In this blog, Rosie discusses and contextualises the practice of ‘paternalism’ within the charity sector, specifically through the use of ‘othering’ language. Consequently, Rosie suggests that we can pay careful attention to our language in order to combat paternalism. 

What does it mean to ‘lift someone out of poverty’? Or ‘help people to help themselves’? What does it mean to provide ‘them (disadvantaged people) with opportunities to improve their self-reliance’?

Paternalism refers to the act of attempting to nurture as a parent would and very often in an uninvited manner, people whom the paternalist deems to be in need of assistance.

‘Othering’ is a related concept that draws attention to the social location (positionality) of people whom the ‘otherer’ understands as different from the otherer as well as people whom the otherer understands as similar to themselves. Paternalism and othering are often communicated through language that implies difference, a distance, a hierarchy, a knower/learner frame and via the personal pronouns ‘they’, ‘them’ or ‘their’.

It is difficult to understand paternalism and othering without thinking historically. ‘The Civilizing Mission’ was one means by which Britain attempted to justify its colonial empire during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The Civilizing Mission rested on an erroneous assumption that Britain and other European countries knew more and better things than those whom they colonised. The argument that the colonisers made was that British rule was helpful because it provided a means by which Britain could impart its knowledge to others who ‘lacked’ it. This history has a devastating legacy which should not be underestimated, affecting the international development space, in particular, but not exclusively. Civilising missions can occur anywhere power is unevenly distributed within a society.

It would be wrong, of course, to question the intention of everyone who desires to combat poverty, empower people, and support others’ personal development, as the quotes which began this piece capture. This blog is about a specific approach to development. We work with many incredible charities that make change happen outside of paternalism.

Additionally, people do not necessarily intentionally express paternalism or engage in othering. However, the impacts are arguably no less detrimental in these cases. It is also interesting to reflect on the pulling power of paternalistic practices in certain marketing spaces. Moreover, it’s essential not to neglect the fact that superiority complexes, informed by cultures of racism, sexism, ablism, and classism, amongst others, are alive and well, informing paternalistic practices. This being said, people also internalise language from their environments subconsciously, so that certain words and phrases, like ‘lifting’ people ‘out of poverty’, can trip off the tongue and become ‘go to’ expressions and modes of thinking in certain contexts. There are other examples. While the idiom ‘Teach a man to fish’ did not originate in the UK, it is a familiar one in the UK, associated with the international development space owing to an advertising campaign launched by a large charity in the 1990s, attracted by the idea of shifting away from aid to empowerment and sustainability. The idiom is used to express the idea that it is better to tackle the root cause of an issue as opposed to the symptom:

‘Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.’

Marketing spaces are peppered with this sort of language. But has anyone stopped to think about who the man is, what the man wants, what the man thinks about this intervention, what the man knows more about and is better at than the fish-giver or teacher, and whether the fish-giver or teacher or their society has ever done anything to contribute to a situation in which more fish or fishing are required in the man’s environment?

Being critical is important. Paternalistic words and phrases often appear in contexts that centre on empowerment. But the words and the sentiment which informs them can effect the exact opposite outcome, pumping up the ‘giver’ and de-pressing the ‘recipient’ whose apparent need for assistance only confirms their ‘lowly’ status just as the givers seek ostensibly to raise it.

What if people were not to ‘lift someone out of poverty’, but rather to ‘serve communities seeking to eliminate poverty’? What if people were not to ‘offer them opportunities to improve their self-reliance’, but rather to ‘recruit people experiencing disadvantage within a mutually beneficial relationship in which everyone reaps dividends from the diversity of experiences, skills and knowledge shared’? Paternalism and othering aren’t just condescending. They can cause a loss of the potential that diversity embodies, but that paternalists negate by imparting their own ways of doing things.

Frankly, it is challenging to alter the language of the quotes which began this blog for the reason that the issue is not merely semantic. Language reflects thinking and practice, with the latter representing the core issue. Until some sections of our societies change the way they view what they do and internalise the principle of human equality, altering the language used to describe their actions might achieve little. In addition, the presence of paternalistic and othering language is helpful in alerting us to un-inclusive spaces. Nevertheless, the relationship between language, on the one hand, and thinking and practice, on the other, is not unidirectional. There is hope that if everyone thinks more about what they say and how they say it, it might be possible to make a change.