Infrastructure Development and Donation Culture in the Gaza Strip

ABSTRACT Infrastructure consists of interlinked and nested sociotechnical systems, the construction, maintenance, and repair of which requires considerable ongoing outlays of material resources, technical know‐how and throughput, and political will. Building upon “broken world” approaches, this research uses qualitative methods to study infrastructure development, breakdown, and repair through the lens of a particular collaborative humanitarian initiative involving the public health sector in the Gaza Strip. Findings from this research suggest that a lack of donation ethics combined with policies that privilege “service over stuff” enable and exacerbate key infrastructural breakdowns, perpetuate maladaptive behaviors, inhibit meaningful development, and reinforce dominant harmful regimes. The paper concludes by arguing for increased critical and ethical awareness of donation culture and its consequences, a reconsideration of development policies that limit funding support to services rather than material and infrastructure supports, and an emphasis on building local capacity for maintenance and repair work.