Institute of Development Studies

Critical Research Seminar 2

• Dates: 1 October 2007
• Location: Lewes, Sussex

A series of two seminars on Critical Research Social Justice and International Aid is aiming to provide a forum for inter-disciplinary, critical and practical discussions that explore the relationship between research, aid and social justice. The first seminar, Radical Histories of Aid: Seminar 1: Post-Colonial Perspectives took place at IDPM, Manchester in October 2007 and explored how history shapes current aid relations. Following discussions about the relationship between social justice and aid in the context of the changing global political environment, (for example, increasing emphasis on securitisation) the remaining seminar sought to identify the conditions in which aid works for and against social justice .

From this perspective, the second seminar, held in Lewes, East Sussex, examined current ideas and practices of aid and review ongoing debates on the meanings and impact of aid. It explored the connections between two current trends in international aid practice of OECD countries, including the multilateral institutions they fund. These are (1) the current management systems of international aid that emphasise efficiency, performance measures and linear models of progress and (2) the effect on aid meanings and practices of the post 9/11 global policy environment – one in which the focus is on the promotion of growth and security is contributing to the rapid disappearance of the previous decade’s vision of building a more just and equitable global society.

Today, social transformation and the realisation of rights is rapidly disappearing from official aid ideas and practices. Although, in contrast, many INGOs still subscribe to this discourse, their growing integration into the world of official aid and their adoption of managerialist practices constrains their potential to be a progressive influence in the wider international aid system.

Altogether, this made a gloomy picture that serves as the back-drop for our seminar. In that context what concerns us is not so much as how to hang onto what was achieved in the 1990’s and to lament upon what is past and gone. Rather, thinking constructively and laterally, the seminar will explore how these apparently negative trends may be producing unintended effects that could be capitalised upon by policy actors, practitioners and researchers to promote innovative opportunities for international aid to serve as an instrument for social justice. Where would we look for evidence of such effects? What kind of action could be undertaken to exploit dissonances in current discourses and practices for achieving progressive ends? We should like to emphasise and discuss empirical cases of such action. Such cases could include, for example, practices at the systemic global or country level, as well as aid and its effects in specific local contexts, in addition to organisational and discursive studies of particular aid organisations.

This is not a conventional academic seminar. We used a range of methods to enable critically constructive analysis and innovative reflection and debate with the full involvement of all those participating. At the same time, we included in the two day programme an opportunity for the presentation of a number of more formal academic papers that addressed the questions we had posed, being papers from those whose interests and activities bridge the worlds of research on the one hand and the policy and practice of international aid on the other, especially from among doctoral and post-doctoral participants with an experience of action research in international aid.