The Social Space of International Development Professionals

University of Kent
The Life of International Development Professionals
in Developing Countries:
Between Social Structures and Instrumentalism
by
Filipa Oliveira Martins
A Dissertation Submitted to the Brussels School of International Studies of the
Department of Politics and International Relations in the Faculty of Social Science
In Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Award of the Degree of
Master of Arts in International Development
Supervisor: Dr. Tugba Basaran
(10,532 words)
Brussels,
Monday, 9 August 2010

i
Abstract
The purpose of this dissertation is to critically study the social space created and
occupied by international development professionals in the developing countries
they are deployed to; the power relations in which they develop their activity
and their relationship to local realities. I highlight how international development
professionals create geographical and social spaces through power relations
which create and maintain distances through an internationally accepted
authority which is conferred to international development professionals by
international policy makers and policy decisions, subjecting them to an
instrumentalism difficult to deal with.

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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank my mother and father for all the support they have given
me since the day I was born; for loving and trusting me; for brushing up the skills
I was born with and always believing that I can do better.
I also would like to thank my brother and sister-in-law for always being there for
me.
I want to thank all the good friends and family members that have supported me
in the long way that has brought me here – you know who you are, and you
know I love you.
I want to thank all those who have contributed to this dissertation, especially Dr.
Tugba Basaran for guiding me in the choice of an interesting topic and Dr.
António Serra, for all the support.
Last but not least, I want to thank God for loving me and making me who I am.

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Dedication
To all international development professionals – may we always bear in our
minds and hearts that the country we are working in belongs to the locals and it
is up to them to decide where they want to go and how to get there.

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Table of Contents
Abstract ...........................................................................................................................i
Acknowledgements.........................................................................................................ii
Dedication .....................................................................................................................iii
Table of Contents...........................................................................................................iv
Chapter I.........................................................................................................................1
Introduction....................................................................................................................2
Thesis Statement.........................................................................................................2
Structure of the dissertation........................................................................................2
Chapter II........................................................................................................................4
Literature Review of Concepts and Theoretical Framework.............................................5
Development Cooperation/ International Aid..............................................................5
International Development Professionals....................................................................8
Organizations Considered..........................................................................................10
Social Classes ............................................................................................................11
Power .......................................................................................................................13
Theoretical Framework: Socio-Anthropological and Ethnographic Studies of the space
occupied by International Development Professionals in Developing Countries.........14
Chapter III.....................................................................................................................19
The Hypothesis: International Development Professionals create and occupy a
particular social space in the developing countries they are working in......................20
The Dependent Variable: The Social Space ................................................................20
The Independent Variables........................................................................................22
Social considerations about deployment to Developing Countries ..........................22
Policies and Instrumentalism in international development organizations..............23
Costs and Benefits of Development and of working for Development.....................26
Chapter IV.....................................................................................................................28
The Social Space of International Development Professionals in Developing Countries .29

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Chapter V......................................................................................................................37
Difficulties and Recommendations................................................................................38
Chapter VI.....................................................................................................................39
Conclusion ....................................................................................................................40
Bibliography..................................................................................................................42

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Introduction
Thesis Statement
The purpose of this dissertation is to critically study the social space created and
occupied by international development professionals in the developing countries
they are deployed to; the power relations in which they develop their activity
and their relationship to local realities. The hypothesis stated is, then, that
international development professionals create and occupy a particular social
space in the developing countries they are deployed to and where they live.
I highlight how international development professionals create geographical and
social spaces through power relations which create and maintain distances
through an internationally accepted authority which is conferred to international
development professionals by international policy makers and policy decisions.
As Kothari (2006) argues, they thus “shape and articulate relationships between
(…) aid donor and recipient, and developer and developed.” Furthermore, these
relationships shape the spaces that both international development
professionals and locals inhabit.
One of the arguments of this thesis is that the bringing of international
development professionals’ ‘travelling rationalities’ into developing countries
reconfigurates peoples, ideas and spaces (both social and geographical).
Structure of the dissertation
To argue that international development professionals do create and occupy a
particular social space in the developing countries they are deployed to, I will
start by doing a literature review of concepts that I deem crucial to the study of
the hypothesis – a) what do I mean by ‘development cooperation/ international
aid; b) who am I referring to when mentioning ‘international development

3
professionals; c) which international development organizations are being
considered to the scope of this argument and why; d) what do I mean when
referring to ‘social classes’, or e) power and f) ‘space’, both social and
geographic.
I will then explain the theoretical framework which will provide a base to explain
the argument – Socio-Anthropological and Ethnographic Studies of the social
space occupied by international development professionals in the developing
countries they are deployed to.
In Chapter III, I will go further into the study of the thesis. In this Chapter, I will
state the hypothesis that ‘international development professionals create and
occupy a particular social space in the developing countries they are deployed to’
– and the dependent and independent variables which are involved in the study
of the hypothesis: a) the social space being the dependent variable; and b) social
considerations about deployment to developing countries, the policies and
instrumentalism of international development organizations, and the social and
financial costs and benefits of Development and of working for Development
being the independent variables.
I will then expand, in Chapter IV, to the results of the analysis of the variables
stated above, by clarifying which is the social space created and occupied by
international development professionals in the developing countries they are
deployed to and where they live.
Chapter V will give an account of the difficulties faced throughout the research
and writing processes, and give some recommendations for future researches.
In Chapter VI, I will finally sum up the most important findings and conclusions.

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“Although (…) consultants travel the
world and represent themselves as the
new cosmopolitans (see Hannerz, 1990),
they embody and wield particular forms
of parochialism both in their forms of
expertise and in their use of space.”
(Kothari, 2006)
Literature Review of Concepts and Theoretical Framework
To present the findings of my research on the social space created and occupied
by international development professionals in the developing countries they are
deployed to and where they live, it is important to do a clarification of the
concepts used. This will help to understand the theoretical framework used and
why did I choose Sociology, Anthropology and Ethnography as the theories
through which I would prove my argument. This will then create the link to the
following chapter – Chapter III – where the hypothesis is stated and variables are
presented and analysed.
Development Cooperation/ International Aid
International development professionals are an undeniable part of Development
Cooperation. So, what do I mean by Development Cooperation or, as it is called
in other forums, international aid?
In 1986, the UN declared Development “an inalienable human right by virtue of
which every human person and all peoples are entitled to participate in,
contribute to, and enjoy economic, social, cultural and political development, in
which all human rights and fundamental freedoms can be fully realised”. This
objective is nowadays attained by Development Cooperation which is also called
development assistance, international aid, international development, overseas
aid or foreign aid. It refers to the allocation of funds and expertise from
developed countries to developing countries.

