Discourse on Development Aid in Africa Comparing differences between Live Aid/8 Bachelor Thesis Political Science – International Relations Author: Britt Polman (10781358) Supervisor: Dr. Michael Onyebuchi Eze Second reader: Dr. Sebastian Krapohl June 2019 2 Content INTRODUCTION 5 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 7 DISCOURSE AND DEFIANCE 7 COLONIAL DISCOURSE ON AFRICA 8 PORNOGRAPHY OF POVERTY 9 DEVELOPMENT MADE SEXY 10 SYNTHESIZED CONCEPT: COMMERCIALIZATION OF MORALITY 11 METHOD 13 DATA 13 OPERATIONALIZATION 14 ANALYSIS 17 LIVE AID 17 LIVE 8 21 LIVE AID/8: DISCURSIVE CHANGES 25 CONCLUSION 29 BIBLIOGRAPHY 32 APPENDIX 34 POSTERS 34 NEWS ARTICLES 37 OTHER SOURCES 39 “People are not born beggars, they are made.” Malagassy tour guide Rina (personal diary 16-10-18) 3 4 Introduction The 1950’s marked the beginning of the global North’s interest in stimulating the development of African countries. The Marshall Plan proved successful with many European countries rapidly developing after the ravage of World War II. Within this context the focus of development aid turned to Africa as a solution to the perceived need of help of many African countries (Moyo 2009: 26). Thereafter development aid took different shapes, starting with industrialization and poverty relief, then onto structural adjustments and stabilization of governments, and in the 1990’s the focus on democratization and governance (idem: 24). In the past centuries development aid is primarily perceived as the only solution to Africa’s many problems (ibid.). These forms of development aid are all meant to help improve the lives of people from African countries living in poverty or otherwise inhumane circumstances. However, this attitude towards development aid and Africa can be problematized in a variety of ways. Particularly, a view of foreign (Western) aid for Africa as necessary seems to depend on a patron-client relationship that is reminiscent of colonial times. In relation to this persisting power structure it categorizes people from African countries in a certain way that places them outside the realm of agency in their own development. In order to legitimize the foreign aid system in Africa, and to raise huge amounts of money from donors, the idea that aid is necessary is communicated to the larger public through various forms. NGO campaigns, media coverage on Africa’s problems, and large-scale fundraising events portray Africa and ‘Africans’ in a certain way that show development aid is indispensable. The problem of this portrayal is that it serves to sustain existing unequal power structures (who has the right to categorize others) and creates “realities of its own” (Lamers 2005: 39). Although the purpose of development aid is to do good and the actual results of the projects might be positive, my focus is on the effects of how development aid is portrayed. In this thesis Foucault’s concept of discourse as well as Saïd’s theory of ‘othering’ will be used to examine the portrayal and categorization of Africa and its development aid. Foucault’s understanding of discourse underlies much research on development aid discourse, which has given rise to other concepts such as the ‘pornography of poverty’ and ‘development made sexy’. These theories all describe the way development aid and Africa are portrayed and the often negative consequences of certain portrayals. Much of this knowledge will be used in the theoretical framework of my research, although I find that not enough emphasis is placed both upon the fluid nature of discourse, as well as on the complexity in 5 which power structures shape the form and expression of the discourse. Thus in my research the focus will not only be on the way discourse takes shape, but also on how it is challenged and changed by different actors. Furthermore a new concept will be introduced to examine discourse on development aid, which will merge earlier theories together. This concept is described as the commercialization of morality, and is an attempt to make a useful contribution to the existing literature by posing an alternate way of examining development aid discourse. Based on the above problematization of discourse on development aid in Africa which perpetuates unequal power structures, the following question will be the focus of research in my thesis. In what ways has the international discourse around development aid in Africa changed over the course of twenty years? Possible changes in discourse will be examined by comparing two international development aid fundraising events for Africa, Live Aid and Live 8 respectively. These were both large-scale benefit concerts organized by Northern countries to support African countries. As there was an exactly 20-year gap between these two events, a comparison will be made to determine if and how the discourse around development aid is different between 1985 and 2005. The underlying assumption of this thesis is that whether or not the discourse has changed is exemplary of the shifting underlying power structure between Northern countries and the African continent which largely defines the possibilities and agency of people from African countries. Research into this particular subject can help determine whether unequal historical power structures are still at play in popular discourse, or that something is changing for better or worse. It thus could also help to see what aspects of discourse still need to be contested and improved in order to create a more equal relationship between northern countries and Africa. 