The University of Manchester Boomtown Betrayals and Sexy Suffering: Make Poverty History Through the Looking Glass. A dissertation submitted to the University of Manchester for the degree of MSc in International Development in the Faculty of Humanities. Joseph Lewis 2016 9528869 School of Environment, Education and Development 16,139 words.
Table of Contents Table of Contents... 1 Abstract... 2 Acknowledgements... 3 Declaration... 3 Intellectual Property Statement... 3 Chapter 1: Introduction, Purpose and Methodology... 5 Method... 7 Chapter 2: Literature Review... 11 The Visual... 13 Representations, Development and Power... 16 Identifying Literary Gaps... 23 Chapter 3: Evidence and Analysis... 29 Chapter 4: Findings and Discussion... 40 Chapter 5: Concluding Remarks... 51 Bibliography... 53 1
Abstract This dissertation is an original and unique application of Jean Baudrillard s postmodernism to the development discipline. It will highlight the relevance of postmodernism to development in Africa, a critique associated with broader matters such as commodified knowledge. The broader applicability of postmodern frameworks to global political, economic and social dynamics will also be investigated. This paper argues that the material deprivation of the global South is a form of socially constructed scarcity, powered in part, by visual representation. Poverty does not reside exclusively in the external world independent of the discourses through which it is thought of and spoke about. These are deeply associated with the creation of poverty since they conceal its true causes and consequences. Thus, the Make Poverty History campaign of 2005 exists in a material discourse where types of knowledge and power are linked in structures that often defy distinction. To prepare for a journey as such, it is important to transcend the limited assumptions and language of dominant narratives, and point towards multiple (infinite) possibilities of individual and collective action and awareness. 2
Acknowledgements This thesis would not have been possible without the help and support of many people, and certainly not without the financial support of my family, to whom I am eternally grateful. In particular, I wish to mention my supervisor, Cathy Wilcock, whose advice, support, guidance and enthusiasm has been instrumental. Declaration No portion of the work referred to in the dissertation has been submitted in support of an application for another degree or qualification of this or any other university or other institute of learning. Intellectual Property Statement i. The author of this dissertation (including any appendices and/or schedules to this dissertation) owns certain copyright or related rights in it (the Copyright ) and s/he has given The University of Manchester certain rights to use such Copyright, including for administrative purposes. ii. Copies of this dissertation, either in full or in extracts and whether in hard or electronic copy, may be made only in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (as amended) and regulations issued under it or, where appropriate, in accordance with licensing agreements which the University has entered into. This page must form part of any such copies made. iii. The ownership of certain Copyright, patents, designs, trademarks and other intellectual property (the Intellectual Property ) and any reproductions of copyright works in the dissertation, for example graphs and tables ( Reproductions ), which may be described in this dissertation, may not be owned by the author and may be owned by third parties. Such Intellectual Property and Reproductions cannot and must not be made available for use without the prior written permission of the owner(s) of the relevant Intellectual Property and/or Reproductions. iv. Further information on the conditions under which disclosure, publication and commercialisation of this dissertation, the Copyright and any Intellectual Property and/or Reproductions described in it may take place is available in the University IP Policy (see http://documents.manchester.ac.uk/display.aspx?docid=487), in any relevant Dissertation restriction declarations deposited in the University Library, The 3
University Library s regulations (see http://www.manchester.ac.uk/library/aboutus/regulations) and in The University s Guidance for the Presentation of Dissertations. 4
Chapter 1: Introduction, Purpose and Methodology 2005 witnessed an unprecedented amount of political and public scrutiny on poverty in Africa. Driving this focus, Make Poverty History (MPH) represented a global coalition which attained international recognition, particularly in Britain (Harrison, 2010). The label of the coalition struggles to be more ambitious, suggesting something biblically epochal or heroic; ironically, the bicentennial of the British abolition of the slave trade arrived shortly after (BBC, 2007). So, is poverty history? It is widely implied that the goals of MPH were not attained; the association was rife with tension and the legacy of the campaign is rather trivial (Harrison, 2010). Immediate criticisms of the campaign, that largely disagreed with Geldof s initial assessments and with the British government, suggest that the result of MPH was more charity than justice; while a little more finance was created for developing countries, little, if any effort, was made to restructure global economic policies that produce and maintain inequality and suffering on biblical scales. Even Sir Geldof himself has been explicitly critical of the campaign (Burkeman, 2005). However, this thesis does not seek to evaluate the successes of the campaign, rather the purpose is to investigate a specific aspect of its success and the particular role played by visual representations. This article will focus on the political tensions and potentially creative and enabling results inherent in the confrontation between discourses of representation (produced by Western selves ) and of those who have traditionally been represented (non-western others ). The crisis of representation highlighted by recent efforts of postmodern theory have further exposed the ethnocentric nature of representations, as well as inspiring a fresh attitude which, in my opinion, can have potentially empowering social impacts for disenfranchised groups external to Western selves, but also for those of that Western self. Although it is accepted that these (postmodern) endeavours have opened up possibilities for more culturally-sensitive work, the rejection of any notion of hierarchy may be interpreted as halting political projects beyond this point. However, authors like Jean Baudrillard contend that this need not necessarily be the case; the postmodern challenge can be met without having to discard a political standpoint. This is significant since the power structures associated with colonialism still remain in place; 5
postmodernism enables conflicting representations to collide, allowing naturalised assumptions of hegemonic discourses to be challenged (Duncan and Sharp (1993). This meeting of discourses can facilitate the undermining of certain cultural conventions in the representative schema which have, until now, remained undisputed. Broadly, the literature argues that MPH contained within it a tension between the desire to outline a case for social justice, a failure to describe how this might be achieved, as well as the temptations of traditionally familiar references to Africa as a moral concern (Harrison, 2010). The colonial legacy of Africa s presence in Britain means that any campaign with a focus on this continent will encounter difficulty escaping the conventional tropes of charity, disaster and salvation - MPH also failed in this respect. Although it would be of little use to assign culpability for the ways in which MPH lost the message of social justice and achieved an African focus, the literature emphasises that the Africanisation of the campaign served to attain the high levels of universal public support and recognition through multimedia, celebrity advocacy and state endorsement (see, Zarzycka, 2012). What, if anything, can be deduced and learned from the failures of the grand coalition? Why did it fail to achieve its promises regarding the economic policies of the G8? Why did it fail to achieve genuine cosmopolitan solidarity, instead collapsing into sentimental narcissism rather than launching a sustainable mobilisation effort of global citizenship? (Couldry, 2006). These same arguments hold for wider development theory and praxis. However, postmodern authors explain that the way to escape the impasse in development studies lies not in a new empiricism, or even local activism. The route is much more nuanced, bounded and defined; it lies in a disposition to learn from local people and to act on their behalf, but to do so in the knowledge that a commitment to act recognises that local justices are connected to wider logics of social, political and economic exploitation and injustice, including in academia. It cannot and should not exclude a duty to be active at other levels of something as abstract as the claims of distant strangers (Akuul, 2010). The fact that these claims are not always clear, are open to question, or fail to be recognised by the global North is irrelevant here. The point is that to amend global structures, it is first necessary to offer an account of the world and then to circulate a 6
