be released from jail. Now, whose stereotypes are these? Maggie's mother and siblings are cartoons of welfare-state parasites, the kind of sly poor folk whom conservatives theorize are sapping our nation of its vigor. Maggie's family is portrayed without a shred of sympathy. We do not feel for their poverty, ignorance, or lack of options; instead, the one-dimensional scripting encourages us to see them as selfish, ungrateful, and criminal. Following the debacle with Maggie's mom is a scene which plays a key part in foreshadowing coming events. Maggie tells Frankie about the time her father euthanized her beloved dog as an act of mercy, and then the pair stop at a diner and have some lemon pie. They bond. Subsequently, Maggie demonstrates her loyalty to Frankie by refusing to abandon him in favor of a more successful manager with better connections. Frankie's key piece of advice to Maggie, which he repeats several times throughout the movie, is this: Always protect yourself. That is the same advice Donald Rumsfeld and the rest of the Bush administration invoked to justify going to war in Iraq: we had to protect ourselves from weapons of mass destruction. Despite the constant reiteration of this advice, Maggie fails to keep her guard up and is clocked by a nasty boxer identified as a former East German prostitute (Trifecta: a figure not only representing two major military enemies of the U.S.A. in the 20th century, but also moral turpitude). After getting sucker-punched by her opponent, Maggie falls, sustaining spinal cord injuries that leave her permanently paralyzed and bedridden. She then requests that Frankie treat her as her father had treated her dog. It is at this point that it becomes clear that the film is about Frankie, and not about Maggie. The balance of the movie is about the difficulty of Frankie's choice. As a Catholic, Frankie thinks mercy killing is a sin. As Maggie's surrogate father, he cannot bear to see her suffer. What, then, to do? Well, thank God our patriarchs are old and wise, and are capable of making the tough decisions. The entire narrative logic of the film endorses the assumption that our elders know what they are doing, and the young do not. Frankie's priest is a younger man, whom Frankie treats mostly with disdain. In a sub-plot of the film, Scrap is called upon to defend Danger, a hapless wannabe boxer who is pummeled by a gym bully. The skilled, older boxer (even when reduced to the status of a janitor) is more than a match for the guileless youth of the bully; in fact, Scrap puts him away with one hand. For her part, Maggie demonstrates that she has finally learned Frankie's lesson about defending herself when she refuses to sign her financial assets over to her parasitic family. In every instance throughout the film, the logic of the narrative supports the idea that the combination of age and male gender confers wisdom. Frankie ultimately decides to end Maggie's suffering. In their last conversation, Frankie tells Maggie that the Gaelic nickname he gave her, Mo Cuishle, means âmy darling, my blood.â Family feeling triumphs over religion and law; Frankie knows that euthanasia is illegal, but he does it because he feels it is right. Insert your own joke about Bush administration policies and scandals here. Scrap's narration turns out to be a letter to Frankie's estranged daughter, explaining that Frankie never came back to the gym after ending Maggie's misery. âNo matter where he is, I thought you should know what kind of man your father really was,â Scrap concludes. The final image of the film is Frankie back at the diner, presumably having some of that lemon pie. The tone is nostalgic and sentimental. It is an odd chord to strike in a film about senseless tragedy and loss, and it only makes sense if we are supposed to identify with Frankie. This is a textbook example of how hegemony is supposed to work under patriarchy; we are presumed to mistake the patriarch's interests and point of view for our own. While democracy and maturity both involve necessary measures of self-determination in order to be free and responsible, patriarchy requires submission to the dictates of the father-figure. In his book Moral Politics, the cognitive linguist George Lakoff delineates paradigmatic differences in the politics of conservatives and progressives. Lakoff asserts that that the two groups both employ the metaphor of the family to conceptualize and articulate their political positions, but differ in the kind of family they theorize. According to Lakoff, conservatives embrace a Strict Parent model of family. In this model, a Strict Parent is deemed necessary because the world is thought to be a dangerous place, and children therefore need to be disciplined in order to survive the Darwinian ordeal of existence. Any leniency toward or indulgence of children is considered a moral lapse, because it fosters weakness that will ultimately endanger the child. In the Strict Parent paradigm, being strong is the same thing as being moral. Since morality and strength are thought to be the same thing, and since success is proof of strength and fitness for survival, success is also considered a sign of morality. Therefore, failure is a sign of weakness and immorality. The people who succeed or fail do so not because of structural inequalities (such as institutional discrimination against race, class, or gender), but because of their personal characters. Strength of character is formed through children learning self-discipline and self-reliance, qualities which are deemed necessary