Looking at the whole picture

This discussion has until now focused on the results of the analysis and how they can be elucidated or built on through existing literature. There have also been instances of themes that are different or have a stronger emphasis than the existing literature on international aid workers’ experience of support, such as the us-and-them focus on peer support and difficulty with formal support, the concept of home and alienation, and the comparative lack of connection with local people.

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However, it is also crucial to look at what is not in the results – what is lacking? Are there areas of the literature that is not reflected by the participants’ accounts?

A common expectation from friends and colleagues when presented with the topic of this research (indeed a central component of the Middlesex University risk assessment for this study, attachment two) is that the dissertation would focus on what may be seen as spectacular, heroic or indeed harrowing accounts of humanitarians battling injustices in the field, being subjected to

traumatization and hardship. This viewpoint also shines through in novels or popular accounts of international aid work (Burnett, 2006, Cain, K., Postlewait, H., Thomson, A., 2004, Caputo, 2005, le Carré, 2005, Mortensen, 2008, or Nichols, 2000), indeed even the narrative yet supposedly

authentically descriptive literature of Norris (2007) and Bergman (2003), and to an extent also many aspects of the qualitative and quantitative research quoted in the literature review. This expectation has not been met. The participants’ lives do not seem heroic or spectacular, nor do their lives seem particularly hard or traumatizing. Their motivations range between idealism and career, with a general sense that there is a job to be done, so it will be done, perhaps echoing Camus’ Dr Rieux in The Plague (1947/2004):

“His [Dr Rieux] attitude at the start of the plague is “Do your job as it should be done,” though day after day he is exhausted, working until late in the night, sleeping 4 hours. This credo persists throughout the length of the epidemic, even when he learns his wife in not doing well. He does not stay because he feels compassion for his patients, for he soon “grows out of pity when it is useless,” adopting an attitude of “bleak indifference,” knowing that the epidemic means “a never ending defeat.” Nor does Rieux stay to serve God: He does not believe, nor does he accept, as the local priest proclaims, that the plague is God’s punishment. Without having a single cure, he refuses to give in to the plague. He believes in human decency, which for him requires that he continue to do his job.” (Zaroff, 2010, p479).

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The usefulness of the existential literature, literature that endeavours to encompass all of how it is to be, indicates that the lifeworld of international development workers is comparable to the lifeworlds of all of us – the same existential givens apply. They are not that different. At the same time, the applicability of Madison et al’s existential migrant themes indicates there are certain areas that may be more highlighted for international development workers – such as a marked focus on ‘us-and-them’ and a potential tension around the concept of home and normality. The implications of this ‘normality’ paired with certain tensions will be detailed in the next chapter, in clinical application and implications for existential theory and practice.

Finally, looking at the difficulties in relating to both formal support from ‘above’ and the local population ‘below’, I find two existential concepts illuminating. First, Macquarrie highlights that “Since existentialist critique of the ‘crowd’ is usually considered in terms of levelling down the ‘exceptional’ persons who rise above the average, it is worth remembering that the collective drive towards uniformity has just as little use for those unfortunate people who fall below the average.” (Macquarrie, 1972, p122). This points towards the ‘us’ in ‘us-and-them’ being protective and insular from ‘them’ above as well as below. Another existential motif that may serve to clarify difficulties in relating to both the population that the humanitarian supports, and also the formal support that is supposed to support him or her, is focused on how the interaction is conducted. Heidegger’s (1927/1962) concept of ‘leaping in’ instead of ‘leaping ahead’ fits well with the descriptions of how international development as well as formal support is described by the participants to be

conducted: “the Other can become one who is dominated and dependent, even if this domination is a tacit one and remains hidden from him” (Heidegger, 1927/1962, p158). The development workers take power over the Amunis and their concerns and solve them in the way that development workers do – the formal support mechanisms take power over the development workers and their concerns and solve them in what is formally considered the best way. On both occasions, the helper has taken over the one in need, “taking over the other person’s concerns and projects for them, and

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handing them back the task when it has been completed, or disburdening them of it altogether.” (Cooper, 2003, p19).