6 Theoretical framework As I follow a constructivist epistemological frame of mind, this influences the kind of theories used. Many scholars have researched various aspects of development aid, as well as specifically the discourse around it. In this chapter, I examine this literature on discourse and development aid. First theories of discourse and othering will be examined, as well as the ways discourse can be challenged. Thereafter the influence of history, in particular colonial times, on discourse concerning Africa will be outlined. What follows is a discussion of the concepts of ‘pornography of poverty’ and ‘development made sexy’ respectively. Concluding the theoretical description is my argument for a synthesis between these two concepts into ‘commercialization of morality’. Discourse and defiance Michel Foucault understood the social world as being constructed through language. Power and knowledge were in his theory closely connected, as knowledge itself had power, both in being an authority of truth and of making itself true (Foucault 1994). Foucault describes the concept of discourse as the collection of ideas and statements that form the language that is used to speak about a certain subject (Foucault 1980). This is always inextricably connected to power relations, thus there is no form of ‘pure’ knowledge (ibid.). Not only is discourse a way of speaking about subjects, it also creates their subjectivity. Knowledge and language practices are a claim from a dominant group to have the right to define and categorize others. This is closely connected to power structures in society, or the way interpersonal relationships are structured and how this determines the “possible field of action” for the different actors within this structure (Foucault 1982: 790). A society’s structure of power offers more or less room for action for different actors, in which some have more to say about others. Foucault’s concept of discourse and his thoughts on how language has the power to shape society has formed a theoretical basis for many scholars describing how different ways of discourse have certain implications. One well-known example of this is the work of Edward Saïd. The ability to talk about others is explained more thoroughly in Saïd’s theory on Orientalism. By talking about a subject, and thus through discourse, an ‘other’ is created in relation to one’s ‘self’, by creating distinctly different categories (Saïd 1978). This also implicitly states that the ‘other’ is deviant from the norm, the normal ‘self’. Taking this a step further, Saïd argues that “to have such knowledge of such a thing is to dominate it, to have authority over it”, and in the process removing the autonomy from the subject spoken of (idem: 7 40). His argument touches upon the relevance of my research question, the possibility of bringing autonomy back with Africa in changing discourse. For autonomy and power to be redistributed among the different subjects in a discourse, this discourse would have to be contested. Discourse creates a norm, by stating who is the ‘self’ and who is the ‘other’ and thus deviant of the norm. Although it creates a certain kind of truth, it also creates room for defying this truth claim. For discourse to be contested or changed, what is seen as normal has to be identified and challenged for its inherent assumptions. This can be done by a critique or refusal of the language used to talk about a situation or subject, or an attempt to transform this construction of the subject (Lilja & Vinthagen 2014: 114). Identifying the origins and implications of certain discourse is a first step towards its contestation. This will be done in the following subsections. Colonial discourse on Africa Colonial discourse is elaborately explained in Julie Grant’s article, where she shows how during colonial times a view of the ‘other’, the colonized, was created by the colonizers (Grant 2015). Non-European people were imagined and portrayed as an inferior other as opposed to the superior European, in this way posing a justification of the colonialization (idem: 311). The colonized other was perceived as being less developed and more primitive than the European self, and this view was accepted in the European as well as the colonized mind as the reality and truth (ibid.). Aimé Césaire argues that the European dehumanized the colonized, and equates colonization with ‘thing-ification’ (Césaire 1972: 41-42).