Refusing aid: Interdependency and development in northern Uganda

Abstract

“Aid dependency” has long been a concern among development organizations, because it supposedly discourages the entrepreneurial spirit and thus hinders economic development. But what happens when beneficiaries refuse aid? In this article, I offer an ethnographic account of aid refusal in postconflict northern Uganda. There, members of savings and loan associations negotiate debts and investments through Acholi ethics of ripe, or “making life experiences together.” In doing so, they demonstrate that their refusals are not disavowals of development. Rather, they are refusals of development hierarchies and of the financialization of development, both of which risk obstructing Acholi ethics of interdependence. By analyzing ripe and the ways that association members negotiate the ethics of receiving aid, this article offers a counterpoint to dominant, pathologizing discourses of African dependency, corruption, and development—discourses predicated on Western, neoliberal valuations of work and community. In short, this article calls into question the assumption that economic growth is always the sine qua non of development.