ABSTRACT
Echoing comments made by women of colour in the sector following the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, the author argues that the White-Saviour complex is at the heart of the problematic systems and discourses that govern aid and development practice. This chapter introduces the archetype of the perfect humanitarian to demonstrate an organisational culture that favours specific expertise and levels of commitment which are restrictive for particular groups of people, including women and aid workers from the Global South. Increased professionalisation has produced more expectations about who the aid worker should be, often privileging white expatriates – especially men. It is a culture that instils a sense of exceptionalism, allowing misconduct and abuses to occur without accountability, as demonstrated in the ‘Oxfam scandal’ that hit the news in 2018. Through the reflections of Kenyan and European aid workers this chapter suggests that in this organisational culture, staff are unable to bring their full self into the workplace, with serious implications for mental health and wellbeing. Ultimately the sector’s drive for perfectionism, often fuelled by the scramble for funding from donors, is unsustainable and silences many different stories of abuse and marginalisation within the workplace.
