Fantasy Machine: Philanthrocapitalism as an Ideological Formation
Allbwn ymchwil: Cyfraniad at gyfnodolyn › Erthygl › adolygiad gan gymheiriaid
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Yn: Third World Quarterly, Cyfrol 35, Rhif 7, 30.10.2014, t. 1144-1161.
Allbwn ymchwil: Cyfraniad at gyfnodolyn › Erthygl › adolygiad gan gymheiriaid
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Fantasy Machine: Philanthrocapitalism as an Ideological Formation
AU - Wilson, Japhy
PY - 2014/10/30
Y1 - 2014/10/30
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
U2 - 10.1080/01436597.2014.926102
DO - 10.1080/01436597.2014.926102
M3 - Article
VL - 35
SP - 1144
EP - 1161
JO - Third World Quarterly
JF - Third World Quarterly
IS - 7
ER -