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Developing countries – also known as undeveloped or underdeveloped countries
- are those countries with low average incomes compared to the world average,
corresponding to developed countries. I will use the terms ‘development
cooperation’, ‘international aid’ and ‘developing countries’ throughout the whole
explanation of the argument. The aim of international aid is, thus, to reduce
poverty in low income developing countries.
The term ‘development cooperation’ often refers specifically to Official
Development Assistance (ODA), which is aid given by governments through their
aid agencies, like AusAID. In this dissertation, however, I will use the expression
‘development cooperation’ to refer to the whole paraphernalia concerned with
Development work, e.g. international development professionals, international
aid contributions, international development organizations, projects and policies,
among others.
I find it also very important to clarify which is the context of international aid
that I am referring to in this dissertation. There are two main positions assumed
when talking about aid – a) that it is useful and beneficial; and b) that it is useless
and prejudicial. In the first group, we can identify authors like Sachs (1998;
2005), and Modernization theorists like Marx, Engels (1888; 1998) and Rostow
(1960) or Lipset (1959)1
. Based on the Social Change theory of Durkheim (1895)
which, through the study of social facts and of the division of society into
different groups or constitutive parts, tried to explain how integrity and
coherence could be maintained in modern societies, despite the effects of a
newly born globalization which affected traditional common cultural heritage,
Modernization theory defended that international global aid contributes to the
development of developing countries through the deconstruction of Nurkse’s
(Drechsler, 2009) ‘vicious poverty cycle’2
. In the second group, however, we can
1
For further reference: Inglehart (2005), Rueschemeyer et al (1992) and Acemoglu and Robinson
(2005)
2
A poor country will always be poor if it does not receive aid from western countries in the
development and institutionalization of economic institutions which would then boost the
market and reduce poverty.

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find authors like Easterly (2002; 2006) and Ferguson (1994) who concur in the
fact that the heavy bureaucracy and administration which create and surround
aid allocation do not contribute to an effective development of developing
countries. In fact, for them, aid does more harm than good and much money is
spent in administrative procedures and high salaries to international
development professionals and not in projects which could respond to the real
needs of local peoples. Ironically commenting on the creation of projects to
developing countries that do not correspond to real needs, Easterly (2006)
explains,
“Setting a beautiful goal such as making poverty history, the
Planner’s approach then tries to design the ideal aid agencies,
administrative plans, and financial resources that will do the job.
Sixty years of countless reform schemes to aid agencies and dozens
of different plans, and $2.3 trillion later, the aid industry is still failing
to reach the beautiful goal. The evidence points to an unpopular
conclusion: Big Plans will always fail to reach the beautiful goal”.
The question in aid is, thus, not how it can solve poverty, but how can it
contribute to provide locals with the necessary tools to solve their day-to-day
problems, like hunger, illness, lack of water, children dropout rate from school,
etc. My argument is exactly that international development professionals are
needed as facilitators or, better, as companions in development processes, but
they have to be cognoscente of local realities and respect them.
Following Easterly’s line of thought, Nipassa (2009) quotes Hanlon and Smart
(2008) who note that while there are more bicycles, mobile phones and
electricity provision in Mozambique, there is also a growing poverty; and despite
the fact that more aid is allocated to the country, rural poverty is increasing
drastically. In fact, it has already been said in other forums (Greenhill, 2008), that
aid many times fails to reduce poverty in developing countries, because it does
not even reach the countries it is supposed to target. Consultants, development
professionals, bureaucracy, cumbersome administrative procedures and often
purchased overpriced and inappropriate goods which come along with blueprint
projects, not always fit to the reality of the country they are being implemented
in. As it is stated in the ActionAid report of 2008 (Greenhill, 2008), “at present,

8
far too much aid is driven by geopolitical and commercial objectives rather than
by efforts to protect the rights of poor people.” And Easterly (2002) adds that if
international aid wants to have ‘some positive effect’ in the developing
countries, it should not remain attached to ‘the same old bureaucratic rut’,
which I will be mentioning further in the dissertation.
International Development Professionals
Development Cooperation is the framework to the work of international
development professionals, therefore talking about expertise, knowledge,
experts or development professionals, as I prefer to call them, is closely tied to
talking about international aid in general. The problem related to international
aid is that even though it is supposedly targeting the poorest countries in the
world, it is nonetheless spent on overpriced technical assistance programmes
supporting (and supported by) international development professionals;
materials are often purchased in donor countries, through time-consuming
processes and leading to high administrative costs which, instead, lead to a low
delivery rate of aid to developing countries (Greenhill, 2008).
In this context, most international development professionals, working in
developing countries perceive their deployment as an adventure, even though,
at times, the climate or the social situation might be felt as unmanageable or
hard. For an international development professional working in developing
countries for an organization or NGO that might be facing financial uncertainty or
that might need to justify their presence in the country, uncertainty is a certainty
and the risk of failure leads them to clench onto the power of international
development knowledge. Nonetheless, as Mosse (2008) puts it, ‘the real
dilemma’ is that ‘they do have to engage in the messy, emotion-laden practical
work of negotiating presence within national bureaucracies, compromise, rule
bending, and meeting targets and spending budgets, not to mention personal
security, loneliness, family relations, and stress.’ This knowledge builds up to a

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‘travelling rationality’ that is a characteristic of this transnational elite of
international development professionals and that consists of portable knowledge
which is transferred from country to country – in every sector one could think of
from agriculture to health to gender.
For the scope of the discussion of the hypothesis in this dissertation, I am only
taking into consideration the international development professionals who are
deployed to developing countries for the completion of assignments longer than
one year. Short term consultants and missions are not to be understood as part
of the elite of international development professionals mentioned throughout
these pages. Also, and related to the organizations chosen, missionaries or
voluntaries working for the church will also not be an integral part of this group,
as their motivations to work in developing countries are quite different from
those of the professionals referred to.
So, who are these international development professionals?
It is difficult to define them, both because they constitute a heterogenic, multi-
cultural, multi-aged and multidisciplinary class, and also because, as some argue
(Holmes and Marcus, 2005), it is not easy for development professionals to put in
words their personal feelings or ‘reflexive insights on relationships, events, and
meaning’ beyond the ‘official space’ where they fit, work, live and move. Thus, it
is quite difficult to find official accounts by development professionals on their
personal experiences in the social space they inhabit, while living in developing
countries, making it also difficult to discuss it. As Kothari (2006) highlights,
“identities are not only conscious and instrumental, but also habitual and
unreflexive, through the iteration and repetition of consistent norms and
performances.”
The international development professionals, whose identity is difficult to define,
develop their activity in “well knit through employment circuits and electronic
communication and, as Jonathan Friedman points out, closed in class terms and
‘top-lifted’ from representative democracy” (Friedman, 2004). They are “highly
visible in the capital cities of the developing world, occupying cultural enclaves,

