Helping One’s World. A Political Geography of Aid as Delivered by French Development NGOs.
Thomas Rosenthal (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne / Géographie-cités) will defend his PhD dissertation in Geography, entitled Aider son Monde. Géographie politique de l’action et des représentations des ONG françaises de développement |Helping One’s World. A Political Geography of Aid as Delivered by French Development NGOs. , under the supervision of Clarisse Didelon-Loiseau
Tuesday, October 13
9:00 a.m.
Salle à la Fresque de la Sorbonne
1, rue Victor Cousin
75005 Paris, France
Examination Committee
Emmanuel Bioteau, Professor, University of Angers — Examiner
Arnaud Brennetot, Professor, University of Rouen Normandy — External Examiner and Reviewer
Clarisse Didelon-Loiseau, Professor, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne — PhD Supervisor
Catherine Fournet-Guérin, Professor, Sorbonne University — Examiner
Virginie Mamadouh, Associate Professor, University of Amsterdam — Examiner
Marc-Antoine Pérouse de Montclos, Research Director, French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development (IRD) — External Examiner and Reviewer
Abstract
This dissertation explores the notion of ‘World’ by examining the spatial representations and practices of French development NGOs. Constructed within Francophone geography in the 1990s and the 2000s, this notion enables the conceptualization of a ‘World-territory’ that moves beyond the nation state as the primary framework for thinking about political action. This perspective allows for analyzing how non-state actors engaged with global-scale politics can challenge the nation state framework by intervening in close connection to the needs of the World’s most structurally disadvantaged populations. It also challenges the idea that their spatial practices respond to those fundamental needs in accordance with values of solidarity. In a context of crisis in international aid, marked by decreasing public funding and growing difficulties in accessing fields of intervention, this dissertation develops a critical focus on political actors by building on postcolonial perspectives.
Drawing on both qualitative methods – including interviews and critical readings of institutional documents – and statistical analyses, this dissertation investigates how 27 French development NGOs represent the World, as well as the geographies of their interventions.
Findings on their representations show that French development NGOs use the ‘World’ as a marketing tool to establish themselves as ‘expert-actors’. Looking at their spatial practices, however, reveals the centrality of the nation state framework in their interventions. Indeed, the way French NGOs design their aid interventions reproduces the division of the World into states, and their French nationality still influences how they are funded and where they choose to intervene. In the postcolonial era, NGOs participate in an international aid system organized by and for the nation states, ultimately proving that the nation state remains an irreducible structure in the political organization of the World. Overall, this dissertation highlights the relevance of geographical concepts and methods for studying civil society organizations, and advocates for a better understanding of the contemporary spatial dynamics behind public interest interventions.
