The Aid Triangle: Recognizing the Human Dynamics of Dominance, Justice and Identity (Development Studies Association) - Softcover

MacLachlan, Malcolm; Carr, Stuart; McAuliffe, Eilish

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1842779117 ISBN 13: 9781842779118

Verlag: Bloomsbury 3PL, 2010

Inhaltsangabe

The Aid Triangle focuses on the human dynamics of international aid and illustrates how the aid system incorporates power relationships, and therefore relationships of dominance.

Using the concept of a triangle of dominance, justice and identity, this timely work explains how the experience of injustice is both a challenge and a stimulus to personal, community and national identity, and how such identities underlie the human potential that international aid should seek to enrich. This insightful new critique provides for the reader an innovative and constructive framework for producing more empowering and more effective aid.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Professor Malcolm MacLachlan is with the Centre for Global Health and the School of Psychology at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, and is currently a Visiting Professor at the Centre for Rehabilitation Studies, Stellenbosch University, South Africa and at the Department of Global Health & Social Medicine, Harvard University, USA. He is the Director of the International Doctoral School for Global Health. Stuart C. Carr is Professor of Psychology, Industrial and Organizational (I/O) Psychology Programme, Massey University, New Zealand. He has worked and lived in UK, Malawi, Remote Australia, Indonesia, Thailand, and New Zealand/Aotearoa. His books are among the first to examine poverty reduction from an I/O, work psychology perspective.He co-edits The Journal of Pacific Rim Psychology. Eilish Mc Auliffe is Director of the Centre for Global Health at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. She has worked as a clinician, consultant and academic and lived in Ireland, UK, South African and Malawi, where she worked for Unicef and Irish Aid.

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The Aid Triangle

Recognizing the Human Dynamics of Dominance, Justice and Identity

By Malcolm MacLachlan, Stuart C. Carr, Eilish McAuliffe

Fernwood Publishing and Zed Books Ltd

Copyright © 2010 Malcolm MacLachlan, Stuart C. Carr, Eilish McAuliffe
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-84277-911-8

Contents

Tables, figures and boxes, viii, 
Acknowledgements, ix, 
1 Introduction, 1, 
2 Aid, 10, 
3 Dominance, 23, 
4 Justice, 59, 
5 Identity, 80, 
6 Learning, 119, 
7 Conclusion, 141, 
Bibliography, 154, 
Index, 167, 

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

1 Oxfamming the world

Binyavanga Wainaina's 'Continental Drift' column in the Mail & Guardian (South Africa) of 30 November 2007 presented an angry and sarcastic image of aid that people in the donor countries rarely see:

Hello kitty kitty kitty ... Are you an orphan? Are you Sudanese? Chadian? Are you sub-Saharan African suffering from mild mental retardation? Are you an African woman suffering from the African male? Would you like an Oxfam biscuit? Organic anti-retrovirals? Have you been raped? You might not know it, but you are an orphan, a refugee. Can we fly 103 of you to France to be loved? We can breastfeed you. We can make you a Darfur orphan. Even if you are not. If you are black and under 10 years old, please come and talk to us.

Come kitty kitty.

We can save you from yourself. We can save ourselves from our terrible selves. Help us to Oxfam the whole black world, to make it a better place....

Instead of sweatshops, we will have Ubuntu shops where you can arrive in biodegradable loincloths to make bone jewellery for caring people who earn $1million a year, live in San Francisco or Cape Town and feel bad about this. In our future world you will have three balanced meals a day.

In the afternoons Jeffrey Sachs will come and show the boys how to build a gender-friendly communal anti-poverty village where all base human emotions – lust, greed and competition – will be sustainably developed out of your heads, along with truly dangerous ideas such as rebellion. After playing non-violent games (rope skipping and hugging), you will write letters to your loving step-parent in Toronto. For an hour a day we will teach you how to make clothes, shelter and shoes out of recycled bottle tops in Ndebele colours....

Trust us. You can't do it yourselves. We have dedicated our lives to you. Come kitties, come to mummy (p. 32).

2 Philanthropy vs the generosity of the taxpayer

A letter in the Christmas edition of the Irish Times, 2007, presented a somewhat cynical impression, not so much of the gift-giving of the 'The Great and the Good', but of their eulogizing in comparison to the 42 per cent tax 'generosity' of the average Irish taxpayer:

Madam,

No doubt JP McManus deserves the award of Philanthropist of the Year and Niall Mellon is a worthy recipient of International Philanthropist of the Year. Sir Anthony O'Reilly basks in the warm glow of his altruism. Bono and Bob Geldof are fêted and renowned for their efforts at eliminating global poverty.

However, as a lowly taxpayer I and others like me have few opportunities to don a tuxedo or affect a carefully cultivated 'scruffy look'. Meanwhile every Euro in income tax paid by me and the rest of the State's resident workforce disappears into health and other state services to little acclaim.

I am not at all envious of those whose huge wealth requires that they live in offshore tax havens or who are able to structure their wealth in tax-efficient vehicles. I fully accept that the taxation system be used to fuel an entrepreneurial culture. However, I find it increasingly nauseating to have to endure the fawning and sycophantic eulogies delivered on those who are fortunate enough to select pet projects for their patronage.

