Bringing relational comparison into development studies: Global health volunteers’ experiences of Sierra Leone

Abstract

Global health volunteering is premised on a comparative understanding of development: hospitals in developing countries are ‘behind’ modern institutions in developed nations, and sharing volunteers’ skills will enable the latter to ‘catch-up’. We argue for a ‘relational comparison’ in development studies, which draws upon a geographical conception of inequality premised on understanding places in relation to one another rather than reifying differences between countries. We place a particular hospital within a dialectical totality of combined and uneven development. Health workers’ experiences of volunteering in Sierra Leone demonstrate that local problems, including staff shortages and corruption, are enveloped within global processes.