Hailing the “Authentic Other”: Constructing the Third World Woman as Aid Recipient in Donor NGO Agendas

Abstract

The discourse of the “poor oppressed other woman” has been reinvigorated by the conservative turn in international politics. Thus, the Bush administration's deployment of her to justify the war in Afghanistan has been roundly criticized by feminist theorists (Braidotti, 2005; Youngs, 2006, p. 9). In this light, this chapter's criticism of another figure of “the third world woman”, the apparently more positive “super heroine” of women's liberation (see Ram, 1991) or worthy recipient of development might seem churlish and misplaced. However, the super heroine of development is also constrained by and assimilated within the dominant discourses of emancipation and development (as Mohanty, 1991, so famously argued): women are “objectified as beneficiaries and victims” (Youngs, 2006, p. 9).

Citation

Bulbeck, C. (2007), "Hailing the “Authentic Other”: Constructing the Third World Woman as Aid Recipient in Donor NGO Agendas", Sarker, S. (Ed.) Sustainable Feminisms (Advances in Gender Research, Vol. 11), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 59-73. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1529-2126(07)11004-3