blueprint for change. A commitment to change need not take the form of a presumption to act for others on the grounds that we know what is best; the postmodern paradox can be overcome as and when we accept that certain human needs and rights are universal, and when we learn that in attending to these we are not so much dictating to others as dictating to ourselves (Corbridge, 1993). Method So, what is necessary to establish a critical approach to interpreting visual images and visual culture? First, the impacts and consequences of images must be taken seriously. While this may seem obvious, many researchers and historians continue to (appropriately) complain that social scientists do not observe images in enough detail; it is necessary to do so since visual images are not entirely reducible to their context they have independent social and political consequences (Dogra, 2007). Second, a critical approach to visual culture considers the social conditions and impacts of visual images. As authors like Pollock (1988) suggest, cultural practices have major social significance in the articulation of meanings about the world, in the negotiation of conflicts, and in the production of social subjects. Practices such as visual representation depend on, and (re)produce, social networks of inclusion and exclusion; a critical reading accounts for these mechanisms, their cultural meanings and their impacts. Third, a critical enquiry seeks to address the observer s own biases when navigating the visual terrain. As some argue, it is essential to reflect on how the observer themselves is observing; by considering where one sees from, we might become answerable for how we learn what to see (Haraway, 1991: 190). However, this exercise is not as straightforward as it may initially appear. In this thesis, the term representation will be deployed primarily in the sense of depicting or re-presenting. The thorny political issues involved when speaking on behalf of others who may or may not wish to be spoken for, who may or may not be able to speak for themselves, and who may prefer to speak among themselves in discourses which do not translate effectively across cultural divides, will also be addressed (Duncan and Sharp, 1993). We will tackle difficult ethical questions of whether academics such as ourselves are entitled to appropriate the discourses of others in order to confront the Eurocentric and often pornographic biases of our own (Plewes 7
and Stuart, 2006). By confronting these questions, and without digressing into academic romanticism (since nobody enjoys isolated privilege away from the nexus), we can help to contest the dominant knowledge-power framework; thus it may be a constructive response to the potentially silencing critiques our own self-critiques in response to representing other places and peoples. Also, to avoid confusion, it is important to establish the distinctions between that of the de-hyphenated postmodern and the post-modern. Post-modern / post-modernity generally describes a temporal dimension that developed during the mid to late 20 th century which marked a departure from modernism (i.e. the Enlightenment). The idea of the post-modern condition may be summarised as a culture stripped of its capacity to function in any linear or independent state, as opposed to progressive modernism (Jameson, 1991). Postmodernism, or postmodern typically refers to an attitude of scepticism or the distrust of grand narratives, ideologies, and various other forms of Enlightenment logic, including the existential and absolute truths of objective reality, progress and human nature (Duignan, 2014). As a preliminary step, critical analysis of the tropes used to persuade readers, especially those that are an attempt to convey the accuracy or scientific objectivity of representations, can be illuminating. Themes of authority, including postmodernism s positionality should be prudently examined, particularly when they serve to artificially minimise the class, gender, and cultural differences between the representers and the represented (Akuul, 2010). Next, assertions of universal claims and binary logic which convey and enable the ordering of hierarchical distinctions between self and other also warrant close scrutiny. Thereafter, the more general conventions and practices that condition the production and distribution of power/knowledge and those that follow from such representations must be traced in an ongoing project of self-critique. To the extent that these structure the representations of other places and peoples, they should be questioned and alternative models considered. This thesis will build upon the related critiques of the use of discourse theory in development to argue that deconstruction can only become politically engaged when it is used to demonstrate the fluidity and variety of discourses within development as well as the power relations which they inevitably involve and affect (Escobar, 1995). Rather 8
than presenting development as hegemonic and static, the challenge is to suggest how political and critical activism, both from within and outside the institutions and networks which produce development discourses, can help contest and overturn prevailing paradigms. While this may appear overly optimistic at first, if not naïve, I suggest that anything else merely replicates archaic models of dependency, albeit in more fashionable and appealing ways (Gardner and Lewis, 2000). To this end, I propose to investigate the following: 1. In what ways is development represented by Make Poverty History in order to attract the attention and interest of potential donors? 2. Do these representations resemble a change, or extension, in the construction of imagined realities between the global North and South? And, what are the consequences of this? 3. Do these representations of development deepen our understanding regarding the systematic structures that reproduce and maintain social, political and economic injustices? 4. If any, what alternatives exist that can be used to escape the tensions between the demands of fundraising for development operations and appropriate representations of the peoples they wish to support? And, does this enable a new understanding of the power we possess to act in the world? In the following literature review, I seek to account for how meaning is constructed in connection to identities. I will begin with an analysis of the content of images, before acknowledging the context in which images are encountered; how they have been framed and semanticised, and how does editing and selectivity enhance or challenge their indexical muscle? (Zarazycka, 2012). Then, literary gaps will be identified before connecting images to a number of broader concepts taken up by postmodern authors. A sharp emphasis will be noticeable on Jean Baudrillard s distrust of meaning and truth, material construction, mass media and consumer culture, the simulacrum; the inevitability of confusion, contradiction and tension, and finally implosion and liberation. Postmodernism provides a useful framework for explaining the mechanisms that facilitate the journey of images beyond the realms of press imagery and recognition among global polities. Postmodernism is also useful as a direction towards alternative 9
readings and to establish new ruptures in our viewing of the existence of others (Zarzycka, 2012). Chapter 3 will analyse a selection of specific visual representations used during the Make Poverty History campaign. We will navigate through its confusing overlaps, contradictions and tensions to find answers to the proposed research questions. Themes such as the dualism between us and them will be highlighted, as well as referring to subjects of hyper-exclusion and selective inclusion (Escobar 2004), identity stereotyping, and models of oppressive sexuality that can be associated with related postmodern critiques of mass media and consumerism, technological dependence and suspicious meanings and truths. Chapter 4 will assess and discuss the findings of the article and measure the extent to which the proposed research questions have been answered. Also, it will detail the broader relevance of postmodern theory to and beyond the development industry through a process of critique and response. Elaborating on the critiques of postmodernism allows us to visualise its potentially enabling effects. The concluding chapter will relate the findings presented in preceding chapters to the research questions, and highlight the significance of this work for practices, theories and techniques by outlining how this research has improved our knowledge and understanding of development. 10
Chapter 2: Literature Review In contemporary capitalism, in the society of simulacrum, the market is behind nothing, it is in everything (Burgin, 1986: 174). In this chapter, I will set the scene for the exploration of popular representations of development by introducing key authors; discussing the social consequences of visual representations of development, the end of grand narratives in general, and the rise of individualist ethics and morality as a motive for action. Also, I will show how the media have facilitated an unprecedented explosion of public self-expression, thereby changing the premises upon which discourses are communicated and how power manifests. These dimensions provide a desperate light into the beginning of an understanding of the shift from the objectivity of the theatre to the contemporary emotionality of the mirror, as a paradigmatic change in the ways meanings are communicated (Jenks, 1995). Popular representations of development must be seriously considered (though not as self-evident) as sources of respected knowledge. As some argue (Lewis, Rodgers and Woolcock, 2013), the commercial and technical imperatives governing the production of contemporary representations of development generate a highly adaptable capacity to precisely frame and communicate important questions, thereby enhancing their potential to both clarify and confuse. The extensive and inherently public nature of development means that an understanding of the broader implications of popular conceptual perceptions is critical to improving the way policy is imagined, implemented and evaluated. For example, in The Fiction of Development Lewis, Rodgers and Woolcock (2008), argue that novels ought to be cherished as sources of knowledge, since they both supplement and defy familiar forms of academic tradition, and can even oppose and succeed mainstream thinking about knowledge and power. However, this discussion is not limited to articles of literary fiction. We must recognise that other modes of representation, such as music, film, merchandise and social media constitute significant mediums for addressing profound matters. Limitations notwithstanding, for the immediate purposes of this chapter, I shall focus on three primary themes: 11
