Ode to Colonial Humanitarianism

I am constantly amazed by the ability of North American culture to infiltrate virtually every corner of the planet. This week I was in Chuqui Chuqui, a small rural town about 1hr ½ outside of Sucre (please see photo above), sitting in a mud hut home and there, nailed into the disintegrating wall was a poster of Canada’s sweetheart- Avril Lavigne. I started laughing when I spotted her angelic face and so my boss, Dustin, had to ask me what was up (¿Qué tal?). I tried to explain to him that Avril is a Canadian celebrity who grew up outside of my hometown Toronto and that it was weird for me to see her all the way down here, but he didn’t seem to find it the least bit odd. Dustin’s uninterested reaction made me realize that people across the world are very used to seeing random B-list North American celebrities and that it isn’t that strange for them to appear in such remote places. I started wondering if anyone in Chuqui Chuqui had even ever heard an Avril Lavigne song before or if her poster was just mass-produced and then shipped out across the world to be scooped up by anyone infatuated by her bright blonde hair and girly-punkish style. My guess is however, that no one in Chuqui Chuqui has had the pleasure of hearing the masterpiece that is ‘Skaterboy’.

Thinking of the prowess of North American culture, I revisited a concept that was introduced to me formally in my final year at UBC, but that had certainly haunted me prior to that- Colonial Humanitarianism. It’s a concept that overwhelms me and drags me into hours of cyclical self-doubt and cynicism. Also known as neo-colonialism, it refers to the fact that a lot of humanitarian/aid work is frighteningly reminiscent of colonialism. It questions whether or not we are actually able to leave our ‘first world’ thinking at the door and work in partnership with developing nations without pushing our beliefs on them. It asks whether or not a new era of collaborative development work is possible when one side comes from an obvious position of privilege.

A movement known as North-South Solidarity has emerged within international development circles intending to combat the neo-colonial undertones found in development work by promoting relationships based on knowledge sharing (as opposed to just knowledge transfer or money transfer). CCI and FONCRESOL work under a solidarity partnership model. I also like to put international development work into this perspective, but I often wonder if it is possible for such a relationship to exist when CCI and myself are from ‘the North’ and inevitably bring with us our Western thinking/identity as hard as we may try to ditch it. It’s not even just that as Northerners we may have a hard time accepting that our way isn’t necessarily the right way, but it’s also that sometimes when you come from such a position of privilege you are viewed as the expert even though you’re not and don’t want to be. It has been ingrained worldwide that the North is ‘the first world’ and that the South is ‘the third world’ and so trying to shed those notions in order to reach a new development model (North-South solidarity) involves a huge paradigm shift on both sides.

While conducting focus groups with some of FONCRESOL’s rural clients I discovered that very few people save. I believe that everyone can save money regardless of income and that saving is an important step towards expanding one’s economic base, which is the goal of microfinance. Speaking with rural clients however, I began to question if that really is or should be the goal of microfinance. Everyone I spoke to was grateful to have the extra cash flow provided by their microcredit with FONCRESOL and they told me that they don’t save because ‘el dinero siempre tiene que trabajar’ (money always needs to be working). They don't see savings as making good use of their money; they are more inclined to invest it in capital for their farms or small businesses, even if those businesses aren’t especially profitable. Upon hearing this my gut instinct was to come up with ways to change this type of thinking, but then I had to take a step back and wonder if it was really so problematic. Everyone seemed happy living at the level they were living at and they were mostly concerned with sustaining themselves, their families and their businesses. In my head however, I kept thinking: ‘well, you can do more, you can save, you can grow!’ That’s when I noticed my North American roots shining through.
The accumulation of assets and wealth is a Western concept that associates one’s betterment with simply having more. Most development models (because they come from the North) are based on this type of thinking, but increased consumption doesn’t necessarily mean ‘development’ or ‘progress’. Look at the Western world right now- it’s a mess. Overconsumption has created many problems and so promoting capitalistic development tools to those who need to ‘catch up’ may not be the answer. There are a finite number of resources in the world; everyone can’t live the way we live. In order to achieve economic justice some people will unfortunately have to come down a few notches. I’m not trying to say that I don’t think the people of Chuqui Chuqui deserve more or need more, but sometimes I feel guilty promoting a consumption-based way of life, especially if that is not even their traditional way of thinking.

My thoughts concerning the urban clients are less conflicted, although I’m not quite sure why... I think it’s because in the cities, traditions and native culture have already begun to fade. Having said that, maybe it’s somewhat patronizing or unrealistic to suggest that traditional cultures need to be preserved (as if to suggest they're not allowed to change- they need to uphold their National Geographic image). Mario Vargas Llosa, in his The Culture of Liberty, refutes the argument that globalization is an evil force by reminding us that cultures have never been static, hermetically sealed entities. They have always been ebbing and flowing since the beginning of time, so how is it any different now? He argues that the changes we are seeing in the world aren’t always a result of globalization, sometimes it’s just modernization, which may not be such a bad thing. I see what he’s saying, but another part of me struggles to understand why ‘modernization’ and ‘progress’ always has to come at the expense of the poor.

Back to solidarity. The definition of solidarity can be somewhat ambiguous, but to me it means working in partnership towards a common goal. It means listening to both sides and sharing knowledge, skills and resources. It can be difficult sometimes because your view of ‘progress’ or ‘development’ may be different from whomever you’re working with, but your job as an ally is to accept and work with those views. For instance, if I were to work with a community that really wanted to learn English, but I felt imperialistic teaching them English, I would still probably do it because it is the language of the world and I would understand that they want to be able to communicate on a larger scale. The same goes for the work I’m doing now. Microfinance is a development tool that falls perfectly in place with the current neo-liberal market system and although I am not a proponent of this system and I believe that it should be changed, for now I am going to do what I can to help people 'play the game'. The game that we (developed nations) created and now master.

$$bLiNG bLiNg$$ money ain't a thang?

