1st Edition
The Routledge International Handbook of Critical Philanthropy and Humanitarianism
This handbook builds a shared understanding of the troubling politics of philanthropy and the disturbing history and practices of humanitarianism.
While historical work on philanthropy has long suggested a link between imperial rule and humanitarian aid, these insights have only recently been brought to bear on contemporary forms of giving. In this book, contributors link the long history of colonial philanthropy to current foundations and their programs in education, health, migrant care, and other social initiatives. They argue that both philanthropy and humanitarianism often function to consolidate market rule, consolidating and expanding liberal market rationalities of neoliberal entrepreneurialism to a widening population and set of institutions.
Philanthropy and humanitarianism share a history, growing together out of modernist socio-economic relations and modes of imperial rule. However, the histories and contemporary politics of the two have not been brought together with such breadth or under such a critical lens before. Discussing philanthropy and humanitarianism together, combining both historical scope and contemporary iterations, highlights continuities and convergences—making the volume a unique introduction and critical overview of critical work in these sister-fields.
Chapter 1 – Introduction. Monopoly Philanthropy and the Humanitarian New World Order
Katharyne Mitchell and Polly Pallister-Wilkins
Part 1: Philanthropy, Humanitarianism, and Political Economy
Chapter 2 – Neoliberalism, Philanthropy, and Humanitarianism: Pragmatic or Faustian Bargains?
Michael Barnett
Chapter 3 – Social Impact Investing
Emily Rosenman
Chapter 4 – Universal Basic Income
Stephen Young
Chapter 5 – Labor
Elisa Pascucci
Chapter 6 – Political Economy of Educational Philanthropy: From Venture Philanthropy to Digital Privatization
Kenneth J. Saltman
Chapter 7 – Immunizing Against Access? Philanthrocapitalist COVID Vaccines and the Preservation of Patent Monopolies
Matthew Sparke and Orly Levy
Chapter 8 – Philanthrocapitalism Seen from South Africa: Bill Gates’ Charity Turns to Tyranny, Misfired Silver Bullets, and Climate Vandalism
Patrick Bond, Liepollo Lebohang Pheko, and Alex Lenferna
Part 2: Humanitarianism, Development, and Humanitarian Developments
Chapter 9 – Humanitarianism and the Non-European world
Beste İşleyen
Chapter 10 – Design: The Colonial Imaginary of Humanitarian Good(s)
Mahmoud Keshavarz
Chapter 11 – Nigeria and the Humanitarian International: From Biafra to Boko Haram
Michael J. Watts
Chapter 12 – Neither "Philanthropy" nor "Development": A Tale of Two Buzzwords
Jorge Garcia-Arias and Juanjo Mediavilla
Chapter 13 – Careful Killing: Humanitarian Warfare and the Politics of Precision Violence
Richard Nisa
Chapter 14 – Humanitarianism through Ubuntu Philosophy
Michael Onyebuchi Eze
Chapter 15 – Celebrity: A Key Concept for Understanding the Power of "Helping"
Lisa Ann Richey
Part 3: Philanthro-Humanitarianism: Projects, Problems, and Practices
Chapter 16 – Metrics, Legibility, and the Logics of Governance in Philanthropy and Humanitarian Aid: A Politics of Knowledge Approach
Jaimie Morse
Chapter 17 – Modernism and Technology in Humanitarian Action
Tom Scott-Smith
Chapter 18 – The Spirit of Climate Philanthropy
Edouard Morena
Chapter 19 – "Obstruction"
William Plowright
Chapter 20 – Nation-Building and Its Exclusions: Elite Philanthropy and the Limits of Social Reform
Adam Saifer and Arun Kumar
Chapter 21 – Philanthropy in France and Colonial Haiti: Bienfaisance, Paternalism, and Race
Erica Johnson Edwards
Chapter 22 – Humanitarian Futures
Polly Pallister-Wilkins, Hanno Brankamp, Elisa Pascucci, James Smith, Lewis Turner, Tammam Aloudat, and William Plowright
Biography
Katharyne Mitchell is dean of the social sciences and a professor of sociology at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Polly Pallister-Wilkins is a political geographer and associate professor in the Department of Politics at the University of Amsterdam and is a co-editor of Geopolitics.