1. The nature of visual representations of Africa of the British campaigning tradition, with a sharp emphasis on Make Poverty History; 2. Some of the potential pitfalls associated with the particular forms of visual representational media for specific developmental concerns and contexts; 3. The way these representations shape, but also fundamentally reflect, popular conceptions of development in the West, and the global distribution of power. What I hope to reveal is that contemporary representations, particularly those reflecting Africa, manifest as channels through which complex debates are tackled and conveyed, reflecting the distribution of global power between regions. It will be argued that some forms of representation, both intrinsically and instrumentally, can highlight issues in the underlying nature of their deictic power (Lewis, Rodgers and Woolcock, 2013). Visual representation, like written literature, has played a significant part in the ways that public understandings of development have been historically constructed. Of course, the entirety of this discipline cannot be covered here; instead I choose to approach it selectively through a concise case-study concerning the visual campaigning of Make Poverty History. From the efforts of Said s Orientalism (1978) onwards, we have become more aware of how the construction of the colonial other is intricately tied to the construction of notions of sovereign identity within the colonising self. This idea forms the basis for those who wish to interpret how Western encounters, observations and projections of the rest of the world can clearly aid our understandings of how the framing of the North-South divide evolves and changes, reinforcing and/or dislodging dominant stereotypes and prejudices among audiences (Gardner and Lewis, 2000). For example, Smith and Yanacopulos (2004:660) suggest that the public understanding of development is an awkward area for study since development itself is a contested subject, and the fact that there are multiple public faces of development reflects a complex situation about which we have relatively little understanding. In sum, many of the representations of development discussed here unearth profound issues that require further elaboration; including the over-dependence on particular narratives, the seductiveness of particular forms of representation, the personalisation 12
of politics, the rise of individualism, the hyper-selectivity of issues that are given traction, the inability to tackle structural complexity, and the tendency for the trivialisation of serious issues within celebrity advocacy (Lewis, Rodgers and Woolcock, 2013). Crucially, I will argue that postmodern theories provide important opportunities for a closer engagement with popular representations of development as a medium for opening up access to debates around ideas and processes of development. Often, it can feel that the boundaries of acceptable knowledge are blurred and narrowed by processes of technical quantification (i.e. the rise of technical mass data capture through social media), so it is important to acknowledge the value of visual representations regarding the complications of development, as reflections of dominant paradigms, and as powerfully informative tools for humanising important, if irritable, global problems (Lewis, Rodgers and Woolcock, 2013). The Visual Interpretations may be implicit or explicit, conscious or unconscious, felt as truth or fable, logic or confusion; they may be evoked through daily speech, false rhetoric, film or music. One s own sense of life is unique; whatever form groups take of their sense of the world, these representations, meanings and structures influence human behaviour (Mirzoeff, 1998). More recently, many authors argue that the visual is central to the construction of cultural life in society, particularly in the global North. Of course, we are surrounded by many explicit visual technologies; video, digital graphics, photography, and the images they expose us to through adverts, surveillance, and political rhetoric (Baudrillard, 1989). All of these visual vehicles prescribe particular views; rendering and limiting perspectives to visual structures. Therefore, a distinction is often made between vision and visuality. Vision refers to what the human eye is cognitively capable of seeing, visuality refers to the ways in which vision is constructed. In other words, how we see, how we are enabled and allowed to see what we see, and how we see this seeing and unseeing therein (Foster, 1988). Interchangeably, the term scopic regime is often used to refer to these cultural constructions (Foucault, 1971). The narrative of the dominance of the visual in Western society forms part of the wider shift from pre-modernity, to modernity, and then to post-modernity (Mirzoeff, 2006). 13
Often, it is implied that the visual in pre-modern societies was not particularly important since there were few mediums in circulation. However, modernity ushered in a fresh attitude suggesting that modern ways of understanding the world depend on ocular centrism or a scopic regime that connects seeing with knowledge. For example, Chris Jenks (1995:1, 2) argues that looking, seeing and knowing have become perilously intertwined ; the modern world is very much a seen phenomenon. Mirzoeff (1998: 4) implies that this is also crucial for post-modernity, the post-modern is a visual culture. In post-modern society, the relations between vision and truth/reality are broken; post-modernity is ocularcentric, not because visual images are more common, nor because knowledges about the world are increasingly delivered visually, but because we increasingly interact with entirely constructed visual experiences. This is the trigger for Jean Baudrillard s (1994) simulacrum ; in post-modernity, Baudrillard suggests that it is no longer possible to make a distinction between the real and the counterfeit; images have become detached from any relation to that which is real; we live in a scopic regime dominated by simulacra and simulation. As Lewis (2014) and others have argued, the rapid evolution of new innovation means that there are increasingly fresh and diverse areas of social networking, from reality TV to Pokémon Go. This has implications both for the ways that development ideas are understood more widely in both Western and non-western communities, as well as for the ways individuals participate in, and try to influence or critique, popular development processes and their understandings in the public domain. Such an approach can shed new light on the ways in which established doctrines and categories in development can be deconstructed and overcome. For example, relationships between developed and developing have always been awkward and contested, but new technologies may provide new spaces for representing and mounting a challenge against dominant structures (Lewis, Rodgers and Woolcock, 2014). There are many debates regarding the social relations that scopic regimes create, particularly concerning the impact of simulacra. For instance, Baudrillard has been accused of uncritically glorifying the simulacrum with total disregard for the unequal social relations that can be articulated through it. However, Donna Haraway (1991: 189) 14
is a beneficial reminder of what is at stake through modern ocularcentrism; she notes the contemporary increase of visualising technologies that define the scopic regime where: Vision in this technological feast becomes unregulated gluttony; all perspective gives way to infinitely mobile vision, which no longer seems just about the trick of seeing everything from nowhere, but to have put the myth into ordinary practice. Haraway suggests that this visual gluttony is only available to a few people and institutions, particularly those that form part of the history of science tied to militarism, capitalism, colonialism, and male supremacy (1991: 188). Here, specific visions of social difference are produced; including hierarchies of class, gender, race and sexuality, while itself claiming not to be part of the hierarchy and to be universal. Since this ordering of difference is dependent upon a distinction between those who claim to see with universal relevance, and those who are seen and categorised; it is intimately tied to the systemic oppressions of capitalism, patriarchy and colonialism. Thus, part of this exercise is to investigate how particular institutions regulate forms of visuality that order the world. Haraway maintains that there are other ways of seeing the world, urging us to visualise social difference in non-hierarchical ways. Therefore, the dominant scopic regime of postmodernity is neither historically determined, nor uncontested. There are numerous ways of seeing, and the critical task is to distinguish between the social consequences of these visions. The particular forms of representation that are produced are important to grasp since they are intimately tied to social relations of power: To understand a visualisation is thus to enquire into its prevalence and into the social work that it does. It is to note its principles of inclusion and exclusion, to detect the roles that it makes available, to understand the way in which they are disturbed, and to decode the hierarchies and differences that it naturalises (Fyfe and Law, 1988: 1). In order to be able to deal with questions of social difference and the power relations that sustain them, a notion of culture is required that also addresses questions of social relations and social power. One technique of keeping the areas of visual culture in analytical focus is to think critically about who is able to see what and how, and with what effects. The visual depends on certain ways of seeing for its effects, but these are always rooted in cultural practices that amount to something more specific than a way of life (Jenks, 1995). The seeing of an image occurs in a particular social context which mediates 15
