Stephanie Mason
High Distinction
Monte Sant' Angelo Mercy College
Is foreign aid perpetuating 'race'?

My hypothesis remains, but my scepticism and pretension does not. I began this research wanting to prove the arrogance of the West. I wanted to show how making ‘them’ more like ‘us’ has just made ‘them’ perish while ‘we’ prosper in our ignorance. Because I knew I was right.

I don’t think I proved any of that, but I did debunk my self-assertion. I proved that I was arrogant, and ignorant, which by my standards would make me a Westerner. But really, it just makes me a teenager, a teenager who didn’t actually understand the intricate global power play. And so, I’ve come away from this experience much humbled. I’ve learnt that sympathy is always necessary, and to provide a fellow earthling with water and somewhere comfortable to sleep perhaps isn’t such an evil. I’ve learnt that state sovereignty does not have to be an absolute, and that foreign aid is improving.

I’ve learnt that the 1970s was an era still affected by a racial worldview different to my own, where benevolence clouded cultural relativism. The individuals working for foreign aid initiatives during this time were motivated out of a yearning to help others they perceived to be less fortunate than themselves. It is possible that the rationale and consequences of aid at this time perpetuated racism, but the intention was not to do so…

Since this time, the methods of providing aid have been reviewed and it would appear the racial worldview shared by many persons born within the last thirty years disapproves with elements of aid work that are more perpetual to the construct of race, suggesting that racial assumptions are not dominating the decision-making process… Aid is increasingly being delivered with the aim of affording persons living in environmentally or socially disadvantaged areas the opportunity to set up a future for themselves, without the cultural or racial implications that characterised the aid of the generation preceding them.

My results were not entirely conclusive; I was naïve to expect age unequivocally dictated worldview. If I allowed myself more time to conduct primary methodologies, a larger sample and wider demographic could have been accessed, quite possibly increasing the accuracy of the findings. However, for the large majority of my methodologies, the research findings did support my hypothesis, and I came to understand that the anomalies were reflective of the variations within humanity.

I was aware of the difficulties in obtaining unbiased results due to the nature of the issue I was researching. My methodologies targeted an audience with an economic, political or philosophical attachment to foreign aid and hence objectivity was almost impossible to obtain…Nevertheless, the degree of bias within my results allowed for analyses and inferences, which forced me to broaden my understanding of the issue.

This PIP journey taught me to empathise with my own culture, to not judge the people I share a heritage with so harshly, as well as allowing me to see the needs of cultures markedly different from my own. I believe the results I’ve found through this process are an indication of global progress, and reflect a pattern that I hope will continue in to the future.