A M Fechter
Biographic Data
| ID | 56188 |
|---|---|
| NAME | A M Fechter |
| GIVEN NAMES | A M |
| FAMILY NAME | Fechter |
| SIGNATURE | FECHTER A M |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Sussex |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-9654-156X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 23 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 248 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 23 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1970 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
‘Every Person Counts’
As multiple forms of ‘vernacular humanitarianism’ are emerging, ordinary citizens, active locally or internationally, play an increasing part. Their interventions face the challenge of scale, and scale-ability of their activities. What can be their role if they only engage with small groups of people? How do they attribute meaning to these interventions, given that the scope of the problem is always larger than what they can hope to achieve? Draw…
Humanitarianism, mobility and kinship
This is a reply to 'Chronic crisis and nuclear disaster humanitarianism: recuperation of Chernobyl and Fukushima children in Italy' by Ekatherina Zhukova (2022).The article on 'Chronic crisis and nuclear disaster humanitarianism' makes a number of valuable points in relation to how practices of vernacular humanitarianism, such as hosting children in Italian families, can have ambiguous effects.While alleviating some of the negative outcomes, they…
Unsettling protracted displacement
Conventional understandings of protracted displacement are limited by a number of shortcomings. They imply the stasis of protracted situations; the passivity and disconnection of vulnerable groups who need external support; and immobility of people ‘stuck’ in places. Moreover, solutions to protracted displacement are based on the priorities of states and defined by the perspectives of humanitarian organizations. In contrast, this special issue se…
Transnationalizing the ‘Moral neoliberal’? Private aid initiatives in Cambodia
Within South East Asia, informal, non-state development actors have become more prominent. The case of small-scale, private aid activities in Cambodia offers the opportunity to reflect on how state frameworks and interventions matter for such projects. Typically, theories of how a state encourages its citizens’ pro-social behaviour while retracting is own commitments, view this within a single nation state. Citizen aid in Cambodia, however, is of…
Brokering Transnational Flows of Care
A Cambodian town is the site of transnational flows of resources between private donors, and Cambodians in need of assistance. Such forms of 'citizen aid', initiated by individuals, constitute a form of resource transfer across borders which falls outside the purview of migration scholars. Unlike remittances, they are not primarily channelled through kin-related or geographical ties. Instead, they are enabled by brokers of care, Cambodian and int…
Citizen aid
The introduction to this collection brings together, under the umbrella terms of citizen aid and grassroots humanitarianism, interdisciplinary research on small-scale, privately funded forms of aid and development. It notes the steady rise of these activities, including in the Global South as well as North, such as in the context of the recent European refugee crisis. It considers their position vis-à-vis more institutionalised forms of aid; meth…
Development and the search for connection
The stated purpose of development is often characterised by the motivation to ‘help’ – that is, to intervene in the lives of others in supportive ways. This paper argues that this perspective has obscured how development activities are also animated by its twin desire to ‘connect’. While this holds significance for development more broadly, it becomes particularly evident in a mode of assistance that has gained prominence more recently. These are…
An excess of goodness? Volunteering among aid professionals in Cambodia
This article explores the meaning of volunteering among professional aid workers. While they experience disenchantment in their daytime work, volunteering provides them with benefits lacking in their paid jobs. At the same time, a compensatory model does not capture the complex dimensions of this relationship. One motive behind their professional work – bringing about positive change for others – is also the driving force behind their voluntary p…
Mobility, white bodies and desire
This paper illustrates how cultural logics of desire are being transformed in the context of the global economy refashioning intimate lives. Exploring the experiences of Euro‐American female professionals in Jakarta, it suggests that they become uncomfortably visible as ‘white bodies’; their desirability appears compromised, especially given Orientalist discourses which valorise Asian women's bodies. At the same time, women's position as well‐pai…
Between privilege and poverty
Contemporary research on children affected by migration in Southeast Asia has examined the impact of mobility on their life chances, choices and overall welfare. Extending this concern, this article seeks to address these questions in the context of privileged migration. Specifically, it asks how the mobility of children whose parents work for aid agencies in low-income countries shapes the way they understand and negotiate experiences of privile…
