Education and (in)security: The Canadian International Development Agency's Education Sector Aid to Conflict-affected States, 2000-2013
Keywords: accountability
armed conflict
education aid
foreign aid
governmentality
security

This study investigates the relationship between education aid and security (goals, understandings, and discourses) in conflict-affected and post-conflict states, using Michel Foucault's archaeological and genealogical analytical methods. I used a comparative historical (archaeological) analysis to examine continuities and discontinuities in education reconstruction practices from 1945 to 2013, to develop a typology of education aid goals and practices comprising stabilization, protection, peacebuilding and statebuilding, and to identify historical trends and patterns in education aid to conflict-affected states. Next, I adopted a genealogical method to examine the Canadian International Development Agency's (CIDA's) education sector aid to Afghanistan Colombia, and (South) Sudan from 2000 until 2013. This genealogy entailed identifying the multiple security apparatuses inclusive of discursive and non-discursive practices that construct and reify security threats and risks, and the relationship between dominant understandings of security and education aid practices. The genealogical analysis revealed how CIDA, and the Canadian government more broadly, linked Canada's education aid with its foreign policy priorities through mechanisms ostensibly mandated to improve public sector accountability. In this context, accountability constituted a form governmentality--ways in which the government regulated the conduct of CIDA managers, and ensured domestic public support for Canada's development assistance program by shaping (through discourses) ways of thinking about aid, instead of employing directly coercive measures. The findings indicate that, in each country case study, CIDA's education aid practices were historically and contextually contingent, and embedded within a security apparatus. Broadly speaking, the security apparatus affected education aid in four main ways. First, the security apparatus produced subjectivities of at-risk (vulnerable) or risky (dangerous) populations which became the object of education sector interventions. Second, the security apparatus delimited the spatial dimension of Canada's aid commitments by separating and isolating territories. In some instances the security apparatus precluded areas from CIDA aid; in other instances it concentrated aid on a specific border zone, province, or areas. Third, the security apparatus entailed the use of education aid as a mechanism to regulate or discipline the conduct of populations. Fourth, CIDA's education sector aid divided the world into secure and insecure zones, particularly after 2005-2006. In secure zones, education contributes to a knowledge economy and continuous learning; in insecure, conflict-affected areas, education aid is used to manage populations perceived as at-risk and risky. Finally, the study draws attention to the possibility that, differently imagined and problematized, alternate understandings of security could support education reconstruction for transformative social change.