From British to humanitarian colonization: the ‘early recovery’ response in Myanmar after Nargis

South East Asia Research, 21, 3, pp 381401 doi: 10.5367/sear.2013.0165

From British to humanitarian colonization:the early recovery response in Myanmar

after Nargis

Maxime Boutry

Abstract: The humanitarian response to the disaster caused by Cyclone Nargisthat hit the Ayeyarwady Delta region of Myanmar in 2008 is a pertinent exam-ple of a very specific phase in humanitarian response at the transition betweenemergency and development. The author shows that this phase, known as earlyrecovery, being built on the specific characteristics of the emergency (lack oftime and lack of means and input) and oriented towards development, is onein which the humanitarian aid agency is relatively restricted to the humani-tarian sphere itself. As a result, the ideological discourse lengthily denouncedby the post-structuralist anthropology of development as a set of Westernvalues imposed on the developing countries to assert a new form of dominion is actually powerful and quasi-monolithic in shaping the consequences ofhumanitarian aid. While there is no arena for the beneficiaries to discussthe aids agency, a methodological populism approach reveals, on the onehand, the antagonisms between a humanitarian ideology conveying considera-tions such as horizontal communities versus hierarchical bonds and, on theother, the similarity of its socioeconomic consequences on the Deltas society tothose of the British colonial period.

Keywords: anthropology of development; colonization; early recovery; humani-tarian aid; Myanmar; Nargis

Author details: Dr Maxime Boutry is a Research Fellow at Centre Asie du Sud-Est(CASE), CNRS, Paris, France, and at the Research Institute on Contemporary South-east Asia (IRASEC), 29 Sathorn Tai Road, Bangkok 10120, Thailand. E-mail:[email protected].

Nargis: a textbook case in the anthropology of development?The humanitarian response to the disaster caused by Cyclone Nargis, which hitMyanmar in 2008, is a pertinent example of a very specific concept in humanitar-ian response at the transition between emergency and development. This concept,known as early recovery, is supposed to help the transition between emergencyand development as its design is meant to take into account longer-term strate-gies. Based on our observations, we shall examine the theoretical changes andcritiques that have arisen in the anthropology of development over the last twodecades. In so doing, we will be able to discuss the place of anthropologists asactive participants in the implementation of development policies or, at least, asproductive critics. Our hypothesis is that early recovery, being built on the specificcharacteristics of the emergency (lack of time and lack of means and input) andoriented towards development, creates a time and space in which the humanitarian

382 South East Asia Research

aid agency is relatively restricted to the humanitarian sphere itself (and this, con-trarily, to how it is defined). As a result, the ideological discourse lengthilydenounced by the post-structuralist anthropology of development as a set ofWestern values imposed on the developing countries to assert a new form ofdominion is actually powerful and quasi-monolithic in shaping the consequencesof humanitarian aid.

In the immediate aftermath of Cyclone Nargis, which struck the AyeyarwadyDelta in May 2008, the Myanmar government toiled to accept the depth of thedisaster, as it did in the days following the tsunami in 2004. Although both situa-tions might at first seem similar, the Ayeyarwady Deltas proximity to Yangon,the development of Internet connections and the presence of some internationalNGOs1 on-site2 quickly gave the population and the government a wake-up call tothe disasters reality. As it faced the international awareness that this immediatelycalled for a wide-scale humanitarian response,3 the Myanmar government wasthus placed in an uncomfortable situation between the first statements concerningthe underestimated death toll, the prospect of the arrival of foreigners en masseand the necessity to formulate a plan of action to address the cyclones conse-quences. The cyclone that hit the country on 2 and 3 May 2008 also coincidedwith the referendum that was expected to be held on the 12th of the same month.The purpose of the referendum was to ratify the new constitution, which would in2011 lead to the first elections since 1990 and to the democratization process ofthe country. Because of this sensitive national context and because of Myanmarslong-standing international isolationism at least from the USA and Europeancountries the first official reaction was to freeze international aid and cargoesand to forbid any foreign NGO to access the delta. Nonetheless, internationalNGOs that had already been working in the delta before Nargis struck were ableto provide aid to the region, albeit less than judged necessary by the internationalcommunity.

The encounter between the demonized military government of Myanmar (fromwhom nobody would have expected a straightforward estimate of the death toll)and the idealized world of humanitarian aid has been given a lot of media cover-age. However, this should not conceal the constructive lapse of time that witnessedthe rise of a Myanmar civil society.4 This came during the momentary gap, specificto the countrys geo-political isolation (according to the Western perspective of

1 International NGOs are generally kept distinct from local NGOs, the latter being run by nationalsonly, and thus, in countries such as Myanmar, having easier access to the field. Nonetheless, thisdistinction also marks a difference in the degree of professionalism between the two categoriesthat naturally favours international NGOs, as they employ action methodologies that can be ex-ported to other countries, hence allowing for mutual comparison, while local NGOs may have amore empirical (top-down) approach. Consequently, in Myanmars case, international NGOs (suchas EuropeAid, AusAID, USAID, etc) generally have access to international funds that they partlytransfer to local NGOs, entrusting them with project implementation in the field. This is particu-larly true in Myanmar, which includes many areas where access is forbidden to foreigners and/orinternational bodies.

2 According to South (2008, p 25), there were approximately 48 international NGOs in the countrybefore May 2008.

3 Under the (2005) Right to Protect Statement signed by the United Nations.4 While there were spaces for civil society under the former military regime (Heidel, 2006), it is

likely that the post-Nargis humanitarian phase helped reactivate and shape the new civil societythat has been proactive in the political changes and democratization process of the country sincethe 2011 elections.

From British to humanitarian colonization 383

globalization) between international overreaction inherited in part from the deathtoll of the tsunami that hit the Asia-Pacific region in late 2004 and local expecta-tions. Indeed, according to interviews with the cyclones victims, some of whomhad arrived in Yangon and others who were interviewed in the delta some timelater, no affected citizens were waiting for help of any kind, at least from thegovernment or from international organizations. However, once the populationthroughout the rest of the country came to realize how extensive the disaster was,some elite groups made up of small entrepreneurs, artists and businessmen, aswell as religious organizations, rapidly formed a network to help isolated victimsby distributing clothes and tarpaulins to protect them from the rain and by provid-ing them with basic food ingredients. All these items were bought thanks to fundsraised by these elites and their kinship networks. In the days that followed thecyclone, while most of the local administrative bodies were ineffective and disor-ganized, collective donations were entrusted to local religious authorities, mostlyto Buddhist monks, and sometimes to Christians in the Karen villages. The weekfollowing the cyclone saw the effervescence of Myanmar civil society and shedlight on the unexpected solidarity and activity of Myanmars population livingbehind the curtain of the regime. Indeed, this time, neither political/cultural norreligious matters were involved in the collective consciousness and solidarity toface this new event (at least at first).