10
shared lifestyles and values— [constituting] a group that, despite cosmopolitan
claims, is ‘at least as restricted as any other strong ethnic identity’” (Kothari,
2006).
Without attempting an exhaustive list of the reasons why international
development professionals work in developing countries, I would like to point
out some: adventure, career building in an ever-changing and work-related
insecure world, high salaries difficult to get at home (in an average range of 4000
to 8000 USD per month), personal interest in the area of expertise or in the
geographical area they are working in and philanthropy. They are aged above 26
and under 45, on average, and in the first three years of work in Development
they might work in, at least, two countries – probably in two different
continents3
. It is exactly from these résumés and experiences that ‘cosmopolitan
and technocratic claims’ arise. Following Woods’ (2006) comment,
“Professionalism (career building) requires recovering the universal
from the particular, technocratic knowledge from the illicit
relationships upon which it is actually based conceding what is
known from experience to the simple instrumentality of the models
of employers, bosses, or supporters (Riles 2004). For different
reasons, both the World Bank’s investors and borrowers and the
charitable donors to Oxfam require the “illusion of certainty” from
their experts.”
Organizations Considered
This links us then to the international development organizations considered in
this dissertation. I will only be referring to big international organizations, such as
the agencies within the United Nations (UN) system and the European Union
(EU); as well as international bi-lateral aid organizations, such as the Australian
Government’s Overseas Aid Program (AusAID), the United States Agency for
International Development (USAID) and the United Kingdom (UK) Department
for International Development (DFID).
3
This data was recollected from informal interviews that I conducted with international
development professionals who have been working in development for over 3 years. It does not
wish to be a thorough quantitative analysis, but only a representative group of professionals.

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Other international organizations are also considered, such as the World Bank
(The Bank), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Trade
Organization (WTO) and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
This is not an exhaustive list of the organizations involved, but the main concept
is that the international development professionals targeted in the discussion of
the argument work for international organizations which are representative and
visible in the international Development arena.
Missions and voluntary organizations and Non-Governmental Organizations
(NGOs) working with religious institutions from different creeds, as well as small
international NGOs, will not be considered for the scope of the discussion of this
thesis, because they embrace small NGO employees, missionaries, charity
workers and other ‘professional altruists’ (Arvidson 2006) whose commitment is
to moral rather than purely technical universes; whose professional subjectivity
is framed by stories of altruism, heroic commitment, and sacrifice which involve
identity work or processes of ‘moral selving’, that is making the self virtuous
through action and reflection (Arvidson 2006).
Social Classes
Having explained who are the international development professionals, what is
international development cooperation, international aid and which are the
organizations which engage these professionals, I will now go further in trying to
conceptualize the meaning of ‘social class’ and what am I referring to when
mentioning the class of international development professionals or the
transnational ‘elite’ constituted by them.
In this thesis, I will use the classification of ‘social class’ which has been given to
us by Bourdieu. Social classes give us knowledge about the conflict between
theories of knowledge and politic theories. In fact, empirical and realistic notions
of classes – that these exist in the reality and are measured by sciences – are
associated with an objectivist theory which expands around political actions – in

12
which classes exist and are revealed to themselves. It is the condition in which
the individual lives that creates the class – a representation. In opposition, there
is the constructivist theorization of social classes through which the individual
voluntarily constructs his conscience of class – the individual is the actor (Lenoir,
2004). For Pierre Bourdieu (see Lenoir, 2004) it is the position that the individual
occupies in the society that shapes his/her view on social classes. This is quite
interesting when talking about international development professionals, seen
that, at ‘home’, sometimes, they belong to a lower class than they do while living
and working abroad, as ‘experts’ having contact with and belonging to higher
social classes.
Following Bourdieu, I will not expand much on the characteristics of social
classes; it is more interesting for me to focus on the way they shape distinctions
between groups of people and how a transnational social class of international
development professionals lives and travels from developing country to
developing country, interacting with other social classes and creating a unique
social space for itself.
In La Distinction (1979), Bourdieu explains that the situation of classes is
represented in distinctive signs, seen that the logic of the social structures is the
one of distinctions and class fights. Interesting to be noticed, however, is the fact
that economic and social characteristics symbolically represent the differences of
position in the social class and vary according to the position occupied by that
same social class in the social space (Lenoir, 2004) – as is the case of the class of
international development professionals.
Lenoir (2004) explains that social classes are constructed in three dimensions:
the first being the ‘global capital volume’ of people in society; the second, the
‘capital structure’ which defines the different kinds of capital – both economic
and cultural – and the third being the ‘total volume’ of that same capital. I concur
with him in the sense that it is both economic and cultural capitals that define
classes. In the case of international development professionals, economic capital
shapes both the social and geographical positioning of professionals in

13
developing countries; and cultural capital – expressed by the ‘travelling
rationalities’ transported by international development professionals to
developing countries – brings different peoples, ethnicities and languages into
one transnational social class which does not have any other borders than the
status of being ‘experts’ in development.
Lenoir (2004) expands on this by saying that each class is attached to a class of
habitus produced by social signs and conditionings associated with the
corresponding class. Bourdieu explains that habitus is the unifying principle that
brings together people, practices, ways of thinking, goods and values – socio-
economic characteristics attached to positions. It is interesting to note how the
fact that feeling one belongs to a specific social class is, in fact, “the hypothesis of
the coherence of attitudes” (Lenoir, 2004). Therefore, social classes, and, in this
case, the class of international development professionals living in developing
countries, are built around and defined by the sharing of social and cultural
practices, values, economics, political views, houses, types of car, i.e. the
‘travelling rationalities’.
Power
There is a strong connection between the division of societies in social classes
and power relations among people; especially in what refers to the class of
international development professionals and their power relation towards local
realities and peoples mostly exerted through knowledge.
Down the line, everything comes back to the idea of power, power sharing and
power relations. International development professionals have the power to
‘dissembled theory from practice’ (Mosse, 2008) and to ‘rearrange power over
people and power over ideas’ (Mitchell, 2002). “Whatever the specific or current
policy goals, the aid system has the core system goal of maintaining the power of
ideas” (Mosse, 2008).

14
In the same line, the power of knowledge is conferred to international
development professionals by custom practices like meetings, conferences and
conventions, where they get together with consultants and other international
advisors, to discuss the future of developing countries and of their agencies or
NGOs. These practices make the power of international development
professionals more secure by affirming the power of ideas and the creation of
“‘knowledge banks’ in the world system” (Mosse, 2008), which are an important
part of the travel mentality shared by the expert elite in developing countries. As
Mosse (2008) puts it, “the very instability of any particular policy consensus, the
constant rethinking, re-rationalizing, and wrong-footing of those who have last
year’s ideas (“‘governance’—that’s so 2007!”) keeps the show on the road.”
Theoretical Framework: Socio-Anthropological and Ethnographic
Studies of the space occupied by International Development
Professionals in Developing Countries
To study the social space created and occupied by the transnational social class
of international development professionals in the developing countries they are
deployed to and where they live, I will be using a theoretical approach based on
Sociology, Anthropology and Ethnography, so it will be a Socio-Anthropological
study of international development professionals and of the social space they
occupy in the developing countries they are deployed to and where they exert
their work and live.
Sociology brings the empirical investigation and critical analysis into this
research. To study international development professionals and the space
occupied by them in the societies where they unveil their activities, both the
micro and macro level of social systems and interactions have to be taken into
account. In this case, the micro-level refers to the individual, its agency and
interaction with the world around him/her and the macro-level refers back to
the social structures where this individual inhabits – both the ones s/he is leaving

