A United Agency of Repair
共修之所

In the wake of the dismantling of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)—long an instrument of Western neocolonialism—I invite us to imagine a different kind of agency: a United Agency for Repair. What forms of care and reciprocity might emerge if we turned to our own histories, rather than Western development models, for inspiration?

This project is a response to my earlier work with USAID, where from 2014–16, I conducted ethnographies at its missions in Indonesia, Uganda, Zimbabwe, and Washington, D.C. I saw firsthand how “aid” programs were often shaped more by congressional priorities and American contractors, not the communities they claimed to serve. Despite a stated commitment to “empowerment,” what I witnessed was a system designed to extract value—materially, spiritually—from the very people it purported to serve.

While USAID’s collapse has left many communities in crisis, we must confront the deeper truth: American wealth is built on centuries of extraction, and what is given back as “aid” is a fraction of what has been taken. Asia has long been treated as a resource—its land, labor, and lives—used and discarded in the name of empire.

And yet, across Asia, communities have resisted, survived, and dreamed under the weight of imperialism, war, and extraction. United Agency of Repair asks: How do we seed solidarities that transcend borders and rebuild our fractured worlds?

Launching in winter 2025.