Exaggerating difference: Representations of the Third World Other in PI aid

This article is concerned with how private/personal initiatives (PIs) in development cooperation (PI aid) represent their aid projects and beneficiaries in discourse. Dutch and Flemish PIs active in The Gambia, Wet Africa, are examined on the basis of a critical analysis of the self-promotional material published on their websites. It is argued that PIs construct an image that exaggerates cultural and socio-economic differences between the European Self and the African Other, and that this needs to be understood in the context of the PIs' roots in tourism and other discourses of representing the Third World Other.