its impact, in a specific location, with its own customs. Each environment has its own structure (political, economic and social), norms and values, including those that inscribe how spectators should behave (Fyfe and Law, 1988). In the majority of the literature, we find an assertion that the image itself has its own agency - a capacity to act. For example, Chris Pinney (2004: 8) emphasises that it is not how images look, but what they can do. Although images are multi-modal, they always make sense in association with other things; although they are not reducible to the meanings carried by such other things (Barthes, 2000). To summarise, an image may possess its own visual effects, these are mobilised by ways of seeing that are crucial for the reproduction and proliferation of visions of social difference. But, these impacts always overlap the social contexts of viewing, as well as the visualities that spectators bring to the observation. Representations, Development and Power The issue of development defined broadly as problems of poverty and social deprivation, and the various agencies and processes seeking to address these is typically one tackled by volunteers, social scientists and policy makers (Akuul, 2010). Development can be understood through investigating visual representation or by studying the associated literature. It is also a public issue, one that emerges from a rich tapestry of merry spectacles like Live Aid, Live 8 and famine (Lewis, Rodgers and Woolcock, 2014). Development itself is one of the prevailing organising ideas of our time, which inevitably makes it tough to approach. Most people, from economists to plumbers, learn about development through predominantly econometric, results-based studies and documents, or from simplified mainstream news (Lyotard, 1986). Typically, the humanistic facets tend to receive less exposure, as does the proliferation of different representations of development beyond academic forums. However, as John Durham Peters (1997: 79) articulates: Part of what it means to live in a modern society is to depend on representations of that society. Modern men and women see proximate fragments with their own eyes and global totalities through the diverse media of social description. 16
On the one hand, visual representations can be inferred as transformative, not so much mirroring reality but instead representing it according to conscious or unconscious bias. On the other hand, the concept representation delivers us into political territory and revisits historical, but nonetheless relevant, debates about representative and participatory democracy, for example (Duncan and Sharp, 1993). When we grapple with these issues, the importance of recognising power relations within public spaces in which representations are constructed and projected, or silenced and ignored, is central (Lewis, Rodgers and Woolcock, 2014). One of the central questions in the debates about representations of poverty is whether the ends justify the means; can representations of poverty and development that succeed in generating funds for benevolent initiatives, but which present contrived depictions, be justified ethically? Can authors be ethically justified in light of the longterm fallout? (Roe, 1991) The tensions between earning profit and reproducing harmful structural conditions is key here; it is the question to which most researchers seek an answer. In the wake of heavy criticism regarding the contemporary pornography of poverty, some Northern development and humanitarian relief organisations adopted a mantra of positive imagery, which sought to resolve the representation of people in the global South as helpless victims with images that presented them as happy and empowered (Plewes and Stuart, 2006). At first, this approach appeared to avoid the ethical issues associated with pornographic representations of poverty, yet Dogra (2007: 168) maintains that this is a lazy approach : is the trend of positive imagery merely in tune with some currently acceptable marketing studies that indicate that appeals sent to potential donors with a positive image fetch more donations compared to the ones with negative images?. A report by the BBC and DFID (2002) on public perceptions of development argues simply that news stories need to be presented in ways that are relevant to ordinary people s lives and that they need to provide sufficient background information. The key issue is to carefully consider the ways in which representations of poverty and development shape public understandings and thus mediate and produce relations between the global North and South. 17
Considered historically, storytelling is one of mankind s oldest methods of processing information and representing reality. As Foucault (1971) reveals, stories that we now classify as fiction such as plays or poems, were actually once accepted as the primary media for the expression of essential truths about human dilemmas and understandings, just in the same way that positivist scientific discourse is accepted as unassailable today. Ironically, fiction is to a large extent often about the issues that occupy space as the subject matter of development studies; the perils of cross-cultural encounters, and the despairing mix of tragedy, humour and dejection characterising the lives of the disenfranchised (Sresunt, 2011). Parallel to this is the complex array of means, motives and opportunities surrounding efforts by outsiders to help. With assurances to Mr Shakespeare (1611), stories are such stuff as (development studies) are made on! Without digressing into 16 th century journalism, the point here is that the policy and academic representational literature of development often constructs issues in a way that justifies the response of the policies they advocate (e.g. military interventionism), and the way these representations are framed thus has significant social consequences (Alam, n.d.). As a matter of fact, Emery Roe (1991) contends that, to a large extent, policy initiatives such as those espoused by the World Bank should instead be understood as narratives whereby development conundrums are framed and discussed by powerful actors, so authorising the pervasive role of, and interventions by, technocratic experts to manipulate and (re)construct deeply complex historical, political and social questions. In turn, these questions are framed as being most effectively resolved via rigid, technical and administrative calculations through such means as best practice and strong institutions as determined by robust evidence and rational logic (Duffield, 2010). Such processes naturally privilege certain forms of information and rationale, and in conjunction with the politically powerful places from which they emanate, thereby according particular status to some forms of knowledge, representation and authority at the expense of others (Roe, 1991). Debates about popular representation in any field inevitably lead us to consider the growth and dominance of modern media and the exchange of meaning through 18
institutions. Habermas (1989) The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere provides a useful point of reference. He elaborates his notion of the public sphere ; evaluating the rise of mass media by recording the emergence of that which he terms publicity in the eighteenth century as a new form of political arrangement, associated with fluctuations in the way modern states seek to build legitimacy. Acutely, Habermas argues that the state no longer governs through the production of forms of staged display that used to underline the power of feudal kings (e.g. the spectacle of capital punishment), but now rather securing legitimacy by making negotiations visible to the public (i.e. endorsement through public opinion). In social science disciplines, it is common to consider the construction of political phenomena through the dualism of us and them. Here, it is argued that movements attain identities and thus power by defining themselves against an external other. In Gamson s (1995) research, and in the case of the African campaigning tradition, the core identity framing is not straightforward; from abolitionism to MPH, campaign identities have been framed through two others. First, there is the British government and the practices that campaigns wish to change. Second, there is an African other ; far from self-evident and also highly mediated. In fact, Africa or Africans are constructed through campaign practice, whether it be the degenerative sufferers of Ebola in Zanzibar (Aglionby, 2016) or the mass poor that emerged through the campaigning of 2005. Africa is a distant other; there is little engagement between Africa campaigns and Africans because campaign practice is focused on the first other the British government. Yet, in order to drive the injustice frame, the representation of a distant, suffering other is crucial. Historically, representations of Africa have served to evoke moralities of empathy which have permitted claims that government policies are unjust since they are not suitably caring for Africans who are in some sense dependent on responsible behaviour by the British government. In the following, we will observe MPH and see how this kind of frame (a distant other and morally deprived British government) emerged as a type of meta-narrative for an assortment of organisations, and for the administration itself (Harrison, 2010). 19