However, this action, rooted in civil society, directly challenged the govern-ments ineffectiveness, creating on the one hand an unprecedented freedom ofspeech concerning the authorities and on the other hand the necessity of a govern-mental response to the cyclone. The double consequence was then to limit andsometimes totally forbid the deltas access to local aid networks while govern-mental action was being formulated, the latter benefiting from high media coverage.However, during the second week after the cyclone, the government was forcedto acknowledge the extent of the impact of the disaster: on 24 June 2010, theofficial death toll stood at 84,537, with 53,836 people still missing and 19,359injured.5 The government also had to take note of the rising indignation of theinternational community, which inevitably jumped at the opportunity once againto stigmatize the Myanmar government, this time on humanitarian rather thanpolitical grounds. Despite this, as soon as the Myanmar government granted in-ternational NGOs access to the delta and new foreign humanitarian workers beganto arrive, the political shadow of aid again preyed on everyones mind, as exem-plified in the International Crisis Groups (ICG) report (2008). Entitled Burma/Myanmar after Nargis: time to normalize aid relations, the report is brimmingwith political intentions filtered through a humanitarian cover.

This brief description of the context in which a new humanitarian story wouldbe written in Myanmar is enough to question the very meaning of a developmentalistapproach in Third World countries and the place of the anthropologist within it,all in a very contemporary context and several decades since the beginnings of theanthropology of development. Here, the link between anthropology and develop-ment must be briefly recalled in order to define the anthropology of developmentin the 2000s.

Hart (2002) interestingly refers to development as the non-egalitarian growth

5 Tripartite Core Group, 2008, p 1.


of capitalism during the two centuries of the industrial revolution, but most oftendesignates the attempt to positively transform the inherent damages due to suchprocess.6 Even though the author does not refer here directly to development asundertaken by international bodies and NGOs, the latters actions in the last dec-ades implicitly build on the same historical process inherent in the contact betweenrich and poor countries (Hart, 2002). Such a definition also underlines theintrinsic link between colonialism and development as much as between anthro-pology and colonialism, and thus between anthropology and development. Thelegacy of colonial anthropology has been controversial (Asad, 1973). Nonethe-less, it enables us to discuss how anthropologists were used to achievedevelopmentalist goals by the colonial state under defined circumstances (Jaganath,1981). And, although colonial racism towards local populations was condemned,the colonists were nevertheless implicated in development, then called culturalcontact (Malinowski, 1945). Later on, for some authors writing in the early 1980s,the anthropology of development could be summarized as a kind of communitydevelopment and social work for the third world, which is expected to developgradually in a cumulative way by participating in Western science, technology,education and culture (Jaganath, 1981, p 625). It was probably due to this histori-cal relationship that development and anthropology (and social sciences in general)continued to evolve conjointly even after the end of colonization, partly becauseof their common interest regarding Third World countries. Interestingly, sometheoretical approaches developed by anthropologists during the 1950s and 60s,such as community development and modernization (which we will come backto later in this article), are often still used by developmental and humanitarianactors nowadays in a slightly different way. Over the last decade, some anthropo-logical institutions such as the Ford Foundation (Jaganath, 1981) were thuspromoting strategies to modernize underdeveloped countries without breakingtheir traditional structures. The job of some anthropologists was therefore to de-vise efficient ways to work around the cultural elements that could hinder thecountrys development.

We would have to wait until the 1980s to see the anthropology of developmentrise as a discipline in its own right, becoming the main instrument for those whowere critical of development and towards anthropology being used as its tool sometimes all the more vigorously since the two disciplines were formerly intimate.

Given the colonial background of northwestsoutheast relationships betweendeveloped and underdeveloped countries, it is not inaccurate to infer that hu-manitarian aid and politics are intrinsically linked. And, even though its mainactors bear the title of non-governmental organizations, most international NGOs,such as EuropeAid, DFID, USAID or AusAid for Europe, the UK, the USA andAustralia respectively, work with governmental funds. Thus, being politically in-fluenced or even government-inspired, humanitarian aid and the ideology ofdevelopment may be largely characterized by dominant discourses from the de-veloper towards Third World countries. This was emphasized by thedeconstructionist approach of development in the 1990s, with Escobar7 at the

6 All translations in this paper are by the author: Dveloppement se rfre la croissanceingalitaire du capitalisme durant les deux sicles de la rvolution industrielle, mais le plus souvent,il dsigne la tentative de transformer positivement les dommages inhrents un tel processus.

7 See his major work, Escobar, 1995.


head of the movement, largely inspired by the work of Foucault.8 Developmentthen started to be seen as a powerful discourse leading to the perpetuation andexpansion of global inequalities and the disqualification of non-Western knowl-edge systems (Escobar, 1995, p 13). Since then, both the discursive approach andthe populist approach have been widely criticized, with greater value placed ontraditional knowledge and practices and further attention paid to exploring thecognitive and pragmatic resources of the populations targeted by development.Olivier de Sardan, for example, rejects both of these approaches in favour of amethodology centred on the entanglement of social logics9 (Olivier de Sardan,2001a, p 733). Here, development as a subject encompasses all related actions intheir diversity of acceptations, meanings and practices, both from the developerand the developed sides. This trend, which is now the most widely accepted oneamong scholars, is focused on the agency of the humanitarian arena and aimsto consider development as the product of the interplay between an indetermi-nate number of localized social and political forces on the one hand, and thedominant and subordinate in the global development encounter on the other (Fried-man, 2006, pp 206207).

Early recovery and the discursive construction of sustainable fundsIn my experience working as an anthropologist in Myanmar for the last few years,the Nargis event and the humanitarian cyclone that followed represented anopportunity to reassess personally the different anthropological stances describedabove in regard to development. It appeared that the deconstructionist approachwas the most logical to adopt when, working as a consultant for NGOs, I becameaware of the discursive tools of humanitarian aid, aimed at serving both its ac-tion and legitimization. Indeed, as harshly summarized by Cohen et al regardingNGOs, no matter how well-intentioned, these new colonialists need weak statesas weak states need them (Cohen et al, 2008, p 77). These new colonialists, touse the authors words, refer to the increasing power that NGOs gain in ThirdWorld countries, thus deepening the dependency of these States on outsiders(Cohen et al, 2008, p 75). Four years after Nargis, we need only notice that doz-ens of newly arrived NGOs are still in the country and have gained ground inmany areas other than those struck by the cyclone. In some ways, the governmentwas right to fear the arrival of foreign workers en masse. Indeed, from 48 NGOspresent in the field before the cyclone, this figure had reached exactly 169 by theend of October 2008, represented by hundreds of new foreigners working in thecountry. Among them were UN bodies such as WFP and UNICEF, internationaldevelopment groups such as Oxfam, humanitarian NGOs such as Save the Chil-dren, Mdecins Sans Frontires and Action Against Hunger, as well as faith-basedorganizations such as Mercy Corps, World Vision, Adventist Development andRelief Agency, etc. Despite this great diversity, it is nonetheless worth underlin-ing that most of them shared the same approach, at least in terms of livelihood/economic recovery actions, with only few exceptions.