Last week I launched the market research phase of my project- which really just means that I began surveying FONCRESOL clients. I like to use the term ‘market research’ though because I secretly fantasize about being a big-time corporate executive and because I believe it is the right approach to use for the type of analysis I am trying to do. FONCRESOL, and all NGO’s for that matter, need to think of themselves as businesses because they are indeed organizations offering a service to consumers and therefore they should be very concerned with understanding what their clients want. Many NGO’s however, tend to be very product driven- they focus more on the service they deliver and less on understanding their clients’ needs and wants. I am not saying that NGO’s arbitrarily invent social services to offer, but I do think that sometimes after a while the initial mandate gets lost and organizations start to forget why they are doing what they are doing. Meanwhile, although it pains me to admit it, the corporate world has really nailed getting into consumers' heads and understanding their clients. In fact they’ve achieved this to such a freaky extent that iTunes can now read my mind and recommend music that I actually like and subsequently end up buying…

Last week I began using FONCRESOL’s caja communales (communal banks) as focus groups to probe clients about some of their feelings, attitudes and habits concerning money. Most groups were very quiet at the beginning of our discussions, but by the end everyone was participating and sometimes getting really fired up about the questions. Some examples of the types of questions I ask are: How do you feel when you have money? How do you feel when you don’t have money? Has anyone ever taught you how to manage your money? What do you think is the most important thing that everyone should know about money? Do you save your money? If so, do you use a savings account? If not, would you save if you could? What would you save for? Do you keep a budget at home and in your business? How many microfinance organizations do you work with? Why do you work with more than one? Etc. etc.

My findings so far have been that very few people keep a personal spending budget, no one has ever been taught money management skills, no one saves their money and most of FONCRESOL’s clients have at least 2 other loans with other NGO’s. When I asked why no one saves most people just said that it was impossible given their current financial situation. A surprising number of people said that they used to save, but they are no longer able to due to dramatic increases in the cost of living that have occurred since the Morales government has come into power. Previous to these conversations I was unaware that Bolivia had seen such a substantial change in the economy since the Morales government. At the same time, I need to remember that I am in Sucre, which isn’t known for being a MAS lovefest... I don’t really know what to make of these complaints because I have no way of knowing if prices have simply gone up because that’s what happens over the course of time (my Mom used to buy hot dogs for 10 cents) or if it is a result of the worldwide financial crunch or if the Morales government is in fact guilty of financial mismanagement.

I have been speaking with FONCRESOL’s rural and urban clients and there is a surprisingly amount of variance between the two groups. In the rural zone the problem of over indebtedness isn’t as prevalent as it is among urban clients, which is primarily due to the lack of service in the rural areas. Also, there were way fewer general complaints from rural clients than from urban clients. Urban clients went on about how disorganized their fellow group members are and how the loan amounts are too small. I’m pretty sure this has to do with how over saturated the microfinance market is in the urban zones. The growing availability of loans have made clients less responsible with their borrowing habits and more impatient.

These pictures and the ones of the señoras above are taken from a caja I visited outside of Sucre.

I had a question fired back at me during one of these chats, which was whether or not Canada (and other countries) were going to start decreasing their financial aid to Bolivia because of the MAS government. Luckily, I was able to answer that with a firm ‘no’ because the only country that really has anything against the Morales government is the United States and they have already severed most of their ties with Bolivia and vice versa. One thing I’m not so sure about though, but that I chose not bring up with our clients, is how the global economic crisis is going to affect Bolivia and more importantly whether or not it will affect the micro-economy and it’s microenterprises. My guess is that the crisis will hit Bolivia eventually, maybe not as fiercely as other parts of the world because the economy isn’t that tied to the United States, but there will surely be effects. Many people in the field of microfinance (specifically in Bolivia) are expecting that the number of people living on less than $1/day will likely increase over the next few years and that more people will be looking to access microfinance services. Sadly, this increase in demand will not be met by an increase in supply. Instead, as funds shrink in North America and Europe the amount of money NGO’s have access to will also shrink. As a result loans will get smaller and interest rates will have to increase to accommodate the large administration costs involved with processing so many small loans. This is a shame for many obvious reasons, but especially because microfinance institutions, like FONCRESOL, have worked for years to get their interest rates as low as possible and now these efforts will be erased.

Newscasters, journalists and politicians are often quick to use the word crisis. There was the oil crisis, the food crisis, the housing crisis, the climate crisis and Mexico even had a tortilla crisis. The funny thing is, although we don’t hear about those crises anymore, they still exist and they have all contributed to the economic crisis we are faced with today. Our refusal to act upon problems that have existed for years has brought this all upon ourselves. So as governments start to moan and whine about having to clean up the messy economy, we have to be careful that they don’t start using these ‘hard times’ to justify cutting corners around money allocated to social services and international aid. Harper has already been accused of using the recession to legitimize the slashing of government spending that isn’t aligned with his neo-conservative agenda. Real solutions need to start happening fast and I don’t think that saving the people and institutions that provoked these problems is the right idea. Nor do I think doing nothing is the right idea- Yes, I’m looking at you Harper...
I guess when parliament gets back from their vacation we will have a better idea of what he has up his sleeve and lets hope that it’s a least something. Even one of those funny, long, multicolored handkerchiefs that magicians use would be better than what he’s been serving up lately.