Er det godt eller skidt, når kendisser kaster sig over bistand? Det ser Stefano Ponte fra Dansk Institut for Internationale Studier (DIIS) og Lisa Ann Richey fra Roskilde Universitet nærmere på i bogen “Brand Aid: Shopping Well to Save the World”.
Fra den veldædige Cadbury-familie i London i 1800-tallet, over Band Aid, Sting og Bob Geldof i forrige århundredes sidste del og frem til koryfæer som Melinda og Bill Gates, Madonna og Shakira i 2000-årene.
Alle har de det til fælles, at de har sammenflettet godgørenhed og business. Og på det seneste er tendensen gået i retning af, at filantroper snarere er kendisser end tunge erhvervsdrenge.
Men er det godt eller skidt, når kendisser kaster sig over bistand? Både når det gælder indsatsen for verdens fattige, for miljøet, menneske-rettigheder og alle andre “gode” og “rigtige” sager. Eller er det nærmest forudbestemt til at ende galt, sådan som det skete for Madonna i Malawi? Læs mere om det sidste længere nede.
Uanset hvad har forskerne Stefano Ponte fra Dansk Institut for Internationale Studier (DIIS) og Lisa Ann Richey fra Roskilde Universitet besluttet sig for at granske i emnet, og det er der kommet en bog ud af, udgivet på engelsk.
Den hedder “Brand Aid: Shopping Well to Save the World” og forskernes ærinde er “to examine celebrity-driven compassionate consumption” og se på koblingen mellem “celebrities, brands and development aid”.
Det hedder i (den engelske) foromtale:
“Has there ever been a better reason to shop?” asks an ad for the Product RED American Express card, telling members who use the card that buying ‘cappuccinos or cashmere’ will help to fight AIDS in Africa.
Campaigns like Product RED and its precursors, such as Lance Armstrong’s Livestrong and the pink-ribbon project in support of breast cancer research, advance the expansion of consumption far more than they meet the needs of the people they ostensibly serve.
At the same time, such campaigns sell both the suffering of Africans with AIDS (in the case of Product RED) and the power of the average consumer to ameliorate it through familiar and highly effective media representations.
Using Product RED as its focal point, this book explores how corporations like American Express, Armani, Gap, and Hallmark promote compassionate consumption to improve their ethical profile and value without significantly altering their business model, thereby protecting themselves from the threat to their bottom lines posed by a genuinely engaged consumer activism.
Coupled with the phenomenon of celebrity activism and expertise as embodied by Bono, Richey and Ponte argue that this ‘causumerism’ represents a deeply troubling shift in relief efforts, effectively delinking the relationship between capitalist production and global poverty.
Table of Contents
Preface
Introduction: Product (RED) and the Reinvention of International Aid
1. Band Aid to Brand Aid: Celebrity Experts and Expert Celebrities
2. The Rock Man’s Burden: Vanity, Value, and Virtual Salvation
3. Saving Africa: AIDS and the Rebranding of Aid
4. Hard Commerce: Corporate Social Responsibility for Distant Others
5. Doing Good by Shopping Well: The Rise of ‘Causumer’ Culture
Conclusion: Celebrities, Consumers, and Everyone Else
MADONNAS AFRIKANSKE MARERIDT
Samlet fra amerikanske og britiske nyhedsmedier ultimo marts:
A high-profile charitable foundation set up to build a school for impoverished girls in Malawi, founded by the singer Madonna and fellow devotees of a prominent Jewish mysticism movement, has collapsed after spending 3,8 million US dollar on a project that never came to fruition.
The board of directors of the organization, Raising Malawi, has been ousted and replaced by a caretaker board, including Madonna and her manager, officials with the organization said (ultimo March). Its executive director, who is the boyfriend of Madonna’s former trainer, Tracy Anderson, left in October amid criticism of his management style and cost overruns for the school.
These included what auditors described as outlandish expenditures on salaries, cars, office space and a golf course membership, free housing and a car and driver for the school’s director.
Most strikingly, the plans to build a 15 million dollar school for about 400 girls in the poor southeastern African country of 15 million – which had drawn financial support from Hollywood and society circles, as well as the Los Angeles-based Kabbalah Centre International, an organization devoted to Jewish mysticism – have been officially abandoned.
That prospective move set off a fierce backlash when first raised earlier this year, with Malawi officials saying they were stunned and asserting that Madonna was blaming management breakdowns because she had been unable to raise the money she had promised.
Madonna has lent her name, reputation and 11 million dollar of her money to the organization Raising Malawi that she founded with Mr. Michael Berg, a co-director of the Kabbalah Centre . She has been a regular visitor to Malawi, attending at least two ceremonies at what would have been the site of the school in Lilongwe, and has adopted two children from the country.
In conceding the shortcomings of her charity, Madonna issued a statement saying she was still intent on using the organization, which has raised 18 million dollar so far, to advance improvements in the beleaguered nation.
Trevor Neilson, a founder of the Global Philanthropy Group, which Madonna recruited last November amid signs of upheaval at her charity, said he told her that building an expensive school in Malawi was an ineffective form of philanthropy, and suggested instead using resources to finance education programs though existing and proven nongovernmental organizations.
Mr. Neilson said that an examination found that 3,8 million dollar had been spent on the school that will now not be built, with much of the money going to architects, design and salaries and, in one case, two cars for employees who had not even been hired yet.
– Despite 3,8 million having been spent by the previous management team, the project has not broken ground, there was no title (skøde) to the land and there was, over all, a startling lack of accountability on the part of the management team in Malawi and the management team in the United States, he said.
(slut)
Yderligere oplysninger om “Brand Aid: Shopping Well to Save the World” hos:
Stefano Ponte, PhD, Senior Researcher and Head of Research Unit
‘Global Economy, Regulation and Development’ (GEARED)
Danish Institute for International Studies
tlf. 32 69 87 10, Gen: http://www.diis.dk/sw152.asp
CV: www.diis.dk/spo
Research unit: www.diis.dk/geared
Bogen er udgivet af Minnesota Press (USA) – se
University of Minnesota Press catalogue entry: http://www.upress.umn.edu/Books/R/richey_brand.html