As a matter of fact, even if we concede to the international emergency responsea form of impartiality, emergency response is certainly not an achievement in8 See Escobar, 1984.9

Enchevtrement des logiques sociales.


itself. Since NGOs live on population needs, the switch between answering peo-ples needs and finding needs to be addressed by NGOs is systematic. Thus, eventhough the difference between emergency and development is clear for all actors two distinct fields of action, two different kinds of donors10 many post-disas-ter situations (the 2004 tsunami in the Pacific as well as the 2008 cyclone inMyanmar) show us that, following the emergency phase, development seems in-eluctable.11 Generally, the types of action are also quite distinct from one another,emergency response being generally focused on providing provisional shelters,health care and assistance during extraordinary situations such as conflicts or naturaldisasters. Development, on the contrary, is a longer-term approach, consideringthe need to bring improvements to the peoples daily lives, whether these con-cern health and sanitation, income generation or environmental issues. Here, thefields are various and are in constant evolution.

How then does the profession manage to switch from one phase to the other, orwhat is it that commits them to switching (the chicken-and-egg problem)? Bygiving the presumption of innocence to humanitarian actors, there is a preoccupa-tion with ensuring sustainable benefits from the emergency phase to the populations.Nonetheless, with the emergency phase providing totally different grounds fromthe development phase, there was a need to create a process that could link thesetwo:

Early recovery is recovery that begins early in a humanitarian setting. It is amulti-dimensional process, guided by development principles, that seeks to buildupon humanitarian programmes and to catalyze sustainable development op-portunities. Early recovery aims to generate to the extent possible self-sustainingnationally owned and resilient processes for post-crisis recovery. Early recov-ery encompasses livelihoods, shelter, governance, environment and socialdimensions, including the reintegration of displaced populations. It stabilizeshuman security and where the opportunity exists begins to address underlyingrisks that contributed to the crisis.12

Early recovery is thus a tool to prepare for the achievement of (sustainable) devel-opment, a link that appears even more clearly in the following definition presentedat a conference in Geneva on this particular theme:

Jennifer Worrell, Chief of the Early Recovery and Cross-cutting issues team,explained that the three aims of the CWGER [Cluster Working Group on EarlyRecovery] are to:(1) Augment and build on humanitarian assistance to ensure that their inputsbecome assets for long-term development, foster the self-reliance of affectedpopulations and rebuild livelihoods;

10 For instance, Europe funds international NGOs worldwide through the Echo programme for emer-gency actions, while development is funded by EuropeAid. Of course, the two funding programmesoften follow each other for the same NGO.

11 For a comparison between the humanitarian response after the tsunami in 2004 and the cyclone,see Boutry and Ferrari, 2009.

12 Background paper for the Humanitarian and Resident Coordinators Retreat, 810 May 2007,Session on Early Recovery, 9 May, 9:0010:30, UNDP, 27 April 2007.


(2) Support spontaneous recovery initiatives by affected communities and changethe risk/conflict dynamics;(3) Lay the foundation for longer-term transition and development.13

Early recovery seems to be a methodological tool to raise funds for sustainableimplementation for NGOs. Having worked with NGOs, there is no doubt aboutthe fact that many aid organizations will say that their ultimate goal is to ensuretheir services are no longer needed. But aid organizations and humanitarian groupsneed dysfunction to maintain their relevance. (Cohen et al, 2008, p 78) This iseven more the case when working in countries such as Myanmar, which, in 2008,was far from realizing this unexpected change towards democratization that isnow being acclaimed within the international community. The many years of fundingand the substantial amounts normally put into development programmes may havea deterrent effect for many donors in such an unstable political context. Thus,early recovery was a means to extend the emergency phase and wait for bettertimes that eventually came to happen after the 2011 elections.

Looking for the arenaWhile remaining in the discursive dimension of humanitarian aid, it is time toexplore the concrete early recovery activities in Myanmar since the cyclone. Whilethe emergency phase consisted of distributing tarpaulins, medicine and provi-sional shelters, the early recovery approach took over with the distribution oflivestock in small quantities, rice seeds, small boats and fishing gear, home gar-dening kits, etc. Thus, the aim was clearly to act on a low economic basis: that is,targeting the most vulnerable people.

The FSTPs general objectives are to improve food security (FS) in favour ofthe poorest and most vulnerable people and contribute to achieving the Millen-nium Development Goal (MDG 1) on poverty and hunger through a set of actionswhich ensure overall coherence, complementary and continuity of the Commu-nity interventions, including in the area of the transition from relief todevelopment.14

As is the case in any language, humanitarian guidelines have to be interpreted anddefined, a process that may lead to different modalities of action and debatesamong actors. Yet, while it could be discussed at length, it seems from my expe-rience that the most vulnerable or the poorest are terminologies that are clearenough for the practitioners:

Given the nature of the FSTP, project beneficiaries should be the most vulner-able populations, those with fewer assets, lacking opportunities and sociallyexcluded (i.e. landless, farmers with limited land for cultivation, women headsof household, farmers with limited assets/poor soil quality, households with

13 Ibid.14 2008 Food Security Program for the areas affected by Cyclone Nargis in Burma/Myanmar, Guide-

lines for grant applicants EuropeAid, European Commission, p 3.


many children, disabled people, migrant population, etc.). Pro-poorest target-ing will be amongst the criteria of selection of the proposals.15

Despite the etc given as an open door for NGOs to find more most vulnerablepopulations, to my knowledge, the above-mentioned categories are quite exhaustivewithin the humanitarian scope of action since Nargis. Indeed, for valid reasons,humanitarian practitioners need to categorize complex societies into delimitedcommunities: widows, elder heads of families, orphans, the landless, etc, at leastto direct the funds that are limited in quantity.16 However, this methodology, asany other, cannot be extracted from its system of values such as Western ones,which, as the result of a very human flaw, tend to be thought universal.17 This iswhere humanitarian aid often conflicts with local societies or even local copingmechanisms.

