Absurdities in Aidland: Development Encounters in DRC

This research paper is a case in reflexive practice. It tells the story of paradoxes in aidland seen and felt through the experience of a gendered, racialised development worker (who is also the researcher) visiting aidland in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, as an insider in a famous development organization. It uses intersectionality, reflexive ethnography and constructive complicity as its frameworks to delve into and examine the experiences of this non-white, non-local, young, female expatriate development worker in a predominantly northern white-expat-development arena (in DRC). This inquest unveils the various paradoxes that lay underneath the orderly and often noble façade of aidland. The purpose of this exposure is to first acknowledge these paradoxes and inequalities as part of aidland and second to question how it can overcome these contradictions so that development practice can be more than just well meaning attempts to make a change.