Perfect Gift for Whom: Ideology and Inequality
“Feed the world/ Let them know it’s Christmas Time”. As what the lyrics has narrated, humanitarian aid to the third world countries in poverty, especially those in Africa, has taken the shape of having a philanthropical “feeder” to help the poor through donation and subsidisation for a long time. In the film Poverty Inc. (2014), it is shown that from rice to clothes, solar panel to orphanage, resources are sent to Africa by the donor states, NGO and charities to save lives and ideally, reduce poverty. In the system and rhetoric of this type of humanitarian aid scheme, such aids can be seen as the “perfect gift”. Commodities are donated to as life-saving objects, an embodiment of not only the compassion of the donor but also the spirit of humanitarianism and philanthropism. The giver ask for no reciprocal exchange.
However, the question should then be asked is for whom the gift is considered as perfect? In the context of a historical and political context of imperialism, colonialism and globalisation, the tension between what Carrier called freedom and obligation is not simply a question about individualism but also about power relations and inequalities. For anthropologists, studying ideology helps reveal the ‘internal logic of the way the social system is perceived by those who operate it’ (Bloch 1983: 151). A perfect gift implies a perfect giver and receiver. The ideology of a perfect “aid” justifies the construction and legitimisation of a continual otherisation and domination of the helpless and inferior third world countries conducted by the Global North.
Hence, what has been asked is not a perfect gift, but exchanges and an active involvement in the global economic system. For instance, instead of letting a single mother to send her children to orphanage, she is encouraged to find a way of living with supports and get her own property. ‘Imagineering…the synthesis of imagination and engineering’, as Catherine Dolan (2012: 6) has suggested, has now being incorporated in development programme. It envisions ‘an idealised exchange between the material assets of business and the social assets of the poor’ (ibid: 7). The opportunity and imaginable prosperity are considered as more a perfect “gift” if there needs to be any in the current development programme. Nevertheless, despite the active change of the paternalist poverty reduction programme, can the promise help to eliminate exclusion and domination is still questionable. By abandoning the undesirable “perfect gift”, the current development scheme actively embrace the system and ideology of neoliberalism that emphasises on individualism and the making of entrepreneur subjects. Is there really a bright future awaited for everyone, or is it just made for some?
Citation:
Bloch, Maurice. 1983. Marxism and Anthropology: The History of a Relationship. Marxist Introductions. Oxford [Oxfordshire] : New York: Clarendon Press ; Oxford University Press.
Carrier, J. 1990. Gifts in a world of Commodities: The Ideology of the Perfect Gift in American Society. Social Analysis 29: 19-37.
Dolan, Catherine. 2012. ‘The New Face of Development: The “Bottom of the Pyramid” Entrepreneurs (Respond to This Article at Http://Www.Therai.Org.Uk/at/Debate)’. Anthropology Today 28 (4): 3–7. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8322.2012.00883.x.
Miller, Michael Matheson, dir. 2022. Poverty, Inc. (2014) | The Global Poverty Industry. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxgpX39C2sk.
Image from:
Miller, Michael Matheson, dir. 2022. Poverty, Inc. (2014) | The Global Poverty Industry. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxgpX39C2sk.
Contributed by BichenXu on 23/01/2023