15
behind and those where they interact on the course of their work as
international development professionals.
Social stratification is an important component of the study I am undertaking, as
it is changed, broken and/or dissolved through the social status acquired by the
position of ‘expertise’ conferred to international development professionals. This
status allows international development professionals to mingle with strata
otherwise unreachable to them, such as Politicians, Judges, Writers... a myriad of
social connections which seem impossible to attain at home countries and which
confer support and importance to the position obtained.
On the other hand, Anthropology, through the sub-branch of Social
Anthropology, adds the study of customs, as well as economic and political
organization of the societies which receive these international development
professionals. It will also contribute with the study of patterns of consumption,
kinship and socialization both among international development professionals
and between these and the peoples they work with.
Mosse (2007) argues that the ‘process of knowledge formation’ in international
development involve both movements ‘upwards’ and ‘downwards’, e.g. ‘rule
making and policy framing’ and accountability of communities respectively. To
study these movements upwards and downwards, it is useful to recur to
ethnographic studies. The movement upwards occurs with the practices and
policies in international organizations. Embedded in formal relationships and
international modus operandi, technicalities contribute to the production of
expert knowledge in the transnational elite. The centralisation and
universalisation of this knowledge occurs when international development
professionals are deployed, building up the ‘travelling rationalities’ I’ve been
talking about. On the other hand, the movement ‘downwards’ occurs inside the
developing countries with the delegation of powers from the local governments
to the local communities, in order to ‘re-engineer institutions (…) for
accountability or conflict resolution or local competitive bidding for resources”
(Mosse, 2007).

16
Mosse (2008) explains that anthropologists working in the Development arena
can be brought to “desist from explaining away the reality of programs” and
instead, following Latour’s (2004) explanation, “strengthen their claim to reality”
through the conception of “policies, project designs, or technologies back to the
human relationships, the ‘gatherings’ from which they come and that they
contain”; with the aim to find out that “policy constructions and professional
identities are fragile, perhaps in need of protection?”
David Mosse (2008) further argues that Anthropology is ‘critical of development
interventions’ because its field of intervention – which includes ‘events, context,
informal relationships, divergent views and the effects of power’ – shares strong
bonds with ‘narratives of program failure’, which tend to disregard personal
relations and processes which are also important for my field of research. Thus, I
will also use sociologic and ethnographic studies to complement what
Anthropology studies in the life of development professionals in developing
countries.
To explain the power of ideas and knowledge, Bourdieu (2002/5) says that
people often believe that intellectual life is internationally spontaneous, which is
– for him - a total lie. In his view, intellectual life is the space, like all other social
spaces, where intellectuals share prejudice, stereotypes and summary
representations of day to day life, like incomprehension, disagreements, and
arguments. This, following Bourdieu, leads to the belief that the establishment of
a scientific internationalism cannot be done neither easily nor by an elite only.
Bourdieu does not think that laisser-faire politics are conducive to a good
cultural development, rather, this laisser-faire leads to the circulation of the
worst and prevents the circulation of the best there is in the cultural world. I
concur with Bourdieu in this point. The free circulation of peoples, goods and
ideas around the world and, more specifically, into developing countries, lead to
a fast and uncontrolled spread of ideas which are not always neither the best nor
the most adequate to the situation encountered in the country. The import of
northern hemisphere western lifestyles into developing countries, for example,
may lead to great and unbridgeable divides between international development

17
professionals and receiving communities, as well as to the rise of so far inexistent
needs in the host population, which cannot be met by them.
In this regard, Mosse (2008) uses the adjective ‘perverse’ to talk about the denial
of the help offered by anthropological approaches to international development
organizations in acquiring a ‘better understanding of themselves’ and of the
social space where they interact – e.g. their thoughts and actions in the social
world of a developing country. He further argues that Anthropology does not
ignore the ‘tension between the work of programming and that of description’,
the instrumentalism that international development professionals are subject to.
Policy, practice and social space cannot be free from criticism and they are all
interconnected. In his own words: “Where Anthropology’s insights come from,
and what its ethnographic method requires, is a crossing and re-crossing of the
boundary between the insider operational and the outsider researcher
positions.” (Mosse, 2008)
When referring to the ‘space’ into where these lifestyles and ideas are brought
throughout this thesis, I am referring not only to the geographical space (houses,
restaurants, compounds, cars, etc), but also to the social space, which, as Kothari
(2006) sums up, is the mirror of ‘how the locatedness [of international
development professionals], embedded or enclavic, shapes [their] relationships
to others”. When one has lived in one or more developing countries, one
perceives how there is a distinctive geographical and social space between
international development professionals and locals. The former carry with them
their ‘institutional and cultural capital’ which reflects home (Kothari, 2006); and
this heritage creates, from the beginning on, a distancing towards the local
realities of the latter, perceived and experienced in comparison to home and
away.
Furthermore, space in itself is devoid of character and ‘reality’ - it is the
relationships within it that characterize and conceptualize space; it is the
practices of people that shape the space, by building houses and relations,
driving cars, cooking and filling the air with smells and colours. The social and

18
geographical spaces are, then, created by the characters which inhabit them and
the roles they play – international development professionals, locals,
international consultants, etc. These characters imprint a reality in the space
they occupy.
Sociological studies, thus, contribute to the explanation of the construction of
social spaces. According to Pierre Bourdieu (1978), Sociology constructs and
studies social spaces rather than social classes. It is in the social spaces that social
classes can be encountered, even though mostly on paper, despite the fact that
real distinctions are shown in real different domains. And he expands by
explaining that in the most developed societies there are two principles which
allow the division of social groups according to their positions in society – the
economic status and cultural heritage. Lenoir (2004) explains that these
principles are to be taken as explanatory of the social determinant proprieties/
characteristics which allow for bringing people together with similar
characteristics that make them distinct from others.

20
The Hypothesis: International Development Professionals create
and occupy a particular social space in the developing countries
they are working in
In this dissertation I will be studying the hypothesis of whether or not
international development professionals working for international development
organizations create and occupy a particular social space in the developing
countries they are deployed to and where they are living.
As stated before, the international development professionals considered are
those who work for international development organizations which play
important roles in the developing world. It is also important to bear in mind the
fact that this hypothesis applies only to those international development
professionals who are deployed for periods longer than one year, as the main
argument will be that they do have an impact in the social spaces of the receiving
developing countries, mostly through the power relations established by the
export/import of ‘travelling rationalities’.
The Dependent Variable: The Social Space
The real world – the world we live in – is filled with social inequalities, financial
crises, conflicting interests of personal and work lives, social networks and
loneliness. It is a world of dichotomies, where barriers are destroyed and borders
are open, but people feel an increasing need to protect themselves while feeling
a deep rooted need to leave the insularity where they live – like a bubble. Social
spaces are thus the place by excellence to develop relations and bring together
unified schools of thought and common cultural heritages. This is why
international development professionals tend to stick to the international
community in developing countries – it is where they feel safe and understood; it
is common ground, even though it is away from home.

