“All in all, Drazkiewicz has delivered a strongly empirically grounded and theoretically well-informed, innovative book that is contextualized in contemporary literature and filled with original findings on the institutionalized dreams of international aid that derive from culturally rooted moral economies and their entanglements with global economic forces and politics.” • Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute
“This brilliant, engaging book… marks a timely response to debates about the changing landscape of central Europe, globalization, the aid industry, and the emergence of new donors. The book is required reading for anyone concerned with foreign aid or development policy, efforts or projects, and with questions of national identity. It is a valuable resource for those seeking to understand globalization, foreign relations, and society more generally. And, of course, for students of the gift.” • Slavic Review
“This case study of Poland makes a valuable contribution to the ongoing debates about the concept of development by showing the role of international agencies, aid budgeting and lobbying.” • Suzana Ignjatović, University of Belgrade
Using examples from Poland, Elżbieta Drążkiewicz explores the question of why states become donors and individuals decide to share their wealth with others through foreign aid. She comes to the conclusion that the concept of foreign aid requires the establishment of a specific moral economy which links national ideologies and local cultures of charitable giving with broader ideas about the global political economy. It is through these processes that faith in foreign aid interventions as a solution to global issues is generated. The book also explores the relationship linking a state institution with its NGO partners, as well as international players such as the EU or OECD.
Elżbieta Drążkiewicz is currently a lecturer at the Institute for Sociology, Slovak Academy of Sciences. She has worked with several Polish development NGOs, as well as with the Solidarity Fund and the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and its Department of Development Cooperation. Her work has appeared in such journals as Human Organization, Focaal, Critique of Anthropology, and Social and Cultural Geography.
LC: HC60 .D686 2020
BISAC: POL011000 POLITICAL SCIENCE/International Relations/General; SOC033000 SOCIAL SCIENCE/Philanthropy & Charity
BIC: KCP Political economy; JHMC Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography
