This thesis explores how three international volunteers taught in rural Indigenous communities in Ecuador. It positions this exploration in the complexities and dilemmas of International aid education (IAE) projects and cross-cultural volunteer teaching. The study uses literature on anti-colonial theories, Indigenous knowledges and culturally relevant teaching (CRT) as a conceptual framework to understanding IVTs perceptions of and approaches towards cross-cultural teaching and its relationship with Indigenous students’ lived experiences. Onsite observations and interviews with international volunteer teachers’ (IVTs) and discussions with local teachers and volunteer program director are used in a cross-comparative analysis, which examines how their teaching was sensitive to and reflective of these Indigenous peoples’ ways of knowing and learning. The findings show that the three IVTs varied greatly in their understanding and enactment of CRT. The thesis concludes by exploring the implications of IAE and sets out recommendations for creating more culturally relevant education for Indigenous students.

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A new form of foreign travel called “voluntourism” has emerged in Sweden. In advertisements that invite to “make a difference”, travel agencies promote short- term aid opportunities at for example orphanages or schools in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. International volunteer work is nothing new. Rather, the volunteer agencies have entered an old and established organizational field. Using theories of new institutionalism and the analytical phrase “the story about”, this thesis investigates the way international aid work originated and evolved, and how commercial volunteer agencies entered the field. The thesis is partly based on historical data from organizational reports, biographies of aid work icons, and interviews with volunteers active during the 1960s and 1970s. Additionally, it makes use of contemporary data from interviews with representatives from volunteer travel agencies and volunteers. It also includes an analysis of how the travel agencies present their business operations on their websites. The thesis concludes that travel agencies apply the common perception of international aid work’s characteristics when marketing volunteer travels. This common perception can be traced through the evolution of international aid work. Travel agencies attract volunteers by offering access to this exclusive field. The volunteers are well-educated young women from middle class families. They are looking for experiences from international aid work, perspective on their own lives, and first-hand knowledge of local and traditional societies in poor countries. Nevertheless, due to the esteem in which the organizational field is viewed, a brief period spent as an aid worker is considered a desirable qualification for a job applicant. I interpret volunteer travel as a “grand tour”.

Sammanfattning Studien syftar till att ge fördjupad kunskap om svenskt internationellt biståndsarbete samt hur problem formuleras och lösningar konstrueras av biståndsorganisationernas arbetsätt.  Studien är genomförd med en kvalitativ metod och det empiriska materialet har inhämtats genom intervjuer. Intervjuerna genomfördes med tre ledande personer från två svenska biståndsorganisationer som arbetar på internationell nivå. Vidare inryms i studien observationer från dessa två biståndsorganisationer. Studiens teoretiska perspektiv är den postkoloniala teorin, teorin om konstruktion av sociala problem samt begreppen kolonialism och eurocentrisk diffusion. Resultatet i studien visar att de studerade biståndsorganisationerna i stora drag har ett liknande tillvägagångssätt i sitt arbete med internationellt bistånd. De arbetar utifrån att ha en stödjande roll gentemot mottagarna av biståndet så att mottagarna kan definiera sina behov och vara aktiva i lösningarna tillsammans med de svenska biståndsorganisationerna.  Samtidigt agerar de kontrollerande gällande huruvida biståndsorganisationernas egna visioner och värderingar ska vara styrande i utformningen av hjälparbetet.   De svenska biståndsorganisationernas mål är att kunskapsbilda, medvetandegöra och ombilda befintliga lokala organisationer för att förbättra människors levnadsvillkor till det bättre i utsatta länder. För att detta ska vara möjligt är det avgörande att samarbeta med lokala organisationer som är likasinnade med de svenska biståndsorganisationerna.  Studien påvisar att det finns en idé om att påverka mottagarna av biståndet genom eftersträvan av att de ska anamma de svenska biståndsgivarnas egna visioner och värderingar. Detta framkommer tydligt genom de svenska biståndsorganisationernas arbetsätt samt deras delaktighet vid formuleringar av problem och konstruktioner av lösningar hos biståndsmottagarna. Vidare framkommer att biståndsorganisationernas kunskapsgivande och ombildning av lokala organisationer bidrar med att västerländsk kunskapssyn sprids ut i världen. / The study aims to provide profound knowledge of Swedish international aid work and how problems are formulated and solutions designed by aid organizations working methods. The study is conducted using a qualitative approach and the empirical material has been collected through interviews and observations. The interviews took place with three leading figures from two Swedish aid organizations working at international level. Furthermore, are observations from these two aid organizations part of the studies method. The studies theoretical perspective is the post-colonial theory, the theory of constructions of social problems and the concept of colonialism and eurocentrism diffusion. The result of the study shows that the studied organizations have broadly similar procedures in their work with international aid work. The organizations work on a paradoxical basis. On the one hand they have a supporting role to the recipients of aid so that the recipients can define their own needs and be active in the solutions along with swedish aid organizations. On the other hand, the organizations acts controlling where their own vision and values are guiding the relief effort. The swedish aid organizations aim is to educate, raise awareness and transform existing organizations in the countries they operate in order to improve people's lives for the better in vulnerable countries around the world.  For achieving this purpose, it is crucial for them to work with local organizations that are like-minded the swedish aid organizations.  This study shows that there is an idea to affect the recipients of aid in pursuing them to embrace the Swedish donors' own visions and values. This is clearly shown by the Swedish aid organizations working methods as well as their involvement in the formulation of problems and constructions of solutions of aid recipients. Furthermore, it appears that the aid organizations' knowledge rewarding and transformation of local organizations contribute to Western conception of knowledge spread out in the world.

