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 Part 1: Philanthropy, Humanitarianism and Political Economy Chapter 2 – Neoliberalism, Philanthropy, and Humanitarianism: Pragmatic or Faustian Bargains? Chapter 3 – Social Impact Investing Chapter 4 – Universal Basic Income Chapter 5 – Labour Chapter 6 – Political Economy of Educational Philanthropy: From Venture Philanthropy to Digital Privatization Chapter 7 – Immunizing Against Access? Philanthro-Capitalist COVID Vaccines and the Preservation of Patent Monopolies Chapter 8 – Philanthrocapitalism Seen from South Africa: Bill Gates’ Charity Turns to Tyranny, Misfired Silver Bullets and Climate Vandalism Part 2: Humanitarianism, Development and Humanitarian Developments Chapter 9 – Humanitarianism and the non-European world Chapter 10 – Design: The Colonial Imaginary of Humanitarian Good(s) Chapter 11 – Nigeria and the Humanitarian International: From Biafra to Boko Haram Chapter 12 – Neither ‘Philanthropy’ nor ‘Development’: A Tale of Two Buzzwords Chapter 13 – Careful Killing: Humanitarian Warfare and the Politics of Precision Violence Chapter 14 – Humanitarianism through Ubuntu Philosophy Chapter 15 – Celebrity: A Key Concept for Understanding the Power of ‘Helping’ 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 Chapter 17 – Modernism and Technology in Humanitarian Action Chapter 18 – The Spirit of Climate Philanthropy Chapter 19 – ""Obstruction."" Chapter 20 – Nation-building and its Exclusions: Elite Philanthropy and the Limits of Social Reform Chapter 21 – Philanthropy in France and Colonial Haiti: Bienfaisance, Paternalism, and Race Chapter 22 – Humanitarian Futures"
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.
