Institute of Development Studies

How International Aid Labels People

We all label ourselves and others to signal different aspects of our identities. Labels are a means to construct our social world: they define norms in relation to others who bear similar or different labels.

Similarly, labelling is commonplace within development practice. As policymakers, practitioners and researchers, we use ‘frames’ and ‘labels’ to help our analyses and to describe to others what we do. We quantify and measure categories of people to define needs, justify interventions and to formulate and channel solutions to perceived problems.

While they may be efficient, such labelling processes are also dynamic and political. Therefore, they can produce unintended, and sometimes, unwelcome consequences. For example, labelling may shift – or sustain – power relations in ways that trigger social dislocation and prejudice efforts to achieve greater equity.

With funding from the UK Department for International Development, IDS researchers have been collaborating with a network of practitioners and academics to explore the key dimensions of the power of labelling in development, recommending greater self awareness from policy actors and more sensitive and nuanced responses to local political contexts.

• IDS key contact: Rosalind Eyben
• Project dates: February 2006 - November 2010
• Project status: Open
• Funder: Department for International Development (DFID)

Researchers

• Rosalind Eyben
• Joy Moncrieffe

Selected Outputs

• Moncrieffe, J., Eyben, R. et al. (2007) The Power of Labelling, London: Earthscan
• Eyben, R. and Moncrieffe, J. (2006) 'The Power of Labelling in Development Practice', IDS Policy Briefing 28, Brighton: IDS

Selected Events

• Critical Research Seminar 2 - 01/10/2007
• Participation Research - Radical Histories of Aid: Seminar 1: Post-Colonial Perspectives - 04/10/2007