Due Diligence

“If we are going to interfere in the lives of others, a little due diligence is a minimum requirement.” - Teju Cole

The construction of Africa exists to satisfy the needs of White people. Whether it be tragic stories of hunger and disease - that White people can pity - or appalling accounts of human rights abuses - which White people are dissociated from - the Western world is there to save the day. White people become the heroes of their own narrative.

WorldVision’s campaign, ‘Walk for Water’, perfectly depicts this. The Christian NGO compares the lives of two five year olds’ in West Pokot County, Kenya. One boy has access to a nearby well, whilst the other has to walk long journeys with his mother in order to reach an open-surface body of water. Understandably, the child with access to water has been saved by infrastructure that was implemented by WorldVision. The charity depicts a tale in which its White Saviour complex can be inserted. 

Alarmingly, the campaign materialises through black and white photography accompanied by melancholic music (Figure 1). Whilst monochrome imagery was once the only way to capture photographs, it has since been critiqued by post-colonial scholars. Such imagery deprives individuals of subjectivity and was used within colonialism to “set up a clear distinction between the photographer and the photographed; European/African; White/Black”. This “coloniality of power” prevails through WorldVision’s campaign.

     Figure 1: World Vision: Water within reach slideshow

The slideshow begins by highlighting the ‘reality’ of water inaccessibility: waking up early to begin the walk to a source (Figure 2). However, the image used offers a dream-like fantasy of this chore. The distorted camera lens, starry night and silhouette of ‘Cheru’s mother’ all add to the romanticisation of a harsh reality. From this, you might even assume that it would be a pleasant walk. What better way to start the day than by taking in Kenya’s beautiful landscape before the rest of the world awakes?

Figure 2: World Vision Website

But if WorldVision is to interfere in the lives of others, it must first recognise that such melodramatic illustrations only serve to validate Whiteness. They entice willing donators by tugging on the emotive chords of those who unconsciously identify as a White Saviour. For as long as such depictions stick, Africa remains colonised; deeply exploited by White, romantic writers. If I want to avoid this, recognition of my positionality is a necessary requirement. This first post holds me accountable. 

I am a White, British female, who’s experience of African countries exists only through media and literature. I am responsible for the power-knowledge nexus that I reproduce. Therefore, I aim to draw upon a diverse background of knowledge as I research the role of women in collecting water. I hope to enhance individual visibility, rather than portray a collective identity of victims. Whilst many are subjected to the domestic sphere, there is no singular experience of being female within Africa. Nor is there an experience which needs ‘fixing’ by the complex of White saviours. 

Certainly, I am no hero.