A Vision of the Other

by David Wesley

A recent article in The Guardian questions how efforts to raise funds for Africa such as the recent Band Aid video often portrays the difference between Africans and those giving the funding in disparaging ways.

Conducting research that supports A Common Mission led to some unexpected discoveries.  One of these was the way that Africans perceived their partners in the U.S. and conversely how those in the U.S. perceived their partners in Africa. Beyond interviews I collected videos, articles and other information in which those in the U.S. described their partners in Africa.

Relationships that are heavily dependent on donors affect how congregations frame the ‘other’. Stories that are told and images used for securing funds may frame people in the host country in ways that depict the enormous difference between the donor and the recipient demonstrating bleak situations through the use of pictures that emphasize the extreme poverty.  An issue of the International Bulletin of Missionary Research (Oct. 2002) examined this very issue, demonstrating the stereotyping as well as sensationalism done through missionary photography.  Compounded with the need for raising funds, John Hutnyk (1996) describes how tourists often frame an image of a location such as Calcutta before they visit.  Tourists often take pictures of things which reinforce how they framed the location before going.  In Calcutta, for example, if the person framed Calcutta in terms of poverty, they will often take pictures that reinforce that image of poverty, even when they are surrounded by other possible images.  In STM or Congregational Partnerships the potential is that the images that are brought back from their experience to the congregation are often framed images emphasizing the “otherness.”  While the ideal is a blurred line between donor and recipient, the enormous need for financing through emotional appeals for donors and funding make that ideal a challenge.  The danger is forming relationships with reinforced boundaries of “otherness” instead of relationships with blurred boundaries.

A balance between relationship and project is a challenge that may not completely blur the line between donor and recipient.  Quality relationships, however, which seek to hear and understand the other is a common denominator in the short-term mission as well as congregational mission research literature as a necessary basis for healthy cross-cultural partnerships.

The following video and article about the funds that were raised through Band Aid to help with the Ebola Virus make this same argument.  Why I Had to Turn Down Band Aid

Channeling funds to address issues such as Ebola is something that expresses our common humanity as well as our faith. Portraying others in ways that does not strip their dignity is equally important.