Further, there were explicit attempts to prompt pride, joy and empowerment, rather than shame and guilt. The ideal response was righteous anger, where you are part of the solution, not the problem (Nash, 2008). As Stan Cohen s (2001) efforts have shown, eliciting shame and guilt is often counter-productive; disturbing accounts often produce denial; we d rather not know. Nor was it the case that this campaign evoked compassion for distant suffering as prominently as in others; it was an important subcategory, but the heroic rescue narrative was far more overt. Enabled by the containment of the global poor, many critics suggest that rather than reducing the divide between those which we refer to as developed and underdeveloped worlds, the modernising and liberal tropes of the global development industry appear more concerned with maintaining and extending the rift (Gardner and Lewis, 2000). If development can be seen as an algorithm for sharing the world for mutual gain, in its present constellation many seem destined to die before they re even born, while others are enabled to exist in material excess and frivolity. For example, Duffield (2010) reveals that rather than development leading to international security, it is part of a deepening and ultimately unwinnable global civil war. Rather than a war being fought with boots on the ground, it is embodied in the development agencies and networks that seek to naturalise the attitudes and behaviours that Western states deem acceptable as opposed to unacceptable. Related to this is the concept of poverty. Rather than simply focus on the reasons why poverty exists, it is important to evaluate the political function that its constant rediscovery serves, particularly how it validates and rejuvenates a liberal will to act/ govern (Gardner and Lewis, 2000). For example, researchers such as Morawetz (1977) reveal that while poverty did not directly cause the Third World s attraction to communism in the 1950s, or even today s perpetual threat of international terrorism, in each case it has been found to lie at the root of the problem. Through its marginalising effects and ability to foster resentment and alienation among common people, poverty has been wearisomely rediscovered as a recruiting ground for the increasingly mobile buffet of strategic threats that constantly jeopardise the liberal way of life. In The Ironic Spectator (2013, Ch. 1), Lily Chouliaraki implies that irony refers to a disposition of detached knowingness, a self-conscious suspicion vis-a-vis all claims to 20
truth, which comes from acknowledging that there is always a disjuncture between what is said and what exists that there are no longer grand-narratives to hold them together. In postmodern postures, irony is often cynically translated as the detachment of moral concern in favour of bold agnosticism. The spectacle of external suffering, she argues, complicates the pose; by virtue of confronting us with an other s suffering, it raises ethical questions in the observer s conscience. This perspective suggests that the passive observer, or the ironic spectator, is sceptical towards any moral appeal, and yet, open to moral action. These themes are central to the narrative of this thesis; the global division of power that unequally distributes resources, reproducing the prosperity of some whilst perpetuating the poverty of many. In this regard, visual representations of development shape the moral imperative to act, not only to domestic compatriots, but to strangers that we are never likely to meet, and without the anticipation of any direct contact (Chouliaraki, 2013). The doctrine of humanitarianism has incorporated an array of altruistic claims, from the religious narrative of the good Samaritan to the secular demands of protecting rights (Rifkin, 2010). This involves an assortment of modern practices such as celebrity concerts and tabloid news, each using a distinct aesthetic logic; the individualistic power of celebrity to confront the spectacle of external suffering that demands our response, for example (Nash, 2008). By these means, these processes form part of an extensive communicative infrastructure of modern ethics that substantiates a self-indulgent moralising force among Western publics. Or, as Chouliaraki labels it, the humanitarian imaginary or egoistic altruism (Chouliaraki, 2013). Thus, the decline of grand-narratives has contributed to the rise of ironic disposition. Here, we see how public appeals, famous people, and global concerts and artificial news have come to occupy the tensions of development through the increasing reliance on marketing and corporate logic, as well as the digital explosion of mass-media (Nash, 2008). Consequently, they have responded to the collapse of grand-narratives of common solidarity and humanity with the celebration of neoliberal, good life altruism (Chouliaraki, 2013). Here, the encounter between the Western observer and the 21
vulnerable other occurs as an ethical and political episode; like a mirror, where the encounter is reduced to a self-absorbed self-reflection involving those like us. Coincidentally, ideas that link relief and development, or establish a continuum between them, are currently fashionable. For example, by increasing indigenous capacity to undertake and continue relief efforts; continuum ideas highlight the process of accommodation and incorporation (via financial aid) in a theoretical composition (Duffield 1996). This has severe implications for working in crises; by focusing on relief as the main problem, and seeking to rediscover and broaden its operations, the quality of humanitarian space is corroded. As relief efforts are spinned in the media and made conditional, it s humanitarian role becomes blurred; a deficit in clarity which, ultimately, people pay for with their lives (Stockton, 1995). In this instance, what happened in Rwanda (1994) serves as a solemn reminder; allegedly, a major portion of what the development discourse would term civil society was actually a major patron of the genocide (Hintjens, 1999). These qualifications do not, however, detract from the singular manner in which development as a historical discursive framework both creates and maintains a domain of thought and action that has conceptually invented the Third World. Further, it has achieved this not only in the Western imagination but also among those in the region itself, who find it difficult to think of themselves in any other way than through such signs as overpopulation, disease, famine, and ignorance (Escobar, 1995). This also continues to colonise reality despite the increasing decentralisation of societies, the demise of communism, and the globalisation of culture (Castells, 1996). The business of images is intimately tied to the business of development; from analogue slide shows in remote villages to slick exhibitions in a debt-ridden Trump casino, imagehungry development agencies depend heavily on image producers. This leads some to lament that: When a human being is fed upon and consumed, especially in Africa, the event is telescoped against horizons of space and time, and takes on a feeling of immense antiquity (Preston 1994: 83). 22
Identifying Literary Gaps Postmodern theory is usually deployed to describe a type of intellectual thought that is often considered a critique of, or reaction to, modernism. The term is infused with controversy in that many intellectuals have failed to agree on what it actually is, and whether it truly exists. In spite of disagreement however, it is widely recognised that postmodern ideals have had a significant impact on philosophy, culture and critical theory since the late 20 th century. The term defies easy definition, but generally involves the following themes (Akuul, 2010). First, postmodernism involves a continual scepticism towards the ideas and ideals of modernism, particularly those of progress, reason, objectivity, and identity grand narratives in general. Second, is the assertion that meaning and experience can only be created by the individual and cannot be made objective by an author. Third, is the recognition of a society that is saturated by a dominant (fascist) mass-media in which there is no originality but only copies of copies, or simulacra (Baudrillard, 1994). Finally, for the postmodern thinker, globalisation represents a culturally pluralistic and profoundly interconnected global society lacking any single dominant political centre, communication, or intellectual production (Akuul, 2010). Instead, the world is moving towards absolute decentralisation. Postmodernism supports fresh cultural and/or theoretical perspectives which renounce modern discourses and practices. Although there is no general agreement among theorists as to what constitutes its major assumptions, this is because of the postmodern assumption that experience is personal and therefore cannot be generalised. Lyotard (1986) argues further that while modernity is a cultural condition characterised by constant changes in the pursuit of progress, post-modernity represents the culmination of this process, where incessant change is naturalised and progress obsolete. This signals a rejection of modernist claims; narratives of progress such as science, Marxism and structuralism are defunct as methods of achieving progress. Lyotard (1986) goes on to show that in our contemporary highly technical media-saturated society, emergent processes of change and transformation are producing a new post- 23