For example, the widows and orphans idea remains a Western symbol, and nota Burmese reality (or Karen, as many of the villages affected by the cyclone areKaren). Indeed, orphans always find relatives to take care of them and, in rarecases, are sent to the Buddhist monastery. As for the widow, more interestingly,there are two points of view. First, women represented a greater proportion amongthe cyclones victims (in some villages, twice the number of men) and thus, thenatural disaster resulted in a higher proportion of widowers than widows. Thesecond point is that, during the two months following the cyclone, most of thewidowers and widows remarried each other and managed to create new alliances,sometimes by amalgamating two or three families in the same household. Contra-rily, in villages where humanitarian aid action was involved, I observed manyoccasions in which widows did not want to remarry, being afraid to disappearfrom the aids distribution lists.

Besides the methodological choices made in defining the different beneficiar-ies of the aid, just as there is a context a Western one there is also a historybehind all these concepts. And, as in any contemporary battle, the weight ofhistory on the strategies and means employed may have more consequences thanits actors may acknowledge. The acceptance of the concept of community inAnglo-Saxon social sciences (which in turn led to the development of commu-nity studies)18 is certainly different from the French acceptation, which does notconstitute a field of research in its own right. However, the main criticism that canbe put forward is that community as a single concept, employed to resolve subtleand deep social problems, may hide the complexity of multiple interlinked socialprocesses. As underlined by Lz, this concept benefits from a considerable af-fective over-determination (Lz, 2008, p 187) conveying the social and affectivevalues of solidarity, warmth, intimacy and autonomy. This is exactly the casewhen the humanitarian actors imagine here with reference to Anderson19 the landless, farmers, fishermen, etc, as communities based on shared social

15 Ibid, p 4.16 Another significant bias is the coverage trend, which generally leads to NGOs including several

villages within the same project and, consequently, resulting in one village receiving less sup-port, as opposed to covering fewer villages and opting for more complete support.

17 This is the case even among national NGOs that are created (and sometimes trained) in the samevalues, since humanitarian aid and development emanate from Western countries.

18 For a review of community studies and their contribution to social sciences, see Schrecker, 2006.19 Anderson, 1991.


characteristics, rather than recognizing them as professional categories, for ex-ample. In other words, the notion of community is most often defined and appliedfrom outside, by actors or observers that do not identify themselves as membersof the designed group. In most cases, then, the community is the others.20 (Cro-chet, 2000, p 50)

Returning to the shared history of anthropologists and development, the con-cept of communities should be retraced back to the 1950s, when anthropologistsspread the community development approach to facilitate adoptions of Westerntechnologies and justify foreign aid; that is, to enable international corporationto reap profits without a challenge from the people (Jaganath, 1981, p 625). Ouraim here is not to polemicize the ultimate goals of humanitarian aid and coloniza-tion21 and if they were to be compared, we would do it in a derivative way: thatis, on the collateral effects of each of these two endeavours. However, some char-acteristics of the communities concept were most definitely inherited from thecolonial era:

The striking assumptions of the [community development] programme are thatit should involve all the households of village community irrespective of class,caste, creed or sex; and that the planning and execution should be based oncultural values, norms and traditions of the people. The first assumption, withoutacknowledging the inherited disparities in the social structure, was instrumen-tal in widening the already existing divisions among the various agrarian classes.It is utopian to think that there would be more or less equal distribution ofbenefits in the face of dominant landlords and usurers. (Jaganath, 1981, p 625)

Although humanitarian aid is now prioritizing the landless over landowners, thesame methodology still applies. It will not take into account the existing dispari-ties of social structures, the differentiated roles of women and men in society, theindebtedness binding workers to their employers, etc. Many aid workers wouldthus argue that they merely have the time and the budget to undertake learningstudies about the societies they help. This is partly true, particularly according tothe donors:

The following types of action are ineligible: [] social or economic researchor studies and/or similar survey.22

Hence the role of early recovery is to justify actions belonging to the field ofdevelopment while buying both time and money. This statement coincides withthe confusion among humanitarian actors regarding the meaning of early recovery,23

20La notion de communaut est le plus souvent dfinie et applique de lextrieur, par des intervenantsou des observateurs qui ne sidentifient pas eux-mmes comme membres du groupe dsign. Leplus souvent, donc, la communaut, cest les autres.

21 Some authors, such as Cohen et al, 2008, have already developed the argument qualifying NGOsas new colonialists.

22 2008 Food Security Program for the areas affected by cyclone Nargis in Burma/Myanmar, Guidelinesfor grant applicants EuropeAid, European Commission, p 10.

23 When working for a French NGO, a URD group (Urgence Rhabilitation Dveloppement, cfwww.urd.org) team came to Myanmar in order to collect the aid workers views about earlyrecovery compared to development. Such a step already underlines the confusion around theconcept and, from my discussions with them as well as with other aid workers, it appeared thatearly recovery was far from being clearly defined.


which probably comes from the difference between the concept and practice. Earlyrecovery is conceived of as a tool, a multi-dimensional process to make thetransition between emergency and development, rather than as a proper phase inthe interaction between societies and humanitarian aid after a natural disaster.24Nonetheless, the fact that Myanmars political situation at this time was a sourceof much uncertainty regarding NGOs involvement in the country, early recoverycould not yet lead to development. In consequence, the early recovery conceptbecame in practice a phase in itself, at the edges of emergency and development.Five years after the cyclone, major donors guidelines reflect political changes,and cooperation with local authorities has become compulsory for most NGOprojects. Likewise, value-chain-oriented programmes are now being promoted bydonors. The early recovery lasted almost three years (from Nargis to late 2011when the first signs of a democratization process were acknowledged by the inter-national community), during which time economic interference was ideologicallypertinent and necessary to maintain and eventually develop the humanitarian pres-ence in Myanmar.

Indeed, among the communities to be targeted and given priority during theearly recovery phase were the daily/casual workers, implicitly landless, with thepurpose formulated as one of giving them income opportunities. Hence, in myview, there was a twofold solution. The first would be to give them back employ-ment and the second to provide them with a means of production as a source ofincome. The underlying question was: will the aid go towards restoring a situa-tion similar to the one that prevailed before the cyclone, or will it contribute toimproving their situation?

