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Abstract
This introduction, and the special issue as a whole, consider how the personal and the professional are interrelated, and how they matter for aid work. Taking up Chambers' call for the ‘primacy of the personal', this paper explores why the personal often remains un-acknowledged in development studies, even though its salience for aid workers is well-documented, for example, in the growing popularity of their blogs and memoirs. One possible reason for this is an implicit narrative of aid work as altruistic and sometimes self-sacrificing, which renders it inappropriate to devote much attention to the experiences and challenges of aid workers themselves. As the contributions in this volume demonstrate, however, their personal relationships and values significantly shape perspectives and practices of aid work. They therefore need to be taken into account in order to achieve a more comprehensive understanding of development processes.
Notes
1 R Chambers, ‘Responsible well-being—a personal agenda for development’, World Development, 25(11), 1997, p 1749.
2 Ibid, p 1747.
3 C Blackmore, Responsible Wellbeing and its Implications for Development Policy, University of Bath, Working Paper Series WeD 09/48, 2009, p 13.
4 E Mawdsley, G Porter & J Townsend, ‘Trust, accountability and face-to-face interaction in North–South ngo relations’, Development in Practice, 15(1), 2005, p 77.
5 N Long, Development Sociology: Actor Perspectives, London: Routledge, 2001; and Long, ‘An actor-oriented approach to development intervention’, in DA Cruz, Rural Life Improvement in Asia, Report of an apo seminar on ‘Rural Life Improvement for Community Development’, 2003, pp 47–61.
6 Blackmore, Responsible Wellbeing and its Implications for Development Policy, p 14.
7 R Chambers, ‘Participatory rural appraisal (PRA): Analysis of experience,' World Development 22(9), 1994, pp 1253–1268; Chambers, Responsible well-being – a personal agenda for development.
8 Cf P Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, New York: Seabury Press, 1970.
9 Chambers, ‘Responsible well-being’, p 1749.
10 Ibid.
11 Chambers, ‘Participatory rural appraisal’, p 3.
12 D Gasper and AL St. Clair, ‘The field of development ethics: an introduction', in D Gasper and AL St. Clair (eds) Development Ethics, Farnham: Ashgate, 2010. p19.
13 Ibid.
14 AK Giri & PQ van Ufford, ‘Reconstituting development as a shared responsibility’, in PQ van Ufford & AK Giri (eds), A Moral Critique of Development, London: Routledge, 2003, p 255.
15 M Foucault, ‘An Aesthetics of Existence' in L Kritzman (ed) Politics, Philosophy, Culture: Interviews and Other Writings, 1977–1984, London: Routledge, 1988.
16 Giri & van Ufford, ‘Reconstituting development as a shared responsibility’, p 254.
17 See, however, immersion programmes, as described by R Irvine, R Chambers & R Eyben, Learning from Poor People's Lives: Immersions, 2004, at http://www.exposure-dialog.de/english/.
18 Long, ‘An actor-oriented approach to development intervention’, p 48.
19 Chambers, ‘Responsible well-being’, p 1749.
20 Chambers, Participatory rural appraisal’, pp 3–4.
21 T Vaux, The Selfish Altruist: Relief Work in Famine and War, London: Earthscan, 2001, p 7.
22 Ibid, p 180.
23 For existing examples, see J Gilbert, ‘Self-knowledge is the prerequisite of humanity: personal development and self-awareness for aid workers’, Development in Practice, 15(1), 2005, pp 64–69; C Min-Harris, Staff Care and Humanitarian Aid Organizations: A Moral Obligation, Issue-Specific Briefing Paper, Humanitarian Assistance in Complex Emergencies, University of Denver, 2011; and P Curling & KB Simmons, ‘Stress and staff support strategies for international aid work’, Interventions, 8(2), 2010, pp 93–105.
24 D Mosse, ‘Introduction: the anthropology of expertise and professionals in international development’, in Mosse (ed), Adventures in Aidland: The Anthropology of Professionals in International Development, Oxford: Berghahn, 2011, p 22.
25 Ibid, p 17.
26 Ibid, p 12.
27 RL Stirrat, ‘Mercenaries, Missionaries and Misfits: Representations of Development Personnel', Critique of Anthropology 28(4), 2008, pp 406–425.
28 D Lewis, ‘Tidy concepts, messy lives: defining tensions in the domestic and overseas careers of UK non-governmental professionals’, in Mosse, Adventures in Aidland.
29 Eyben, Relationships for Aid, London: Earthscan, 2006, pp 45–46.
30 For example, R Allahyari, Visions of Charity: Volunteer Workers and Moral Community, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2000; and M Baillie Smith & N Laurie, ‘International volunteering and development: global citizenship and neoliberal professionalisation today’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 36(4), 2011, pp 545–559, among others.
31 P Redfield, ‘Doctors, Borders, and Life in Crisis', Cultural Anthropology 20(3), 2005, pp 328–361; A Amin, ‘Extraordinarily ordinary: working in the social economy', Social Enterprise Journal, 5(1) 2009, pp 30–49.
32 See, for example, N Gunetilleke, N De Silva & G Lokuge, ‘Development professionals: reconciling personal values with professional values’, ids Bulletin (Special Issue, Time to Reimagine Development?), 42(5), 2001, pp 45–51; and M Arvidson, ‘Contradictions and confusions in development work: exploring the realities of Bangladeshi ngos’, Journal of South Asian Development, 3(1), 2008, pp 109–134.