21
Marx (2004) argues that theoretical explanations define reality and that the
individual is the actor of its own life. It is in this conception of the inhabited
space that the individual is considered to be acting upon nature to fulfil its
personal needs. The power relation created between individual and the
surroundings is not unified in time or space – it needs to attend to the context in
which it takes place, like aid policies, and international development
professionals need to attend to the specific context of their relations. This means
that context affects spatiality and relationships as the individual affects nature
and social interaction – one cannot live without the other, thus, in this context,
social processes are influenced by the peculiarities of reality (Gemaque Souza,
2009).
In his 1995 work, Lefebvre developed a regressive-progressive methodology
whose aim is to gather information on the socio-spatial diversity of reality
through observation and description of what he saw. Through regression,
Lefebvre tries to come to the starting point of each social relation created and
observed. In his studies, he observed that reality is perceived differently from
individual to individual and results from practices and representations learnt and
reproduced. As I have mentioned above, international development
professionals tend to mingle with other individuals with whom they share
similarities, thus, social contradictions, in the light of Lefebvre’s findings, are not
only a product of social classes, but also of the inequalities of temporality and
spatiality as differently conceived from individual to individual.
Social space will be further analysed in the following chapter, where I will analyse
the interactions of international development professionals with ‘home’ and
local realities; the way they create, transport and share their ‘travelling
rationalities’ and how they thus influence the social space of developing
countries.

22
The Independent Variables
Social considerations about deployment to Developing Countries
Developing countries offer international development professionals challenging
environments and spaces where to work and live. When being deployed to
developing countries, international development professionals are faced with a
different climate; a different culture (or cultures); most of the times, a different
language (or languages); and a challenging politics environment where some of
them are asked to intervene, as advisors.
It is, thus, important that international development professionals receive
training before their departure to a developing country: self-knowledge and
knowledge about the country they are being deployed to, its policies and
traditions, as well as basic understanding of the local language(s). This would not
only prevent a deep sense of estrangement from local realities, but it would also
promote integration in the local politics and methodologies. International
development professionals should be open minded and cognoscente of the
reality which is awaiting them, how it works, what is important, what is proper
and what is not.
It is of the utmost importance to bear in mind that development professionals
are working with and in pro of the peoples of developing countries, which are
considered poor peoples, thus having the former to be as accountable for their
actions, procedures and outcomes as the latter – more accountable even, if we
take into account how knowledgeable they are of the procedures.
Mutual commitment between international development professionals and
locals is important in the pursuit of the delivery of a good work and of an integral
and sustainable development of peoples and countries.
I wish to make it clear that I am not defending that all international development
professionals are unaware of the reality of the countries they are deployed to.

23
Neither do I want to argue that international development professionals are not
important to the delivery of humanitarian and development efforts by
international organizations. In fact, in the delivery of my personal work as a
volunteer and a UN staff in Timor-Leste (2004-2008) I met really smart people,
who were hardworking and dedicated to the local staff working with them. As a
matter of fact, many of us had (and still have) locals as friends. Notwithstanding,
I am arguing here that, as Easterly (2002) puts it, ‘the perverse incentives they
face explain [their] obtuse behaviour’ at times.
Policies and Instrumentalism in international development organizations
Linking to what has just been presented, a deep knowledge of the social
mechanisms of the developing country that the international development
professional is working in is important, so that s/he can theorise on how, when
and where to develop social and economical policies, programmes, and projects.
These will not bring good fruits if they are developed under the belief that the
whole world is similar and, thus, on a fairly unreasonable knowledge of the
reality being addressed.
However, the reality is that most processes are in many cases reviewed by donor
countries and, thus, by international development professionals and not in
consultancy with locals. I would argue in favour of a more inclusive approach,
which would sit internationals and nationals at the same table, on an equal
footing.
It is interesting to note, in this context, how humans value ideas nowadays –
ideas are ‘the new gold’ and who is rich on them, is actually rich. Amongst
international development professionals there is a consensus on the steps
necessary to eradicate hunger and poverty from the developing world4
. Actually,
4
See, for example, the progress reports in the Millennium Development Goals, whose motto is
“We can eradicate poverty by 2015 – accessible at
http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/reports.shtml

24
most international development professionals agree upon the ideas on how to
govern ‘ungoverned’ countries, like the developing ones, and how international
aid should be allocated. These ideas are developed in the West with little or no
respect for the realities being addressed.
In this line of thought, the policy models used in the developing world by
international development professionals are ‘highly formalistic’, framed by the
socio-economic-lawful neoliberal western mindset, which asks for rules and
accountability from the developing countries, but sometimes forgets to be
accountable (Mosse, 2008). These policy models are believed to be ‘travelling
rationalities’ which can be applied anywhere that the same results will be
achieved. The universal becomes superior to the particular; ‘travelling
rationalities’ are asserted over local rationalities; technicalities are more
important than policies and form is more important than the substance. (Craig,
2006)
This is where international development professionals are caught into an
instrumentalism perpetrated by international aid organizations which are
accountable to politicians and the general public in their home countries. This
thus makes aid agencies develop programmes and projects which produce visible
and palpable outcomes which might not, however, bring high economic returns
to the recipient developing countries and peoples (Easterly, 2002). International
development professionals are pushed into the dynamics of aid agencies and
have to participate in “countless international meetings and summits”, write
lengthy ‘glossy reports for public consumption’ and develop innumerable
frameworks, strategies and policy papers. In the end, as Easterly (2002) argues,
very “few are concerned about whether works, and strategies produce anything
of value.”
Mosse (2008) argues that “the dynamics of social life include the world of
projects (agencies, fieldworker reporting, policy making, etc.), but it is correct in
that what is required of actors within programming worlds— as professionals—is