Interrogating child migrants or ‘Third Culture Kids’ in Asia
Aid work as moral labour
This paper argues that some of the engagements and practices of international aid workers can be productively understood as forms of moral labour. Taking Hardt's concept of 'immaterial labour' (1999) as a point of reference, the paper examines the moral practices that aid workers engage in the course of their work and personal lives. Much of the relevant literature focuses on the humanitarian imperative - that is, the implied moral responsibility…
The good child
Currently, there is no clearly delineated field that could be described as 'the anthropology of morality'. There exists, however, an increasingly visible and vocal interest in issues of morality among anthropologists. Although there has been a lack of explicit study, it has become clear that anthropologists have, in fact, been concerned with issues of moralities all along. The purpose of this special issue is to bring this interest to ethnographi…
Living Well’ while ‘Doing Good’? (Missing) debates on altruism and professionalism in aid work
This paper takes at its starting point public criticism of international aid workers who appear to be ‘doing well out of poverty’. Based on fieldwork in Cambodia, the paper suggests that such public perceptions are mirrored by some aid workers' uncertainties about the moral dimensions of their own and others' lifestyles. Significantly, analyses of such public and private unease are largely absent from development ethics, even though comparable pr…
The Personal and the Professional
This introduction, and the special issue as a whole, consider how the personal and the professional are interrelated, and how they matter for aid work. Taking up Chambers' call for the ‘primacy of the personal', this paper explores why the personal often remains un-acknowledged in development studies, even though its salience for aid workers is well-documented, for example, in the growing popularity of their blogs and memoirs. One possible reason…
Inside the Everyday Lives of Development Workers
Gender, Empire, Global Capitalism
This paper takes as a starting-point the striking disjunct between the wealth of historical studies on ‘gender and empire’, and a comparative lack of work that examines corresponding issues in the present. I suggest that discussions of gender and global capitalism are shaped by a focus on poor women, producing limited perspectives. The paper asks if analyses of colonial women could be used to elucidate the positions of a group that shares some of…
Examining 'Expatriate' Continuities
In recent years, the interdisciplinary fields of colonial and postcolonial studies have been enriched by nuanced analyses of the ways in which racialised colonial identities (cross-cut by gender, class and sexuality) have been enacted in particular settings. Nevertheless, the quantity and quality of knowledge about the lives of European colonials and settlers can be held in stark contrast with the relative scarcity of studies of those who might b…
Transnational Lives
Privileged migrants, such as expatriates living abroad, are typically associated with lives of luxury in exotic locations. This fascinating and in-depth study reveals a more complex reality. By focusing on corporate expatriates the author provides one of the first book length studies on 'transnationalism from above'. The book draws on the author's extended research among the expatriate community in Jakarta, Indonesia. The findings, which relate t…
Home away from home
The 'Other' stares back
Discussions of whiteness often focus on the 'invisibility' of whites. I suggest, though, that the situation of whites in non-white environments contributes a crucial dimension to concepts of whiteness. In particular, I examine the case of white Euro-American expatriates living in Jakarta. These corporate expatriates have been posted to Indonesia by their companies, and they often experience being 'racially marked' for the first time. This takes p…
The British on the Costa del Sol
The British on the Costa del Sol: Transnational Identities and Local Communities. Karen O'Reilly. London: Routledge, 2000. viii. 187 pp., maps, notes, references, index
Cultures in the Classroom
Corsin-Jimenez (2003) provides us with the image of 'teaching the field'. I take up the related notion of 'the classroom as field', namely, looking through an anthropological lens at teaching anthropology as a non-British national in UK universities. I discuss some of the limitations and possibilities arising from this situation, and their impact on teaching and learning processes. I suggest that viewing the classroom as a field-site highlights p…
Examining 'Expatriate' Continuities
In recent years, the interdisciplinary fields of colonial and postcolonial studies have been enriched by nuanced analyses of the ways in which racialised colonial identities (cross-cut by gender, class and sexuality) have been enacted in particular settings. Nevertheless, the quantity and quality of knowledge about the lives of European colonials and settlers can be held in stark contrast with the relative scarcity of studies of those who might b…
The 'Other' stares back
