The Documentary: Süßes Gift – Hilfe als Geschäft : A Critical Discourse Analysis of Three Development Projects that have Failed in Africa

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to examine how European development intervention in Africa iscommunicated in the documentary “Sweet Poison.” For many decades there have beenprojects that were developed in Africa in order to support civilization in the poorest areas.This paper explores how the three projects in Africa, Tanzania, Kenya and Mali werecreated and developed, but not fully completed. These had various consequences overtime. With a reflection of representations, narratives and documentary story-telling, thestudy will use Teun Van Dijk's framework (2004) to analyze the film. The importance ofcritical discourse analysis techniques is well-known and provides an effective strategy toanalyze ideology as well as power in the language. In particular, the dichotomy of in-groupfavoritism vs. out-group derogation seems to be efficient in analytical discursive practices.A semi-structured interview was made with the author of the film to collect important datafor the analysis.