Standards of Contextual Competence in Aid Work: An Analysis of Job Advertisements

The sector of international development and humanitarian assistance (hereinafter the ‘aid sector’) aims to address complex, multi-causal problems in different places around the world. Despite its global pursuit, aid work occurs in a particular time and place. How does the aid sector manage context? I address that question by examining the extent to which the aid sector expects contextual competence from applicants through a content analysis of 384 job advertisements. Context appears in the section of the advertisements specifying the roles and responsibilities of the position being advertised through explicit mentions of ‘context’ or its inflected forms and through implication by the tasks specified in the advertisements. In the section of the advertisements specifying the qualifications expected of an applicant, context appears—with different levels of specificity and to varying degrees of indispensability—in qualifications about experience, knowledge, and language proficiency. I then consider how standards of contextual competence differ according to the type of position being advertised. I find that standards of contextual competence are a matter of position: The highest standard of contextual competence disproportionately appear in advertisements for consultancies and for jobs open exclusively to national candidates.