NGOs

To me, one of the most interesting parts of Mark Schuller's "Killing with Kindness: Haiti, International Aid, and NGOs" are the parts that break down the reality of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). In the United States, people are generally less leery of NGOs. With NGOs, the assumption is that these organizations "empower local recipient communities to participate in all aspects of their work, from setting priorities to evaluation, and is autonomous from not only the state but also donor agencies" (9). However, that is the ideal-- far from reality. In actuality, NGOs potentially enable external nations "to establish foreign priorities and maintain foreign control over the country" (9).

Schuller uses Haiti as an example, to explore the space and place before and after the earthquake. He causes readers to question the hegemonic power relationship existing between NGOs and "third-world" countries. Schuller calls this power relationship "trickle-down imperialism." 

One of the most striking parts of Schuller's description of Haiti post-earthquake made me question my response to disaster in another country. I generally accept the "good" that NGOs are doing, without much thought to individual stories or identities. Just a general recognizing of tragedy. This omission of individual stories and identities is crucial to the oppressive regime maintaining power. (Shameless feminism plug: it's also why women's studies is a legitimate field, but you all knew that!)

Killing with Kindness

by Ben Woodruff

     I found this very interesting personally because I have worked in frontier economies and I have seen the systemic issues which exacerbated the catastrophes which occur virtually everywhere. Clearly Haiti is an example where a storm or earthquake which would be a small concern in the United States has a larger impact because of the lack of infrastructure. 

     I was not surprised that the organizations that focus on how to help the local people achieve their local goals had better results. Instead of this, most NGOs serve only to further the aims of the donors which are the governments of the United States and European powers. This allows those countries to open up those markets for their services and goods. This disaster capitalism allows for the countries to enrich themselves while at the same time looking to the rest of the world as if they are doing good.

     I personally had another take on this issue of post disaster aid. When I was in Switzerland last year, a coauthor and I looked at the economics of pre and post disaster aid. Giving money to a developing economy before a disaster and allowing them to build infrastructure is far more efficient than responding after a disaster. It is like the adage "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" writ large.

     It feels good to come in as the savior at the end of the day. You get your photo in the paper back home and you have the locals tell you that you are doing a wonderful job. The boring work does not get that same result even though focusing on helping countries build roads, build hospitals, build sanitation systems, and train locals to provide medical care will prevent much of the suffering from ever happening.

Killing with Kindness or How the West was Won

"NGOs are such a force multiplier for us, such an important part of our combat team." (Collin Powell, 2001).
I think this quote really sums up what Mark Schuller's Killing with Kindness is really about. NGOs are a force multiplier in that they are an extremely effective way of taking over a weakened state and using it to forcibly multiply the amount of imperialist power in a given geographical area. I had always known "that not all NGOs are 'good' NGOs," as a professor of mine had once stated, but the way in which these nations are so obviously blighted by these NGOs, more to be read as corporations, in order to advance a capitalist agenda. I really appreciated Schuller's use of the term "trickle-down imperialism" because that's exactly what the principle goal of so many of these organizations is. Imperialist agents hide behind go-to remarks such as NGOs are "non-political" organizations when touting the mishaps of dealing with crisis, only as a means to assert increased governmental control in a state that has already been systemically denied any government representation on behalf of the people who will actually have to live and thrive in this state after the camera crews have gone back to Los Angeles. In reading the lived experiences of the Haitians in Chapter One of Schuller's text I was reminded of Danticat's Brother, I am Dying when she explains that while the US was occupying Haiti in the early 20's Haitians were not delusional as to why the United States was involved and the greed that came from wanting to acquire 40 percent of their economy.
In the Farmer piece I really appreciated the way he discussed the nature of structural damage especially in comparison to the crises that have taken place in the US. You can't help but notice the political underpinnings of using tragedies like Hurricane Katrina and comparing them to the failure of the new Healthcare website. Clearly, there is a systemic blinding of the public. The way in which Hurricane Katrina has been depicted as an event that was "over in one week" and an ignorance to the understandings of the lived experience that alters one's understanding of any event. If these instances of forcibly stripping nations of autonomy and imposing a structure of power that is not observant of their individual needs in order to grow our economy, there is a blinded public weak at the knees for government "intervention."

