Injury

Abstract

Encounters between ‘beneficiaries’/residents and volunteers reveal overlooked ways that power shapes community development in Medan, Indonesia. Volunteers are susceptible to ‘affective injuries’: moments when one is impressed upon in ways that challenge one’s sense of self. Identifying volunteers’ susceptibility to be affected also reveals the capacity of beneficiaries and residents to affect local development agents. This chapter examines the potential of such susceptibilities and capacities to reverse conventional hierarchies in development, leading to a more bottom-up, responsive, and reflexive development practice. It finds that while there is potential, particularly when volunteers emphasize ‘care’ in their relations with others, volunteers are resilient to being affected by people occupying a marginal social position. The affective injuries sustained in their encounters with powerful others have more lasting effects.