Unsurprisingly, the second solution was chosen unanimously hence the ideo-logical nature of aid. There was no room for discussion in the arena25 for tworeasons. First, the intrinsic bias of humanitarian-cum-development aid is to im-prove food security, health, etc so that even during an emergency there are waysto do so (this is the purpose of early recovery). Second, giving back employmentopportunities would mean helping their employers, notably by providing themwith production tools lost during the cyclone. However, producers cannot be con-sidered part of the same community as daily workers, the former being supposedlyrich and the latter poor and vulnerable. Although some NGO actors may be awarethat the so-called communities have exchanges (fishermen can also be farmers; asmall-scale fisherman can be a daily worker during the rainy season, etc), helpinga few rich people to help dozens of poor people is hardly justifiable to thedonors. Thus, contrary to the argument made by Olivier de Sardan,26 in this case

24Early Recovery is [] a multi-dimensional process, guided by development principles. It aimsto generate self-sustaining, nationally-owned, and resilient processes for post-crisis recovery.(IASC, 2006, p 1)

25 According to Olivier de Sardan (1995, pp 179 and 190), development deserves to be consideredas an arena that is, a place of confrontation between different social actors interacting aroundcommon issues.

26In the development milieu, there is a very wide gap between discourse and practice: what is saidof a development project, its design, set up, format or model, its funding and legitimization, hasonly little relation with what this project becomes in the practice once it reaches its final recipients.[ Le monde du dveloppement connat un dcalage trs grand entre les discours et les pratiques: ce quon dit dun projet de dveloppement, pour le concevoir, le mettre en place, le formater oule modliser, le financer, le lgitimer, na que peu de rapport avec ce que ce projet devient dans lapratique, une fois arriv ses destinataires finaux.] (Olivier de Sardan, 2001a, p 733)


there was a clear consensus between discourse and practice. The only argument Iwitnessed was between a UN body and implementing NGOs in the delta. Theformer considered the possibility of redistributing lands belonging to some bigfarmers among landless people who would not even be able to cultivate thembecause of lost assets. The latter (showing common sense) doubted that the farm-ers themselves would agree to such a project.

The delta, a long-lasting place for indebted pioneersEventually, there was a third argument preventing direct action over the relation-ship between farmers and casual workers (as well as between shipowners andfishermen): this was the indebtedness relationship it generally supposes. In ourworld of Western banking, this concept conveys enough negative representationsfor us to leave out cultural contextualizing. The aim of development is to free thedaily worker depending on a patron from his precarious situation. Here is wherethe concept of modernization intervenes, a concept that appeared in the study ofdevelopment in Third World countries during the 1960s:

The theories of modernization a derivative of structural functionalism [are]characterized by the neglect of history, internal and external structure of domi-nation and dependence, and swayed by anti-communism and ethnocentrism. Itdoes not question the legitimacy of the prevailing power structures. (Jaganath,1981, p 625)

It would seem, then, that the contemporary humanitarian representation of ThirdWorld societies paradoxically builds on two different ideologies. On the one hand,it takes the implicit opposition between communities and modern societies, thefirst being perceived as secure places of solidarity, intimacy, etc and the second asthe place where all the blights occur (depression, individualism, etc). On the otherhand, it considers modernization theories regarding cultural and institutional ele-ments as vectors of backwardness. Likewise, it was long thought that modernisationof traditional societies can be attained without destroying or modifying the struc-ture (Jaganath, 1981, p 625). Accordingly, it may be possible to empower dailyworkers through a community-based approach while breaking socially constructedindebtedness bonds. The community approach is the counterpart of what Dumont(1983) calls the ideology of modernity born out of national egalitarianism inwhich individualism prevails on hierarchical bonds of holist societies such as thecaste societies of India, which bears a likeness to Burmese society (see Leach,1960). Thus, my perception of the humanitarian arena is as a gigantic playgroundwhere Western countries are trying to solve the problem inherent in individualistsocieties while breaking the untenable hierarchical bonds of holist ones, to whichone solution is the empowerment of individuals through the community.

In order to adhere to a methodological populism approach (and avoid lapsinginto ideological populism),27 it is necessary to recall the meaning and function27 On the difference between the two, see Olivier de Sardan, 2001b. To summarize, methodologi-

cal populism considers it is worth exploring the knowledge and the different strategies embracedby the populations concerned by development, while ideological populism tends to idealize thepopulations capacities systematically in terms of resistance, innovation, etc.


of indebtedness in the peculiar context of the Ayeyarwady Delta societies. First,contrary to what most of the development actors may imagine at first sight, in-debtedness is far from being just an economic relationship and is inscribed in awider patronclient relationship. In the recent history of developing agriculture inthe deltas lowlands, which dates back to the nineteenth century, patronclientrelationships were essential, notably to structure economic and social networks.The gradual populating of the Ayeyarwady Delta took place in three stages from1858 to 1941 (Adas, 1974b) and was mainly initiated by the British, who wantedto develop the production of this area.28 As explained by OConnor (1995), in theearly era (700 AD), Mon, Khmer, Cham and Pyu ruled the southern part of main-land South East Asia. These ethnic groups were garden-farmers in the highlandsor flood-managing farmers in the lowlands. People living in the northern part ofSouth East Asia, such as Thai, Vietnamese and Burmese (Bamar) specialized inwet rice agriculture and were known to be skilled irrigators. These peoples ex-panded southward and conquered three of the largest rice bowls of Asia: the Mekong,the Chao Phraya and the Ayeyarwady River Deltas. During the first stage of theAyeyarwady Deltas conquest by the Burmese, the rice economy of Lower Burmagrew rapidly thanks to the existence of large areas of virgin land and to the greatnumber of migrants from Upper Burma. It then became an expanding pioneerfront, to which Dao The Tuan and Molles description about the Chao PhrayaDelta (Thailand) applies perfectly:

As a consequence of [the] gradual colonisation and artificialisation of theregion, the delta society has much of the features attributed to frontier societies:a certain degree of independence from the grip of the central state, a propensityto evade social conflicts or responding to bankruptcy by moving further away,and the formation of villages with migrants from different origins and back-grounds, therefore with little social glue. At the same time, the integration tothe wider economy and national sphere was provided by the marketing of therice production surplus. (Dao The Tuan and Molle, 2000, p 17)

In other words, the deltaic pioneer fronts were a place of migration, without suf-ficiently developed traditional villages or kinship units to bring social control andmeans of empowerment to individuals in these loosely structured societies. How-ever, as further pointed out by Dao The Tuan and Molle on the Chao Phraya Delta:

While the [] society can be considered loosely structured with regards tocorporate communities, it is not deprived of strong structural regularities centredon flexible, voluntary patterns of relationships between individuals. Social controlis apparent in issues such as money borrowing or land rental contracts. (DaoThe Tuan and Molle, 2000, p 17)

The establishment of strong patronclient relationships among new villagescorrelates with the pioneer fronts development in terms of production, as well as