to succeed in life's harsh contest. These qualities are presumably learned through obedience to the authority of the Strict Parent, usually the father. Since the success or failure of children and (by extension) society is dependent on the discipline of the father, the exercise of parental authority is itself considered moral, justified, and paramount; conversely, threats to that authority are seen as immoral, unjustified, and misguided (Lakoff, 67-84). When the Strict Parent is a father, and when the family metaphor is extended to the whole of society and its institutions, Lakoff's Strict Parent model is a good description of the logic of patriarchy. If Lakoff is correct in his assessment of the Strict Parent model, it goes a long way toward explaining the conservative obsession with fathers and fatherhood. It also helps explain the logic behind the 2005 version of War of the Worlds, in which the solution to the problem of invasion is the restoration of patriarchal authority. The narrator of the classic novel The War of the Worlds is an unnamed character much like the author H.G. Wells himself, a writer with some scientific knowledge. Few of the characters in the novel are given names, and most are referred to by their occupation or station, for example, the curate, the artilleryman, etc. A few chapters detail the exploits of the narrator's brother, a medical student, after the arrival of the Martians (Mac Adam, xxvi-xxvii). The hero of the 1953 film version is atomic scientist Clayton Forrester (Gene Barry) who wants to get a good look at the Martians as much as he wants to escort his love-object Sylvia to safety. Sylvia (Ann Robinson) is a pretty weak movie heroine, even by 1950s standards: she is weepy and hysterical much of the time, and her skill-set seems mostly comprised of serving coffee, square-dancing, cooking breakfast, and driving a school-bus. Obviously, an update of the story would have to entail some changes; the characters would have to be drawn in such a way that contemporary audiences could recognize them as being realistic. The choices made in changing the story to update it for Steven Spielberg's 2005 version are therefore legitimate topics of criticism. Significantly, instead of replacing Sylvia with a modern woman, the character is simply written out of the 2005 remake. There are no adult women characters for the balance of the movie, or women whose actions matter to the resolution of the problem. Any trace of feminism's impact on our culture is erased. What we are offered instead is the story of a father and his children. In the 2005 version of War of the Worlds, the protagonist is Ray Ferrier (Tom Cruise), not a scientist but an Everyman. At the start of the film, we see Ray finish his shift as a longshoreman and race home in his vintage Mustang. Ray is late to pick up his kids from his pregnant ex-wife, Mary Ann (Miranda Otto), and her new husband, Tim (David Alan They have in a new which Ray to as a As the it becomes apparent that Ray is not the is a and he is an on his has no in his and no when he tells his kids to order out for Ray does not know how to with his and does not know how to his daughter even her is The narrative of the film mostly on as a father as he to escort his children to the Martians our The key in the film is or not Ray is good under When the Martians it It may as well While the of the film is an invasion which the audience knows is the of the film is to with the of This is through the of of and destruction. The of is the that when the from their of the of the film is on we see it in his the of the is in and the are the of When the and turns its on the feeling the scene much the of on of people from the of and by the of the The is the by the that Tim and Mary house. This no narrative and does to the but is of the that in on September The of is the of you seen this that Ray and his children with the to the These of were all over in the as the to who may or may not have in the If we of this recent version of War of the Worlds as a that is about that then are a of about the film that are is the of the in to their to the invasion is a to up with the to the to do so is by his who you leave who will protect a that both lack of in does to and a military that is the What is so is that his need not in of having to do but in of having to see the to it. This is in to the (and of who is from what is going on her on two when she is from at the and when Ray her he their children two about War on all those young who the military after to in and those of us on the home who have from or about what has going on because of the as when the a under the of to of war to The thing is the film's of in whose Ray and The character is an of two characters from the the and the discourse that of the artilleryman, but his is to that of the in the the protagonist the when the is on the of their in a to Martians (Mac Adam, In the 1953 film, the is to the character of of the and the What is so about the character and his in the 2005 version is the in which the and characters are and the logic to justify his What are the qualities that make a to Ray and is a and his him as events This is an but one which Ray never no is made to to stop a of with the of his is At with the but he is when the the in which the characters are After and after the Martians upon the of about in the under the and a This is the from the but to it is the that the a nation never an over not only from our own but also from the Significantly, this is one that to in and What is his own to a Ray not only