Beyond Donor Memory : On Time and Power behind the Curtain of Transnational Development in Burkina Faso

Title data

Kalfelis, Melina C.:
Beyond Donor Memory : On Time and Power behind the Curtain of Transnational Development in Burkina Faso.
In: Anthropologie & Développement. Vol. 53 (2022) . - pp. 137-153.
ISSN 2553-1719
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/anthropodev.1803

Official URL:

Abstract in another language

‘Partnership’ is the leading paradigm in development. After the NGO boom, it not only led to significant global power shifts but also changed funding and agenda-setting schemes in nonprofit sectors. Based on multi-sited research in Burkina Faso, Sweden, and Switzerland, this article provides an ethnographic account of NGOisation processes and their effects on development associations in Burkina Faso. Its main goal is to scrutinise the interplays of time, bureaucracy, and power, which leads the article towards three key arguments. By working through the history of the association Biiga Neere, the article shows how partnership policies can rupture the institutional basis of associations by socially restructuring them. Through the newly-introduced concepts of ‘donor time’ and ‘temporal brokerage’, an analysis of the temporal struggles at different levels of the collaboration highlights a growing divergence between temporal routines of donors and populations. Finally, the article illustrates how social workers remember donors and how their memories play into their navigation of partner relations, which they perceive as volatile and arbitrary.

Further data

Item Type:	Article in a journal
Refereed:	Yes
Keywords:	Partnership; Transnational Partnership; Biiga Neere; Burkina Faso
Institutions of the University:	Faculties > Faculty of Cultural Studies > Professor Social and Cultural Anthropology with a Focus on Africa Profile Fields > Advanced Fields > African Studies Faculties Faculties > Faculty of Cultural Studies Profile Fields Profile Fields > Advanced Fields Faculties > Faculty of Cultural Studies > Junior Professor Social and Cultural Anthropology with a Focus on Social Belonging > Junior Professor Social and Cultural Anthropology with a Focus on Social Belonging - Juniorprof. Melina Cassandra Kalfelis Faculties > Faculty of Cultural Studies > Junior Professor Social and Cultural Anthropology with a Focus on Social Belonging
Result of work at the UBT:	Yes
DDC Subjects:	300 Social sciences
Date Deposited:	11 May 2023 06:32
Last Modified:	03 Nov 2023 10:32
URI:	https://eref.uni-bayreuth.de/id/eprint/74148