28 Before this period, the delta had been mainly inhabited by Mon. However, settlements werescarce and there was no surplus of rice production until this period. Thus, the nineteenth centurymarks the beginning of a new era for the delta as the main rice granary of Myanmar.


referring spatially to what is called the rice frontier (Adas, 1974b). Scott notesthe main preconditions for promoting the patronclient network in three points:

[] the persistence of marked inequalities in wealth, status, and power whichare accorded some legitimacy; the relative absence (or collapse) of effective,impersonal guarantees, such as public law, for physical security, property, andposition often accompanied by the growth of semi-autonomous local centersof personal power; and the inability of either kinship units or the traditionalvillage to serve as effective vehicles of personal security or advancement. (Scott,1972, p 8)

Patronclient networks arose in a structurally loose social context, far from thestates control, meaning that the patron could seldom rely on outside support tomaintain his power and wealth and thus relied mostly on his local clients net-works, peasants or fishermen. In the Ayeyarwady Delta, socioeconomic systemsare made up, to put it simply, of three main actors: the ngwei-shin,29 literally mas-ter of the money, who is the retailer and/or moneylender; the lok-nganshin, literallymaster of work, who is the landowner or the boat owner for large-scale fishingactivities; and finally, the workers, alok-thama. However, as is the case for anypatronclient relationship, when the bargaining of the client is still strong, it over-whelms the economic frame and projects itself into the social one. To win theloyalty of his client, the masters duty is to redistribute part of his wealth withinhis social group, either in collective ritual ceremonies or by lending some moneyto his clients for extra-professional needs such as weddings, burials or Buddhistinitiation ceremonies [shin-pyu]. Finally, all these relations are encompassed withina more inclusive system known as kyeizushin. This literally means the masterof ones good deeds, which could be translated in a Buddhist context as themaster of ones life, given the rebirth cycle tying every living being to this worldand the good deeds needed to acquire merits in order to free oneself from thiscycle.30 The kyeizushin system, in which clientelism was the counterpart of theeconomic dominance of the moneylender over the landowner and the landownerover the labourers, was instrumental in the structuring of land exploitation andespecially of the territorys civilization, creating the networks that exist nowa-days. This patronclient relationship is not specifically Burmese. However, theinclusive kyeizushin system has probably been a powerful tool in maintainingBurmese sovereignty over exploitation of resources in a development context whereforeigners (mostly Chettiars and Chinese) played an important role.31

From the period of the British colonization onwards, the delta has been a dynamicpioneer front, and continues to present the same particularities. Concretely, untilthe cyclone hit the delta, the region was economically highly productive anddepended mainly on patronclient networks to structure its production. This iseven more true in the southernmost parts of the region where some fishing vil-lages have recently been created (less than 10 years ago). They are generally built

29 The Burmese words are rendered in this article using the conventional transcription with raisedcomma tones (Okell, 1971).

30 There are three principal kyeizushin in ones life: Buddha, ones parents and teachers. SeeSchober, 1989.

31 See Boutry (forthcoming).


on seasonal migrations bringing workers from distant rice fields and progres-sively becoming permanent settlements along rivers, these being the main meansof communication to this day. As a consequence, the deltas society still presentslittle social glue. Hence, it is relatively fragile and vulnerable to disasters suchas the cyclone. To conclude this brief study of the nature of methodologicalpopulism, in humanitarian words we would say that one patronclient networkcould represent one community.

Economic interference: from British to humanitarian colonizationClearly bound by the donors guidelines during the early recovery process, NGOsvoluntarily excluded patrons as potential actors in the regions recovery. How-ever, this is not completely surprising since, even through the developmental phaseand prior to the cyclone, they already had a different reading of the existing socialstructures:

The poor have tremendous capacity to help themselves, if they have the oppor-tunity to do so. The availability of, and access to reasonable credit is the key tothis: if people can generate sufficient surplus from their farms or small busi-nesses, they can repay the credit and reinvest the remainder. Experience hasshown that credit programmes targeted at the poor, and especially at women,can have a significant effect on improving incomes and living standards.

UNDP Myanmars HDI microfinance project targets those who would notnormally qualify for credit through the banking system: women, the landless,and other marginalised groups.32

Based on these observations, the deltas population has been the target of microcreditprogrammes initiated by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)in 1994.

And rightly so, because these groups imagined as communities by humanitar-ian actors and categorized into groups such as women, the landless, etc aremarginalized by the Myanmar banking system (as is the case for a large percent-age of Myanmars population). As a result, the role of the ngwei-shin moneylenderremains essential in the deltas societies. Due to the success of NGO projectsbeing quantified by tools created by the developers themselves, they are not ableto take into account the transition that occurred from a local socioeconomic andreligious system, with ramifications at every level of society, to an exogenousentity, which is the NGO. Then, after the cyclone, the latter began to notice thefollowing:

Prior to Nargis a number of development agencies have supported communitybased savings and credit operations. Microfinance programmes are confrontedby both the demand by members for the withdrawal of their savings and the factthat members with outstanding loans are unable to repay them because theirasset base has been destroyed or damaged. The micro-credit schemes, thus,require immediate funds for asset replenishment to enable them to re-start creditoperations. (Tripartite Core Group, 2008, p 143)

32 Website: http://www.mm.undp.org/HDI/MICRO.html.


NGOs certainly offer more interesting rates to the daily workers or peasants thanthe ngwei-shin. However, they do not fulfil the social contract implicitly estab-lished with the moneylender. They will not lend the necessary money to perform aBuddhist initiation or wedding ceremony. In other respects, when the relationshipbetween a ngwei-shin and his client is broken, the former does not have any interestin perpetuating the social contract if he cannot find any economic reward. Thus, theinclusive way of acquiring merit is simply reduced to an economic relationshippreventing the redistribution of wealth among the clients network on the one handand the patronclient networks on the other to reactivate the economy after excep-tional events such as Cyclone Nargis. Then, microcredit or microfinance programmessubjected their beneficiaries to the presence of NGOs and forbade them access tothe social mobility that the shin socioeconomic system had formerly guaranteed.

Thus, during early recovery, rice seeds were mainly given to small-scale farm-ers, generally within the limit of three acres of land, while economic support,mostly through the distribution of small-scale fishing kits, gardening sets or live-stock (pork, chicken) and microcredit/voucher/cash support, was allocated to dailyworkers [bauk]. During my research, it was often pointed out by people in thedominant economic position (at least before the cyclone) that such support wasnot sustainable or was inappropriate to foster the economic recovery of the re-gion. Indeed, it was clear and this for most of the population including dailyworkers that economic recovery could take place efficiently only if the patrons,who had been no less affected by the cyclone than the workers, could retrievetheir means of production and consequently would be able to procure employ-ment for daily workers.