Discussions of whiteness often focus on the 'invisibility' of whites. I suggest, though, that the situation of whites in non-white environments contributes a crucial dimension to concepts of whiteness. In particular, I examine the case of white Euro-American expatriates living in Jakarta. These corporate expatriates have been posted to Indonesia by their companies, and they often experience being 'racially marked' for the first time. This takes p…
Unsettling protracted displacement
Conventional understandings of protracted displacement are limited by a number of shortcomings. They imply the stasis of protracted situations; the passivity and disconnection of vulnerable groups who need external support; and immobility of people ‘stuck’ in places. Moreover, solutions to protracted displacement are based on the priorities of states and defined by the perspectives of humanitarian organizations. In contrast, this special issue se…
The Personal and the Professional
This introduction, and the special issue as a whole, consider how the personal and the professional are interrelated, and how they matter for aid work. Taking up Chambers' call for the ‘primacy of the personal', this paper explores why the personal often remains un-acknowledged in development studies, even though its salience for aid workers is well-documented, for example, in the growing popularity of their blogs and memoirs. One possible reason…
Living Well’ while ‘Doing Good’? (Missing) debates on altruism and professionalism in aid work
This paper takes at its starting point public criticism of international aid workers who appear to be ‘doing well out of poverty’. Based on fieldwork in Cambodia, the paper suggests that such public perceptions are mirrored by some aid workers' uncertainties about the moral dimensions of their own and others' lifestyles. Significantly, analyses of such public and private unease are largely absent from development ethics, even though comparable pr…
Aid work as moral labour
This paper argues that some of the engagements and practices of international aid workers can be productively understood as forms of moral labour. Taking Hardt's concept of 'immaterial labour' (1999) as a point of reference, the paper examines the moral practices that aid workers engage in the course of their work and personal lives. Much of the relevant literature focuses on the humanitarian imperative - that is, the implied moral responsibility…
Citizen aid
The introduction to this collection brings together, under the umbrella terms of citizen aid and grassroots humanitarianism, interdisciplinary research on small-scale, privately funded forms of aid and development. It notes the steady rise of these activities, including in the Global South as well as North, such as in the context of the recent European refugee crisis. It considers their position vis-à-vis more institutionalised forms of aid; meth…
Gender, Empire, Global Capitalism
This paper takes as a starting-point the striking disjunct between the wealth of historical studies on ‘gender and empire’, and a comparative lack of work that examines corresponding issues in the present. I suggest that discussions of gender and global capitalism are shaped by a focus on poor women, producing limited perspectives. The paper asks if analyses of colonial women could be used to elucidate the positions of a group that shares some of…
Brokering Transnational Flows of Care
A Cambodian town is the site of transnational flows of resources between private donors, and Cambodians in need of assistance. Such forms of 'citizen aid', initiated by individuals, constitute a form of resource transfer across borders which falls outside the purview of migration scholars. Unlike remittances, they are not primarily channelled through kin-related or geographical ties. Instead, they are enabled by brokers of care, Cambodian and int…
The good child
Currently, there is no clearly delineated field that could be described as 'the anthropology of morality'. There exists, however, an increasingly visible and vocal interest in issues of morality among anthropologists. Although there has been a lack of explicit study, it has become clear that anthropologists have, in fact, been concerned with issues of moralities all along. The purpose of this special issue is to bring this interest to ethnographi…
Transnationalizing the ‘Moral neoliberal’? Private aid initiatives in Cambodia
Within South East Asia, informal, non-state development actors have become more prominent. The case of small-scale, private aid activities in Cambodia offers the opportunity to reflect on how state frameworks and interventions matter for such projects. Typically, theories of how a state encourages its citizens’ pro-social behaviour while retracting is own commitments, view this within a single nation state. Citizen aid in Cambodia, however, is of…
Development and the search for connection
The stated purpose of development is often characterised by the motivation to ‘help’ – that is, to intervene in the lives of others in supportive ways. This paper argues that this perspective has obscured how development activities are also animated by its twin desire to ‘connect’. While this holds significance for development more broadly, it becomes particularly evident in a mode of assistance that has gained prominence more recently. These are…
The British on the Costa del Sol
The British on the Costa del Sol: Transnational Identities and Local Communities. Karen O'Reilly. London: Routledge, 2000. viii. 187 pp., maps, notes, references, index
Interrogating child migrants or ‘Third Culture Kids’ in Asia