modern society; the era of post-modernism constitutes a unique stage in history and socio-cultural change which demands new concepts and theoretical frameworks. Of particular importance for this thesis is postmodernism s critique of representation and the modern belief that theory mirrors reality. At best, theories provide a partial perspective on their objects since all cognitive representations of the world are historically and semantically mediated (Kellner, 1991). Postmodernists assume that modernism has not been able to advance mankind, hence the need for a fresh approach to theorising reality since all knowledge is commodified, or commodifiable (Akuul, 2010). With technological advancement and the dominance of mass-media, knowledge is diluted, and the true seat of power lies where true knowledge is controlled. This also signals the decline of the state since more agents/actors are able to wield or control such knowledges. For example, photography, which as a visual form of art that offers an abundance of insights into the understanding of our world, is taken up by postmodernists to highlight the crisis of representation and divergences from the formal categories of modern aesthetics. According to Nichols (1981), photography originally came into existence as a major carrier and shaper of modernism; given its technical ability to reproduce and depict with more accuracy than any other form of representation, photography was seen as revelatory, exposing hidden truths. Thus, photography was part of wider scientific and technological developments that corresponded appropriately with the tropes of modernity, as well as providing pragmatic possibilities for representing aspects of modern life (Wells, 1997). However, cultural changes accompanied by new image production and manipulation techniques brought into question the conventional conception of photography as an authentic record of reality and truth. Postmodernism emphasises the construction, forging, and fabrication of images as a refusal to take the world as self-evident, and instead invites the observer to actively read constructions and implicate issues of subjectivity and identity (Sandikci, 2001). First, the notion of construction entails the idea that art can intervene politically, and second the notion of deconstruction. Baudrillard (1998) takes the discussion further by referring to sign objects or simulations of consumerism (e.g. adverts) as illusions, emerging from a copy of 24
something representing a reality. They can reproduce, as well as distort, their own meanings. The object, created in order to construct meaning or signification, not only serves its direct function (the use of the object itself), but also produces meanings that reflect social status, cultural esteem and privileged ways of life through its value as a sign. For example, if an individual in a consumer society loses face through physical appearance or (lack of) competence, that self-esteem can easily be restored by consuming the sign-object, which can repair the individual s personality to convey distinctions in hierarchy and status via the object s sign-value. In this instance, the signobjects are the consumption of the sign (images and/ or messages) in our consumer society; their presentation is an illusion as a representative equivalent of the origins (natural) for use-values, which is more than the constructed superiority of sign-values, referred to as simulations (Baudrillard, 1994). The significance of this deserves closer scrutiny. Simulation is dominant and produces new social orders in contemporary society (Kellner, 1991). When an individual s wellbeing is measurable in terms of signs and objects (material affluence), the consumption of sign-objects subsequently acts as a connector between an individual s cognitive and physical well-being. These simulations can be employed to reflect the poverty stage of units of analysis (local, national and international) and go far beyond that which is necessary to lift one out of poverty (Ahuvia, 2002). Further, this can construct similar sets of meanings for the culture of consumption, since everyone is acting under the same set of codes; the order of simulation is founded upon systems of codes, such as brands or logos (Gane, 2006). Under these simulated codes, public and private goods serve as objects of consumption and have thus provided another function that differs from the original. Since the consumption of goods generates prestige and status, within the system of sign exchange that is transmitted through language, people are socialised to perceive product differences that are linked to status, ideology and cultural control. In turn, this results in a system in which we unconsciously absorb and are affected by commodities (Sresunt, 2011). Appropriately, this line of thought can be extended to development. For example, space itself can be, and is, produced, reproduced and transformed (Smith, 1984). Space represents the meshing together of structures but also delineates the structures 25
themselves (Giddens, 1984). Of greater significance is that the construction of space is essential for sustaining structures, since to remain current general structures do not float above particular contexts but are always (re)produced within them (Sayer, 1989: 255) Thus, space may be regarded as a means of production (Marx and Engels, 2015), most obviously in the transportation and tourism industries, and also more generally in relation to the form of land involved in the production process (Smith, 1984). The spatial properties of matter are a crucial part of its use-value, where; The use value of an object is not inherent in the thing itself but is determined in practice by the object s utility, yet at the same time the use-value has no existence separate from the object First, space and spatial properties have no meaning separate from concrete pieces of matter geographical space is nothing independent of its use (Smith, 1981: 115). The physical use of rural space, primarily dictated to from within the overall urban space, is to be distinguished from the representation of rural space. Thus, rurality is materially de-spatialised, as the essence of the rural is separated from its evidential existentiality (Falk and Pinhey, 1978). The basic idea of Baudrillard s theory is that life, or reality, is subordinated to, or replaced by, a set of categories and objects created from these categories; existence is subordinated to a particular system of representation (Baudrillard, 1994). This resonates with Guy De Bord s theory of the Spectacle (1994), Marcuse s Operationalism (1964) and Marx s critique of idealism (Engels and Aveling, 1935), as well as sharing similarities with the theory of over-development which is linked to the displacement of social problems onto technology, or the survival of the system beyond its means (Escobar, 1995). These patterns of thought identify a bourgeois power that has within it a propensity to reduce existence to abstract and arbitrary classifications. Consistently, there are threads of Marx in most of Baudrillard s accounts; importantly, he likens sign objects to Marx s commodities. For Marx, all commodities carry a singular meaning exchange-value (Marx, and Engels, 2015). For Baudrillard, this simplified, monotonous message extends to all of social life (Baudrillard, 1989). Thus, the complexity of life is reduced to arbitrary signals and oppositions; from binary question/answer pairings to two-party democracies. Beneath this is the simplification 26
of language itself, first by advertising, then by executing grander computer programming scripts with fewer and fewer lines of code. By collating all of the elements, a system of command and control is spawned. Treated in this way, signs lose the complexities of reversal, repression, and the distinctions between that which is real and the imaginary. Hence, simulation becomes circular and self-referential, losing every reference to anything outside itself life becomes a circulation of signifiers (Baudrillard, 1998). This form of social power creates a reality which seems all at once total and apocalyptic, since the message, the medium and the real are constructed simultaneously. The result serves to block our thoughts, making implosion seem catastrophic. Individuals are subjected to what may be referred to as an ultimatum of meaning ; black-mailed with the loss of meaning if they diverge from the simulation. Since nothing is perceptible or thinkable outside of the simulation, the possibility or existence of anything outside the simulation is often seen as chaotic and dangerous. Baudrillard, as well as others, does not believe the arguments of some critics that capitalism is self-indulgent, tolerant and reflexive; there is only a veneer of tolerance, beneath which there is programmatic regulation and obedience (Baudrillard, 1989). For instance, at a conscious level Coca-Cola are recommending a drink. But on a secondary level, they are recommending that the drink may embody fun, romance, acceptance, status and well-being. As a sum of its whole, Coke is absolute truth; when in actual fact, it is primarily coloured sugar from which the dark arts of marketing construct associated values. Thus, Baudrillard (1989) sees an emphasis on style at the expense of substance. The argument is that we increasingly consume images and signs for their own sake rather than for their use-value; assets such as artistic merit, integrity, honesty, authenticity, intellectual depth and robust narratives tend to be undermined and substituted. Computer systems now have the capacity to enable individuals to experience various forms of simulated reality second-hand (e.g. Pokémon Go). Ultimately, these surface simulations can potentially replace their authentic counterparts. Baudrillard also identifies confusion over space and time. Here, it is argued that the contemporary and future emphasis on space and time have led to increasing confusion 27