This has also been noticed by other monitoring studies, such as in the reportMyanmar surviving the storm: self-protection and survival in the delta:

[] local landholders were arguably in (greater) need, as they could only pro-vide funds for investing in local agriculture, thus providing employmentopportunities, if they received some assistance themselves. It was argued bymany respondents, including many landless labourers, that only by also sup-porting landowners could local economies be re-started, thus providing labouringjobs to landless people (ranked C). Otherwise, the poorest-of-the-poor wouldremain dependent on outside assistance, without access to local jobs. (South etal, 2011, p 61)

We may, however, give some credit to a few NGOs that distributed quantities ofrice seeds to match the size of the lands owned by each farmer, regardless of theireconomic status, for example.

In the fisheries field as well, only small-scale fishermen (with boats of 14 feetand under) received fishing gear. Here again, there was a failure in providing andcollecting information about the socioeconomic organization of fishermen in thedelta, which emphasizes the importance of the bigger boat owners, the fish-col-lecting points [nga taing] and their owners, of course and shipowners/moneylenders [ngwei-shin] in re-boosting the dynamics of the fish commerciali-zation chain, notably for species meant for export33. Still, from the humanitarian33 See Boutry, 2008. This document was ready by the end of August 2008 and widely distributed

among NGOs working in the delta and presented during Livelihood Working Groups in Yangon.


perspective of freeing the workers from their bonds towards patrons and money-lenders, the few NGOs that dared to become involved in the fisheries sectorsrecovery with a more considered approach tried to set up community-owned fish-collecting points. The aim was to bypass the usual fish collectors who actuallytake profit margins as intermediaries to the township markets. Some recognized34the failure of such projects since the fishermen could not bypass their patrons forthe same reasons explained above (the social protection-cum-economic supportcharacteristic of the patronclient relationship). Moreover, because of the specif-ics of the fishing sector, fishermen need year-round investments from the patrons,which they repay by selling their fish at a lower price. These specifics include theimpossibility of controlling production (notably because of the invisibility of theresources) as well as conservation issues (the necessity to exchange fish for ice)for example.35

Eventually, we could say that this particular practice of humanitarian aid ex-cluded its beneficiaries as a whole from the arena. Indeed, in the name of aparticipatory approach, every NGO created committees to drive their commu-nities. In the monitoring report mentioned above, the discussion about committeesis probably the more mitigated among other aid implementation strategies and iswell summarized by the following quotation:

Many villages reported establishing numerous committees. These initiativeswere generally externally motivated, in order to manage relations with aid agenciesand other donors, and organise the distribution of assistance. Although mem-bership of these committees was sometimes perceived as an onerous duty, inmost cases villagers recognised that some form of structure is necessary, tomediate between themselves and outside donors. [] Often committees werefunctional and instrumental in distributing aid, but were not involved in settingpriorities for distribution or involved in designing project interventions. How-ever, working through committees does often seem to have been a genuinelyparticipatory process, especially after the more acute phase of the disaster hadpassed and when there was access and room for more long-term programming.However, the sustainability of these committees can be questioned. As theywere often viewed (by communities and committee members themselves) as anextension of the aid agency which helped set them up. (South et al, 2011, pp7172)

Besides being mostly external creations, these committees and their dependants the beneficiaries would not raise any discontent regarding NGO action, firstbecause they were afraid of being excluded from the distribution lists or of beingcategorized as problematic villages (South et al, 2011, p 7). Second, the criticismof NGOs is rarer than in other contexts since the aid is perceived as a donation[ahlu] in the Buddhist sense (Brac de la Perrire, 2010) and the donor as amaster of donation [ahlu shin].

Hence, despite the monitoring processes and assessments that are common in

34 It was the staff of a French NGO who, for instance, shared their experience during a workshop onthe recovery activities implemented after Cyclone Giri that hit the Western part of Myanmar inOctober 2010.

35 For a comprehensive view of the fishing sector in Myanmar, see Boutry, 2007.


the practice of humanitarian aid,36 the early recovery process has mainly been aone-way ideological economic strategy conveying considerations such as indi-vidual autonomy versus social indebtedness or horizontal communities versushierarchical bonds.37 Early recovery brings an accumulation of practices of eco-nomic interference into the social organization of the deltas society. This is inmany ways similar to British colonial policies aimed at transforming the deltainto the worlds rice granary during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Indeed, British economic policies, which we can assimilate around the ideo-logical policies of humanitarian aid, had a deep impact on the deltas society.They were responsible for systematically [undermining] the comprehensivenessof exchange and the relative bargaining position of peasant clients particularlyin lowland areas most affected by colonial administration and market agriculture(Scott, 1972, p 7). While the humanitarian aim is the early recovery of the del-tas economic situation, British colonizers aimed for a surplus in the productionof rice to commercialize throughout British India, which led to the exploitation ofmost of the deltas lands.

Instead of the humanitarian concept of using communities as an ideologicalweapon, after 1852 the British used an economic one that consisted of replacingnon-contractual usufructuary rights with a tenure system modelled on the ryotwari,which was the dominant system in South India:

The chief aim of this new system was to concentrate ownership in the hands ofindividual cultivator-landholders. However, the new tenure system made it pos-sible for agriculturists to mortgage their holdings as security for loans obtainedfrom money-lenders and other sources. This practice, which would eventuallypermit the wide-spread alienation of land to nonagriculturists, was well-estab-lished in Lower Burma by the 1880s. (Adas, 1974a, p 387)

Indebtedness finally contributed to putting land ownership in the hands of anabsentee landowners class that lived in the main towns instead of villages, devel-oping high-dependency relationships with tenants or sharecroppers. However, asScott (1972, p 23) emphasizes, during times of difficulty it was better to be atenant relying on a patron who would ignore ones debts for some time than to bea smallholder without a reliable patron to secure ones livelihood. Thus, the pa-tronclient relationship, while evolving to the advantage of the patron rather thanthe peasant, was nonetheless a guarantee of security for the latter. Nevertheless,according to Scotts work on patronclient systems in South East Asia, the proc-ess of social differentiation replaced a broader and more diffuse pattern of personalexchange with a series of separate and narrower ties to specialized elites.