because he is and but because fails to the of their and because the the of the Martians and a These for are to right of the to the war does not the of the world may in be dangerous to our own and is the of old who are on The of Tim as in of that with this conservative logic on a In a with and its logic of family for killing is to protect and his child. Always protect it for the In the film's only a and Tim is presumably to with a look at the look at the war look at or or The film's narrative has Ray to in Mary Ann him for is having the to the military he into is the film's last of This is in that it is the time Ray as and his patriarchal authority. had referred to his father as him to him from a after him had to do so in the narrative as in the film, Ray had to his him by his but his to be called if you your kids to for your authority, them to war. The film's is taken from the of the and also in the 1953 version is the For those with the the invasion of is when the are by the to which have of the has to the between and for example The and A is the with the novel and film version of War of the H.G. Wells some to God for on to defend our from While to God is religion is also the of in the in the figure of the The 1950s film a but the of the Spielberg's version of the film is of God or religion the when God is mostly as the of triumphs over the Martians because has has that is to upon the but not the from this as is from the discourse of is the of The of and by are the from right and The version of by does not involve the or the of our better obedience to the will of God the father and to the as the of as by on God in a film to this author's by written after The film in at a film in and released in the on only a of with its on in of The film released on in of and has since of a in some and about the film's on The story two from and who get into a with some the in calls and to the of the but the are not the an and that God wants them to all that which is so that which is good may and They out to do with the of their a in the The of that the leave behind them is by at the and the to piece the events which the audience as a When he finally that the are out the he decides to help them than from the of the the of the a out of who is only as We are told is a and but one with he would not women or children. for the The when the in and it is a himself, he is their long the with their by an of the and their father. 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The act as George Bush with that God is on their and with that their is There are no or characters in the The we is the who is for and in a scene about the of her The film with on the about the and of as if of morality. the of Bush administration policies the who process if you are you are the right While this author through written after it is that the film Obviously, the Bush administration not and patriarchal were in American culture the events of September What, then, are the of this If patriarchal have through American culture for what right has the author to the of films to the of the administration in and right politics in that we the back to of the film of that to the of the which a of the same In the like The and The work is not considered to be The film version of to the of the follows the of the a and by is as a but but usually right. of the of the film or not is in his right a in (and surrogate to him of In the the is to be a and is as not only but The of to the of the is the has and A scientist thinks the will itself but that the be from the by a The of the film the to the right at the right time to the the to the world are by the of religious will is written the are you that man even in his to not for us to but we If God that man should without a then does he us the will to to the of the but it a in American thought and cultural production that we could Following War in order to American from right and and American culture the of What this from into or an that it be seen in an and personal had to be to and of and that were to the not only the of but also the of the We see this in a of culture from the the of and on and in and some of the of Ray and the culture and both the and While upon his to have his way for much of to the of the his is on scientific and his to him in the In his own actions not through but by the authority of and have two for to authority. is to and is not. In a or the of God is and is for In the scientific are to and The differences between two have for both and American political asserts a logic to that of the people in know what they are they know what they are because they are the people in knows simply because he is the father. In the Strict Parent model by Lakoff, the in authority is presumed to have that through strength of as the authority is justified, and on or even of are presumed to be such logic is at with which free and September 11, the American people were from an The world to which they and The events of that our that the world us because we are the good In such a strong who a and may and the of is in a of requires us to for and to make our on not authority. The of as by and American who to should be as to that were in culture that The films under are not but As and we should be A culture that obedience to authority is not a culture that endorses free or kind of If we do not this lesson of the century, we may well be to some
B. Balamurugan, T. Poongodi, M. R. Manu, S. Karthikeyan ¡ 5 authors
