A study of the knowledge ecology of two Singapore-based NGOs.

Abstract

This study of the knowledge ecologies of two Singapore-based NGOs shows that while NGOs make use of an array of texts and documentary practices in their work, they are used primarily for managerial functions and to achieve organisational aims of fulfilling legal requirements, building trust among donors, supporters as well as among their staff and the communities that the NGOs aim to benefit. In other words, texts and documentary practices were employed to achieve both rational and moral accountability. There are glimpses of the complexity of aid work, whether as a donor agency or as a community-based NGO, in some of the documents, procedures and interpersonal relations between NGOs and their partners. Unless the NGO actors make knowledge claims from the basis of their engagement with the beneficiary community and documentary practices including production and dissemination of relevant texts for different kinds of readers, the data/information collected will be of limited use to people outside the NGO and donor conduit.