Likewise, the consequences of the community-based approach of the early recov-ery framework (aimed at being a self-sustaining and nationally owned process)38have largely contributed to empowering big suppliers and patrons of the maintowns (such as Laputta, Myaung Mya, Bogale, Pyapon and Pathein). Consideringthe large number of beneficiaries (daily workers, small-scale fishermen and small-36 We must, however, emphasize that needs assessments and other studies are generally confined to

a technical field rather than a socioeconomic one.37 As explained by Dumont, 1983.38 IASC, 2006, p 1.


scale farmers who logically represent a higher proportion of the population) theyneeded to supply with little input, NGOs often asked one supplier to provide themwith a wide range of different assets (rice seeds, livestock, gardening kits, smallfishing boats and nets). These suppliers were obviously not located in small vil-lages. Although British economic policies indeed resulted in a pioneer phase throughthe creation of many income-generating prospects for the farmers who took pos-session of the deltas lands, these farmers quickly fell into situations of indebtednessand were eventually dispossessed of their property for the benefit of landlordsliving in towns. Similarly, we could not say that the early recovery phase did notbring any benefits to the deltas populations. Nevertheless, a lot of smallholdershad to sell their lands back to bigger landowners because they could not afford thecosts of the extremely poor harvests of 2008 and 2009 without a retailers assist-ance. On the contrary, many patrons decided to cancel their clients debts to facilitateeconomic recovery. Indeed, land acquisition due to lack of repayment of loanshas been relatively low post-Nargis, as even money lenders have not been inter-ested in taking over land due to the high investment costs for land cultivationcombined with their own lack of capital (South et al, 2011, p 79). Thus, by ex-cluding patrons from aid benefits and ostensibly trying to break up the existingpatronclient relationship, humanitarian action weakens the resilience capacityof the deltas economic sector. As Scott clearly argues regarding the consequencesof British economic policies, which can be entirely applied to the consequencesof the early recovery phase after Nargis:

In terms of the balance of exchange between local officials and peasants, there-fore, the relative power of the patron was vastly inflated, his need for clientswas reduced, and the incentive to serve the community by protecting it againstthe larger state was broken. (Scott, 1972, p 18)

ConclusionSince Cyclone Nargis, the Myanmar government, with its isolationist stance to-wards Western countries, has most certainly favoured a confinement of thehumanitarian agency to its own humanitarian sphere during the long early recov-ery phase. Indeed, aside from the tripartite Myanmar governmentASEANUNgroups efforts to identify needs, drive funds and assess the progression of hu-manitarian effort, local governmental bodies were far from being ready to collaboratewith the implementing NGOs. On the contrary, they tried to interact with them aslittle as possible. Conversely, most NGOs were unwilling to work with theauthorities.39 National civil society, although pre-existing, benefited from the heavypresence of humanitarian actors, progressively building itself up, to the extentthat, nowadays, many local NGOs, mainly confessional (Buddhist and Christian)and environmental (sometimes both), are proactive in the shaping of the new politicaldevelopment of the country. Still, for our own purposes, it is worth noting thatthey have been shaped by and trained according to Western values andmethodologies of implementation, even though they are now integrating thesenew parameters into a local vision of their own society (Desaine, 2011).39 Some cases make the exception throughout the vast Ayeyarwady region. Since the political shift

towards democracy, the main donors and implementing partners have unsurprisingly changedtheir strategies to work as closely as possible with the new government.


What remains is the fact that the concept of early recovery appears as a discur-sive tool to justify development where emergency action is needed, rather than amethodology. Other than buying time and effort (and thus money) for humanitar-ian actors on the path towards development which, from the professions pointof view, was indeed necessary, given their uncertain future under the then militarygovernment early recovery involves the practice of theoretical values in devel-opment in their universalist essence: this involves the romantic egalitarianism40of the community, self-determination and economic autonomy. This singular fea-ture of early recovery is powerful enough to remind us of the universalist economicaim of the British colonial empire. The socioeconomic consequences of these twoperiods have to be carefully compared, given the great difference in their dura-tion. While colonization lasted over two centuries, humanitarian aid in Myanmaris at the beginning of its era, having really started in 2008 in the context ofCyclone Nargis. Nevertheless, the processes that promote change can be com-pared in their finality: the verticalizing of relations between local and nationaleconomic issues by the suppression of intermediate levels of socioeconomic in-terdependency embodied by the patronclient relationship at a local/regional level.Consequently, local actors (farmers, fishermen, daily workers) find themselves ina one-way dependency on national/regional economic players (big suppliers, riceand fish exporters) and international markets.

During the early recovery period, the humanitarian approach to local realities,the socioeconomic structure of societies, their representations and their beliefswere ignored by NGOs. Hence, the meaning of this disregard deserves to be ques-tioned, or reformulated. How can local complexities be taken into account whenapplying for funds to international donors? This disregard seems to be a necessityof accountability constraints, particularly when part of a massive response suchas in post-disaster situations.

Can the anthropologist therefore bring an efficient contribution to the humani-tarian effort, especially during the early recovery phase? Among the differentpositions I experienced in the humanitarian sphere, such as needs identificationprior to the project, evaluations a posteriori and direct participation during theimplementation process, the latter logically seems to be the most interesting. Infact, the comprehensive view of a situation, when given prior to the project, maybe overwhelmed by the necessity to answer the donors expectations, while projectevaluation will rarely overtake the implementing NGOs circle. There is roombetween the lines of a projects proposal for NGO workers to adapt their imple-mentation strategies to the context. It is within this limited space subject to thecountry directors approval and to his or her capacity to negotiate with donorguidelines that the difference between discourse and implementation may occur.Therefore, particularly in a sensitive political context such as Myanmar in 2008,the definition of humanitarian aid was principally discursive and quite mono-lithic,41 while the efforts made to fit local complexities (socioeconomic, technical)

40 According to Olivier de Sardan (1995, p 138), we could also call it egalitarian-individualistic(galitariste-individualiste).

41 This runs contrary to what many authors criticizing the post-structuralist anthropology of devel-opment may argue. See Olivier de Sardan, 2001a, or Friedman, 2006, p 204: Development discourseis not nearly as unified as the post-structuralists claim, and thus the encounter between the firstand third worlds is not nearly as hegemonic as the critique asserts.


were on the contrary very diverse (depending on the projects implementers) andwere not subject to a specific methodology.

It is no longer necessary to argue that the humanitarian profession is a complexsystem consisting of very different scales and actors, from governmental donorswith Western capital to the projects local implementers. Yet, as is the case in anysystem, the humanitarian profession is working for its own perpetuation42 and,consequently, evolves accordingly. The concept of early recovery can be con-sidered as one form of evolution in which the interest resides in bringing intoaction a new paradigm of continuity between emergency and development. Theanthropology of development should renew itself accordingly, without necessar-ily breaking from its own history that is, post-structuralist anthropology is stilluseful in this context and should oscillate between its different stances. More-over, it should certainly be less reluctant to involve itself in implementation.

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Documents

From British to humanitarian colonization: the ‘early recovery’ response in Myanmar after Nargis