Push for Terminology: Beneficiaries
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The Definition
According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the term “beneficiary” means:
a person or thing that receives help or an advantage from something: one that benefits from something
the person designated to receive the income of an estate that is subject to a trust, or the person named (as in an insurance policy) to receive proceeds or benefits
The Problem
The word “beneficiary” is not very negative or problematic in itself, but since at least 2015, humanitarian aid and international development professionals were calling for this term to be replaced. They feel that those who receive humanitarian aid are disempowered and made passive when they are referred to as “beneficiaries.” There is also the implication that people ‘benefit’ from aid, and this aid is just handouts.
Indeed, many point to this idea that aid recipients are ‘benefitting’ from aid, which also perpetuates this idea that these people should be forever grateful for these handouts and should just sit quietly and wait for the development professionals to finish their projects. openDemocracy makes a good point that international development discourse is riddled with Eurocentrism, so it always good to examine the origins of the terminology we use, so we don’t unintentionally perpetuate negative stereotypes or connotations.
“Beneficiary” is a legal term, and given the formal settings humanitarian aid is at least partly conducted through (e.g., international bodies, NGOs), it makes sense that legal terms are regularly used. However, even in legal situations the term is used in aside from humanitarian aid, said “beneficiaries” may not want to be called as such either. For example, inheritance: people choose their ‘beneficiaries’ who will receive money because they don’t want their loved ones to suffer financially on top of their grief, and ‘beneficiary’ is just polite and precise a way to phrase it. That’s nice, right?
Well, the ‘beneficiaries’ may not feel that way. When my grandparents died, they left their money to their children (my parents, aunts, and uncles) and some of that money would be given to us grandchildren. We were their beneficiaries, but we didn’t feel like we had benefited all that much. Losing a parent or grandparent is a terrible thing; we absolutely would have traded the money for more time with them on this earth.
This can directly translate into humanitarian crises: people have lost everything or are about to; aid mitigates disaster and tragedy (if it even reaches the right places, which is a whole other story) and that it’s only benefit. Keeping all this in mind, you can see how it’s a bit discomfiting when people who argue in favor for using the term “beneficiary” declare something along the lines of “well these people are ‘benefitting’ from aid.”
Of course, this whole article can be made moot by people who actually receive aid; the argument among development professionals and humanitarian workers doesn’t matter much in the face of the affected communities’ preferences. But I like raising these discussions, so if you have received or are receiving humanitarian aid and you’d like to share what you prefer to be called, please let us know in the comments.
The Alternatives
As translators (and interpreters), we are sometimes bound by guidelines or client requirements to use certain terms, that’s just a fact of our profession. Yet we also have the power to change the way we discuss an issue in our target language. If we feel strongly enough about a term, we can advise or suggest, or even insist, our clients use terms that better reflect the feelings, representation, or cause involved. This blog series isn’t necessarily meant to disparage the usage of a certain term; it’s meant to present terms that (many) people find problematic and some potential alternatives.
In the case of “beneficiaries,” some institutions have already done away with the term, and there are many alternatives used today:
“Stakeholder” equalizes all parties involved in the humanitarian aid process, even the parties who receive aid. However, some have pointed out that it can be too general of a term, too vague.
“Constituent” implies a person is more powerful and political than a ‘beneficiary,’ but it can also be too vague.
“Participant” is a common alternative; it still implies a hierarchy if that’s important to some people, but it implies more agency.
You could simply use “affected” (as is affected by the crisis), which removes the aid from the equation because it just talks about those who were impacted rather than specifying who is receiving aid. For example, “affected communities” or “those affected…” would refer to anyone who had been impacted by a disaster or conflict. However, some reports or other documentation need to specify who received aid, so “affected” would be too vague and not help in that aspect.
“Client” and “consumer” are often proposed as an alternative, but I’m not sure if I personally would like to liken humanitarian aid to a business. I also feel like that would only fuel the critique of NGOs and humanitarian organizations and agencies.
“Citizen” is sometimes used but not often because ‘citizen’ is a legal term with a whole other set of criteria depending on the state. Many times, those who receive aid are not citizens in that sovereign state, so even then ‘citizen’ would not apply.