Aungo Bw'Onderi Justus
Curriculum Vitae
Current Project
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From Flows to Feuds: Portraits of Development and Projects of Poverty by Non-Governmental Organizations in Bosnia and Kenya
Major international NGOs and Aid agencies have been born of crises: ICRC from the 1863 Battle of Solferiono; Save the Children Fund in 1919 out of the 1st World War while OXFAM 1942 and US CARE 1945 out of the 2nd World War (Cross, 2001). To a large degree, militarism and subsequent humanitarianism seem to represent the two sides of the same coin- humankind's failure to manage conflict peacefully (Slim, 1999. Despite absence of large scale conflict in certain places, poverty and disease have made NGOs and other aids agencies focus on development and democratization especially in Africa, Asia, Latin America and East and Central Europe, commonly known as the post-Soviet Countries. In these countries, NGOs have become primary humanitarian and development forces besides and sometimes beyond the state. Most of these NGO and agencies are born out of liberal democracies and economies in the Northern Hemisphere (western countries) to 'bring relief from suffering, sustainable development and democracy' in response to State failure under assault from globalization (Cross, 2001; Petras and Veltmeyer, 2001).
For my PhD research, I propose to investigate the NGO/expatriate-led projects on post-conflict reconstruction and poverty, and the portraits of development/relief NGOs and the local networks of volunteers/expatriates promote through respective narratives and imaginings with particular focus on selected communities in Bosnia and Kenya. Through this, I wish to contribute to the unraveling of the puzzle: whether the intensity of NGOs, aid agencies and foreign development /relief expatriates/volunteers in poor/ 'dysfunctional' communities translates to development and better living and functioning standards in those communities despite the NGOs repeated claims towards
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