Due to an increased humanitarian caseload the UN has called for the international community to work differently from delivering aid to ending needs, partly by enhancing the engagement between humanitarian and development actors. The thesis aims to describe and analyse the dynamics between humanitarian and development aid and by so doing provide an empirical contribution to the larger discussion on how to streamline international assistance by addressing the temporal, institutional and funding gaps between the two types of assistance. This is a qualitative comparative study based on nine interviews with development and humanitarian practitioners from five different organisations providing both types of assistance. Participants of the study were positive to the idea of collaboration across the sectors but that in order to accomplish this the international community, donors and each individual organisation need to overcome great institutional and financial constraints leading to the conclusion that international assistance will not be streamlined successfully until the institutional and funding gaps are properly addressed.

In an attempt to improve the effectiveness of aid, many of the stakeholders in the international aid regime agreed to commit to five key principles in the Paris Declaration (PD) in 2005. These principles of ownership, alignment, harmonisation, managing for results and mutual accountability were aimed at improving the effective delivery and use of aid, although the Declaration has been followed by continuing doubts over aid effectiveness, especially in the context of deficiencies in donor cooperation and coordination and weak recipient ownership. Since the PD, donors have made varying efforts when it comes to implementing the Paris requirements towards greater aid effectiveness. However, after two OECD DAC monitoring surveys, in 2006 and in 2008, donors and recipients found out that the overall result of the progress of the implementation has been slow and that donor behavioural change towards implementing the PD has differed. In the light of this, this research aims to examine how donors have implemented the PD and why there are such differences in donor behaviour based on a comparative study of Sweden, the United Kingdom (UK), South Korea and China in Tanzania. This thesis reveals that there are key differences between advanced donors (Sweden and the UK) and emerging donors (Korea and China), particularly in terms of their levels of behavioural change in implementing the PD. While Sweden and the UK have shown greater progress in implementing many of the protocols of the PD, Korea and China have barely implemented the Paris requirements. The findings of this research highlight that the uneven responses and outcomes of the PD implementation are due to the design of the PD, which was based on the existing aid delivery mechanism of traditional donors at its top level, and the Paris requirements have not considered the bottom level reality of emerging donors who have different aid mechanisms from traditional donors. By examining seven major factors which inform the uneven donor performance (aid amount and number of staff, aid history of donors, political commitments, action plans and country specific strategies, aid management systems, aid modalities, and monitoring and evaluation), this study argues that the PD has been an 'easy option' for traditional donors such as Sweden and the UK, while it requires radical changes for emerging donors such as Korea and China. While this research relies on the public policy implementation theories to explain uneven donor behaviour in the PD implementation process, there has been less focus on the political economy and the self-interests and motivations of donors, which remains a main limitation of the study. Given this, this research has suggested conducting a further study on donor behaviour with a new methodological focus on the political economy and donor self-interests.

The outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936 and the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937 triggered many responses amongst the American public, including a number of private initiatives in medical aid that occupied a borderland between traditional humanitarian relief and political activism. This study is interested in the stories of three organisations arising in this tradition: the American Medical Bureau to Aid Spanish Democracy (AMBASD), the American Bureau for Medical Aid to China (ABMAC), and the China Aid Council (CAC). While three separate initiatives in terms of who was responsible for their creation in the United States, and the communities they sought to help abroad, all three demonstrate parallels in their foundation and development that merit a joint historical consideration. Emerging from the backdrop of isolationism in U.S. foreign policy, the AMBASD, ABMAC, and CAC became a means of voicing both political and humanitarian ideals through the medium of medicine. In many ways, this thesis becomes a study of lost causes. As political campaigns, none of the organisations in this study succeeded in changing U.S. policy, although the ABMAC and CAC benefitted from interests that overlapped with larger changes in U.S. military alliances. As humanitarian organisations, only one (the ABMAC) lived past the conflict to which it owed its foundation. Their story, however, retains its historical interest in challenging both the way in which we examine the mythology of humanitarian idealism, and our understanding of the balance between internationalism and isolationism in the 1930’s United States. For the medical activists of these organizations, medical aid offered both a tangible outlet for personal ethical and political beliefs, but also promised an alternative means of diplomacy that brought greater agency to more popular levels.

L’« appropriation » par les pays en développement (PED) de leurs processus de développement forme la clef de voûte de la nouvelle approche de l’aide et de la coopération au développement telle que promue par la Déclaration de Paris (2005). Si ce passage vers l’« appropriation » vise à installer les PED « dans le siège du conducteur », il reste tout de même inscrit dans une relation d’aide. Or, la Déclaration de Paris pose cette « appropriation » comme le résultat d’un consensus et comme un principe devant être mis en oeuvre sur un terrain vierge via une série de mesures techniques préoccupées par une efficacité ou plutôt une efficience de l’aide. En s’intéressant à la perspective d’acteurs sociaux nationaux quant à cette question de l’ « appropriation » à partir d’une étude de cas c’est-à-dire d’un contexte précis, ici celui du Rwanda, cette thèse vise à démontrer que l’agenda et les politiques en matière de développement, dont la question de l’ « appropriation », ne peuvent être saisis dans un vide contextuel. En effet, ce que met en évidence la perspective des acteurs sociaux nationaux au Rwanda quant à cette question de l’ « appropriation », c’est leur réinscription de cette question dans le contexte du Rwanda post-génocide et dépendant de l’aide, et leur appréhension de celle-ci à partir de ce contexte. Ce contexte informe le récit de ces acteurs qui met en sens et en forme cette « appropriation ». Leur saisie de l’ « appropriation » se bâtit autour d’un double impératif dans le contexte du Rwanda post-génocide, un impératif d’une part de reconstruction socio-économique et d’autre part d’édification d’une nation, et ce, à la lumière des tensions ‘ethniques’ qui traversent et structurent historiquement l’espace politique et social rwandais et qui ont donné lieu au génocide de 1994. / As put forward in the Paris Declaration (2005), “ownership” by developing countries of their development process forms the cornerstone of a new approach to aid and development cooperation. If the aim of “ownership” is to put developing countries “in the driver’s seat” of their development, it nonetheless remains an aid relation. Indeed, the Paris Declaration claims that “ownership” is the outcome of a consensus as well as a principle to be implemented through a series of technical measures preoccupied with concerns of effectiveness (or more accurately aid efficiency). As such, it puts forward the idea that aid is implemented as if on a blank slate. Beginning with a specific case study, in this instance Rwanda, and by focusing on the perspectives of national social actors on the issue of “ownership,” this thesis demonstrates that development agenda and policies, including the question of “ownership,” cannot be adequately grasped in a contextual vacuum. Through the narratives of national social actors, the meaning of “ownership” is reconfigured within the context of post-genocide Rwanda and aid-dependency, highlighting the significance of context in giving content and form to “ownership.” In the context of a post-genocide Rwanda, the understanding of “ownership” by national social actors is articulated around a double imperative: on the one hand, the demand for socio-economic reconstruction, on the other, the imperative of nation-building in light of the ‘ethnic’ tensions that cut across and historically structure Rwandan social and political space, and which led to the 1994 genocide.

