Meanings and Materialities
Meanings and Materialities
Exhibition 6–15 June
Open every day 12:00-18:00Beáta Paragi
Contemporary foreign aid, when interpreted within the theoretical framework of gift exchange, is usually portrayed as unilateral gift, a sort of symbolic domination (Hattori 2001: 635; Hattori 2006; Furia 2015). However, while beneficiaries in Global South countries, both government actors and non-governmental organizations, usually receive unilateral transfers of resources without any financial obligation to reciprocate, non-material forms of reciprocity are detectable as demonstrated by studies in the Middle East (Paragi 2017; Paragi 2023). As a result of the continuous cycle of resource exchange - composed of aid and contemporary ‘return gifts’ - friendly relations are maintained between donors and recipients in various contexts, however temporary the cooperation is (Paragi 2022; Paragi 2023).
Gifts, however, are always received with a ‘burden attached’ (Mauss 2002 [1925]: 53), and the ‘spirit’ present in international resources may also undermine the political aspirations of local communities. As demonstrated by the Palestinian case, international aid has been complicit in maintaining the Israeli occupation (Tartir and Seidel 2019; Paragi 2021). Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to explore how the ‘spirit’ – conveyed by donor money – is coded in contemporary aid relations. By using the European Union (EU) as a case study and scrutinizing policy documents, funding agreements and procedures, the paper conceptualizes conditionality as ’the magical force’, whereby the EU as donor transfers its ’soul and of substantial presence’ (Hénaff 2010b: 126) by including clauses (on counterterrorism, anti-incitement) into its funding agreements and expecting screening of individuals against sanctions lists (Paragi, forthcoming). By accepting international aid, Palestinian beneficiaries also accept the spiritual essence of gifts „within their own space”, while the gap between them and those being (self-)excluded from foreign-funded aid projects only increases.
Beata Paragi is associate professor at the Institute of Global Studies at Corvinus University of Budapest. She earned her PhD in Political Science (Multidisciplinary International Relations) in 2008 in Corvinus University of Budapest. Additionally, she holds a MA-degree in ICT Law from the University of Oslo (2022). Her research interests and teaching focus on development and humanitarian studies, the digital dimension of aid operations, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and qualitative research methods.
Full list of publications
Orcid
Furia, A. (2015) The Foreign Aid Regime: Gift-Giving, States and Global Dis/Order. London: Palgrave
Hattori, T. (2001) Reconceptualizing Foreign Aid. Review of International Political Economy8 (4): 633–60.
Hattori, T. (2003) Giving as a Mechanism of Consent: International Aid, Organizations and the Ethical Hegemony of Capitalism. International Relations 17(2): 153–73.
Hattori, T. (2006) A Critical Naturalist Approach to Power and Hegemony: Analyzing Giving Practices. In M. Haugaard and H.H. Lentner (eds), Hegemony and Power: Consensus and Coercion in Contemporary Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Paragi, B. (forthcoming, June 2024) The art of screening. Reasonable efforts and measures at the nexus of aid work and counterterrorism. Surveillance & Society (accepted for publication)
Paragi, B (2023) Israeli cross-border assistance to Syrians: Creating bonds by giving?Mediterranean Politics. 28(2): 250-277.
Paragi, B. (2021) The price of getting donor money: Gift exchange in aid relations and the depolitisation of NGOs. In Kathrin Knodel and Melina Kalfeis (eds) NGOs and Lifeworlds in Africa. Historical and Contemporary Perspectives. Oxford and New York: Berghahn Books.
Paragi, B. (2017). Contemporary Gifts: Solidarity, Compassion, Equality, Sacrifice and Reciprocity from the Perspective of NGOs. Current Anthropology 58: 317–39.
Paragi, B. (2018) Cultures of (Dis)Trust: Shame and Solidarity from Recipient NGO Perspectives. International Journal of Cultural Studies 21: 486–504.
Paragi, B. (2019) Matching Empirical Data with Theories in Interdisciplinary Research Project. SAGE Research Methods Case Studies.
Hénaff, M. (2010) I/You: Reciprocity, Gift-Giving and the Third Party. META: Research in Hermeneutics, Phenomenology, and Practical Philosophy 2(1): 57–83.
Hénaff, M. (2010b). The Price of Truth: Gift, Money and Philosophy. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Tartir, A. & Seidel, T. eds (2019) Palestine and Rule of Power: Local Dissent vs. International Governance. Palgrave MacMillan