The moving image archive of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) includes a copy of the film The Double Day (1975), cataloged in the series Moving Images Relating to International Development Programs and Activities, 1979â1991, a collection of more than eight hundred titles âcreated to provide information on assistance programs supported by the Agency for International Development (AID).â1 Yet, The Double Day does not, in fact, directly depict or engage with any specific development or aid initiative. Instead, the filmâdirected by US-based Brazilian filmmaker Helena Solberg as part of the International Womenâs Film Project collective and described as âthe first Latin American feminist documentaryââexamines the gendered dynamics of paid and unpaid labor through the testimonies of women from Argentina, Bolivia, Venezuela, and Mexico.2 Its presence in the USAID archive is likely a consequence of its funding history, having received support from the Inter-American Foundation, a USAID-affiliated entity; the development agencies of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden; the United Nations Development Program; and US philanthropist Calvin Cafritz.3These transnational funding structures not only enabled the filmâs production but also determined its archival destination, which renders legible its place within the history of international development.4 The Double Dayâs institutional trajectory reflects the shifting configurations of aid, gender, and media during a historic moment when women were being repositioned at the center of what Arturo Escobar has described as developmentâs âregimes of visuality.â5 Especially relevant to The Double Dayâs production and exhibition was the international institutional framework of Women in Development (WID). Emerging in the early 1970s and culminating in United Nationsâ proclamation of 1975 as International Womenâs Year, WID emphasized womenâs participation in the global economy as both an index and mechanism of development. Indeed, The Double Day premiered at the World Conference of the International Womenâs Year, held in Mexico City.6 Within this context, the film forms part of a broader trajectory of media use by international organizations that intensified during the 1970sâas best exemplified by Media Habitat, a collection of 236 documentary films commissioned by the United Nations to represent urban and rural development initiatives for the 1976 Habitat Conference on Human Settlements in Vancouver. As a policy-shaping initiative, Media Habitat primarily featured films from the Global South intended not only to illustrate but also to help codify standardized audiovisual markers of âunderdevelopmentâ that determined access to the emerging global economic order and to international aid.7Framed in relation to these international institutions and their operations, The Double Day could similarly be considered âdevelopment mediaââexemplifying the type of nonfiction media produced and distributed outside of the commercial film circuits whose aspects and subcategories have been variously described in scholarship as nontheatrical, useful, sponsored, institutional, industrial, educational, or nonprofessional/amateur.8 Scholars working in this area have emphasized the institutional contexts of such mediaâs production and exhibition infrastructures as shaping its instrumentalized effects. From a feminist perspective, such an approach is crucial to grappling with the broader question of how âgender impacts [these worksâ] shape, content, and trajectories.â9 Yet we also argue that, taken in isolation, the institutional and infrastructural contexts are insufficient to account for the complex relationship between media and development, potentially not only limiting our understanding of the reach and impact of development but also distorting our interpretive conclusions. For example, to categorize The Double Day as âdevelopment mediaâ is to overlook the filmâs place within Solbergâs directorial oeuvre, as well as within the histories of both transnational womenâs filmmaking and radical Latin American documentary cinema to which it simultaneously belongs. Such exclusive framing is especially limiting given that women globally were disproportionately engaged in nonfiction production throughout the twentieth centuryâsometimes by political choice but more often due to structural exclusions from fiction filmmaking. Even in nonfiction historiography, however, institutional media has remained particularly marginal, reinforcing hierarchies that separate such works from the aesthetic and authorial frameworks through which film history has been constructed.10 This marginalization not only tends to erase womenâs contributions but also presumes a âweakâ or derivative authorship, rendering these films unworthy of the interpretive attention needed to apprehend their aesthetic and political complexity.11 The same dynamic is likely to structure assumptions about âdevelopment mediaâ as well.Categorizing The Double Day exclusively within this category would further prompt us to assume top-down institutional analyses that have been characteristic of both institutional media methodologies and the scholarship on development at large. This, in turn, would risk obscuring this filmâs radical Marxist approach to womenâs labor as well as its concrete contribution to activism and its attendant grassroot structures. In Mexico City, The Double Day became a catalyst for feminist solidarity in practice when one of the filmâs protagonists, Bolivian activist and trade unionist Domitila Barrios de Chungara, was invited to participate in the Tribune of Non-Governmental