Some thoughts on the White Saviour Complex of development consultancies

photo taken from https://e11e99.wordpress.com/2012/10/06/identity-in-a-post-colonial-world/

I am sharing some thoughts that I picked  randomly from a relatively progressive Christian facebook page (Sojourners)that I follow, mainly to help me counter the rather misinformed opinions of my true believer Christian friends (brown not white).  The article is called , 6 HARMFUL CONSEQUENCES OF THE WHITE SAVIOR COMPLEX, BY RYAN KUJA  and is so relevant to the northern development consultancy space that many of my (white) friends and colleagues occupy (and that I too sometimes venture into) that I thought to use it to write a blog post that I can share with that community. 

Ryan Kuja confesses that he was "never a missionary in the standard sense of the word, never proselytized or attempted to save souls"  but admits that "the engine driving [him] was the white saviour complex..... The other Westerners [he] worked with believed [they] had it all pretty much figured out. [They] had the right theology. {They]had the right answers. [They]had the expertise."  

Development consultants are also confident in  this belief. Even though they do not live the experience, their work in many countries of the global south allow them to think that they know the right answers for the water and sanitation problem with the Turkana in northern Kenya because they had gained WASH expertise in Nepal! 

So here are the harmful consequences of the white saviour complex that Ryan Kuja identifies, modified by me for the development context. (Kuja's words in italics) The more woke development consultants  may cringe at some of these, but I doubt that there is anyone in the consulting community out there who can swear not guilty to all! 

Consequence No 1. The white saviour complex leads to approaches and methodologies rooted in patronising charity rather than [rights affirming long term development] 

Consequence No 2. It prevents  aid and development work from being dialogical and participatory; the so-called experts swoop in with their answers and expertise and fail to include the voices of local leaders, organizations, and stakeholders. 

Okay, participatory development has been around a long time, and yes, many of us are including the voices of local leaders, organisations and stakeholders.  In fact, we spend a great deal of money on consulting with the local communities, and on ensuring that we have a 'local counterpart'.  But do we allow them to 'set the agenda' for our work?  do we build on their expertise? and do we really listen to those voices that could be muted in the community?   the voices of women, of children, of older people, of those marginalised by local social hierarchies?  How often does the expediency of the project timeline lead us to take shortcuts on gender inclusive methodologies and teams, for instance? 

Consequence No 3.   The white saviour complex leads to paternalism. Doing things to or for others rather than seeking to empower and build local capacity.  It makes us into heroes, rather than empowering others to become the heroes of their own stories.

For me, the words 'empower and build local capacity ' also have connotations of  the unequal power dynamic, a lack of understanding of how communities in the global south have been disempowered by colonisation and subsequent development projects, a lack of appreciation of their inherent knowledge and expertise, and a lack questioning of building capacity for what.  

At another level it always amazes me that despite the thousands of global south students passing through the tertiary educational sector in the global north, development projects still employ white (or at best global north-based brown or black) consultants to be the team leaders of their development project teams.  Rarely do they draw on the cohort of local professionals, even though the professional qualifications of these locals have been acquired in the global-north academic institutions, and should be on par with those white saviours who are sent out to design and oversee the implementation of donor funded development projects. 

Short of becoming heroes or sheroes of their own stories, women and men of the global south rarely have the privilege of even writing down their own stories, in their own language, to be told to their own people.  

Consequence no.4  The white saviour complex robs agency from the economically poor and contributes to a shame based identity and sense of helplessess.

As above. 

Consequence no 5.  The white saviour complex leads to doing things that [white people] would ever imagine doing in the US or Europe.  

Kuja talks about the urge to pick up cute children and take photos  with them - something one wouldn't do in Stockholm or Dublin.  While for most development consultants doing that would probably be a no-no,  they are often guilty of other things, of invading the privacy of households in the global south in ways that they would not dare to do in the global north for instance.  Imagine walking into someone's kitchen in London or Amsterdam without so much as a by your leave and suggesting that their cooker was inefficient and in the wrong  place?  But this  is exactly what used to be done in development projects promoting smokeless chulas or fuel-efficient woodstoves in South Asia!  

Consequence no 6.  It perpetuates poverty porn, the ubiquitous images of the poor seen in many fundraising campaigns, which objectify human beings for the sake of eliciting an emotional response  in  order to garner a donation.  It labels them as powerless victims who can't  help themselves... as inept, incapable objects who are passively awaiting rescue 

While the whole idea of using images of the poor to elicit emotional responses and stimulate fund raising  is mostly used by  those INGOs raising funds from a northern, white public,  the image of global south communities as powerless,inept and incapable is the underlying assumption of much development work.  Added also is the need to rescue these communities from the machinations corrupt national governments.  However the collusion in this corruption of the governments of the white saviours, and of transnational companies of the global north,  and of international financial institutions  and of the politics of development assistance,   is rarely if ever discussed.  Who banks the illicit tax outflows?  who persuades governments to circumvent local labour laws?  who does the land grabs?  who  insists on policies that reduce government expenditure  on social services that benefit the poor? and most concerning who manufactures and sells the arms that fuel the conflicts in the global south? 

Kuja calls for a look at the deeper disease and to reflect on the colonial roots of white, Western, Christian supremacy. He also suggests that "that means doing some hard, inner work if we are white people"  It is similarly  incumbent on the development community to take a long and hard look on how  the development consultancy machinery operates.  It means going beyond building a road here and a providing solar panels somewhere else.  It means being reflexive and changing the narratives that sustain injustice.