The Problem with International Aid to the Third World

    My problem with international aid to the Third World, which is also discussed in Killing with Kindness by Mark Schuller, is two-fold. First, there exists the question, "Why do certain countries need aid?" This seemingly simple question may be answered with equally simplistic answers. Haiti needs aid because the country just experienced an earthquake, because the government is corrupt. Middle Eastern women need help because the women are oppressed. Indian women need aid because the women are raped. But doesn't the United States experience natural disasters, and don't we usually aid ourselves, domestically? Foreign countries do not come from the outside in to aide us, consequently controlling us. Also, many would argue that the US government is corrupt? Who will aid the people of this "democracy"? Are there no women and other people in the United States who are oppressed? Are there no women in the United States who are raped? So, the simple question of "Why do certain countries  need aid?" becomes complex when we examine what make a certain country certain in its status as Third World, developing, or insufficient to help itself and make its own decisions.
    Another issue with international aid is the reality of lived experience. We often hear, or read, or even draft, the mission of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and nonprofit organizations, the US equivalent to NGOs. In the nobility of their mission statements, we marginalize the reality of lived experience. How could the people of Haiti experience such detriment even after so many noble organizations travel there for the express purpose of aiding them? The hegemonic assumption is that if marginalized people cannot manage to be aided, unaidable perhaps, there must be an intrinsic, essentialist quality to them that even aid from noble, read superior, individuals, systems and countries cannot break through. The erasure of lived experience of Haitian people receiving aid reminds me of the erasure and marginalization of Hurricane Katrina victims. If the reality of their suffering, even post aid or because of supposed aid, comes to light, victim-blaming ensues. Individualization of suffering, seen as rare cases or just the way certain people are, exists as an effective tool to null and void out the reality of system of oppression -- imperialism, neoliberalism, colonialism, globalization.
     An expression states, "Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime." But where is the expression that leads us to question why we would need to teach a man to fish, that questions who is in a position to teach, and how teaching and giving can lead to control? All this reminds me that lived experience is essential to theory, also supported by Danticat's Brother, I'm Dying memoir. We all know the purpose of political asylum as granted to foreigners. What we don't know is the reality of asking for that aid in certain bodies, from certain countries. Lived experience is the only way to understand the reality of effects of systems of oppression -- racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, heterosexism, ableism. Our paradigms are one thing, and they vary from person to person; our experiences are another, and they also vary.

Helping or Harming: Haiti, International Aid, and NGOs

This week’s reading was based on the book, Killing with Kindness by Mark Schuller. In his book, Schuller explores the non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that bring foreign aid to countries like Haiti and how they fell short after the tragic earthquake that hit the small country in January of 2011. In particular he looks at two women led organizations, Sove Lavi (“saving lives”) and Fanm Tet Ansanm (“women united”) and he looks specifically at their “civil infrastructure”, “the interrelated set of relationships between and among various stakeholder groups of a given social grouping” (177). By peeling back the layers of these two organizations, the reader gets a look into this “civil infrastructure” and see how foreign aid organizations are in some ways ran like businesses; some NGOs being funded by private donors and others being funded by organizations with political agendas in mind. Through Schuller’s work the reader gets to play detective and figure out what happened? What went wrong? And who is accountable for the incident? In comparison to other work written on Haiti, Schuller does a good job in telling the whole story not just from an outsider’s perspective but from an insider’s perspective as well, especially in regards to women. Something Chandra Mohanty proclaims is missing from scholarly work written by Westerners about women from developing countries especially in regards to violence against women. Mohanty’s states in her article “Under Western Eyes”, “Women are defined consistently as the victims of male control- the “sexually oppressed”. Although it is true that the potential of male violence against women circumscribes and elucidates their social position to a certain extent, defining women as archetypal victims freezes them into “objects-who-defend-themselves,” men into “subjects-who-perpetrate-violence”(339). This is not the case in Schuller’s book, he includes this part of the story but allows the women to provide an explanation of why it happens. Malya Villard a woman representing a victims organization says this, “Rape or violence are directly connected with the country’s economy. Sometimes a woman doesn’t have any earning power, which makes her a victim.” (27) From this as the reader we get to see how some of these NGOs, like Saving Lives and Women United came to be. They were meant to help women, educate them about sex, help them talk to factory owners about the conditions within the factories, but not be an answer to solving poverty which we can see where everything went wrong.

