Introduction: Commodifying humanitarian sentiments? The black box of the for-profit and non-profit partnership

Olwig, Mette Fog

doi:10.1016/j.worlddev.2021.105536

Cited by 9 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…An example of this is looking at how social media campaigns for humanitarian organisations must rely on likes and shares, and how causes are now branding themselves through products and celebrity supporters. 42 Businesses, consumers, and NGOs are linked in 'partnerships' 43 that provide humanitarian help, often outside the formal humanitarian structures. As part of our efforts to decolonise humanitarianism, we shift the focus from the Global North to the Global South and attempt to rethink these everyday practices.…”

Section: Humanitarianism and Everyday Humanitarianismmentioning

confidence: 99%

The messy practice of decolonising a concept: Everyday humanitarianism in Tanzania

Sulley

Richey

2023

Rev. Int. Stud.

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This article1 explores the messy practice of decolonising a concept through collaborative work between scholars researching together the meaning of everyday humanitarianism in Tanzania. Humanitarianism is typically understood as the state-centric, formal, Northern-driven helping of distant others in crisis. Using the concept of everyday humanitarianism, our article challenges these assumptions in three ways. First, it explores the everyday humanitarian actions of ordinary citizens in times of crisis. Second, it explores these responses in a Southern context. Third, it focuses explicitly on the givers and not only the receivers of humanitarian help. Our work grounds decolonisation in the actual practices of research aimed at theory building as an iterative back-and-forth exchange with particular attention to power, rather than as a transplant of Northern theory on the South, or its opposite. Our first argument is that the objective of collaborative research to capture the local politics of giving and then use these practices to interrogate the theoretical concept of everyday humanitarianism can be decolonising. Second, we argue that the practices of the academic labour that produces knowledge or inductive theory can also be decolonising. Understanding both the challenges and the possibilities of decolonising ‘humanitarianism’ will provide an opportunity to document and thus legitimate the complexity that is inherent in decolonising a discipline.

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Section: Humanitarianism and Everyday Humanitarianismmentioning

confidence: 99%

The messy practice of decolonising a concept: Everyday humanitarianism in Tanzania

Sulley

Richey

2023

Rev. Int. Stud.

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“…These articulations of the sweet spot are fueled by what scholars have referred to as a "partnership ideology" (Utting & Zammit, 2009) that promotes private sector collaborations as panaceas for development and social change (Olwig, 2021). In this partnership ideology, the emphasis on engaging a company's core business skills rather than merely their financial support is discursively linked to an urgent need for private sector skills, particularly from the tech industry, to innovate and fix the international refugee regime.…”

Section: The Sweet Spot Discourse: Alignment As Idealmentioning

confidence: 99%

Finding the “Sweet Spot”: The Politics of Alignment in Cross-Sector Partnerships for Refugees

Henriksen

2023

Business & Society

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Cross-sector partnerships (CSPs) between nonprofits and businesses are increasingly implemented in response to humanitarian crises. These partnerships are motivated by ideals of alignment as stakeholders strive to find the “sweet spot” between humanitarian and business interests. However, this article shows that the ideals of alignment differ from the actual practices of alignment in the CSPs, and sweet spots are not merely found but constructed in and through changing relations of power. Based on an ethnographic case study of partnerships between a global humanitarian organization and five technology companies, the article deploys a theoretical lens from critical humanitarian studies to analyze how alignment in CSPs comes about in practice. This analysis demonstrates that in the construction of alignment, the companies’ interests become the priorities with which humanitarian organizations must align their and their beneficiaries’ needs. Consequently, while the discourse of sweet spots perpetuates an ideal of alignment where all partners benefit equally from the partnership, it legitimates power imbalances and asymmetrical alignment in practice.

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“…While involvement of the business sector in humanitarian and development causes is longstanding, the quasi‐institutionalisation of it demonstrates a new significance accorded to corporate actors. In turn, debates about the tensions, possibilities, and indeed paradoxes of merging for‐profit enterprise with developmental or humanitarian objectives have gained ground (Hotho and Girschik, 2019; Richey, Hawkins, and Goodman, 2021; Olwig, 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It has been questioned whether doing good while also (or even through) making a profit, thus a combination of utilitarian and compassionate logics, is feasible or even possible (for examples, see Ong, 2006; Sharma, 2015; Andreu, 2018; Mawdsley, 2018). The outcome of partnerships with the corporate sector has been critiqued as a commodification of humanitarian sentiment, resulting in neglect of localised humanitarian or development needs in favour of corporate strategies that in the end foster profit (Olwig, 2021; Richey, Hawkins, and Goodman, 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Corporate sector engagement in contemporary ‘crises’: the case of refugee integration in Germany

Müller

2023

Disasters

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Refugee integration is one of the main global challenges of the present, at a time when the corporate sector is regarded as a key actor in multi‐stakeholder partnerships through the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. This paper examines its role as a partner of the state in addressing the movement of refugees into Germany from 2015 onwards. Based on interview data and informal conversations with members of Wir Zusammen, an integration initiative, and supplemented by a review of business reports and media documentation, it discusses the multifaceted engagements by parts of the corporate sector in Germany with refugee integration. These are analysed as ‘thin’ and ‘thick’, and as following different institutional logics. The paper adds to understanding of the political dimensions of corporate responses, their potential to challenge the status quo, and their pitfalls. Ultimately, it argues that corporate involvement with humanitarian and development challenges works best when embedded locally and is context specific.

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Introduction: Commodifying humanitarian sentiments? The black box of the for-profit and non-profit partnership

Cited by 9 publications

References 31 publications

The messy practice of decolonising a concept: Everyday humanitarianism in Tanzania

The messy practice of decolonising a concept: Everyday humanitarianism in Tanzania

Finding the “Sweet Spot”: The Politics of Alignment in Cross-Sector Partnerships for Refugees

Corporate sector engagement in contemporary ‘crises’: the case of refugee integration in Germany

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