Do you work in development? If yes, I have a short test for you:
1) Have you ever traveled by mini bus? Or relied entirely on public transport for your travels?
2) Have you ever eaten the local staple food for two or more meals a day?
3) Have you ever stayed in a place with no electricity or running water or both?
A surprisingly large number of development workers I’ve met will answer “no” to all three questions. That scares me. How can you claim to be helping people who live in any of the above mentioned conditions if you’ve never tried living like that yourself? How can you understand the social constraints of your work environment if you’re not even willing to try on someone else’s shoes, let alone walk in them?
Note 1: This post does not refer to those people who may travel in business class now but at one point in time travelled by mini-bus.
Note 2: Despite any attempt to live in whatever are your local conditions, it is also unreasonable to assume that we, as foreigners, will ever be accepted as locals. And that comes with both advantages and disadvantages. But just because we have the means to stay in a place with consistent electricity does not mean we shouldn’t try to understand, however imperfect our understanding may be. This is one area where, I believe, points for effort really do count.
September 7, 2010 at 3:49 am
Alas, Jackie, not all of us work at that level. For example, my efforts to help governments develop/implement anticorruption strategies does not really connect with the experience you describe. Yet I am still a “development worker.”
Your experiences have given you a deep sensitivity of important aspects of the problems we face in the world.
But there is more to consider. Certainly the challenges of development work that address the basic needs of the common man require awareness of their sometimes dire situations. But must one BE in the life of a person to truly help them or be sensitive to their plight?
How would one help a drug addict? Or a prostitute? Or a homeless person?
September 7, 2010 at 7:03 am
Well, Brian, I don’t know a whole lot about your work, but I want to push back a little bit.
Since you work with anti-corruption efforts, I think that you probably need to ask two main questions: “How are people currently stealing money from the government?” and “Why are people stealing money from the government?” For the first question, an outside perspective is definitely helpful to recognize issues with the existing system. But to really make an effective solution, you also need to study the second question. Part of that is considering life for someone who works directly with the government and taking money. Perhaps they feel that they are inadequately compensated or overtaxed. Maybe they need money to meet healthcare or education needs that are too expensive. Or it could be that the penalties are too low or the barriers to getting caught are too high. Then, you need to consider the people in further areas who take money from the government. It could be any combination of the same reasons listed above, but it will probably be different between these two groups and if you want to address it in both cases, it’s necessary to understand it in both cases. If you only look at stemming corruption in one place then you’ll never get very far (unless by some weird chance corruption is truly located in one place). But by simply deciding that these people are all crooks, you won’t stop corruption for more than a short time.
You don’t need to take drugs to help a drug addict. But you do need to understand the choices that have led someone to that lifestyle. Pretending that you can get that understanding from books is foolish and a recipe for failure. The reason so many people go in and out of rehab is that the programs are constructed by people who have no concept of what it takes to break the cycle. Homelessness is a similar problem. No need to go into it here, but I would distinguish between prostitution as a choice and as the only option.
The tests described above certainly don’t apply to everybody, but I think they might be a useful place to start.
September 7, 2010 at 4:43 am
Hmmmm, maybe I’m being nitpicky, but I’d say that number 2 is still a bit soft. Most people don’t get to eat 3 meals a day in these communities. I would say eating the staple food 2 meals a day for your sole food intake.
Also, doing this for one or two days is hardly the same as walking in someone else’s shoes. Especially when you know that you can imminently return to your comforts. It’s certainly a step in the right direction, but I would even say that “trying to understand” is a bit generous.
September 7, 2010 at 9:15 am
I have to agree with Brian on this one. There is a difference between empathy (the ability to understand and share the feelings of another) and sympathy (feelings of pity and sorrow for someone’s misfortune). The ability to have empathy does not rely on actually living in another’s mud hut or riding into Kenya on the back of a grain truck (Jackie!). It does require getting out of the office to observe the problems/needs and being able to see things from other’s viewpoints. Just as a doctor can treat a broken bone without first having suffered a break herself or an attorney can represent a criminal defendant without first having committed a crime, development professionals can help at a variety of levels without enduring the difficult lives of those they are trying to help. Can they do it just by sitting at conferences within, say, the UN compound? No. But we can certainly understand and empathize and help without going to the opposite extreme of “wearing the shoes.”
September 7, 2010 at 1:13 pm
Thanks for note 1, I assume that was at least partly directed at me…
I agree with Michelle that there’s a middle ground – you don’t have to necessarily live the life yourself, but you need to actively listen to those that do. A lot of my thoughts on homelessness (in the US) are based on talking with people who have experienced it. Living on the street for a day or two would increase my understanding of some aspects, but not really tell me what it’s like to not know when, if ever, you might have a home again.
Pumpkin, I’ll be in Nairobi October 12-23 if you happen to be traveling.
September 7, 2010 at 9:52 pm
mama kate, most of the post was prompted by a recent conversation i had with someone else, but note 1 was definitely written with people like you in mind
michelle and brian, i agree that one must not necessarily BE in the life of a person to truly help them, and i think you bring up a really good point about empathy, and using empathy as a means to find a middle ground without necessarily walking in one’s shoes. (as a side note, JK rowling made some really interesting points about empathy in her harvard ’08 commencement speech.) that being said, i do think that there are quite a few benefits to walking in the shoes over simply observing someone walk in them. observations can be deceiving. but so can living on the street when you know that if all hell breaks lose you will be able to escape. so there definitely is a middle ground, and i like the point that empathy can help bridge this gap.
boga, valid point about #2. i will change it. also, what if i changed “trying to understand” to “trying to empathize”? i agree that understanding requires more time, but maybe empathy can play a larger role? especially when full understand will probably never come (see note 2)…? just a thought.
September 8, 2010 at 11:00 am
Boga, you have correctly identified the distinction – understanding a situation is the key to identifying useful ways to help. But there is a bit more. One must be able to face the situation – Look at it unflinchingly – to identify the ways of helping. This is where I believe our friend Msafari Mzungu is particularly good.
September 10, 2010 at 12:34 am
i’m always working on becoming better at that – thanks for the compliment, brian!
September 9, 2010 at 9:59 am
By the way, I am not sure if you realize it, but the “no electricity, no running water” applies to a quite a few military housing units in the rough spots.