and incoherence in our own senses; in our maps of the places in which we reside, and in our ideas about the times on terms of which we arrange daily activities. The increasing immediacy of global space and time resulting from the dominance of mass media means that our previously unified and coherent ideas about space and time are undermined, distorted and confused. Rapid flows of capital, information and culture disrupt the linear unities of time and established geographical distances (Baudrillard, 1998). Due to the speed and extent of modern communications, and the ease and rapidity at which people, money and information travel, space and time become less stable, less clear and more incomprehensible. The more we see, the more we know - the more we know, the less we understand. This can be succinctly typified by recognising the times and spaces travelled during a typical evening of television viewing at home. The following analysis of the MPH campaign will reinforce the postmodern demands for a newly creative edifice of thought and education; one that may inspire both a contest against natural interpretations, from which spawn malicious and violent social consequences, and a realisation to transcend archaic oversimplifications against which we measure ourselves and others. 28
Chapter 3: Evidence and Analysis Fig 2. Posters from ONE ad campaign (One.org/international, 2005) Fig 1. A group of women pose for a picture used as a poster for the MPH campaign (Daily Mail, 2010). While we are already familiar with the romanticisation of field volunteers and aid workers, recent endeavours by Northern development agencies have started to consciously exercise sex appeal in PR and marketing procedures. Previously, the main technique used to generate funds and boost engagement may typically be described as the pornography of poverty ; the enigmatic representation of fly-ridden, starving infants with air-filled bellies (VSO, 2002). As Plewes and Stuart (2006) clarify, the concept considers images that represent groups in the South as passive and helpless sufferers in need of our assistance. The intentions behind representations of scarcity as deficiency is to coax, cajole and bludgeon donations (Smillie, 1995: 136). The distribution of representations of despondency to invoke sympathy and aid has a rich tapestry; Rosario (2003) states that the rise of middle-class philanthropy in the 20 th century was assumed by the deployment of vivid depictions of deprivation by organisations like the Red Cross in America. Characteristically, development 29
organisations in the North feature photographs of small, malnourished, African infants to stir feelings of guilt in potential donors, as shown in Figure 2. Pornographic representations of development have been widely criticised as fundraising tools for constructing an image of others as helpless victims. It is argued that this reinforces colonial perceptions of superiority and inferiority, plus the belief that generous Norther donors are the primary solution to the South s issues (VSO, 2002). Representations like that of Figure 2 are still common, despite being criticised for confusing the structural processes that sustain injustice, and because they provide a robust foundation in Northern communities for dependent, debt-based, neo-colonial customs (Dogra, 2007). In postmodern terms, and with a distinct emphasis on Foucault (1980), the pornography of poverty resembles a scopic regime ; a truth that mediates global relations that reinforces subtle, but key, differences between the Western self and the non-western other. The calculated operation of poverty pornography exploded during the Ethiopia Famine of 1983 and subsequent Live Aid gig, after which severe scathing led many Northern aid agencies to deliberately represent the South as active and selfsufficient players in their own destiny (Dogra, 2007). Despite these efforts, pornographic portrayals remain firmly entrenched in the minds of Northern populations. Of added significance is the growing body of psychological research questioning the usefulness of such images to accumulate funding and increase exposure. Studies of compassion fatigue (Sennett, 2004) for example, reveal that the emotional resonance of poverty declines over time with repetitive coverage, thereby undermining the goals of fundraising and understanding. This also involves the decline of public concern in the North; summarised nicely by Sennett (2004: 146) as the exhaustion of our sympathies in the face of persistently painful realities victims of torture make so many demands on our emotions that we eventually stop feeling compassion burns out. Despite disagreement among academics as to whether compassion fatigue has increased or not, other research, such as that of a psychological nature, implies that 30
given the barrage of representational suffering in the media, efforts by other activists to raise finance and awareness with creative attempts to provoke deeper encounters are side-lined by those that feel they have already seen an ample amount (Smillie, 1995). Notably, development agencies have employed professional PR and marketing companies for expert advice as competition for donation and exposure intensifies. This entails the re-imagination of development as sexy, thereby substituting conventional representations of the passive, degenerative other with those of active Northern selves, and with a subscription to superficial ideals of beauty. This is similar to what, In A World Made Sexy, Rutherford (2007) terms the eros project ; a commitment by marketing firms to seduce consumers by evoking passion. Rutherford observes sexual imagery as a commanding sales imperative that, rather than coercing people to donate through guilt, seduces one s libido by reframing serious issues as sexy. Making development sexy involves resonating with the identities of potential donors, offering them a chance to enhance their own sexual attraction by subscribing to the same causes as their chosen celebrities, for example. The focus on the Northern self enables a move beyond explicit representations of scarcity and suffering ( pornography ), where they instead become implicit, often invisible from campaign images (Rutherford, 2007). Although this approach may deflect the ethical criticisms associated with the pornography of poverty, the constructed identity of the Northern self is overtly promoted and is, in this sense, strikingly similar to that nurtured by pornographic representations (except that the Northern donor corresponds with conventional ideals of material beauty and extravagance). Added to this, many critics argue that the use of celebrity advocacy to generate donations and support tends to focus attention on the individual personality, rather than the representative issues; matters are simplified dramatically, and development as a political cause is diluted (Cowell, 2005). As one African-American author implies, This is the West s new image of itself: a sexy, politically active generation whose preferred means of spreading the word are magazine spreads with celebrities pictured in the foreground, forlorn Africans in the back Africans are props in the West s fantasy of itself (Iweala, 2007). In this instance, 31
when identities are under arbitration, the representational forms of sexy development (e.g. Figure 1) have a significant impact on identity projection ( self vs other ). As Richey and Ponte (2006: 26) argue in their study of an associate of MPH, Product Red, the ideology, identity and forms of agency which it encourages are anti-marxist as they promote capitalism and the consumer instead of the collective and the state. Types of representational agency that are compatible with the consumerist code are included and made sexy, resistance is disqualified. Therefore, it is significant that MPH prominently employed celebrity sexiness to inspire action, and specifically advocated a deeper understanding of the causes of poverty by emphasising global trade, Third World debt bondage, and foreign aid. However, this also exposes a contradiction between the messages of MPH versus the commodification of sexuality as a means to both protect and promote capitalist gains. Despite increased efforts of Northern development agencies to reframe issues as sexy in the hope of conveying something more aesthetically appealing, the issue, as postmodernists would imply, is that sex-appeal itself has been commodified (Rutherford, 2007). The primary mechanism provided to Northern communities to enhance their own sexiness is through consumption, for example via the outrageous volume of manufactured campaign merchandise. Did anyone consider the supply chain of the cotton underwear? One of the most common actions undertaken by British individuals as part of MPH was consumption-based behaviour (i.e. the infamous white wrist bands). The exploitation of the female form to promote capitalist ends is not a recent phenomenon, yet to apply the same technique to raise awareness of malnutrition or Malaria in Africa is a serious cause for concern (Nash, 2008). It spits in the face of authentic feminist efforts to challenge engendered identities that produce and reproduce the sexual and domestic violence, and subsequent AIDS epidemic, that perversely disturbs more women than men (Lees, 2013). The contradiction between the objectified woman in sexy development and efforts to prevent disease and violence exposes the tensions, detachment and confusion between education and profit, marketing, and PR imperatives. For example, the Hollywood benchmark of masculinity 32
