Human Sciences Happy Hour in Phnom-Penh
Once a month - 6pm – Baitong Restaurant
(7 Street 360/ Norodom Bd, Beung Keng Kang I)
The 10 th of August
"Living well" while "doing good"?
(Missing) debates on altruism and professionalism in aid work
This paper takes at its starting point public criticism of international aid workers who appear to be "doing well out of poverty". This is perceived to be in contrast to the poor populations in developing countries whom they are meant to help, and more broadly in moral contradiction to their stated mission to reduce poverty. Based on fieldwork with aid workers in Cambodia, I suggest that such public perceptions are mirrored by some aid workers' uncertainty and unease concerning the moral dimensions of their own and others' lifestyles. Such concerns are voiced alongside aid workers' expressly stated "mixed motivations" - including a desire to "make a difference" as well as to establish a career - for undertaking aid work, and in the context of their everyday practices of crafting comfortable lives for themselves and their families. On the level of aid policy, such issues are addressed most notably through "immersion" programmes for aid workers, as well as in debates about appropriate remuneration strategies. Significantly, though, pertinent analyses of such public and private unease are notably absent from development ethics. This seems hard to fathom, since other "helping professions" such as nursing or social work have produced comprehensive studies on altruism and professionalism among their practitioners, including their implications for training and career sustainability. I argue that the absence of equivalent research in development studies is partly due to a pervasive and highly political tendency to foreground the "other" -the world’s poor- while rendering those who deliver aid largely invisible. Placing "aid recipients" and "aid givers" in separate categories, together with an emphasis on collective rather than individual moral responsibilities, not only makes it difficult to conduct debates on the role of altruism and professionalism among aid workers, but also exemplifies how practices of orientalist "othering" continue to inform aspects of development theory and practice.
by
Anne Meike Fechter
Senior Lecturer in Anthropology
(Anthropology, Sussex Centre for Migration Research, Development Studies (in CDE))
Anne-Meike Fechter is a Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of Sussex, Brighton, UK. Her past research focused on corporate expatriates (Transnational Lives: Expatriates in Indonesia, Ashgate 2007). Between 2009-2010, she conducted a project, funded by the Economic and Social Science Research Council, on "Aidworkers as mobile professionals", with a focus on Cambodia. The results of this work have contributed to a co-edited collection, entitled Inside the Everyday Lives of Development Workers: the Futures and Challenges of Aidland (Kumarian 2011). She can be contacted at a.fechter[atmark]sussex.ac.uk.
http://www.sussex.ac.uk/profiles/158737