Organizations held alongside the official UN conference.12 There, Barrios de Chungara challenged Western feminist priorities by reframing the debate around labor, class, and imperialism, helping to articulate a shared Third World feminist agenda that significantly departed from the developmentalist vision of the United Nations and USAID.13 Seen through the lens of activist media, The Double Day helped forge transnational solidarity networks by enabling information exchange across the diverse voices that shaped its makingâfrom the women featured in the film to the activists who circulated itârevealing a considerably more dynamic interplay between institutional and grassroots or contingent media practices.Moreover, the filmâs Latin American contextâreflected in Solbergâs formation in Brazil as the only woman in Cinema Novo, its focus on women from across the region, and its premiere and key reception in Mexico Cityârequires grappling with the regional specificities of the very notion of development in its multiple iterations.14 Far from being an epistemological and political framework imposed solely by the Global North, both the practices of development and the theoretical foundations of developmentalism (understood as a broad and polysemic set of discourses) were shaped through the active participation of Latin American economists.15 Within this iteration, underdevelopment, as a constitutive notion of developmentalism, became central to a distinctly critical strand, which by the late 1960s became known as the dependency theory.16 This same approach is reflected in some of the best-known Latin American radical film manifestos of the time, arising precisely from the same milieus to which Solberg belonged.17These various considerations of the filmâs history illustrate the methodological challenges confronting feminist scholars seeking to assess the impact of development on media projects, theories, and practices. To disregard the developmentalist context of such works by emphasizing their political aesthetics and affects risks reproducing a romanticized narrative of heroic resistance (albeit from a feminist perspective). Yet to engage exclusively with their institutional and material infrastructures risks naturalizing developmentalismâs political and epistemological foundations at the expense of the goals and beliefs of the many women who participated in these projects. The contradictions and ambivalences that animate such histories call for feminist frameworks capable of holding both institutional complicity and radical possibility in view.This challenge resonates with ongoing debates about the politics of the archive and what Allyson Field has termed âthe practice of informed speculation.â18 As she reminds us, feminist, queer, and decolonial methodologies have long taught us to âpress at the limitsâ of the archive to âinoculate our scholarship against our evidenceâs afflictions.â19 The concern that the evidence we draw on in our analysis reproduces the very structures and blind spots of the dominant ideology and therefore shapes and delimits our interpretation becomes particularly urgent when engaging the developmentalist media corpus. Informed speculation offers an alternative by inviting the experimental, creative, and speculative rewriting of history, mobilizing the archive âin a project that runs counter to the original purpose, or the imperative to preserve, or the conditions that led to erasure.â20 Yet, as Field cautions, such speculative gestures must remain grounded in a deep and âintimate familiarity with the archiveâ that we are working with and against. Building on this imperative, we suggest that the developmentalist archive, in particular, demands expansion and critical reconsideration in ways that unsettle the very disciplinary frameworks through which it has been studied as well as the larger institutional contexts for such knowledge production.Our focus on The Double Day in the opening of this introduction thus foregrounds the entanglements of institutional and grassroots forces, local and international contexts, structural and interpersonal relations, and creative and economic factors that have shaped not only this film but the broader ecosystem of development media projectsâand their preservationâover time. Addressing such a constellation involves transgressing methodologically entrenched divisions between political economy and aesthetics, between material infrastructures and affective regimes; reckoning with divergent periodizations across film history and world economics; and situating these within the local specificities of womenâs movements and international institutional programs. It also demands attentiveness to the coexistence of multiple, and sometimes competing, understandings of developmentâeach historically, geographically, and ideologically situated.We imagine this special issue as an opening toward a critical dialogue, not only about how such an approach might be enacted in practice but also about the far-reaching ways development paradigms have shaped both our objects of study and the contours of the field itself. The decision to center institutionally sponsored films across all the essays in this issue is deliberate and enables us to highlight institutional critique as a vital methodological imperative within our analytical framework. Created within the frameworks of international organizations, state agencies, or NGOs, these filmsâ histories make legible the institutional logics that underwrite their production. Yet our critique does not stop at these