I have no choice about where my money is spent. ... I too could manage a wry knowing smile as my generosity was fêted and my modesty would be evident in my thank you speech. Perhaps the Revenue Commissioners might institute the inaugural awards ceremony for Taxpayer of the Year, 2008 (Michael J. Shovelin, Sligo, p. 17).

This book is about the human dynamics of international aid. We illustrate how the aid system incorporates power relationships, and therefore relationships of dominance. We explore how such dominance can be both a cause and a consequence of injustice. We explain how the experience of injustice is both a challenge and a stimulus to personal, community and national identity, and how such identities underlie the human potential that international aid should seek to enrich. We argue that these three concepts can provide a framework that can be used to triangulate and improve our understanding of why aid sometimes works and sometimes doesn't, and more importantly how to make it work better.

Using the concepts of dominance, justice and identity, The Aid Triangle seeks to provide a framework for producing more empowering and more effective aid, based on an understanding of the human dynamics through which all aid must flow. We consider how people take actions which strive to maintain or achieve identity, esteem and empowerment, and how aid efforts and development work may present obstacles to this because, ironically, the human dynamics and symbolism embedded in the processes of development work often challenge rather than promote individuals' and communities' sense of identity. We consider the psychology behind the political reality of international aid and the dynamics that are common to relationships at all levels of the aid system.

This book thus seeks a new paradigm for aid, by thinking it through, in Schumacher's words, 'as if people mattered'. Aid is an emotive subject, both from the supplier's and the receiver's side, as is illustrated in the examples above. It resonates powerfully with ideas of justice and identity, and the nature of relationships between people.

The book has been written at a time when the global economy and global society are being forced to recognize the unfortunate consequences of unregulated and often unrestrained greed. We are cognizant that the interconnections between domnance, injustice and identity are perhaps relevant to a much wider arc of human activity than international aid. Let us first, though, explore briefly the concept of development.

The idea of development

Just what is it that international aid is supposed to be aiding? Ideally, it is the poorest of the poor; ideally, it is a process that empowers and enables the poor to take concrete steps to stay alive and to improve the quality and length of their lives. But what do we call that? It's not economic growth; that may be part of the process that achieves it, but it should not, in its own right, be a goal (as we argue later). People often call both the process and the outcome of the process of things getting better in poor countries 'development'. The term in itself is not problematic, but the uses it is put to are. For instance, the aid community talk about 'least developed countries', 'developing countries' and 'developed countries'. It is generally felt in the aid industry that people who are pedantic about the use of such terms are a bit of a pain in the arse! That everybody knows their limitations, but 'ah, sure, we'll use them anyway, and we don't mean any harm by them'.

Regardless of such thoughtless good intentions, what happens is that ideas of the extent of development start to frame how people see each other, and therefore how they behave towards each other. In some of the poorer countries where we have worked there is often semantic confusion between the terms 'expert' and 'expat' (as in expatriate worker – a person coming from outside the country in question), which sometimes are taken to be literally synonymous, causing bafflement at the idea of having two words for the same thing! On the side of the international development workers, the idea of 'me developed, you still developing' gets confused with ideas about the rate of economic growth, foreign direct investment, gross domestic product and so on, such that indices of these are actually taken to be indicators of the 'state of development', conveniently summarizing a country's diversity of needs – including diversity in income – in a few banal clinical statistics. Worse still, some associate differing degrees of development with differing levels of intellectual and cultural sophistication. Cultures thousands of years old are seen as primitive and their adherents as in need of 'development'. These connotations are often not implicit and indeed often not intended, but they do nonetheless pattern thinking about development and personify the sort of implicit superiority that has led to the many effects of social dominance of one group by another, which we will be considering in Chapter 3.

The word 'development' doesn't, however, work well even for those of us in rich countries. If we have reached an end stage in the process of developing and are now 'developed', what do we call it when things get better? For instance, from the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s, things in Ireland changed utterly, with staggering rates of 'Celtic Tiger' economic growth, unprecedented rates of worker immigration, and dramatically increased incomes. Was that development? If it happened in Papua New Guinea, would that be development? If it was development in Ireland, then does that mean the Irish weren't developed in the early 1990s? And what of the downturn/credit crunch/correction/recession? Are we now 'un-developing'?

Clearly all countries have the potential for things to change and for the lives of people in them to improve, and in that sense all countries should strive to be developing countries, and all politicians should be delighted when their party is seen to be running a developing country. In fact, they should feel rather awkward when asked what their government is doing for 'developing countries', as that would imply their own country isn't developing. Our point is that when words are used carelessly, they can construct a web of meanings that may be quite unintended, but nonetheless detrimental to others; even those whom we consciously wish to 'aid'.