Foreign aid is meant to be given to people in need to help them temporarily through an unsalvageable situation, but how can it be helpful if no one from the underclass receives the aid? In this situation, sometimes they succeeded other times they failed, one organization in particular, Sove Lavi (Saving Lives), failed a lot more than Fanm Tet Ansanm(Women United). When the women asked for more help within the community they barely received any. Which raises a question of why give money to a country that the poor will never see? Sadly an answer is given at the end from a USAID representative, “The goal is to spend it all and say, ‘ See, we’ve done all we can for Haiti.’” (187). This only leaves me questions which remain unanswered. How do we get the aid to the poor? Should we stop sending money? Who is at fault? The organizations? The donors? The recepients? From the stories shared in Schuller’s book we as the reader can see the importance of having a voice and paying attention to the money we give in hopes to help others. This was definitely a lesson well appreciated.           

Structural Violence & International Aid

Paul Schuller's Killing with Kindness, though well-intentioned, is by far the most careless and oversimplified, and least self-aware, book that we have read this semester. Parroting Farmer, Schuller writes that "structural violence depends on its invisibility." (28) The structural violence he refers to could very well be the structural violence of traditional anthropology, of the ethnography with the supposedly rational, objective, non-bodied author. Unlike Ulysse in Downtown Ladies, Lee in Adopted Territories, or Parreñas in Children of Global Migration, Schuller does not sufficiently display an understanding of his own privilege, his own subjectivity, for me to fully trust any single assertion he makes in the entire work. I know. That's unfair. He makes plenty of fair and even good claims. But my surprise at his lack of awareness remained in the front of my mind for my entire reading experience. First, Schuller offers superficial, and often irrelevant, glossings-over of such fundamental black and transnational feminist theorists as Audre Lorde, Patricia Hill Collins, bell hooks, or Chandra Talpade Mohanty. He often reduces their entire theoretical frameworks to a single, quotationed, word. Okay, I think, maybe he is trying to rush through the background to get to the good stuff. But everything is rushed, except for the moments where he relishes in his own privilege, such as when he writes that he accepts a neighbors generosity "although I am not a huge fan of cornmeal and despite the fact that it was cold." (15) I cannot fathom how this sentence is supposed to deepen my understanding of the urgent contemporary effects of neoliberal/neocolonial policies and theories. The sentence does not humanize Schuller for me, which, best case scenario, was his intention. Rather, it illustrates the extent to which he has internatlized his (invisible) privileges. He also neglects to draw a distinction between anthropological writing and fiction; he offers an excerpt from a Danticat novel as proof of an anthropological claim. (32) While I do think Schuller makes some valid arguments, they are not new, here, and nor are they better argued than elsewhere.

