Complicit Sisters

NGOs headquartered in the North have been, for some time, prominent actors in attempts to address the poverty, lack of political representation, and labor exploitation that disproportionally affect women from the global South. Feminist NGOs and NGOs focusing on women's rights have been successful in attracting attention to their causes, but critics argue that the highly educated elites from the global North and South who run them fail to effectively question the power hierarchies in which they operate. In order to give depth to these criticisms, Sara de Jong interviewed women NGO workers in seven different European countries about their experiences and perspectives on working on gendered issues affecting women in the global South as well as migrant women in the global North.

Complicit Sisters untangles and analyzes the complex tensions women NGO workers face and explores the ways in which they negotiate potential complicities in their work. Unlike other studies looking at development workers on the ground, this book examines the women NGO workers in the global North who work to influence high level gender advocacy and policy, alongside women NGO workers supporting migrant women within the global North--a unique combination. Weighing the women's first-hand accounts against critiques arising from feminist theory, postcolonial theory, global civil society theory and critical development literature, de Jong brings to life the dilemmas of doing good.


Complicit Sisters is an exciting contribution to critical literatures on gender, development and humanitarianism. It offers a fascinating exploration of the ways in which northern development workers understand themselves in relation to their work and the women they seek to help. In doing so it reveals how, even as they are challenged, the complex legacies of colonialism continue to shape understandings of self and other. This will be essential reading for all those interested in postcolonial and feminist critiques of development theory and practice.
-Kimberly Hutchings, Queen Mary University of London

This highly original and exciting book breaks new ground, both analytically and empirically, on the everyday lives of women working in NGOs across the globe. de Jong skillfully uses feminist, post-colonial and global civil society theory, as she moves seamlessly between theory and data, observation and analysis. Through her interviews and telling insights into these 'sisterly' networks of solidarity, she helps us to unpack global hegemonic discourses and power structures.
-Wendy Harcourt, Erasmus University Rotterdam

This courageously honest book exposes the tension between surfing the waves of whiteness, while presenting the self as 'doing good' for women of the South. de Jong's relational approach is an invaluable contribution to improving the quality and sustainability of women's engagement in international development and migration.
-Philomena Essed, Antioch University

A wonderful book on do-gooder women in the global North and a must-read for those interested in postcolonial feminist questions of complicity, positionality, solidarity and difference.
-Ilan Kapoor, York University, Toronto

The voices of the 21 women from the global North de Jong interviews- who work with female migrants or on the ground in the global South are vividly rendered. Even if we are complicit sisters, the book's dominant message is one of hope. De Jong's own faith in the notion of sisterhood, and that of her participants, is powerful enough to offset albeit only temporarily the ugly, crushing actuality of global geopolitics today. It's no longer enough simply to do good if one is not doing it right. With books such as this, there's no excuse not to.
--Times Higher Education

De Jong skillfully integrates feminist, postcolonial and development critiques and employs an intersectional perspective on activism and altruism. ... Her combined interest in development and migration is highly original, much needed and relevant for a wide range of disciplines including gender, postcolonial, development and migration studies. - Silke Roth, Sociology

The unique insight into the reflections of women who support women across the North-South axis make Complicit Sisters a valuable resource for researchers and experts working at the intersection of gender, development and migration. - Women's Studies International Forum

With this book, Sara de Jong makes an elegant, theoretically sophisticated and empirically rich contribution to the critical, feminist and post-colonial literature on humanitarian and development aid. - International Affairs