Elsa Glenn

1. Elsa Glenn FAM5013F Findings Presentation

2. A Critical Discourse Analysisof Five ‘Orphanage’ Websites located in Cape Town Background • Estimated 2.2 million AIDS orphans in South Africa predicted by 2015 (Cluver et al, 2009) • How does SA deal with this? • In line with European/American neoliberalism trends, welfare being outsourced to NGOs. So why analyse them? • Literature contextualises the NGO model as being a western construct. • Instead of addressing fundamental power and wealth imbalances between ‘First World’ and ‘Third World’ countries, the west’s approach to Africa largely characterised by a ‘developmental’ discourse, which literature argues rules NGOs. • Literature argues that this developmental discourse is really part of post-colonial discourse, which always falls along racial lines, is linked to Christian discourses, which lead us to discourses of responsibility: who’s responsibility is the child? (Yours, the white viewer’s, as a good Christian) – (Goudge, 2003; Prince 200;, Rideout, 2011; Pieterse, 1991) • Lastly, discourses of childhood cannot be ignored: how is childhood constructed discursively? As an individual? Part of a community? Part of a nuclear family? Are western notions of childhood governing these organisations, thus alienating the children from their communities and cultural origins? (Holzscheiter, 2011). • Is this really what is happening in South African (or Cape Town) NGOs catering to children? Are foreign and local NGOs really perpetuating this umbrella of post-colonial discourses?

3. Example of post-colonial, developmental and racial discourses “The Girls and Boys Town journey has been a tale of everyday life in most societies of the world – the tragedy of fear, loss, despair, abuse, neglect and the triumph of faith, courage and hope that changes the way we care for children. Its legacy is about fulfilling dreams and bettering lives.” • ‘Journey’ – May point to western idea of development, Goudge’s (2003) frequent references to ‘the road’ associated with developmental discourses. • ‘Most societies around the world’ are equated with ‘the tragedy of fear, loss, despair, abuse, neglect’ where ‘Girls and Boys Town’ finds them in their ‘everyday life’ at the beginning of the ‘journey’. • The Girls and Boys Town presence is associated with having led to the ‘triumph of faith, courage and hope that changes the way we care for children’. • ‘Triumph of faith’ – religious undertones. Or faith in what? Perhaps reading too much into it but: a better world than the African existence, one with a better worldview? One that sees ‘goodness’ and ‘God’. Are we seeing a depiction of ‘heathen savage’ in need of ‘salvation’ in crude terms? • ‘That changes the way we care for children’. Who is ‘we’? Is this a self-congratulatory pat on the back to the organisation? Or is the ‘we’ euphemistic and condescending: Our western organisation humbles ourselves to work with your community and WE (read ‘us’) are changing the way we care for children?

4. Examples of Religious Discourses Christian e.g. “The varied and worldwide projects of SOS - Kinderdorf International are non-profit, apolitical, interdenominational and non-racial”... “We respect varying religions and cultures” (SOS Children's Villages) • At a glance, this seems open to all religions. However, ‘interdenominational’ means varying branches of one religion (usually used to refer to branches of Christianity working together). Does this suggest a slightly exclusive Christian discourse? • ‘Varying religions’. Surely an organisation with no ties to one religion would say ‘all religions’? Varying religions implies that variations of one religion are acceptable, but perhaps not ‘all’ religions. Islamic e.g. Nothing in literature review prepared me for an organisation with references to Islam. (NGOs analysed purely in terms of western influence and Christianity in lit I covered) “All Donations are welcome how small they may even be, it is a help, and AL-Hamdullilah We Make Dua that Allah (SWT) Grant us all forgiveness and guide us on the straight path. Insha Allah!” - Undermines the literature that ‘giving’ and ‘charity’ are purely constructs of Christianity. Potentially undermines the binary oppositions discourse analysis builds on: that one thing is ‘a’ and another ‘b’. In a post-modern world, we may expect to find commonalities where previously we wouldn’t have imagined.

5. Examples of responsibility and agency discourses • ‘An orphan, disadvantaged child is our child and your child’ – (Al Noor website) • ‘Our child’ brings responsibility to ‘us’, as whatever viewer may construct that to be (South Africans? More affluent members of society? Muslims?) and more specifically responsibility to the individual viewer in: ‘your child’. • If my face wasn´t swollen I could give you a smile.If my soles weren´t covered in cigarette burns,I could walk a mile.I could give you a hug,But my one arm is broken.I could hear soft kind words,If only they were spoken.I could be a beacon of love,Not an object of hate.With a few minor ingredients I could be just great.I could be an incredible gift I promise, its trueI could conquer the worldIt may just depend on you’ (Home of Hope website) • Emotive language building up to the child’s future as dependent on viewer. Also, discourse of a needy, angelic, victimised child.

6. Example of childhood discourse • “We work in the spirit of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and we promote these rights around the world.” (SOS Children’s Villages) • UN Convention of Child was representative of all UN states (theoretically), however due to financial constraints, African, Arab and Asian nations and ‘Third World’ NGOs under-represented. • Concern that child as part of a family and community (crudely more associated with African, Asian and Arab cultures than American and European) under-represented (Holzscheiter, 2011). • Broadly, the discourse of childhood The UN Convention on Rights of the Child createsis one of the individual, emancipated, thinking child who is involved in deciding who can care for her and active in decisions regarding her existence. Who exactly, is responsible for this ‘child’ is undefined in this convention.