ANTH 320/DEVS 321 PEOPLE AND DEVELOPMENT Fall 2018
I acknowledge that St FX is in Mi’kma’ki, the ancestral and unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq People.
Sept.
19 READ: Budabin, Alexandra Cosima, Louise Mubanda
Rasmussen and Lisa Ann Richey (2017) Celebrity-led development
organisations: The legitimating function of elite engagement, Third World Quarterly, DOI: 10.1080/01436597.2017.1322465
HOMEWORK
FOR SEPTEMBER 24 (one of the small assignments): Read the article by
Elisa Sandri ([2018] ‘Volunteer Humanitarianism’: volunteers and
humanitarian aid in the Jungle refugee camp of Calais. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 44:1, 65-80); fill out this form to build effective reading skills; submit it on September 24.
Budabin, Cosima, Rasmussen and Richey:
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Note the structure of Budabin et al’s paper; they articulate a clear
argument, define the concepts (authenticity, credibility and
accountability) they will use to analyse the evidence, describe the
context within which they will discuss the issue (both the rising
importance of celebrity-led development and the specific cases they
will discuss), and carry out the analysis consistently with their
concepts. This is a very nice model of a well-constructed and argued
essay.
The big questions that underlie Budabin et al’s paper
are, that are not directly addressed but that spur their inquiry are:
Who should decide what is done as development? To whom should those
involved in development be accountable? They pursue these by asking how
celebrity-led development operates and what the implications are for
the structure of the development field of celebrity-led development (do
they challenge or reinforce inequalities?)
- What do they argue?
- Theoretical concepts: What is meant by authenticity?
- how is this concept related to celebrity-led development?
- What is meant by credibility?
- how is this concept related to celebrity-led development?
- What is meant by accountability?
- how is this concept related to celebrity-led development?
- What is their methodology?
- Context: What do various NGOs, including celebrity-led ones do?
- what is involved in programme implementation? Grant-making? Advocacy?
- Evidence: How do Madonna, in Raising Malawi, and Ben Affleck, in ECI, try to achieve their authenticity, credibility and accountability?
- how are these gendered? Racialized?
Questions that you might think about to respond to and evaluate this article:
- Is it a problem that accountability is oriented to their
corporate and philanthropic organizations in the US? Or involves
“tabloid accountability”?
- Why do celebrities
get involved in development? What resources do they use to make sure
their personal “brand” is helped and not hurt by this?
- Do you agree with their argument?
- Other questions?
Mother Jones: Celebrity map of Africa
Africa for Norway
What happens when development is mixed with other objectives, such as profit-making or shoring up one’s personal brand?
Re do-gooding capitalism, like Toms: Slavoj Zizek, “RSA Animates: First as Tragedy, Then as Farce” : https://www.thersa.org/discover/videos/rsa-animate/2010/08/rsa-animate---first-as-tragedy-then-as-farce-)