A Moral Economy? Social interpretations of money in Aidland

Abstract

This article considers the implications of the varied social meanings and values practitioners give to aid and the logics they use to make sense of Aidland's inequitable economy. The author draws on experience as an aid practitioner, as well as on ethnographic research in Cambodia to propose that dominant economic approaches to assessing the value for money delivered by aid risk overlooking the values and varied interpretive logics aid workers use to make sense of aid allocations and exchanges. The article highlights dilemmas experienced by aid workers living and working in an inequitable socioeconomic system produced by aid flows that constantly have to be negotiated, reconciled or ignored. A case study from Cambodia shows how the interpretive lenses aid workers use to evaluate the use of aid money influence their relationships and practice in ways that have material effects. This suggests they deserve further study, likely to be aided by reference to ideas from economic sociology and anthropology.

Notes

I am deeply indebted to all the staff of the local ngos I spent time with in Cambodia, as well as the staff of international ngos and other development practitioners whose opinions have informed my understandings and analysis. My sincere thanks go to all of them. I am also extremely grateful for the constructive comments received from two anonymous reviewers that helped to strengthen my argument and for Anne-Meike Fechter's kind encouragement and support.

1 ‘The costs of recruiting and training a long-term volunteer and supporting them overseas are around £7500 per year, this compares favourably with the average costs of a consultant at £10 000 per month (based on £500/day) as well as with the average costs of an international aid worker whose salary would be £2500 per month (conservatively based on £30 000 pa).’ From a presentation by Voluntary Services Overseas at a workshop for the UK ngo sector, February 2011.

2 R Apthorpe, ‘Through the looking-glass of Aidland: Alice in her adventures in the world of aid is astonished’, paper presented at the asa Jubilee conference on ‘Cosmopolitanism and Anthropology’, 2006, at http://www.theasa.org/conferences/asa06/panels/panel05.htm.

3 The details of the methodology used to collect and analyse this ethnographic data, amassed during participant observation with four small Cambodian ngos, is expanded on in C Shutt, ‘Power and aid relations: a study of Cambodian ngos and their international funders’, unpublished thesis, Brighton, UK: Institute of Development Studies, 2008, pp 23–59.

4 D Rajak & J Stirrat, ‘Parochial cosmopolitanism and the power of nostalgia’, in D Mosse (ed), Adventures in Aidland: The Anthropology of Professionals in International Development, London: Berghahn Press, 2011, pp 161–176.

5 R Eyben, ‘Hovering on the threshold: challenges and opportunities for critical and reflexive ethnographic research in support of international aid practice’, in S Hagberg & C Widmark (eds), Ethnographic Practice and Public Aid: Methods and Meanings in Development Cooperation, Uppsala: University of Uppsala, 2009, p 72.

6 Examples include C Burnside & D Dollar, ‘Aid, policies, and growth’, American Economic Review, 90(4), 2000, pp 847–868; and W Easterly ‘What did structural adjustment adjust? The association of policies and growth with repeated imf and World Bank adjustment loans’, Journal of Development Economics, 76, 2005, pp 1–22.

7 M Bloch & J Parry, ‘Introduction: money and the morality of exchange’, in J Parry & M Bloch (eds), Money and the Morality of Exchange, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989, pp 1–32; G Gregory, Savage Money: The Anthropology and Politics of Commodity Exchange, London: Routledge, 1997; and V Zelizer, The Social Meaning of Money: Pin Money, Paychecks, Poor Relief and Other Currencies, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997.

8 Zelizer, The Social Meaning of Money, p 1.

9 N Dodds, cited in L Desforges, ‘Tourism consumption and the imagination of money’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, New Series 26(3), 2001, p 355.

10 Shutt, ‘Power and aid relations’.

11 E Mawdsley, ‘The changing geographies of foreign aid and development cooperation: contributions from gift theory’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 37(2), 2012, pp 256–272.

12 R Eyben, ‘The power of the gift and the new aid modalities’, ids Bulletin, 36(6), 2006, p 91.

13 T Hattori, ‘Reconceptualising foreign aid’, Review of International Political Economy, 8(4), 2001, pp 633–660.

14 J Stirrat & H Henkel, ‘The development gift: the problem of reciprocity in the ngo world’, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social, 554(1), 1997; and R Eyben ‘The power of the gift and the new aid modalities’.

15 ActionAid, Real Aid 2: Making Technical Assistance Work, ActionAid UK, London, 2006, esp pp 9–12 at http://www.actionaid.org.uk/doc_lib/real_aid2.pdf.

16 A Fowler, Striking a Balance, London: Earthscan, 1997, p 133.

17 B Korf, ‘Antimonies of generosity: moral geographies and post-tsunami aid in Southeast Asia’, Geoforum, (38)2, 2007, pp 366–378.

18 R Eyben, ‘Hovering on the threshold’.

19 A Hudock, ngos and Civil Society: Democracy by Proxy, Cambridge: Polity Press, 1999; S Lister, ‘Power in partnership? An analysis of an ngo's relations with its partners’, Centre for Voluntary Organisation International Working Paper Number 5, London School of Economics, UK, 1999; and TWallace, L Bornstein & J Chapman, The Aid Chain: Coercion and Commitment in Development ngos, Warwickshire, UK: Intermediate Technology Development Group, 2006.

