Time: 6:30pmVenue: Drapers' Lecture Theatre, Geography Building, Mile End Campus
Compared to the optimism of early post-Cold War era, the international aid industry – and with it,the development-security nexus – faces a growing crisis of acceptance. This malaise is reflectedin the increasing necessity of constant risk-management within contemporary aid interventions.Since the end of the 1990s, the number of aid workers deliberately killed, injured or attacked hasgrown steadily. Incorporated as an extension of Western foreign policy, including playing socialadvisor to corporate interests in an age of neoliberal excess, for many ‘beneficiaries’ the aidindustry’s earlier claims to neutrality and material betterment now count for little. This talk tracesthe liberal way of development’s growing crisis of acceptance through its changing approach torisk-management. From initial attempts to centralise and professionalise risk-aversion, the mainoutcome of which was the fortified aid compound, the emphasis has now shifted to increasingthe resilience of the aid industry. Rather than ‘when to leave’ the aim is now ‘how to stay’.Through the decentralisation, localisation and indigenisation of risk-management, resilienceestablishes a new and productive relationship to crisis. That is, as an opportunity to improve therobustness and fitness of aid agencies. In effectively ignoring the crisis of acceptance, however,rather than addressing the current malaise, resilience promises to dig the bunker deeper.
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