This article explores NGOs’ accountability and their resistance to donor-driven accountability policies and practices, looking specifically at indigenous NGOs working in the aid industry in Eastern Africa.
Starting from a critical perspective on prevailing understandings and practices, it examines the limitations and criticalities of functional accountability, focusing in particular on how it curtails the emergence of agendas and practices not aligned with those of the donors and how NGOs navigate this complexity. In doing so, this research explores various forms of mundane resistance and scrutinises their political clout and effects. More specifically, drawing on Gramsci’s notion of war of position, the study pursues two intertwined aims. Firstly, it aims to advance and expand the current understanding of how NGOs engage with donors’ accountability requirements, by shedding light on their everyday resistance, which has thus far been neglected in the literature. Secondly, by drawing on the analysis of NGOs’ everyday resistance, it aims to contribute to current debates on the politics of micro-resistance, and more specifically on its political meaningfulness.
It concludes by suggesting that while micro-resistance can play a crucial role in emancipatory projects, this can only happen through an organic linkage with a collective transformative political agenda.
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)