Call for Papers: Commodifying Humanitarianism: Exploring Business-Humanitarian Partnerships
American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting, New Orleans, April 10-14 2018
Today’s marketplace is inundated with products supporting humanitarian causes that promise to give aid to beneficiaries, provide ‘good feelings’ to consumers and promote the brands of corporations and humanitarian NGOs. When OXFAM International’s webshop optimistically declares, “whatever you decide to buy, your purchase will help to transform people’s lives” it feeds into a contemporary narrative where humanitarian causes, products, and consumers are tied together in seemingly unproblematic ways to ‘save the world’. Central to this contemporary ‘commodification of humanitarianism’ is the expanding and intensifying partnerships between humanitarian NGOs and private corporations at the expense of public donors. However, research on the changing nature of – and motives behind – these business-humanitarian partnerships is in short supply.
This paper session seeks contributions that contextualize and illuminate the specificities of contemporary business-humanitarian partnerships in terms of objectives, motives, and challenges. Contributions could encompass a wide range of contemporary and historical cases that address questions such as:
- How have humanitarian objectives for partnering with private corporations changed over time?
- What are the diverse motives (and perceived risks) behind contemporary business-humanitarian partnerships?
- How do humanitarian NGOs reconcile their ethical and moral authority with business and commercial logics?
Please send your title, abstract, and contact information to Mie Vestergaard (mive@ruc.dk) by October 13, 2017 to be considered for inclusion. Thank you, Mette Fog Olwig and Mie Vestergaard, Roskilde University, https://