Between privilege and poverty
Contemporary research on children affected by migration in Southeast Asia has examined the impact of mobility on their life chances, choices and overall welfare. Extending this concern, this article seeks to address these questions in the context of privileged migration. Specifically, it asks how the mobility of children whose parents work for aid agencies in low-income countries shapes the way they understand and negotiate experiences of privile…
Inside the Everyday Lives of Development Workers
Cultures in the Classroom
Corsin-Jimenez (2003) provides us with the image of 'teaching the field'. I take up the related notion of 'the classroom as field', namely, looking through an anthropological lens at teaching anthropology as a non-British national in UK universities. I discuss some of the limitations and possibilities arising from this situation, and their impact on teaching and learning processes. I suggest that viewing the classroom as a field-site highlights p…
Cultures in the Classroom
Corsin-Jimenez (2003) provides us with the image of 'teaching the field'. I take up the related notion of 'the classroom as field', namely, looking through an anthropological lens at teaching anthropology as a non-British national in UK universities. I discuss some of the limitations and possibilities arising from this situation, and their impact on teaching and learning processes. I suggest that viewing the classroom as a field-site highlights p…
The British on the Costa del Sol
The British on the Costa del Sol: Transnational Identities and Local Communities. Karen O'Reilly. London: Routledge, 2000. viii. 187 pp., maps, notes, references, index
The 'Other' stares back
Discussions of whiteness often focus on the 'invisibility' of whites. I suggest, though, that the situation of whites in non-white environments contributes a crucial dimension to concepts of whiteness. In particular, I examine the case of white Euro-American expatriates living in Jakarta. These corporate expatriates have been posted to Indonesia by their companies, and they often experience being 'racially marked' for the first time. This takes p…
Transnational Lives
Privileged migrants, such as expatriates living abroad, are typically associated with lives of luxury in exotic locations. This fascinating and in-depth study reveals a more complex reality. By focusing on corporate expatriates the author provides one of the first book length studies on 'transnationalism from above'. The book draws on the author's extended research among the expatriate community in Jakarta, Indonesia. The findings, which relate t…
Home away from home
Gender, Empire, Global Capitalism
This paper takes as a starting-point the striking disjunct between the wealth of historical studies on ‘gender and empire’, and a comparative lack of work that examines corresponding issues in the present. I suggest that discussions of gender and global capitalism are shaped by a focus on poor women, producing limited perspectives. The paper asks if analyses of colonial women could be used to elucidate the positions of a group that shares some of…
Examining 'Expatriate' Continuities
In recent years, the interdisciplinary fields of colonial and postcolonial studies have been enriched by nuanced analyses of the ways in which racialised colonial identities (cross-cut by gender, class and sexuality) have been enacted in particular settings. Nevertheless, the quantity and quality of knowledge about the lives of European colonials and settlers can be held in stark contrast with the relative scarcity of studies of those who might b…
Inside the Everyday Lives of Development Workers
Living Well’ while ‘Doing Good’? (Missing) debates on altruism and professionalism in aid work
This paper takes at its starting point public criticism of international aid workers who appear to be ‘doing well out of poverty’. Based on fieldwork in Cambodia, the paper suggests that such public perceptions are mirrored by some aid workers' uncertainties about the moral dimensions of their own and others' lifestyles. Significantly, analyses of such public and private unease are largely absent from development ethics, even though comparable pr…
The Personal and the Professional
This introduction, and the special issue as a whole, consider how the personal and the professional are interrelated, and how they matter for aid work. Taking up Chambers' call for the ‘primacy of the personal', this paper explores why the personal often remains un-acknowledged in development studies, even though its salience for aid workers is well-documented, for example, in the growing popularity of their blogs and memoirs. One possible reason…
The good child
Currently, there is no clearly delineated field that could be described as 'the anthropology of morality'. There exists, however, an increasingly visible and vocal interest in issues of morality among anthropologists. Although there has been a lack of explicit study, it has become clear that anthropologists have, in fact, been concerned with issues of moralities all along. The purpose of this special issue is to bring this interest to ethnographi…
Mobility, white bodies and desire
This paper illustrates how cultural logics of desire are being transformed in the context of the global economy refashioning intimate lives. Exploring the experiences of Euro‐American female professionals in Jakarta, it suggests that they become uncomfortably visible as ‘white bodies’; their desirability appears compromised, especially given Orientalist discourses which valorise Asian women's bodies. At the same time, women's position as well‐pai…
