Who are the ‘international community’? Development professionals and liminal subjectivity

ABSTRACT

This article explores international development space at the micro-level through the career stories and discursive representations of three aid workers—two nationals, one expatriate—who worked together on the same project in Tajikistan in 2008–9. Findings bear witness to the ‘liminal subjectivity’ of development where professional aid workers are, vocationally and socially, culturally and politically, neither domestic nor foreign. Aid workers’ careers demonstrate the resilience of ‘the international’ in contemporary humanitarian practice. At the same time, their biographies are not easily sutured into emergent cosmopolitanism as they remain encumbered by the boundaries of the national and international. Moreover, the article demonstrates that, while the rhetoric of international development and its putative leaders are criticized within the community itself, the international community may be formed by subordinate individuals in their liminal subjectivities.

KEYWORDS:

• international community
• liminality
• subjectivity
• development
• humanitarianism
• Tajikistan
• Lisa Smirl
• aid workers

Acknowledgements

With thanks to Stephen Hopgood, Lisa Smirl (1975–2013), Sarah Nouwen, Tarak Barkawi, Anna Stavrianakis, Florian Kühn, two anonymous JISB reviewers, and participants at a workshop in Lisa's memory at the International Studies Association annual convention in Toronto (March 2014) for their comments on an earlier draft. Tim Dunne and Marjo Koivisto were co-authors of an earlier draft presented at ISA and the British International Studies Association meetings in 2011 and therefore should be credited with a substantive contribution to the paper. However, their sections of the paper have been withdrawn from this version, any weaknesses in the authoring of which are my own.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on Contributor

John Heathershaw is Associate Professor of International Relations at the University of Exeter.

Notes

1. For exceptional treatments of semi-professional or subordinate professional aid workers see Eyben (2012), Heuser (2012), Redfield (2012) and Roth (2015).

2. See Scott (1990) for an elaboration of this concept in South-East Asian peasant villages.

3. This is exacerbated by the fact that the civil war was an inter-regional conflict and regional animosities remain significant though typically beneath the surface.

4. Interview with USAID staff member, 28 Sept. 2010.

5. Interview with USAID staff member, 28 Sept. 2010.

6. Interview with USAID staff member, 15 Aug. 2010.

7. On ‘vernacularization’ of human rights norms see Leviit and Merry (2009).

8. Interview with USAID staff member, 28 Sept. 2010. Richard Winnie (1947–2011) was a consultant to the governments of Georgia, Bulgaria, Romania, Macedonia, Croatia, Albania, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Surinam and West Bank/Gaza. See, ‘Richard Winnie: obituary’, Contra Costa Times, 8 April 2011. Accessed at: http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/contracostatimes/obituary.aspx?pid=150093233#sthash.ATWmnx6p.dpuf

9. Interview with USAID staff member, 15 Aug. 2010.

10. Interview with USAID staff member, 28 Sept. 2010.

11. Interview with USAID staff member, 21 Sept. 2010.

12. She stated that they found only a law on traditional celebrations and one on smoking which did not involve donor organizations. Interview with USAID staff member, 28 Sept. 2010.