My own positionality in the white-savior complex of NGOs
Giulia Liberatore
In tutorials, we discussed how problematic NGOs really are when attempting to build “peace” on the ground, including examples of Westerners’ “charitable work”, who would come over to help the “poor African children”, with little else in terms of understanding, sensitivities or, as we’ve seen, even training in the things they purport to be helping with. This raises questions about accountability: was it ever about the community’s needs being fulfilled, or was it only about Westerners feeling like they ‘did good’? As the discussions progressed, I started noticing troubling resemblances with my own experiences and began questioning my own positionality within non-profits’ white-savior complexes.
The narrative I told myself was that I started volunteering for the food-pantry in December 2020 due to overwhelming need. Immediately, I noticed volunteers’ problematic behaviors of berating clients who “broke the rules”: a childless couple requesting baby wipes, clients falsely shopping for two families, or ‘stealing’ from the returns bins–as if they were committing some heinous crime and not doing it out of intense need and as a product of accumulated structural inequities. But these problematic instances seemed always far-removed from myself: I never acted that way…
The more I reflected on the tutorials, however, the more I realized my own complicity. The real reasons I volunteered was the low-commitment schedule and because I needed school credits, and after fulfilling those 400 hours, I was nominated for the Youth Award. Even at the time, this felt wholly undeserved; I knew I’d volunteered for all the wrong reasons. While I received an award, the clients, the mothers dragging their screaming children along trying to provide for their family, their everyday battles continued unabated and unrecognized. Yet in the award interview, I never once mentioned this, instead saying that volunteering “was a really nice feeling”. What exactly gave me “a nice feeling”? Witnessing the sheer suffering and lack of options the clients faced unrelentingly? Or was it my own insertion into that situation, and a superficial feeling of having “contributed”? Perhaps I contributed in terms of immediate food distribution, but I did so in an environment of clear hierarchy between the volunteers and the clients, which replicated, reinforced and perpetuated the structural inequities that produced this food insecurity in the first place, and I was complicit in it.
As Pugh (2004) mentions, the role of non-profits (international and otherwise) is not to enforce top-down approaches that ‘accidentally’ replicate those same structural power dynamics they purport to combat; their role, if anything, is to address the deep-rooted issues that created those disparities in primis. I believe this can only occur if Western non-profit workers put away their pride and critically question their positionality in, and crucially, their contribution to, the very system that keeps the destitute oppressed. Only then can a restructuring occur whereby these organizations shift their center towards those in need–where the food-pantry is truly at the service of the clients’ needs rather than
berating them for “breaking” top-down-enforced rules–to instead act as a support brace for grassroots initiatives spearheaded by the very people they serve, to take root and flourish into a peace that truly works for them.
References
Pugh, M. (2004). Peacekeeping and critical theory. International Peacekeeping, 11(1), pp.39–58. doi:https://doi.org/10.1080/1353331042000228445.
Justice, Peace, and Conflict Studies
Cole Schubert
Positive peace is difficult to attain, and even more and arduous to sustain, when the conflict resolution process focuses exclusively on avoiding physical violence. This is where justice enters the equation. To encourage the discipline to prioritise justice, I suggest an amendment to the title of Peace and Conflict Studies. I propose that we rename this field to Justice, Peace, and Conflict Studies.
Names carry power. Renaming the discipline thrusts justice to the forefront; this orients attention within the political and scholarly communities towards justice. Discursive work has previously explored how subtle word choices can shift argument framing. I have found discourse scholars’ work convincing and flexible in application, and I employ discursive lenses frequently. This lens reveals that the current name of the field draws attention to peace and conflict; the limits of our vocabulary curtail our discourse and the extent to which we can centre justice and positive peace pursuits in our thinking. Framing the discipline as Justice, Peace, and Conflict Studies illustrates the need for long-term and justice-centred thought. That justice is given titular pre-eminence reflects the precondition that communities cannot have positive peace without justice.
How do we achieve justice? Justice processes are often bogged down by rigid hierarchic and bureaucratic structures, as exemplified by the ICC and ICJ’s case on the Rohingya genocide. The stateless Rohingya people continue to face genocide and structural violence in Myanmar, often resorting to treacherous boat crossings to flee the present dangers. The UNHCR continues to call on states to provide critical lifesaving support for the refugees. They state that greater international and regional action is needed to end fighting in Myanmar and restore peace and justice (UNHCR Asia Pacific, 2025). The ICJ’s slow-moving process and inability to centre the victims has left the Rohingya crying out for peace or justice (Singh, 2020).
The road to achieving peace and justice is incredibly complex, but we must keep victims and affected communities centred in our writing, minds, and culture. Allowing victims to actively participate in shaping justice proceedings would greatly enhance their belief in the justice institutions supposedly working on their behalf. As the global community continues to answer large questions about how to achieve justice, amplifying the voices and needs of survivors in our pursuit leaves me with the most optimistic outlook as to the best way to create effective solutions for peace from their perspective. Albeit small, the renaming of the discipline would carry the power to explicitly underscore the field’s commitment to this pursuit.
References
“Focus on Saving Lives, Urges UNHCR as More Rohingya Flee by Sea.” UNHCR Asia Pacific, United Nations, 8 Jan. 2025, www.unhcr.org/asia/news/press-releases/focus-saving-lives-urges-unhcr-more-rohingya-flee-sea.
Singh, Shannon Raj. “Rohingya Symposium: Justice out of Reach–the Need to Better Connect Accountability Proceedings to Atrocity Survivors.” Opinio Juris, August 26, 2020. https://opiniojuris.org/2020/08/26/rohingya-symposium-justice-out-of-reach-the-need-to-better-connect-accountability-proceedings-to-atrocity-survivors/.