specific entities. Rather, we argue for a broader interrogation of the political conditions and institutional infrastructures that shape media and knowledge production more generally. This includes contemporary corporations embedded in the digital platform economy, from streaming services to the rapid expansion of AI. Equally critical is a reflexive examination of academia itself, where departments of economics, political science, and centers for development have played a formative role in producing and legitimizing developmentalist theories and policy frameworks. While the humanities and arts have at times offered critical alternatives, they have also frequently mirrored and reinforced many of the same developmentalist assumptions. A feminist analysis of the nexus between development and media must therefore unsettle not only dominant archives but also the institutional and disciplinary foundations of our own scholarly practices.As scholars, we share the complex position of navigating the same tensions between institutional complicity and emancipatory aspiration as many of the media-makers whose work we study. Mirroring our subjects is also the transnational, collective mode of this special issueâs own production as it emerges from an ongoing informal working group we have sustained over several years. While relying on institutional and disciplinary affordancesâsuch as university funding for conferences or access to academic publishing platformsâwe have been working toward creating a community that exceeds, and often resists, the prevailing logics of our academic institutions. Our aim has been to create a space for shared inquiry and mutual support that pushes back against disciplinary siloing and technocratic neoliberal assessment modes of both labor and knowledge productionâand this certainly extends to our experience collaborating with the journal editors throughout the publication process. Our goal has been to examine both the persistence and variability of developmentalism, understood as what Gustavo Esteva calls a âpowerful but fragile semantic constellation,â as a conceptual formation that has historically inspired, legitimized, and mobilized media projects across Asia, Africa, and Latin America.21 And gendered biopolitics, from population control to gender mainstreaming, have remained integral to development policies and media practices, recurring across formats from institutional newsreels to film festivals.We share the conviction that, far beyond the history of nonfiction institutional media, development (as both a broad ideological project and a network of material and institutional practices) and developmentalism (as a set of discourses and theoretical models associated with development) have exerted a far-reaching influence on film and media cultures at large. As such, they must be treated as a major force in shaping global film and media systems and also the many ongoing assumptions behind their critical discourses. The discipline of communication studies was founded on modernization theory governed by Cold War goals of dissemination of Western liberal democracy around the world, while âan area studies framework allowed compartmentalizing Western and non-Western outcomes of technologies that were always claimed to be universal.â22 Despite critique from postcolonial and critical race studies, many of these frameworks have remained foundational for media theory.23 In historical scholarship, as we increasingly move beyond âmodernityâ as a dominant conceptual anchor, engaging with practices and discourses of development opens more precise analytical pathways. These film and mediaâs entanglements with the logics of and economic and the associated with as well as their conceptual underdevelopment, and impact in as diverse as and of media aesthetic and paradigms in film and film and funding are developmentalist assumptions to the they to underwrite the narrative and logics of and global media from the structure of the film to the cultures of argue that a examination of the historical entanglements between film and developmentalist aesthetics, modes of as well as infrastructures and critical the and that our contemporary media is a of the historical contours of development as a field of inquiry embedded within a of some of the methodologies by the featured in this special a of this complex history, to the larger at in media, development, and gender all its development a it as an of be with practices as divergent as and in In as we work on this the of the of the USAID the ideological that have the history of international the and of this on the global its a from development as a global practice and as an institutional and which over the has as a with its own media Yet or does not erase the historical impact of these the contradictions they have reflected and over the as the of development several crucial to the economic theories of development initiatives to and through the of the development an international policy framework at from the Global to the of the Global the by the political role of and the of the International the on was challenged by dependency theory and at development as global structural the neoliberal of the the Programs by the and World imposed and as conditions for and forms of assistance became known as the major markers for international development development has moving beyond economic to such as the Human Development and the Development and from international organizations such as the United Nations to a broader network of These frameworks increasingly of