In this book we will use the term 'low-income country' to refer to that group of countries you may think of as 'developing countries'. Of course, 'low-income country' is not ideal either, as it implies that the income of a country is its most important descriptor, ignores the fact that average income can hide huge inequalities and perhaps implies that assistance should be targeted at increasing incomes, rather than improving human rights, access to health services or educational provision. However, to ignore the scale of the differences in average monthly income for, say, a bus driver in Germany (the equivalent of US$2,156) and one in Peru (the equivalent of US$140 – see www.worldsalaries.org/busdriver.shtml) would not be helpful. Whatever term is used to refer to those countries that fail to adequately provide the human rights, well-being and opportunities that their citizens are entitled to strive for, that term will be only partially adequate because of the interlocking and multifarious nature of people's lives. In using the term 'low-income countries' we hope to reduce the negative connotations and implication of inferiority associated with those who are not from financially better-off countries. If you feel that the polar opposite of our term – that is, 'high-income countries' – implies superiority, then we would disagree. Occasionally in this book we will lapse back into the 'developed–developing' jargon, either in quoting others or to make a point, particularly in regard to the idea of the social dominance of one group over others, and the many undesirable consequences of it for improving the lives of the poorest people.

Relational development

We did say there was nothing wrong with the term 'development' per se, but the idea of 'development' should now be understood to be about groups of people in reciprocal relationships that represent improving circumstances for all involved. It is not something that one country does to or for another; it is something they help each other with. While such development may have reciprocal economic benefits, such as opening new opportunities for (Fair) trade, it is increasingly being understood to be inescapably embedded in other factors too. For instance, development must concern the effects of one country's activities on the worldwide physical environment, shared by all. Development must consider how supporting certain types of political systems over others is likely to affect the worldwide security environment shared by all, with increasing democracy hopefully promoting greater security by giving marginalized groups a greater voice. The deliberate underproduction of trained healthcare professionals in high-income countries, with the intention of poaching these from low-income countries, is not 'development' for either of them; it suggests an uneven division of responsibility and lack of commitment to global health on the part of rich countries (McAuliffe and MacLachlan 2005).

Development is what happens when relationships strengthen for the common good; it has a moral dimension and can best be achieved by processes that are emancipatory – where what is being done in the name of 'development' contributes to achieving its aims. This means putting people first, or, as the Report of the South Commission put it, as long ago as 1990: 'Development has therefore to be an effort of, by and for the people. True development has to be people-centred' (emphasis added). When countries, organizations, groups or individuals are involved in 'development', they are in relationships that eschew dominance, promote justice and support positive identities.

A systems triangle

We argue that dominance, justice and identity are critical themes running through international aid and development, and that their influence has not been sufficiently recognized or understood. For instance, Forsyth's otherwise excellent and comprehensive Encyclopaedia of International Development, published in 2005, does not contain entries for any of our three terms; yet we believe these concepts are omnipresent, although often implicit and even taboo, in much aid work. Understanding how the three dynamics, dominance, justice and identity, interact and shape the relationships of aid is a first step to improving the processes and hopefully the effectiveness of aid and development. We are not interested in building a 'grand theory' of development, but rather a simple understanding (by 'simple', we of course don't mean 'simplistic', we mean easy to make useful) that stops people in their tracks long enough for them to learn that there is an alternative to slotting into the same unthinking, repetitive groove that has characterized much of the ineffective aid work that we are all too aware of.

The triangular relationship shown in Figure 1.1 presents us with a challenge in writing this book. The three core concepts interact in a dynamic way within aid relationships, making it difficult to separate and discuss each independently. We could try to show the three elements at work in a variety of situations, or we could try to show the relevance of each of the three concepts, and then show how their interrelationship can help us improve the effectiveness of aid. We have chosen the latter option. Following a review of aid in Chapter 2, the next three chapters address dominance, justice and identity in turn. Because of the dynamic relationships at play this is an artificial separation, and we have accepted in the writing of this book the inevitable overlap that occurs in outlining the interconnectivity between our three core elements. The sort of systems thinking, the interlocking nature of human dynamics, that we want to encourage is a feature of the book, and so you will find reference to justice, for example, not only in Chapter 4 but in all chapters. We hope that this deliberate cross-hatching will enrich, rather than detract from, our readers' understanding of the aid triangle.

Our approach

In this book we have sought to focus on the human dynamics of everyday social life in aid and 'development' organizations, and we are aware that we have done this quite selectively. We have not, for instance, considered the excellent work done by the Antares Foundation, People in Aid, the Huntington Institute, or many others, in helping aid workers manage the stress of their work, and their own health and welfare. These constitute perhaps the more 'obvious' and public face of the tremendous difficulties encountered in working in this field.

Yet we are very aware that these issues interact with and are perhaps sometimes symptomatic of concerns about dominance, justice and identity. As such, we have chosen to focus more on the background, and often implicit, factors, and less on the foreground, and explicit, concerns that people struggle with. We hope that in doing so we have nonetheless been able to illustrate how real, immediate and tangible the aid triangle is.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from The Aid Triangle by Malcolm MacLachlan, Stuart C. Carr, Eilish McAuliffe. Copyright © 2010 Malcolm MacLachlan, Stuart C. Carr, Eilish McAuliffe. Excerpted by permission of Fernwood Publishing and Zed Books Ltd.
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Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Bloomsbury 3PL
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2010
• ISBN 10: 1842779117
• ISBN 13: 9781842779118
• Einband: Tapa blanda
• Sprache: Englisch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 186