The Colonial Gesture of Development: The Interpersonal as a Promising Site for Rethinking Aid to Africa

Abstract

While some scholars uncover connections between African development and colonialism in the transition from one set of institutions to the next, others analyze their discourses for similarities. My perspective builds on the second form of argumentation, particularly in relation to its finding that both colonial and development discourses assume a strict division, hierarchy, and unidirectionality between "us" and "them." In my case study, focusing on the daily interactions between Western aid workers and South African villagers, it is clear that, for the aid workers, this self-over-them schema is a modality of being, grounded in their body behavior. I argue, therefore, that evidence of development as a form of neocolonialism may be etched right into the "colonial bodies" of many of today's aid workers.

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