and liberal of and with what in many ways to various while the of the to developmentâs epistemological more scholarship has toward a of its and material the field has to a of and critical by and scholars, which development as a dynamic of conceptual and political to these the studies in this special issue call for sustained analysis in place of In we draw from a of and that in of of gender and to this special issue engage that and from Mexico to contemporary specific local historical of global distinctly feminist methodologies as well as attention to studies that this issue a in the global history of development on and documentary work in Mexico how early women infrastructures as of while US films an early of state and transnational on a outside the Global as the of developmentalist both the and markers of development media, its to the and Latin central grounded in archival also womenâs in transnational and the methodological of archives on study of the series to a a digital media not by but by women not as but as subjects and within circuits of neoliberal and the aesthetics and of how developmentâs has models of to contemporary neoliberal paradigms of and analysis how digital and gender and practices, discourses on and their of these essays the of some of the historical of developmentalist as the question of the role of the state within such on a notion of economic as a and the dominant of development that the state as the for and through infrastructural projects. This understanding of development was shared across both of the as well as in the Third The United and the increasingly mobilized international in the of the modes of international at the postcolonial of policy and ideological These programs were at the expansion of their and of while with the and decolonial of The conceptual between modernization and development that the Cold in of and hierarchies of that long and As an of postcolonial their role as of international aid concern about the of Western development projects. In alternative across the Global South that to structural between and through policies of and In many they were further the global structures. In Latin for example, this approach was through organizations such as the United Nations for Latin and the both developmentalist projects and their have taken many forms historically, and they have and they have been to a of projects, and postcolonial and development has been and in ways and with frequently political While many of these alternative frameworks the embedded in dominant Western they often technocratic and assumptions. gender and gender as for the of to be shaped by This becomes particularly in the media that of development where women frequently a crucial associated with and women were as both the subjects and of their participation in the and labor often as the index of In this study of from the 1970s how women were as of this as these about womenâs urban and recurring and of a within the own of and critique that official examination of archives and enables a feminist interrogation of their mobilizing a of the in the of contribution to this issue similarly the of a dynamic within as well as across ideological the of womenâs and the media of the and as active in labor and as integral to the technocratic women became of as their labor remained a of and analysis and archival with attention to the specific of and It also transnational that as a and affective a nexus of and practices through which gender, media, and developmentalism one film not as a but as part of the of alongside and work a broader concern of this special media as a of developmentalist projects. The debates the World and which international such as the United Nations and a critical historical for such primarily by postcolonial and of the for the of media and communication infrastructures in as to counter Western The a between and economic how systems of media and reinforced global hierarchies of and in an agenda that supported and alternative media infrastructures across postcolonial contexts, the framework gender as an analytical This âgender in the 1970s by of the Women in Development in relation to The Double its political critique of with its broader to center women in development policy through and This was also in of media, which was shaped by its international reach and audiovisual production and and and Yet, as WID institutional it also to the and of the womenâs development programs often by in These were by a of studies, and on and the to of womenâs presence and through the of their economic and In this on the filmmaker this history directly by the and of for women by the WID framework during the with and agencies the of and against Women in at the of the neoliberal turn, when institutional media often the only to access and support to projects. The an by this dynamic as of the from the Global South are to engage with the developmentalist assumptions funding models that their similarly the as a in developmentalist media history by the of and centers on the Film a between of and the attention toward the and labor by and work was foundational the of and the of audiovisual aid, as both a of development projects and a critical for their the in this issue argue for a with media, gender, and developmentalism as an field of that is and shaped by feminist and methodologies and that challenge the entanglements between academic knowledge production and and technocratic development And while methodological these dynamics at the structural the of feminist in media and cinema by this the very a