33 Mosse, Introduction: The Anthropology of Expertise and Professionals in International Development, p 21; for further examples of professionals expressing these doubts see Kanbur, 2010, and Fechter (this issue).
34 Allahyari, Visions of Charity, p 4.
35 Chambers, ‘Responsible well-being’, p 1749.
36 T Morris, The Despairing Developer: Diary of an Aid Worker in the Middle East, London: IB Tauris, 1991; T Vaux, The Selfish Altruist; P Griffiths, The Economist's Tale: A Consultant Encounters Hunger and the World Bank, London: Zed Books, 2003.
37 A Thomson, K Cain & H Postlewait, Emergency Sex and other Desperate Measures: True Stories from a War Zone, London: Ebury Press, 2006.
38 On the concept of the development blockbuster, see D Lewis, ‘The gift of experience? Expert memoir narratives, knowledge and development’, unpublished seminar paper, University of Sussex, February 2011.
39 G Bolton, Aid and Other Dirty Business: How Good Intentions Have Failed the World's Poor, London: Ebury Press, 2008; W Easterly, White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done so Much Ill and So Little Good, London: Penguin, 2006; D Moyo, Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is Another Way For Africa, London: Allen Lane, 2009; J Sachs, The End of Poverty: How We Can Make It Happen In Our Lifetime, London: Penguin: 2005.
42 Accessed at http://stuffexpataidworkerslike.com/#149 High School Reunions, 7 May 2012.
43 Duncan Green, Oxfam UK, ‘From poverty to power blog’, at http://www.oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/.
45 ‘Copenhagen>Belgrade>Copenhagen>Kampala>Dar es Salaam>Copenhagen’, at http://pernille.typepad.com/louderthanswahili/blogpost.
46 R Eyben, ‘Making relationships matter for aid bureaucracies’, in Eyben, Relationships for Aid. On the issue of relationships, see also I McWha & M MacLachlan, ‘Measuring relationships between workers in poverty-focused organisations’,Journal of Managerial Psychology, 26(6), pp 485–499.
47 S Lister, Power in Partnership? An Analysis of an ngo's Relationships with its Partners, cvo International Working Paper 5, London: cvo, London School of Economics, 1999, abstract.
48 Ibid, p 15.
49 Eyben, ‘Fellow travellers in development’, this issue.
50 Eyben, Relationships for Aid, pp 44–45.
51 Mawdsley et al, ‘Trust, accountability and face-to-face interaction in North–South ngo relations’, pp77–82.
52 Ibid, pp 78–79.
53 M Girgis, ‘The capacity-building paradox: using friendship to build capacity in the South’, Development in Practice, 17(3), 2007.
54 Ibid, p 357.
55 Q-methodology is a social science research method which was developed by the psychologist William Stephenson, and is used to explore people's viewpoints and subjectivities. See also S Brown, ‘A primer on Q methodology’, Operant Subjectivity, 16(3–4), 1993, pp 91–138.
56 U Kothari, ‘History, time and temporality in development discourse’, in M Woolcock (ed), History and Development, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2010.
57 D Lewis, ‘Using life histories in social policy research: the case of third sector/public sector boundary crossing’, Journal of Social Policy, 37(4), 2008, pp 559–578; Lewis, ‘Crossing the boundaries between “third sector” and state: life-work histories from the Philippines, Bangladesh and the UK’, Third World Quarterly, 29(1), 2008, pp 125–141; and U Kothari, ‘From colonialism to development: oral histories, life geographies and travelling cultures’, Antipode, 37(3), 2005, pp 49–60.
58 The term ‘aidnography’ is shorthand for the ‘ethnography of aid’. J Gould, ‘Introducing aidnography’, in J Gould & HS Marcussen (eds), Ethnographies of Aid—Exploring Development Ttexts and Encounters, Roskilde: Department of International Development Studies, 2004.
59 Mosse, ‘Introduction’, p 20.
60 A Cornwall, S Jolly & S Correa, Development with a Body: Sexuality, Human Rights and Development, London: Zed, 2008.
61 LA Charlés, Intimate Colonialism, Walnut Creek, CA: LeftCoast Press, 2007.
62 For an extreme example, see the alleged trading of sex for food among UN peacekeepers, at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/01/wikileaks-un-peacekeepers_n_944917.html.
63 H Hacker, ‘White man's bedtime stories: zur Ökonomie von Geschlecht und Whiteness in Texten der Development-Kontaktliteratur’, Österreichische Zeitschrift für Soziologie, 31(4), pp 45–65.
64 Chambers, ‘Participatory rural appraisal’, p 3.
65 CDB Burt & SC Carr, ‘Organizational psychology and poverty reduction: the multi-dimensionality of the aid worker experience’, Journal of Managerial Psychology, 26(6), 2011, pp 444–452.
66 Mosse, ‘Introduction’, p 16.
67 For example, CB Eriksson, HV Kemp, R Gorsuch, S Hoke & DW Foy, ‘Trauma exposure and ptsd symptoms in international relief and development personnel’, Journal of Traumatic Stress, 14(1), 2001, pp 205–212.
68 ‘What is wellbeing?’, People in Aid Newsletter, at www.peopleinaid.org/pool/files/newsletter/2007-jan-en.pdf.pdf.
69 Vaux, The Selfish Altruist, pp 7–8.
70 Chambers, ‘Responsible well-being’, p 1749.