25
precisely that they dissemble their understandings and identities from this social
world.”
In Mozambique, Nipassa (2009) notes that what he finds interesting (and sad) in
foreign aid is that it is developed in western offices, by people who have never
been to Africa, and who are much more interested in pleasing their own
parliaments, policy makers and stakeholders. He also quotes some authors who
comment on the fact that they have seen aid target the objectives of yearly plans
rather than contributing to an effort to respond to what locals say they need.
This way of working in Development goes far back to Colonial times, when, notes
Kothari (2006), social status was attained by personal social level and education.
Nowadays, however, international development professionals are awarded a
status by the hierarchy represented by the institution they are working in. It is
the institution and not the individual who establishes relations in the social
strata. This may create professionals who are not well prepared to face the
reality they encounter in developing countries, subjecting them to an
instrumentalism perpetrated by international aid organizations. In the context of
present development aid society, “familiarity with specific geographic areas is
not considered particularly valuable in a business that explicitly valorises
technical skills” (Kothari, 2006). If a couple of decades ago one could have a job
for life, nowadays people are considered highest if they show a résumé full of
experience, i.e. developed in different countries and positions. As a former
World Bank professional quoted by Kothari (2006) comments, “You don’t get
promoted in the Bank if you have only worked in one or two countries, however
long your association might have been. You need to gain experience of many
different places otherwise they say, ‘oh he only knows about Mozambique’.”
Thus, in the development arena, international development professionals are
not concealed to one country but, most often, to a whole region or to an area of
expertise, like ‘development’, ‘agriculture’, ‘AIDS’, ‘health’, ‘peace-building’, etc.
As Kothari (2006) notes, “… development professionals are esteemed more for
their resistance to becoming familiar with one particular geographic area and for
having a more flexible ‘cosmopolitan’ approach across global space.” This

26
emphasis on technical expertise and issues rather than on geographical areas
brings us back to the ‘travelling rationalities’ mentioned before, which are born
from and shape the development discourse, proliferating globalization and
unitary processes around the globe.
Costs and Benefits of Development and of working for Development
Greenhill (2008) claims that cc 5% of donor aid are spent on administrative costs
from the budget of bilateral aid agencies. Even though one agrees upon the fact
that some administrative costs are inevitable and necessary for the effective day-
to-day running of aid programmes, there are others which can be put in
question. We know that bilateral agencies and international organizations such
as the UN or EU typically look after their professionals well. The relocation
packages often include generous living allowances, high hotel expenses, business
class flights and a very competitive salary. As per the ActionAid Report of 2008,
DFID officials posted overseas, for example, receive allowances to fund business
class flights back to the UK (Greenhill 2008). In the same report it is also said that
DFID staff can opt instead to use the ‘flight fund’ for other journeys, in effect
allowing the use of the aid budget to subsidise holidays abroad (Greenhill 2008).
Down the same line, on the Application Kit to work with AusAID (2010), benefits
are listed, which include, on top of the list, satisfaction, for the fact that the
adviser will be working for a governmental organization which supports other
partner governments in achieving a sustainable development and set
development priorities for their countries and societies; after satisfaction comes
the sense of belonging to a highly qualified team, whose work allows for some
travelling, as they are working on ‘a global stage’. Afterwards, this Kit offers a
‘good salary structure’, which provides bonuses to ‘effective’ work; flexible
working hours, safety of persons and assets, training, career development and
health insurance are also mentioned in this appealing kit.

27
Stated the benefits, personal costs include estrangement from local realities;
being far away from home; in the case of high level security countries, having
freedom of movement restricted; having to work hard to maintain the position in
the organization where the international development professional is working,
since it is a very competitive world and being subjected to an instrumentalism
which might, at times, be heavy to carry. Other costs would include ethical
dilemmas between the individual perspectives and those of the international aid
agencies and/or local governments; the fact that international development
professionals can be subjected to war scenarios and violence; face mass suffering
and poverty or incur in risks such as accidents and illness or, in the worst case
scenario, death.
Seen this, I will present the findings of the study of the hypothesis and the
variables in the following chapter, expanding on the social space occupied by
international development professionals in developing countries.

29
“The expert community is locally transient
but internationally permanent”
(Mosse, 2008)
The Social Space of International Development Professionals in
Developing Countries
In this chapter, I present the findings of the study of the hypothesis and
subjacent dependent and independent variables, going further in the analysis of
the social space created and occupied by international development
professionals in the countries they are deployed to and where they live.
As mentioned while presenting the instrumentalism to which international
development professionals are subjected, Mosse (2007) argues that
international development professionals are held in the need to universalize and
instrumentalise rationality, denying the context of their ‘own agency’. He further
emphasizes that these international development professionals ‘suppress the
relational’ and try to deny giving any particular significance to events, to the
individual and to compromise (as studied in Ethnographic studies). Furthermore,
he adds that they tend to favour the “rule, instrumental ideas *and+ professional
models”, which are a constitutive part of their group, elite and rationality, in an
attempt to protect themselves (Mosse, 2007).
It is a fact that development professionals are cognoscente of the fact that the
technocratic models they follow are imbedded in politics, which may make the
application of ideas and projects estranged from the reality of the developing
country where they are working. As a matter of fact, as Mosse (2008) comments,
“the challenge of turning the political into the technical is not so easily handled”.
As I mentioned earlier, international development professionals have to deal
with a lot of issues at the same time and their identity and certainty as
professionals and experts has to be proved often. Of course that all this tension
makes international development professionals reflect upon their own life and
methods, making them face dilemmas and question their position in the world of

30
Development – even though not many personal accounts have been officially
published.
International development professionals, do, indeed, live in a dilemma. On the
one hand, the instrumentalism they are subjected to by the organizations they
are working within pushes them to work hard to secure their place in an ever
changing environment, both in the organization and in the social sphere, which,
as argued before, is sometimes perceived as hostile and complex. International
development professionals thus invest their own time and resources in building
and maintaining relationships with counterparts, local staff and with other
international consultants who come and go almost as often as the waves in the
sea. Concomitantly, they have to work hard to negotiate and maintain their
positions inside the international organizations and, therefore, they are pushed
to build a broad network of contacts which will open new doors in case the
present position is not held or the professional wants to move to another
country or project. As Mosse (2007) argues, “theirs is the messy practical
emotion-laden work of dealing with contingency, compromise, improvisation,
rule-bending, adjustment, producing viable data, making things work, meeting
delivery targets, and spending budgets.” Besides this, they still have to deal with
personal lives and feelings and manage them appropriately: the loneliness felt
abroad – the longing for something good one has left at ‘home’ -, the security in
the country – of the self, of the house, of the other around him/her; the stress of
having to have the work done and the stress born out of the estrangement often
felt towards the local realities; feeling sometimes at odds with the future.
Unfortunately, not much is written about this, but I have been an international
development professional myself and I know by experience that sometimes this
happens. Latour (1996) concurs with this line of thought by stating that “while
success buries the individual action or event and directs attention to the
transcendent agency of policy ideas, expert design or technology (and hence
replicability) failure fragments into the dynamics of blame” of the individual and
not of the organization that s/he is working for.

