In recent decades, northern Madagascar has seen the proliferation of so-called “DIY” (Do-It-Yourself) foreign aid projects – that is, modest projects generally founded and financed by foreigners who make up for their lack of training in project management and experience in the global aid industry through an action-oriented dedication to the simple goal of helping Malagasy people in need. With reference to one such project based in an artisanal sapphire mining community in the region, this presentation addresses some of the complexities of this emerging frontier of foreign aid, focusing especially on what comes with the varying understandings of “work” that differently positioned stakeholders bring to the “good work” (asa tsara, in Malagasy) that draws them together.

About the Speaker:

Andrew Walsh is Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Western Ontario in Ontario, Canada. Since 1993, he has conducted ethnographic research in northern Madagascar on a wide variety of topics including the parallel rise of the region’s artisanal sapphire mining and ecotourism industries. His current research focuses on the recent proliferation of DIY (Do-It-Yourself) humanitarian, development and conservation projects in the region. His work has been published in journals including American Anthropologist, American Ethnologist, Anthropology Today, Critique of Anthropology and The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute. His work has also been published in the 2012 monograph Made in Madagascar: Sapphires, Ecotourism and the Global Bazaar (University of Toronto Press) and the forthcoming edited collection The Anthropology of Precious Minerals (co-edited with Elizabeth Ferry and Annabel Vallard, University of Toronto Press).