Excuse my annoyance with Schuller, but his work felt sloppy, and the subject(s) deserve better. I much preferred the Farmer, although it was limited by its length. I was most interested in Farmer's discussion at the beginning about the nature of suffering, but I was also interested in his broader discussion of structural violence, its omnipresence, its invisibility. Every time there is a disaster or a violent uprising, whether it be Hurricane Katrina, 9/11, Rwandan genocide, Cambodian genocide, or any one of hundreds of other examples, the United States media presents the events as tragic and, most importantly, out of the blue. It is not by chance that the causes of violence and suffering are hidden far away from the popular imagination--it has taken much hard work from many people to preserve our ignorance. But to what extent are the media, the politicians, the corporations, etc. to blame? If the general public were to understand the historical inequities that result in these tragedies, would it, in the end, even matter? For example: Most people in the United States have a basic understanding of where their meat comes from. They understand that their chicken nuggets or cheeseburgers come at the price of a lot of suffering. Every child in a meat-eating family at some point realizes that her/his food comes from animals that suffered so that s/he could eat it. But the simple knowledge of the fact does not mean that an understanding of that fact necessarily follows it. Most children continue to eat meat, and they turn into adults who continue to eat meat. Somewhere, they have an understanding of what their meat is. But that does not mean they truly understand the process through which it arrives in their stomachs. This may seem like a stretch, this metaphor, but I guess what I'm trying to say is that there is a willful ignorance in both cases-- it's much easier to understand that Hutus and Tutsis turned on each other out of some evil that existed in the individuals, or in their "culture," rather than to unpack the tortured history that resulted in the genocide. As Farmer writes of two cases in Haiti, "the 'exoticization' of surffering as lurid as that endured by Acephie and Chouchou distances it." (377)

The readings for this week reminded me of a book I read a few years ago called Dead Aid by Zambian economist Dambisa Moyo. While I find her argument (as I remember it, four years on), that we should stop all aid arrangements as they create dependence and inhibit "progress," extreme, I also find it compelling. I believe that the aid structures as they exist are an example of parodoxical participation (as Lee discusses), or "another state," as Schuller calls it, in which NGOs replace the state and its social responsibilities. They also create dependence. To refute Moyo's argument, though, I would argue that the long-term negative effects of aid programs have little relevance to the people who will not live long enough to see the long-term positive effects of economic growth if they do not receive the healthcare they need in the form of aid. I believe that there should be some forms of aid, but I also agree that micro-lending organizations, such as the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh and the web-based Kiva, are good alternatives to the mammoth international aid organizations.

Structural Violence

Killing with Kindness and “Suffering and Structural Violence” complement each other well.  Farmer’s article sets the tone and background for Schuller’s book.  I like Schuller’s idea of NGOs as a form of “trickle-down imperialism.”  Although technically a non-government organization, they are very political and funded by governments.  They also seem just as crooked as governments.  They come in, get a lot of foreign aid that is supposed to help, yet they do not involve those they are supposed to help.  Schuller’s work with hierarchies proves this.  Looking at the top-down system used by these organizations, he showed how an NGO’s relationship in Haiti depends upon the relationship with the institution/government at the top of the hierarchy. 

When looking at the situation in Haiti, you can see the social and economic forces that Paul Farmer talks about being utilized to limit the choices of Haitians to their detriment.  Along with this is the invisibility of the suffering poor.  As stated by Pablo Richard, “A wall between the rich and poor is being built, so that poverty does not annoy the powerful and the poor are obliged to die in the silence of history” (Farmer 383).  In a large natural disaster, such as the earthquake, the world took notice and sent aid.  Yet years later, Haitians are still suffering from that same disaster despite the millions of dollars sent in aid.  There is nothing about this on television now.  Their suffering is ignored.  Along with this invisibility of suffering comes the nonchalant way that people donate.  A natural disaster provoked telethons and text campaigns for donations, and millions of dollars were given, which allows the donator to give him/herself a pat on the back and continue on with his/her life without giving a second thought to where the money is going or how it is spent.  Yet, if asked to donate prior to the earthquake many of these same donators would not even consider it, assuming that these poverty ridden, black Haitians either got themselves into this situation or they prefer to stay there…ignoring their extreme suffering and the structural violence that aided in their situation.