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Reimagining Aid

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It was long assumed that Western liberal democracy and free-market capitalism held all the answers for development and national progress. Today, in the face of growing inequality and global power i...
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  • 20 January 2026
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It was long assumed that Western liberal democracy and free-market capitalism held all the answers for development and national progress. Today, in the face of growing inequality and global power imbalances, this post–Cold War narrative has faltered. New players on the international scene, many from South and East Asia, have emerged to vie for influence and offer new models of development. Despite these recent changes, however, prominent international aid organizations still work under the assumption there are one-size-fits-all best practices. In Reimagining Aid, Wilks takes readers to Cambodia, a country at the heart of this transformation. Through a vivid, multi-sited ethnography, the book investigates the intricate interplay between aid donors from Japan and the United States, their competing priorities, and their impact on women's health initiatives in Cambodia. Cambodian development actors emerge not just as recipients of aid, but as key architects in redefining national advancement in hybrid, regional terms that juxtapose "Asia" to the "West." This book is a clarion call for practitioners, policymakers, and scholars to rethink what development means in a multipolar world. A must-read for anyone invested in Southeast Asia's role in global affairs and evolving definitions of gender in development, Reimagining Aid is a powerful reminder that the next chapter of global advancement is being written in unexpected places.

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Price: $28.00
Pages: 256
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Imprint: Stanford University Press
Series: Studies of the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Publication Date: 20 January 2026
Trim Size: 9.00 X 6.00 in
ISBN: 9781503644809
Format: Paperback
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"Reimagining Aid is a groundbreaking and deeply insightful ethnography that reframes how we understand the global development apparatus. Through richly textured fieldwork, Mary-Collier Wilks exposes the tensions between Western and East Asian donor regimes and the ways in which Cambodian practitioners navigate and rework these competing imaginaries. Essential reading for anyone interested in global health, feminist development, and the shifting geopolitics of aid." —Kimberly Kay Hoang, University of Chicago
Mary-Collier Wilks is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of North Carolina Wilmington.