Beneficiary voices in ELT development aid: ethics, epistemology and politics
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Beneficiary voices in ELT development aid: ethics, epistemology and politics M. Obaidul Hamid1 · Iffat Jahan1 Received: 6 February 2020 / Accepted: 1 September 2020 © Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract As global language policy, English language teaching (ELT) development aid is as old as the field of language policy and planning. Contemporary discourses of ELT aid management acknowledge voices of project beneficiaries such as teachers. Beneficiary testimonials may satisfy the neoliberal demand for accountability, efficiency and evidence of impact. While this consideration of beneficiary engagement posed practical challenges in the past, new technological platforms such as websites and social media have eased the process of harnessing beneficiary voices. However, there has been limited research on beneficiary participation on the virtual space—specifically, on the discursive position from which beneficiaries speak, how they represent project interventions, and what implications their representations may have. This article examines beneficiary voices on the official website and social media spaces of a UKaid-funded project called English in Action (2009–2018) in Bangladesh. We problematise beneficiary voices and their representation of the project from the perspectives of ethics, epistemology and politics. We argue that, with their “post-truth” characteristics, beneficiary testimonials contributed to the project’s “self-branding” and to the evidence of its impact, regardless of how the storied success corresponded to the degree of change that may have been achieved on the ground. Keywords ELT development aid · Impact · Language policy and planning · English in Action · Beneficiary testimonials · Technology · Ethics, epistemology and politics · Post-truth · Bangladesh
* M. Obaidul Hamid [email protected] Iffat Jahan [email protected] 1
School of Education, The University of Queensland, Social Sciences Building 24, Brisbane 4072, Australia
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M. O. Hamid, I. Jahan
Introduction English language teaching (ELT) development aid is one of the earliest examples of global language policy. Originating as part of the post-war Western development agenda for decolonised nations (see Crack 2019), such aid has been an important force behind the global spread of English and its emergence as the global lingua franca (Phillipson 1992). While ELT donors need to maintain the global demand for English for economic and political interests, recipient nations believe that they need English to develop human capital to participate in a globalised economy. The humanitarianism supposedly underlying ELT assistance “has become a potent force of our world” (Fassin 2011, p. xi). However, as an unselfish act of giving, humanitarianism is probably only mythical, as assistance is hard to be distinguished from investment and political “soft power” in a market-driven world. Sustaining aid as what may be called “philanthrocapitalism” (Bishop and Green 2009) has led to the formation of a global industry of humanitar
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