Many international Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and NGO “like” entities tout the positive outcomes of their projects with little emphasis on or dissemination on the policies, processes, and practices that ultimately shaped these outcomes. However, complex power/knowledge dynamics underlies this work and significantly influences local organizations’ sense of ownership, expertise, capacity, and feasibility for long-term sustainability of these projects. Within the Deaf education context, development in each of these areas are further complicated by contentious policies, linguistic and/or social colonization or exclusion, and tensions between NGOs, funding sources, serving local needs and meeting established outcomes.
This presentation will explore some of these tensions and practices I discovered and how I learned to navigate through these issues, particularly working with partners in the Global South. I present the concepts of network partnership and governmentality as significant discursive practices continually operating in Deaf education development projects. Through a few “stories from the field,” I illuminate those discourses with an aim to make partnerships more transparent and equitable. I conclude by discussing the implications for my current work, and for other international development projects to support the growth of equitable partnerships between NGOs and local community organizations in the future.