20 S Rovaniemi, ‘ngo partnership and funding: a case study of cooperation of a Finnish and an Indian ngo’, in H Katsui & R Wamai (eds), Civil Society Reconsidered: A Critical Look at ngos in Development Practice, Interkont Books 14, Helsinki: Institute of Development Studies, University of Helsinki, 2006.

21 C Shutt, ‘Money matters in aid relationships’, in R Eyben (ed), Relationships for Aid, London: Earthscan, 2006, pp 154–170.

22 For example, A Fechter, ‘Anybody at home? The inhabitants of Aidland’, in A Fechter & H Hindman (eds), Inside the Everyday Lives of Development Workers: The Challenges and Futures of Aidland, New York: Kumarian, 2011, pp 131–150.

23 E Mawdsley, J Townsend, G Porter & P Oakley, Knowledge, Power and Development Agendas: ngos North and South, Oxford: Intrac, 2002.

24 For accounts of expatriate motives, see J Townsend & A Townsend, ‘Accountability, motivation and practice: ngos North and South’, Social and Cultural Geography, 5(2), 2004, pp 271–284; S de Jong, ‘False binaries: altruism and selfishness in ngo work’, in Fechter & Hindman, Inside the Everyday Lives of Development Workers, pp 21–40; and Fechter, ‘Anybody at home?’, pp 131–150. J Wedel, Collision and Collusion: The Strange Case of Western Aid to Eastern Europe 1989–1998, Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2001 describes the motives of some national aid workers.

25 Eyben coined the term ‘local cell’ to describe how aid relationships are shaped by the specific time and place in which they occur. R Eyben, ‘The sociality of international aid and policy convergence’, in Mosse, Adventures in Aidland, p 141.

26 Rajak & Stirrat, ‘Parochial cosmopolitanism and the power of nostalgia’.

27 M Haugaard, Constitution of Power: A Theoretical Analysis of Power, Knowledge & Structure, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997, p 179.

28 K Browne, ‘Economics and morality: introduction’, in K Browne and BL Milgram (eds), Economics and Morality: Anthropological Approaches, Lanham, Maryland: Altamira Press, 2009, p 14.

29 de Jong, ‘False binaries’.

30 N Long, ‘An actor-oriented approach to development intervention’, background paper for apo meeting, Tokyo, 2002, p 1.

31 D Mosse, ‘Introduction’, in Mosse, Adventures in Aidland, p 21.

32 J Scott, The Moral Economy of the Peasant: Rebellion and Subsistence in South East Asia, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1976.

33 T Morris, The Despairing Developer: Diary of an Aid Worker in the Middle East, London: IB Tauris, 1991, p 57.

34 J Stirrat, ‘Mercenaries, missionaries and misfits: representations of development personnel’, Critique of Anthropology, 28(4), 2008, pp 406–425, esp pp 410–414.

35 Ibid.

36 M MacLachlan, S Carr & E MacAliffe, The Aid Triangle: Recognizing the Human Dynamics of Dominance, Justice and Identity, London/Halifax: Zed Books/Fernwood Publishing, 2010.

37 Ibid, p 72.

38 E Mysliwiec, Punishing the Poor: The International Isolation of Kampuchea, Oxford: Oxfam UK, 1988.

39 G Curtis, Cambodia Reborn? The Transition to Democracy and Development, Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press/United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, 1996, p 2.

40 J Marston, ‘Cambodia 1991–94: hierarchy, neutrality and etiquettes of discourse’, unpublished thesis, University of Washington, 1997, p 27.

41 J MacAndrew, ‘Aid infusions, aid illusions: bilateral and multilateral emergency development assistance in Cambodia 1992–1995’, Cambodia Development Research Institute (cdri) Working Paper 2, Phnom Penh: cdri, 1996.

42 Curtis, Cambodia Reborn?.

43 M Watts, ‘Should they be committed? Motivating volunteers in Phnom Penh, Cambodia’, Development in Practice, 12(1), 2002, p 61.

44 All names are pseudonyms to protect anonymity.

45 Shutt, ‘Power and aid relations’.

46 My research did not allow me to systematically examine the extent to which ngo directorship enabled individuals to service relationships, eg through the hiring of friends and relations. Although there was some evidence that this was happening, the extent to which such practices differed from those used by international agencies is debatable.

47 Informal discussions with directors of the ngos.

48 This is discussed at greater length in Shutt, ‘Power and aid relations’.

49 M O'Leary, ‘The influence of values on development practice: a study of Cambodian development practitioners in non-government organisations in Cambodia’, unpublished thesis, School of Social Work and Social Policy, La Trobe University, 2006.

50 Semi-structured interview with Barbara, 28 June 2005.

51 S Chibnall & P Saunders, ‘Worlds apart: notes on the social reality of corruption’, British Journal of Sociology, 28(2), 1977, p 139.

52 http://www.gamos.demon.co.uk/sustainable/corruptcam.htm, accessed 20 September 2011.

53 F Siddiqui, C Strickler & P Vinde, Capacity Building Practices of Cambodia's Development Partners: Discussion Paper, Phnom Penh: Cambodia Development Committee, 2004, p 45.

54 Personal communication from Michael, 5 August 2004.

55 Interview with Jeff, 15 February 2005.

56 Ethnographic observations and an informal discussion with Jan, 18 August 2005.