This
week’s blog post is somewhat different to my others which were well thought
through and planned. This blog post stems from a growing frustration with the
representations of ‘Africa’ within discourses of Water in Africa. This year I
have taken a module called ‘International Development and Public Policy’ where
we’ve looked in depth at representations of development and how they can be
harmful for the very people they aim to help. This has provided me with a far
more critical lens when engaging in development discourses.
Frequently
I’ve been looking at news sites or NGO’s which represent water in Africa in
such a negative manner – as a continent of poverty and despair. I’ve found
water charities to be particularly guilty of using these representations of
‘poverty porn’ in order to gain sympathy and donations. This blog post aims to
look at some of the main criticisms that I’ve generated including ‘poverty-porn’
in water and development, the ‘white saviour complex’, viewing Africa as a
country and the changing representations of poverty and water access. Using
post-colonial and post-development critiques is useful in this context to enlighten
underlying power dynamics within ‘development.
Poverty Porn
Poverty
porn is regarded as images used by charities to fundraise for projects in the
developing world; these representations often frame ‘Africans’ as helpless, pitiful,
starving and in need of western interventions. Jorgen Lissner explains the problems
with these portrayals
‘The
starving child image is seen as unethical, because it comes dangerously close
to being pornographic…it exhibits the human body and soul in all its nakedness,
without any respect for the person involved.’ (Lissner, 1981)
I
agree with Lissner’s argument and feel that many subjects wouldn’t agree with
their representations as helpless and the lack of respect provided to them, in
fact I’m sure many subjects may not even have an awareness of how their
representation would be used. However many NGO’s have defended the use of such
imagery as they are highlighting the difficult truths that are apparent in the
world. Yet the means don’t justify the ends of raising money in the case of poverty
porn and as Schaffer highlights, ‘it leads to donations, but not activism’ (Schaffer,
2016). These charities construct a continent of pity and despair in order to
guilt-trip westerners into donating; this neither provides an accurate
representation of Africa, or elucidates to the causes of poverty or lack of
water access, it merely provides a quick-fix for us to relieve our guilt.
This
notion is exemplified by Aqua-Aid, a water NGO, who utilise this kind of
poverty-porn imagery in one of their blogs explaining about ‘a continent of
thirsty children’ (AquaAid, 2012). Furthermore this blog promotes a single story
of Africa; a whole ‘continent of thirsty children’ grossly misrepresents Africa
and creates an imagination of a dry, barren, pitiful continent. Having spent
time in Ghana, I have seen many children grow up with not only access to safe
water, but swimming pools – certainly not ‘thirsty’. Chimanda Adichie suggests
that providing a ‘single story’ of Africa robs people of dignity and makes recognition
of African’s as equals difficult (Adichie, 2009). Whilst NGO’s such as Aqua-Aid
mean well, their misrepresentations can foster our view of Africa through a
lense of difference; the west has, but Africa has not.
White Saviour Complex
A further frustration of mine stemming from water-provision
NGO’s is their perpetuation of the White Saviour Complex. This is the idea that
it is us, in the west, that will ‘save Africa from poverty’ and that without us
they are helpless. This notion greets us everyday in TV and online adverts which
suggest that our donations, or purchases of ‘wells for Africa’ will cure the
continent’s worries.
This idea is exemplified by Water.org;
‘Give to Water.org, and
help turn a life of poverty into a life of possibility for millions of families.’
(Water.Org, 2016).
Here
they suggest that by simply donating a few pounds we can transform a families lives, ignoring any sort of agency or
role that that family would have in improving their lives.
|
Water is Life's photo highlighting the 'White Saviour Complex'
Source - http://waterislife.com/donate |
This
photo from waterislife.com (Water is Life, 2016) highlights the white saviour
complex perfectly; a white male handing out ‘waterislife filters’ to a
community of women in Africa, he even has ‘Saves’ tattooed on his arm which
begs belief. The outstretched arms of many women to collect the filter highlights
their desperate need; representing the community as if they’ve all been sat
there just waiting for this NGO to provide help.
These
images and ideas reinforce binaries of ‘active’ western saviours vs. passive
African recipients and fosters a neo-colonial idea of western superiority (Sachs,
2010). Furthermore I feel that the White Saviour Complex is lazy in its
understanding of poverty and presumptions that a simple donation will provide
water or solve poverty. It ignores structural injustices within the world –
what about years of colonialism that created underdevelopment within Africa
(Escobar, 1995)? What about the privatisation of water supplies which are now
owned by western corporations such as SAUR in Ivory Coast, Guinea and Senegal
to name a few; we should be questioning these relationships rather than just blindly
donating a few pounds. Water charities can encourage a white saviour complex
view by providing us with quick fixes that make us feel good, but I feel that
we need to consider the underlying problems of water access much further.
Movement towards empowering representations
However,
a rising literature of critique is helping to transform the charity industry,
it’s becoming increasingly unacceptable to frame subjects in the manner of ‘poverty
porn’.
Looking
at multiple water charity websites I’ve found a unexpected lack of poverty porn
and have been pleasantly surprised to see this. Most photos portray subjects looking
happy to be receiving water or highlight how access to water has improved
lives; this is exemplified by the AidforAfrica picture.
WaterAid’s
‘Big Pipe Project’ further provides a good example of representing poverty in
water projects (WaterAid, 2015). The local community has documented the project
describing challenges and successes and been given the freedom to curate the
blog with their own photographs. This demonstrates how it is the community
involved in the water project that has transformed their lives, rather than solely
WaterAid or western donors
Conclusions
Whilst
this blog has been critical of charities and NGO’s, I do believe that much of
the work they do makes a huge difference and don’t want to undermine this. However
I feel that it must be ensured that poverty porn isn’t used to encourage
donations. Representations are incredibly important and change the way the
west, many of whom haven’t visited Africa, think about the continent. You can’t
portray a whole continent as people sat around drinking dirty water waiting for
a western NGO to save them; this is inaccurate, unfair and dangerous. Furthermore the creation of a single story and
quick fix to Africa’s water problems undermines efforts to understand the root
causes of poverty or lack of water access. NGO’s and charities have certainly
improved in their representations and I certainly hope that this is maintained,
and constantly improved on.
List
of References
Adichie, C.N. (2009)
The danger of a single story. Available at:
http://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story
(Accessed: 23 December 2016).
AquaAid (2012) A continent of thirsty children. Available at:
http://aquaidwatercoolers.co.uk/a-continent-of-thirsty-children (Accessed: 23
December 2016).
Escobar, A. (1995) Encountering development: The making and unmaking of the third world. Princeton, NJ,
United States: Princeton University Press.
Lissner, J. (1981) Merchants of misery. Available at:
https://newint.org/features/1981/06/01/merchants-of-misery/ (Accessed: 23
December 2016).
Sachs, W. (2010) The development dictionary a guide to knowledge as power. 2nd edn. London:
Zed Books.
Schaffer, J. (2016) Poverty Porn - Do the means justify the ends? Available at:
https://nonprofitquarterly.org/2016/06/10/poverty-porn-do-the-means-justify-the-ends/
(Accessed: 23 December 2016).
Water is Life (2016)
Water is Life. Available at:
http://waterislife.com/donate (Accessed: 23 December 2016).
Water. Org (2016) Water.Org Safe water & sanitation Charity. Available at:
http://www.water.org (Accessed: 23 December 2016).
WaterAid (2015) Big Pipe Project. Available at:
http://www.bigpipeproject.wateraid.org (Accessed: 23 December 2016).