In locating myself in this study, it is important to be transparent about the assumptions that I brought to it. On reflection, these assumptions have been an asset, not because they have been validated, but because they shed some light on the divergences between them, the literature, and data. These divergences demanded that I reconstruct, and to some extent, abandon my initial ideas and embrace the constructed and embodied dimensions of social research. Asking questions about how researchers find their fields is important for both practical and ethical reasons. The characteristics that researchers share with the field and/or with its people can be assets particularly in relation to access, but they can also be potential pitfalls from an ethical point of view. My research, more broadly, touched on international voluntarism and development, and in African spaces, topics and geographies of which I had first– hand experience. The following short exegesis is my story, my journey to finding the field.
For nearly six years before beginning my PhD, I worked as ‘development’ officer for a NGO in Somalia and the Gambia; and as a teacher in Special Education Needs (SEN) in the UK for periods of between three months and five years. While my work experiences can be categorised broadly into development and education or simply development (since both NGOs and schools, to some extent, claim to develop the masses), they are ultimately all embodied in me, shaping my understanding of the nature of reality in the social world.
50
It is beyond the scope of this reflection to provide detailed narratives of my work experiences; rather I draw out some key markers which informed this study. For one thing, this account itself, was influenced by knowledge gained during my PhD in the sense that I acquired a set of terminologies to locate it, and quite a number of theories to explain it. I should, however, point out here that while I had some ideas about international voluntarism and development more generally, my understanding of the field and its complexity emerged largely during this study.
The first point is that for many years, I lived and worked with communities who were and had been passive recipients of AID by NGOs and their volunteers; and who, in my view, did not seem to mind a great deal. This experience, to some extent, normalised the work of NGOs and their volunteers for me to the extent that I felt they were making a difference, although later in the Gambia, I developed some reservations. Surprisingly however, and whilst being fairly crude in some ways, my earlier experience of NGOs and their actors (including volunteers) was not reflected in the literature on international development and voluntarism that I encountered subsequently15.
A second point is that many NGOs in Southern Somalia, at the time, rarely employed local people. My appointment by one NGO as a development officer was borne out of sheer luck, one that was facilitated by my earlier contacts with this NGO as a multilingual interpreter. It was also prompted by a need for a ‘native’ to advise on local political and security situation. The problem, however, was that I was not a native as such. I hailed from a family, and community on the periphery of Somali clan structures who did not have much prominence in Southern Somalia, and Somali politics more generally. To this end, therefore, I was less ‘effective’ in the ‘development officer’ role, although I excelled in the less political aspects of it such as conducting needs assessment with members of local communities. From a survival point of view, and in an environment with very few job opportunities, my role with this NGO helped put food on the table, perhaps at the expense of my freedom.
15 Most global North NGOs and their volunteers present their work as ‘participatory’ taking into
considerations the developmental needs of communities they serve. In reality, however, priorities, and aspirations of local communities are diagnosed from the outside, and by NGOs and their volunteers with little knowledge of their contexts (Gronemeyer, 2010).
51
For a period of three months, I lived with foreign staff in a highly fortified compound, guarded by local militias remunerated by this NGO. While I understood the need to protect NGO staff (both local and international), I did not understand the need to detach from local communities.
A final point is that these experiences converged when I and some members of my Somalia team were transferred to the Gambia, where we joined a group of engineers, development officers as well as ‘volunteers’16 based in Keneba, Kiang region of the country. Keneba has one of highest rainfalls in the country, a mixed blessing for local farming communities. The rains bring life (through increased food production), illnesses (mainly through water–borne diseases), and western researchers who are interested in studying this phenomenon17. We joined ‘water for life’ project which, at the outset, seemed rather misplaced idea in an environment that receives one of the highest rainfalls in West Africa. In reality, however, the project was much broader than building wells, aspects of it included a water purification campaign that never materialised, at least during my stay at Kaneba. The main challenge was that we did not have local partners or ‘connections’ as the Gambians liked to call it. None of us knew the area well or spoke any of the local languages. Even more bizarrely, we lived in an exclusively ‘European’ compound in a hill overlooking residents, and similar to the Somalia experience, we were totally detached.
Taken together, my NGO experience, in the context of Africa, highlight the ‘foreign’ led practices of NGOs and the exclusion of local ‘knowledgeable’ people from co– delivering projects that affect their lives. I recognised a need to reach out to these people and bring forth their voices and experiences. My interest in applying for a PhD in this field was partly to explore what development workers (volunteers in the context of this study) do in LICs and how they are perceived by communities that host them. It was also to understand theoretical underpinnings that inform their engagements and operational styles and what roles (if any) local people play.
16 The volunteers I met at Kaneba in the Gambia were UK medical professionals with backgrounds in
tropical medicine and communicable diseases.
17 For over 60 years, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) field stations in
Kaneba and nearby villages have carried out vital research on water–borne diseases while at the same time providing medical care for the local population.
52
The SVP provided me a platform to realise some of these goals, and from distinctively Ugandan perspectives.