Hand Made With Love: Africa's artisans and the quest for authenticity

"A devastating critique of conventional aid wisdom." The author challenges the way western aid is delivered in cultural sector contexts. Artisans in Africa, she says, make objects for money, not for love - they are part of pan-African and global economic networks. Africa needs home-grown entrepreneurs who understand their own desires and aspirations, not western aid workers who think craft is 'uplifting, ' or academics who use Africa as a kind of research playground. Katherine Ladd delivers an ethnographic analysis of the motivations of western aid, which is firmly rooted in the history of the west's own love affair with the 'idea' of Africa.