Between privilege and poverty
Contemporary research on children affected by migration in Southeast Asia has examined the impact of mobility on their life chances, choices and overall welfare. Extending this concern, this article seeks to address these questions in the context of privileged migration. Specifically, it asks how the mobility of children whose parents work for aid agencies in low-income countries shapes the way they understand and negotiate experiences of privile…
Interrogating child migrants or ‘Third Culture Kids’ in Asia
Aid work as moral labour
This paper argues that some of the engagements and practices of international aid workers can be productively understood as forms of moral labour. Taking Hardt's concept of 'immaterial labour' (1999) as a point of reference, the paper examines the moral practices that aid workers engage in the course of their work and personal lives. Much of the relevant literature focuses on the humanitarian imperative - that is, the implied moral responsibility…
An excess of goodness? Volunteering among aid professionals in Cambodia
This article explores the meaning of volunteering among professional aid workers. While they experience disenchantment in their daytime work, volunteering provides them with benefits lacking in their paid jobs. At the same time, a compensatory model does not capture the complex dimensions of this relationship. One motive behind their professional work – bringing about positive change for others – is also the driving force behind their voluntary p…
Citizen aid
The introduction to this collection brings together, under the umbrella terms of citizen aid and grassroots humanitarianism, interdisciplinary research on small-scale, privately funded forms of aid and development. It notes the steady rise of these activities, including in the Global South as well as North, such as in the context of the recent European refugee crisis. It considers their position vis-à-vis more institutionalised forms of aid; meth…
Development and the search for connection
The stated purpose of development is often characterised by the motivation to ‘help’ – that is, to intervene in the lives of others in supportive ways. This paper argues that this perspective has obscured how development activities are also animated by its twin desire to ‘connect’. While this holds significance for development more broadly, it becomes particularly evident in a mode of assistance that has gained prominence more recently. These are…
Transnationalizing the ‘Moral neoliberal’? Private aid initiatives in Cambodia
Within South East Asia, informal, non-state development actors have become more prominent. The case of small-scale, private aid activities in Cambodia offers the opportunity to reflect on how state frameworks and interventions matter for such projects. Typically, theories of how a state encourages its citizens’ pro-social behaviour while retracting is own commitments, view this within a single nation state. Citizen aid in Cambodia, however, is of…
Brokering Transnational Flows of Care
A Cambodian town is the site of transnational flows of resources between private donors, and Cambodians in need of assistance. Such forms of 'citizen aid', initiated by individuals, constitute a form of resource transfer across borders which falls outside the purview of migration scholars. Unlike remittances, they are not primarily channelled through kin-related or geographical ties. Instead, they are enabled by brokers of care, Cambodian and int…
Humanitarianism, mobility and kinship
This is a reply to 'Chronic crisis and nuclear disaster humanitarianism: recuperation of Chernobyl and Fukushima children in Italy' by Ekatherina Zhukova (2022).The article on 'Chronic crisis and nuclear disaster humanitarianism' makes a number of valuable points in relation to how practices of vernacular humanitarianism, such as hosting children in Italian families, can have ambiguous effects.While alleviating some of the negative outcomes, they…
Unsettling protracted displacement
Conventional understandings of protracted displacement are limited by a number of shortcomings. They imply the stasis of protracted situations; the passivity and disconnection of vulnerable groups who need external support; and immobility of people ‘stuck’ in places. Moreover, solutions to protracted displacement are based on the priorities of states and defined by the perspectives of humanitarian organizations. In contrast, this special issue se…
‘Every Person Counts’
As multiple forms of ‘vernacular humanitarianism’ are emerging, ordinary citizens, active locally or internationally, play an increasing part. Their interventions face the challenge of scale, and scale-ability of their activities. What can be their role if they only engage with small groups of people? How do they attribute meaning to these interventions, given that the scope of the problem is always larger than what they can hope to achieve? Draw…
Sociology (22 works) · Political science (17 works) · Law (11 works) · Gender Studies (9 works) · Law (9 works) · Psychology (8 works) · Politics (7 works) · Cambodian History and Society (6 works) · Migration and Labor Dynamics (6 works) · Public relations (6 works)