31
On the other hand, however, and as I’ve been arguing along this dissertation,
international development professionals are made the guardians of ‘travelling
rationalities’ created by Western policy makers who subtly demand of these
professionals that they transport these rationalities and knowledge to
developing countries, thus disregarding local knowledge. These ‘context-free
ideas with universal applicability’ (Mosse, 2007) can be found in virtually all
contexts and issues related to Development: in agriculture, health, social
sciences, water and sanitation, economic research and analysis, capacity-
building, gender, law, food, crops, etc.
Even though ideologies connected to development aid policies now try to give
emphasis to local ownership through partnerships, consultations and
transparent procedures (such that, as Mosse (2007) argues, “aid agencies claim
to repudiate intervention in poor countries in favour of supporting the conditions
within which development can happen”), the fact is that, nowadays, ‘travelling
rationalities’ shared by the international development professional’s
transnational elite tend to develop an harmonization of policies and procedures
that are not conducive to local ownership. Instead, these ‘travelling rationalities’
surpass the local and conceal specificities of development processes in
developing countries. These ‘travelling rationalities’ are part of a global
transnational universal consensus shared by international development
professionals and which are part of the soul of the elite of development
professionals. However, it is not only the ‘travelling rationalities’ nor the local
ownership that are put in question here. There are also the ‘institutional settings
of global policy thinking’, the international (often imposed) transmission of ideas
and policies, the political processes and institutional interest which govern and
are a constitutive part of the instrumentalism the international development
professionals are subjected to (Mosse, 2007). All these processes are also part of
the construction of the social space created by and for the international
development professionals – they contribute to the construction of ‘expert
knowledge and professional identities themselves’ (Mosse, 2007). This is where

32
Ethnography is important: to explain these processes of identity and knowledge
formation.
One would think that these ‘travelling rationalities’ might not be accepted by the
recipient countries and communities; or that, due to historical backgrounds, they
would not be applicable in developing countries; or even that the burden of
international economic procedures would prevent countries from accepting
international aid, but this is not so. ‘Travelling rationalities’ found their way into
the heart of developing societies, and they are here to stay. As Mosse (2007)
comments, “they are remarkably resilient and sustain over-optimism about the
possible applications of the model*s+”.
The aforementioned policies and ‘travelling rationalities’ are spread around the
world by international development professionals engaged in contracts with
international aid organizations. The adjective ‘travelling’ is filled with meanings,
because it mirrors the fact that these policies and rationalities, as well as their
carriers, are detached from the context they are being applied to; their mobility
characterizes them this way. However, paradoxically, the carriers – the
international development professionals – are a ‘highly visible group in the
capital cities of the developing world’. Their modus vivendi brings changes in the
otherwise more peaceful lives of locals – high walled houses with guards; jeeps;
lunch, dinner and light meals in brand new fancy restaurants or in local
restaurants which are upgraded because of their presence; many nationalities
and languages brought together in one place – the capital city of a developing
country. As Mosse (2007) notes, “they occupy cultural enclaves (of shared
consumption, lifestyle and values).” Their lifestyles are not much different from
one to the other – high salaries and, at times, organizations’ impositions,
contribute to a standard way of living, copied and transported from country to
country. Eyben (in Mosse, 2007) sums it up quite insightfully,
“Homogenised development thinking has its social basis, framed and
transported by locally transient but internationally permanent and
well-knit groups of experts whose reach, intensity and centralization
are increased by electronic information and communication
technologies”.

33
It is interesting to note, however, that while representing freedom of speech and
movement, liberty and wealth, international development professionals are
confined to the tiny walls of the transnational boundaries of the social class that
they are and represent. This elite works as and has the same restrictions as ‘any
other ethnic identity’, so claims Friedman (2004). As argued in this thesis,
Friedman also agrees upon the fact that the ‘cultural hybridity’ transported and
lived by international development professionals across the globe heads to a
process of ‘global elite consolidation’, which is like belonging to a club, or being
invited to social parties where only the guests listed can be accepted.
Therefore, one question has to be posed: How is the expert knowledge
conducive to these ‘travelling rationalities’ produced in the development arena?
And another one: how is it spread around the developing world?
It could be argued that, once again, it is a matter of power relations, e.g., a fair
amount of power is ‘invested in global policy ideas, models, *and+ frameworks’
that are the substance of ‘travelling rationalities’ that are transported from
country to country, affecting global economic, social and political spheres,
creating and sharing ‘transformation across the globe’ (Mosse, 2007). It is
important to note that social contexts affect social policies, which, in turn, affect
social contexts again. Social relations are imbedded in power relations in social
groups such as in the international development elite or at work. Seen this, social
policies cannot and should not travel from country to country, because they are
part of a specific context for a particular group of people with their own
peculiarities. Being “translated into the different interests of social/institutional
worlds and local politics in ways that generate complex and unintended effects”,
these social policies may do more harm than good. Moreover, international
development aid agencies and, by association, international development
professionals carry the ‘mission’ of generalizing policy ideas which ought to bring
about socio-economic and technical development in developing countries.
Mosse (2007) argues that “‘’Global knowledge’ produced by international
organisations occupies a transcendent realm ‘standing above’ particular
contexts”. He sums up saying that “indeed these notions of scale, time and

34
application are constitutive of international professional identities in
development.” (Mosse, 2007)
I have mentioned earlier in this text that power is conferred to expert knowledge
by policy makers and international policies, e.g. expert knowledge is developed
according to policy makers’ wishes. This is exactly why they are widely accepted
throughout the world – both in the developed and the developing worlds.
Moreover, accountability towards tax payers and investors makes international
organizations develop their work in accordance to accepted mindsets in the
developed world. Key actors control development policies – and their own needs
have to be met, even if this does not mean development policies cognoscente of
the real needs of the societies in developing countries.
There has been attempted a turn in this modus operandi of international
development professionals and organizations. In fact, in the last decades, the
international development community has engaged in an effort to move away
from the ‘one size fits all’ methodology to a more inclusive and participated
approach – these are now the ‘participatory programmes’ and projects, which
ask of the international development professional to have a broader knowledge
of the reality s/he inhabits and of the local people s/he works with. Thus, country
programmes, agendas, projects documents and frameworks are currently filled
with words and expressions such as ‘local knowledge’, ‘local ownership’,
‘accountability’, ‘transferable skills and capacities’, ‘community mobilisation’
and, in this context, the international development professional is asked to be
the ‘facilitator’ of development.
This then brings us to the bridge between colonial times and contemporary work
for Development. In this regard, Kothari (2006) interestingly notes that, “cultures
which travelled over colonial space (…) have been reworked throughout the
postcolonial period, belying epochal historical periodizations that conjure up a
clear disjuncture between colonial and development eras”, thus creating a
timeline of events, which contributed to the creation of the social space now
occupied by contemporary international development professionals.

