Fantasy Machine: Philanthrocapitalism as an Ideological Formation
Allbwn ymchwil: Cyfraniad at gyfnodolyn › Erthygl › adolygiad gan gymheiriaid
Fersiynau electronig
Dangosydd eitem ddigidol (DOI)
Philanthrocapitalism is promoted as a form of development funding that infuses philanthropy with the dynamism and innovation of capitalist enterprise. Millennium Promise is a philanthrocapitalist organisation based in New York, which finances the Millennium Villages Project (mvp) across 10 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. At the level of its discursive articulation Millennium Promise appears as a Foucauldian ‘anti-politics machine’: a mechanism of transnational governmentality devoted to the biopolitical production of entrepreneurial subjects organised in self-disciplining communities. Drawing on psychoanalytic theory and field research conducted in Uganda, I argue that philanthrocapitalism is better understood as an ideological formation, which mobilises a disavowed enjoyment of global inequality. In the case of Millennium Promise this enjoyment is structured by specific social fantasies: cause-related marketing campaigns invite Western consumers to enjoy their imagined distance from ‘African’ suffering; the mvp functions as a narcissistic mirror, which offers a reflection of capitalist society cleansed of its class antagonism; and, through the staging of messianic rituals, the mvp mobilises a shared enjoyment of pseudo-colonial relations of domination. I conclude that philanthrocapitalism is not an anti-politics machine but a fantasy machine, which demonstrates the limitations of Foucauldian critique, and forces us to confront our own relations to enjoyment.
Iaith wreiddiol | Saesneg |
---|---|
Tudalennau (o-i) | 1144-1161 |
Cyfnodolyn | Third World Quarterly |
Cyfrol | 35 |
Rhif y cyfnodolyn | 7 |
Dyddiad ar-lein cynnar | 2 Hyd 2014 |
Dynodwyr Gwrthrych Digidol (DOIs) | |
Statws | Cyhoeddwyd - 30 Hyd 2014 |
Cyhoeddwyd yn allanol | Ie |