Seminar og Lancering af ny bog om bistand og kendisser – Brand Aid: Shopping Well to Save the World

Time: Friday, 13 May at 15 -17 hours

Venue: Danish Institute for International Studies. Main Auditorium, Strandgade 71, ground floor, 1401 Copenhagen K

Background

‘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.

Time: Friday, 13 May at 15 -17 hours

Venue: Danish Institute for International Studies. Main Auditorium, Strandgade 71, ground floor, 1401 Copenhagen K

Background

‘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.

In Brand Aid: Shopping Well to Save the World (University of Minnesota Press, 2011), Lisa Ann Richey and Stefano Ponte offer a deeply informed and stinging critique of ‘compassionate consumption’.

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, 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.

A presentation of the book by the authors will be followed by a panel discussion chaired by Lotte Folke Kaarsholm (Daily Information) and including interventions from Susan Craddock (University of Minnesota), Michael K Goodman (King’s College London) and Tim Vang (MYC4).

Read more about the book on U-landsnyt.dk, follow this link.

SPEAKERS
*Lotte Folke Kaarsholm, Journalist and Editor, Daily Information
* Lisa Ann Richey, Professor, Roskilde University
* Stefano Ponte, Senior Researcher, DIIS
* Michael K. Goodman, Senior Lecturer, King’s College London, UK
* Susan Craddock, Associate Professor, University of Minnesota, USA
* Tim Vang, Social Entrepreneur and co-founder of www.myc4.com

PROGRAMME
15.00-15.05
Introduction – Lotte Folke Kaarsholm, Journalist and Editor, Daily Information

15.05-15.45
Brand Aid: Shopping Well to Save the World – Lisa Ann Richey, Professor, Roskilde University and Stefano Ponte, Senior Researcher, DIIS

15.45-16.30
Panel Discussion – Michael K Goodman, Senior Lecturer, King’s College London, UK, Susan Craddock, Associate Professor, University of Minnesota, USA and Tim Vang, Social Entrepreneur and co-founder of www.myc4.com

16.30-17.00
Open Discussion

17.00-18.00
Reception

Chair: Lotte Folke Kaarsholm, Journalist and Editor, Daily Information

The seminar will be held in English.

Participation is free of charge, but registration is required. Please use the online registration form.

And do so no later than Thursday 12 May at 12.00 noon

Please await confirmation by e-mail from DIIS for participation.

Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS), The Conference Section, Strandgade 56, 1401 Kbn K, tlf. 32 69 87 51, e-mail: [email protected] og web: www.diis.dk