ABSTRACT
Development practitioners use communication as a tool to both do good and to make their work look good. However, the relationship between these two imperatives changes regularly. What a practitioner thinks is good or looks good depends on current trends in practice and trends in the media, and rests on whether the communication is taking place in public or in private. This chapter explores the contemporary partnership discourse in development through a qualitative case study of the relationship between Scotland and Malawi. The findings demonstrate that the emphasis on a partnership model of practice is changing perceptions of what is good in development amongst Scottish stakeholders. However, the analysis also shows that practitioners still interpret what looks good to the general population as characterised by a charity paradigm, thus engaging in impression management and communicating their development practice in a manner which they feel will most appeal to their audience. This chapter presents a compelling case for interpreting communication for development through the paradigm of performance, in acknowledgement of how actors shift discourses in public and private spaces.
