Capitalising on ‘local knowledge’: The labour practices behind successful aid projects – the case of Jordan

Abstract

Humanitarian aid stakeholders increasingly call for localisation: to ensure aid projects utilise, and are informed by, local actors and their ‘local knowledge’. This article explores what this means in practice. Drawing upon the case of Jordan, a major global aid hub, the author shows how national aid workers’ local knowledge is critical for their employers’ projects in at least two ways: they work as ‘vulnerability finders’ to reach communities in need; and as ‘narrative negotiators’ to ensure projects’ designs and evaluations are based on local expertise. However, it was found that workers tailor the ways in which they mobilise their ‘local knowledge’ given their positions and interactions within their workplaces. To make sense of these calculated articulations, the author draws upon Bourdieu’s concept of cultural capital to argue that localisation is commodifying and transforming the power workers derive from their local status: from something that relates to their networks and knowledge within the local context to their ability to produce desirable project results. How workers labour in response highlights how localisation and the sector’s prevalent audit culture intertwine, and reproduce inequalities through particular constructions of local workers and their value to aid projects.