At the onset of the First World War, Germany was subject to a shipping embargo by the Allied forces. Ostensibly military in nature, the blockade prevented not only armaments but also food and fertilizers from entering Germany. The impact of this blockade on civilian populations has been debated ever since. Germans protested that the Allies had wielded hunger as a weapon against women and children with devastating results, a claim that was hotly denied by the Allies. The impact of what the Germans termed the 'Hungerblockade' on childhood nutrition can now be assessed using various anthropometric sources on school children, several of which are newly discovered. Statistical analysis reveals a grim truth: German children suffered severe malnutrition due to the blockade. Social class impacted risk of deprivation, with working-class children suffering the most. Surprisingly, they were the quickest to recover after the war. Their rescue was fuelled by massive food aid organized by the former enemies of Germany, and delivered cooperatively with both government and civil society. Children, and those who cared for them, responded to these acts of service with gratitude and joy. The ability of former belligerents to work together after an exceptionally bitter war to feed impoverished children may hold hope for the future.

Cette recherche porte sur la migration de citoyens de pays du Nord dans les Territoires Palestiniens Occupés (TPO). Elle vise à analyser les trajectoires sociales et migratoires de ces individus, désignés localement « internationaux », ainsi qu'à montrer comment ils sont des acteurs dans la situation locale au travers de leurs mobilités, leurs emplois et leurs engagements. Cette problématique de recherche s'inscrit au croisement de deux phénomènes : d'une part, la diversification et l'accroissement des migrations internationales, et plus spécifiquement celles allant du Nord vers le Sud, et, d'autre part, l'émergence de conditions matérielles et professionnelles favorables à l'arrivée de citoyens étrangers dans un pays en conflit, sous l'effet de l'afflux massif de l'aide internationale depuis les années 1990. L'étude des profils sociaux des « internationaux » résidant dans les TPO révèle une forte homogénéité sociale et culturelle : on observe ainsi une migration de jeunes hautement diplômés, issus de familles de classes moyennes supérieures d'Europe ou d'Amérique du Nord, et particulièrement dotés en capitaux culturels. Toutefois, l'analyse des trajectoires souligne une certaine diversité des parcours migratoires et des liens entretenus à la Palestine. La seconde partie de cette thèse s'intéresse à la place politique et sociale des « internationaux » dans l'espace israélo-palestinien. La question des mobilités est cruciale pour saisir la position inédite de cette population migrante. Sa présence dans les TPO fait l'objet d'un contrôle important et croissant de la part des autorités israéliennes qui cherchent à la limiter et à la surveiller. Dans le même temps, à l'intérieur de l'espace israélo-palestinien, les « internationaux » bénéficient de droits à la mobilité dont sont privés les Palestiniens. L'étude des privilèges et des tensions qui en ressortent permet d'interroger les positionnements et le rôle de ces étrangers. Enfin, deux autres thématiques sont explorées : leur participation au système de l'aide internationale et leur engagements politiques vis-à-vis de la cause palestinienne. Tour à tour, pris dans les dynamiques sociopolitiques locales et partie prenante de ces mêmes dynamiques, les citoyens étrangers résidant dans les TPO représentent pour la recherche une entrée heuristique pour penser les circulations Nord-Sud comme la situation palestinienne actuelle. / This PhD research studies the current migration of nationals from northern countries to the occupied Palestinian territories (oPt). It aims to analyze the social and migratory trajectories of those called "internationals" and attempts to highlight how, through their mobility practices, work and political engagements, they can be considered a new group of actors in the oPt. This core question falls within two global and regional phenomena: first, the increase and diversification of international migration, especially North to South flows, and secondly, the vast rate of international assistance to the oPt since the 1990s, which has resulted in the emergence of tangible conditions conducive to the migration of foreign citizens to a conflict zone. By examining their social features, a strong social and cultural homogeneity of an apparently divers group of individuals becomes apparent; it is a migration of relatively young, affluent people from the upper middle classes of Europe or North America, endowed with cultural and international capital. However, the study of the trajectories that led them to oPt reveals a diversity of migratory paths and links to Palestine. The second part of my PhD thesis tackles the social and political role and position of "internationals". Mobility rights and practices are a relevant and challenging angle to discuss the atypical position of such migrants. Indeed, Israeli authorities seek to monitor, control and limit foreign presence in the oPt (through a variety of measures), transforming privileged people into suspected and unwanted individuals. Yet inside the Israeli-Palestinian space, they are granted mobility privileges which allow them to circulate freely while Palestinians are rendered immobile in their homeland. The study of these privileges and the resulting tension calls into question internationals' position in Palestinian society. Finally, internationals' participation in the aid regime and the political actions taken by some migrants on the Palestinian cause are addressed. Through the political and socio-economic implications of their presence, western citizens living in the oPt are an heuristic point of entry to contribute to the fields of North-South migration studies and Palestinian studies.