and femininity may prevail as successful publicising, but it s limited frame of reference fails to promote the critical thought required for (re)imagining alternatively feasible models of sexuality. Here, Jean Baudrillard (1998) refers to representations like that of Figure 1, which are mere sign objects of consumerism, as illusions emanating from a copy of something representing a reality (a simulacrum). These copies have the capacity to reproduce and manipulate their own meanings; the object (a glossy, meticulously edited, album-coverstyle photograph, featuring seven Western women and a solitary African gesture), not only serves its direct purpose (to entice observers), but also communicates meanings reflecting social hierarchies, status and values. Further, Baudrillard (1994) suggests that this kind of simulation is dominant and produces new social arrangements in post-modern societies like Britain (Kellner, 1991). When someone s well-being is measurable in terms of the limited signs and objects (i.e. material comfort), the act of consuming sign objects has an influence on that person s mental and physical health. These simulations can be used to represent units of analysis, such as those of poverty (micro and macro) and often go far beyond that which is required to alleviate poverty (Ahuvia, 2002). Next, this enables similar meanings and values to be created for consumer culture, since there is an established universal code (consumerism) conditioning behaviour; the order of simulation, Baudrillard says, is premised upon systems of signs and codes i.e. brands, language, or logos (Gane, 2006). Since the act of consumption in this system generates rank and eminence, this is communicated through the sign-exchange scheme of language, and people become socialised to observe and sanction product differences that reflect ideology, power and distinction. Subsequently, we are left with a structure through which we automatically and unconsciously consume to excess, to the extent that life itself is commodified - all is commodifiable. -- 33
Fig. 3 A group of African women from the Make Poverty History campaign went to 10 Downing Street on Thursday 12 th May 2005 to present letters and postcards to the British PM, calling for the crisis of world poverty to go to the top of the agenda (Make Poverty History.org, 2005). In the case of the MPH campaign, and specifically Figure 3 (above), critics ask us to recognise the historically imperial nature of representations of development. As illustrated here, the campaign emerged within an existing tradition of abolitionism, decolonisation, Band Aid, and other African occasions which have, over time, been anchored into the mass-media and wider public conscience through aesthetic appeal (Harrison, 2010). MPH was coordinated to produce representational images, identities and appeals to reach its goals. As Gamson (1995) suggests, there was a triple distinction between injustice, agency and identity. The injustice element is the driver for the campaign s moral foundation, a wrong to be righted. The agency aspect pushes the campaign s necessity and viability; the campaign is accountable and its ends are achievable, while the identity frame demarcates the dualism of self and other / us and them. The relentless visual campaign appears to simultaneously offer and concede certain values and meanings; there is irony, horror, humour, as well as oddly unfinished components that solicit and irritate the audience s interpretive assumptions (Nash, 2008). For example, in Figure 3 the subtle product-related claim of the Make Poverty History ribbon tickling each of the female s wicker baskets; the inclusion of socially and politically charged signs, like the absence of Mr Blair s basket, whilst (struggling to place on top of head) Cherie settles with a glamourous, yet flattering hold, parallel to the hip. Why do these authentic African women, smothered in reliably exotic costume, feel the need to haul baskets around London anyway? The rogue and daring style of MPH 34
divides opinion and defers an array of meanings. Ultimately, MPH constructed an edifying operation at the junction of morality, identity and consumption. MPH was fuelled by the idea of justice not charity, therefore it had to be popular, if not populist. The campaign set a highly emotional tone as a spectacle of show-business (Nash, 2008). The entire media endorsement was explicitly sensationalised, as Bono described we would have to get better at dramatising the situation so that we could make Africa less of a burden, more of an adventure (The Guardian, 2005). MPH employed globalism as a primary narrative, conveying ideas of inclusive progression and self-conscious individualism with humanity as a universal identity. However, a postmodern lens would suggest that, as excluding totalities in themselves, identities require a constitutive other to be constructed and accepted as a defined entity. The constitutive other of globalism therefore, is not a community or group of people, but systemic injustice as the world demands justice. Mandela, the President of the world also did his bit to orchestrate and amplify the tone, as long as poverty, injustice and gross inequality persist in our world, none of us can truly rest (Mandela, 2005). Crisp (2003) maintains that such patterns of selective inclusion and hyper-exclusion can be quantified by referring to those whom equate globalisation with a borderless world of spaces and traffic, yet for the world s poor, particularly for migrants and refugees, there have never been so many boundaries and obstacles. This is bolstered by Castells (1996) description of the unprecedented concentration and tightening of the world s poor, accompanied by exaggerated policing and surveillance. Compared to traditional boots on the ground colonialism, a postmodern view would interpret this as a new spatial configuration of the development-security reality (Duffield, 2010). As Duffield (2010) argues, the arbitrary dualism of developed vs underdeveloped reveals discontinuities and fractures rather than measurable continuums. Difference over degree mirrors the reality of human life; rather than balancing on a continuum, it establishes divides between risk and opportunity, luck and fate, life and death. He suggests that donor agencies do not wish to extend the same levels of social protection as enjoyed by those in the West. Rather, through such constructions as sustainability or 35
humanitarian security, the neoliberal mode of development feeds the universal divide between the developed-self vs the underdeveloped-other. The rather obvious absence of genuine African accounts of the campaign in the media is largely seen as an indicator of the failure of MPH in this respect. As Boltanski (1999) describes, the fiasco to achieve solidarity is an illustration of the intensifying danger of moral condemnation in politics; the feeling of shame due to mass suffering which the campaign unquestionably communicated, collapsed from a collective will to tackle our moral duty to act into narcissistic self-gratification (Nash, 2008). The absence of African voices was organised; native intellectuals and academics were severely critical of MPH, in contrast to those represented as the grateful recipients of our help as (paid) émigrés, wearing wicker crowns during a colonial ceremony at Number 10. Criticism of the campaign was universally denounced and identified as cynical. In this sense, opponents of MPH are the embodied other of its opposite, the apparently collective we. The opponents, who are also justifiably angry about the persistence of poverty, are excluded to enable the inclusive we (Nash, 2008). On the one hand, this may solicit a strong sense of duty towards the rest of the world, however such a position also risks a superficial vanity that scarcely aims for deepening our understanding of different cultural contexts (Boltanski, 1999). Involving more than mere identity, surely true globalism demands the suspicion, scrutiny and implementation of alternative perspectives from stances of crass social injustice and conflicting interests to reach common ground on how we actually belong together, drinking from the same cup of mutual destiny. -- 36
Fig. 4 Click Ad (2005) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8h2doyisluk&list=plc76a3c4c567ddab0&index=10 Fig. 5 One by One Ad (2005) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbketxo4ra0&list=plc76a3c4c567ddab0&index=9# Put simply, MPH was engineered for the media (Harrison, 2010). There is a plethora of examples exposing how sensationalised drama was achieved, among them the notorious click and One by One adverts. During the former, celebrities would click their fingers every three seconds, representing the preventable death of another infant. In the latter, celebrities would repeat one by one at regular intervals, signalling the immediacy of the needless end of so many innocent lives. The click ad was forbidden by Ofcom as too overtly political; powerfully creating an intense awareness of time, space and suspense (Gibson, 2005). The clicks and the repetition of one by one convey a sense of synchronicity; while we re watching from the sludge of our armchairs, another life has terminated, and another 37