Contribution short abstract:

While donors draw on emotions to affirm development audit rules, emotional registers are also used by local civil society to negotiate unequal power relations with donors. Examining emotions of frustration in audits reveals how civil society strain for recognition in a pre-determined audit system.

Contribution long abstract:

Audits are a key mechanism through which donors uphold the rules of accountability in international development projects. Anthropological research has demonstrated that audits are far from the technical practices they appear to be, but are important sites for the reproduction of power. In this paper, I build on audit cultures literature by examining the centrality of emotions in the implementation and contestation of audits within development bureaucracies. I focus on the experiences of national Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) in Ghana, a country often called a “success story” of good governance, to ask how are NGOs enrolled in, contesting, and negotiating audits? This paper contributes ethnographic examples of how power, politics, and position operate through affective registers within donor audits. I find that while donor staff draw on deliberate emotional registers to “instruct” NGOs on audit rules and reaffirm their power to determine these rules, paying attention to the emotions of frustration, irritation, and exasperation of NGO staff within these processes reveals how such rules are negotiated in everyday relations. NGO staff do not necessarily challenge audit regulations or the importance of accounting for aid funding, but they draw on registers of annoyance and dissatisfaction to strain towards self-respect, dignity, and recognition in a system where they have little power. By taking seriously the emotional responses of the NGOs that work within pre-determined audit systems, we can better understand how those with less power to set the rules negotiate recognition for their role and make the everyday work of audits more livable.