What is Expertise? Challenges to Professional Knowledge in Citizen Aid Initiatives

Session Submission Type: Roundtable Discussion

Abstract

The early 21st century was marked by a turn towards professionalization in the third sector (Hwang and Powell 2009, Mitchell et al. 2020). But a diverse set of trends now push against professionalized expertise, ranging from populist skepticism of elites, to citizen aid enabled by electronic communication, to calls from the left to decolonize research (Hawkins and Kaltwasser 2017, Haaland et al. 2023).

In this context, how do third sector organizations define their expertise? What sorts of knowledge or information do they use to gauge their success? This roundtable focuses on cases of citizen aid, which are volunteer driven and are by design less formalized than typical NGOs.

By looking across diverse citizen aid initiatives in different country contexts, the roundtable will explore the ways they emerge in relation to different colonial, aid and development histories, consider how this shapes the ‘expertise’ that they claim and reflect on why such expertise may be valued or dismissed. As part of this, the panel will consider the geography of third sector organizations and how this relates to the claims they make; by not being bound by the metropolitan focus of larger NGOs and their need to be close to government aid ministries, do citizen aid initiatives create new connections between globally oriented third sector organizations and local and regional histories of connection that can create new forms of legitimacy? At the same time, how do the often emotional and personal experiences that underpin citizen aid initiatives relate to the data driven audits that characterize INGO practices, and what does this mean for their authority and accountability?

The authors draw on ethnographic and survey research from Cambodia, Norway, the Netherlands, the U.S., and the U.K. to discuss these themes.

Matt Baillie Smith and Katy Jenkins will discuss research with Private Development Initiatives based in North East England, and their counterparts in the global South, exploring how these organizations’ scale, structures and ethos might enable them to do development differently, and analyzing the particular solidarities that emerge from and are sustained by these citizen aid practices.

Hanne Haaland, Lau Schulpen and Hege Wallevik will consider issues of legitimacy and expertise in the context of citizen initiative responses to the war in Ukraine. This collaborative, comparative research is work in progress.

Ph.D. candidate Derek Richardson will share insights from his fieldwork-in-progress in Cambodia. He considers the forms of expertise that shape patients’ experiences with health care providing
NGOs: local knowledge, medical expertise, and development professionalism.

Allison Schnable will present findings with a project co-authored with Susan Appe from a survey of U.S.-based grassroots INGOs comparing how volunteers and donors define their organization’s success.

Susan Appe will moderate.
(Note: only one author from each group will give initial presentations, leaving ample time for roundtable discussion.)

References

Haaland, H., Kinsbergen, S., Schulpen, L., & Wallevik, H. (Eds.). (2023). The rise of small-scale development organisations: The emergence, positioning and role of citizen aid actors. Taylor & Francis.

Hawkins, K. A., & Kaltwasser, C. R. (2017). The Ideational Approach to Populism. Latin American Research Review, 52(4), 513–528. https://doi.org/10.25222/larr.85

Hwang, H., & Powell, W. W. (2009). The Rationalizaiton of Charity: The Influences of Professionalism in the Nonprofit Sector. Administrative Sciences Quarterly, 54, 268–298.

Mitchell, G. E., Schmitz, H. P., & Bruno-van Vijfeijken, T. (2020). Between power and irrelevance: The future of transnational NGOs. Oxford University Press, USA.

Sub Unit

• Local and global philanthropy and voluntarism

Discussants

• Lau Schulpen, Radboud University Nijmegen

• Matt Baillie Smith, Centre for Global Development, Northumbria University

• Hanne Haaland, University of Agder

Moderator

• Susan Appe, University at Albany, SUNY

Presenters

• Derek Richardson

• Katy Jenkins

• Hege Wallevik, University of Agder