Transparency and Trust in DIY Aid

In exploring the politics of corporate versus small-scale mining of rubies and the ongoing struggles over a potentially enormous rare earth element (REE) deposit, this chapter hinges upon a critical analysis of transparency, opacity, and the politics of sovereignty in a country that is increasingly framed as a synecdoche for climate change in this century. Recent decades have seen the growth of two emergent forms in the international aid industry: (1) transparency and accountability initiatives (TAIs) that endeavor to bring aid organizations in line with standard expectations around their operations; and (2) modest, small-scale do-it-yourself (DIY) aid projects that emerge from and depend on trusting relationships between benefactors and beneficiaries. This chapter considers the ambiguous coexistence of these forms, drawing from ethnographic research with a small-scale healthcare project in Madagascar to illustrate how DIY aid can be effective (for better or worse) despite operating outside the purview of TAIs.