35
Furthermore, Kothari (2006) sustains the argument that international
development professionals maintain deep connections to home (or, at least, to a
conception of home) while enjoying a lifestyle and social status ‘not afforded to
them at home’, redefining how they see themselves towards others, both at
home and away; and, once again, redefining spaces.
The social space is staged in the geographical space and influences it by creating
new ‘realities’. Therefore, talking about the geographical space occupied by
contemporary international development professionals in developing countries, I
cannot fail to mention the houses and compound where they live. Kothari (2006)
describes them as ‘enclavic spaces’, where they are free from the contact with
the outside, deemed to be insecure. Bearing in mind that we are talking about
long-term international development professionals and not of short-term
consultants, these enclaves where they live are the external expression of the
power relations created by them, as well as of the power of the institution within
which these professionals are working. In these spaces, international
development professionals can recreate ‘home’ with a touch of the exoticism of
the local arts. In this regard, Kothari (2006) gives the example of the British Aid
Guest House in Dhaka, Bangladesh, which “has a few guest rooms primarily for
low-level aid personnel and consultants and also a bar and sports facilities
frequented by diplomats and other expatriates” and which is guarded “to ensure
this exclusivity”. Such geographical havens provide development agencies with
the appropriate context to develop policies and strategies to be implemented in
‘areas that consultants may never have visited and people that they rarely meet’
(Kothari, 2006).
It is in these geographical spaces that the group/elite of international
development professionals shares a bundle of common feelings like ‘scepticism,
self-criticism, spoof and humour’ (Mosse, 2008). This means that members of the
group can be – and often are – marginalized or may ‘self-marginalize’ (Mosse,
2008) themselves from the group. This may arise from naïveté, excess of zeal,
comparison, a mistake or a great success at work. These are all reflections of
power relations, because power is not only exerted from the group onto the

36
locals in the developing countries, but also inside the group of international
development professionals. As Mosse (2008) points out, ‘the true professional is
a bit cynical’. It is difficult to get accounts by development professionals on their
experiences in developing countries, working for NGOs, aid agencies, bi-lateral
cooperation or UN. However, occasionally, “professionals offer personal
accounts of the real micro-politics of their expertise found in books by
development economists, aid workers, NGO staff, or diplomats” (Mosse, 2008).
Urban space disposition thus mirrors the relationship between capital values and
work which influence both the materiality of relations and the power relations
established in the territory. Socio-spatial practices are inscribed in the
geographical space of capital cities in developing countries – international
development professionals’ compounds, high walled and well guarded houses of
international professionals in local neighbourhoods; downtown, uptown, the rich
area, the poor area… power relations are expressed in the materiality of
constructions and procedures developed in the socio-geographical space of the
town. As Gemaque Souza (2009) emphasizes, “space represents a component
which is dialectically defined inside a political economy which, lastly, explains the
survival of modern capitalism”.
This whole chapter proved that international development professionals do
indeed occupy particular social and geographical spaces in the developing
countries they are deployed to and where they live – through the ‘travelling
rationalities’ stemmed out of the power relations established with locals (and
inside the transnational elite of international development professionals), thus
shaping the geographical space where international development professionals
establish safe ‘havens’ similar to ‘home’.

38
Difficulties and Recommendations
Through the process of doing research and writing this dissertation, I faced some
difficulties: a) the fact of the initial project being far too broad to the scope of
such a narrow text of 10.000 to 12.000 words; b) there is not much literature on
the space occupied by international development professionals in developing
countries; c) I attempted to circulate a questionnaire to find out international
development professionals’ motivations to work for Development and also
patterns of consumption and behaviour, but, as mentioned before in this
dissertation, international development professionals are not keen in sharing
their own accounts on their experiences in developing countries, and, thus, the
spectrum of answers received was not representative enough to apply a Mixed-
Methods Research Design5
to insert this data in the text. Furthermore, I believe
that field research would have exponentially increased the interest of the data
presented by adding a more personal touch to it, but time and budget
constraints did not allow me to incur in such an endeavour.
I would thus recommend further studies in the area of the socio-geographical
space of expert knowledge and procedures in developing countries. It is a rather
interesting (and sensitive) subject for the international community which is
engaged in development policies and work. Until recently, research and
literature have focused more on the institutional side of Development, leaving
the implementing actors of Development aside. Literature in this field has also
focused the recipients, but little Literature has focused the donor itself – not the
agencies or aid, but the international development professionals. I would
therefore recommend a field study, which would provide the researcher with
personal accounts from a myriad of international development professionals,
which would then be the base for the explanation of the argument.
5
Please refer to Leech (2009) for further reference.

40
Conclusion
The aim of this dissertation was to prove that international development
professionals working for international aid agencies in developing countries
occupy a particular social space in the countries they are deployed to and where
they unveil their activity and, therefore, live.
I have argued that these international development professionals constitute a
transnational elite which is heterogenic, multicultural and multidisciplinary, and
whose particular characteristic is the sharing of common ‘travelling rationalities’
created in the West and transferred to developing countries by these same
international development professionals. These ‘travelling rationalities’ are also
one of the visible signs of the power relations established between this
transnational social class and local peoples and governments in developing
countries. Other distinctive features would include enclavic housing patterns,
mobility, and other visible signs of wealth, such as eating in restaurants often –
thus shaping distinctions between internationals and nationals in the
reconfiguration of the social and geographical spaces of developing countries.
Sociological studies and theories contributed to the elaboration of a critical
analysis of the micro and macro levels of the social system in developing
countries, mostly by its contribution to the study of the agency and interaction of
international development professionals within the social structures of
developing countries, shaping and transforming them. In close collaboration with
Sociology, anthropological theories provided important information on the
customs and socio-political organization of societies and social classes in
developing countries, by adding the importance of taking into account local
contexts and the informal relations created between nationals and internationals
and between the latter and the international aid agencies. It also added the
reference to divergent views on Development and the effects of power relations
in the society in developing countries to the discussion of the hypothesis, stating
that these are fundamental to the creation of social classes and social spaces.
Furthermore, Ethnography contributed with the study of the movements of the

41
process of knowledge formation in the international Development arena –
crucial to the analysis of the formation of ‘travelling rationalities’ imported into
developing countries by international development professionals.
As argued, space in itself is devoid of any character and reality. It is by the
development of personal relations between actors that reality is imprinted in
space. Therefore, social spaces are the place by excellence to bring together
different social classes, schools of thought and procedures. In developing
countries, international development professionals are thus confronted with
different realities and classes – some estranged to them; some not, being their
own social class transnational – e.g. easily copied and transferred to other
countries or realities, and, thus, devoid of peculiarities in specific countries,
which may create unbridgeable divergences in specific contexts of developing
countries.
Furthermore, International development professionals are involved in
dichotomies not always easy to manage: a) home and away; b) personal life and
work life; c) social life and private life; d) high salaries abroad and low salaries or
unemployment at home; and, last but not least, e) social structures and the
instrumentalism they are subjected to by working with international aid
organizations. Despite the fact that international development professionals
should be knowledgeable of the country they are working in, this
instrumentalism praises more technical knowledge than social considerations.
Thus, international development professionals are caught in the net of
instrumentalism, in order to maintain their position inside the Development
arena; however, they still have to deal with the social structures they inhabit –
and these processes, sometimes, are irreconcilable.
Further studies should be done on these matters, in order to make Development
processes less technical and more human, and bring to the public knowledge
personal accounts of international development professionals on their work in
developing countries – how they feel and what could be done better.

42
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