Paper short abstract:

Using the example of Russia, this paper investigates the ways development donorship - "emerging" or "traditional" - is constituted, highlighting a lack of historical awareness that the constitution of both nation-states and development donorship begun in the 20th century remains an ongoing process.

Paper long abstract:

Rather than thinking in literal terms of some development donors as "emerging" in their development activities as against others who are established in their donorship, this paper argues that what is emerging is rather the awareness among a certain unified cohort of donors (e.g. members of the Development Assistance Committee or DAC) that they are not alone in their development donorship. This paper shifts the emphasis to investigate the process by which development donorship itself - whether "emerging" or "traditional" - is constituted, arguing that the most relevant ethnographic moment is not the 21st century flash of perception that the established global field of donorship is changing; rather, it is the lack of historical awareness that the constitution of both nation-states and development donorship begun in the 20th century is ongoing, and that the implicit endgame is that every nation-state should become a (certain kind of) donor in order to complete the process of its own development. A phenomenology of development donorship points to the ways that people (at a variety of levels and roles) experience feeling that they are part of an apparatus that provides (rather than receives) development assistance. This paper begins to unpack this practically and ethnographically by comparing Russia's recent moves to make its development donorship explicit and systematic against a similar historic moment for the USA. This is particularly appropriate since USAID has been one of several agents (including UK DFID, UNDP, and the World Bank) instrumental in actively cultivating Russia as a development donor.