‘Race’, Gender and Neoliberalism: changing visual representations in development

Abstract

This article examines the increasing use of 'positive', active images of 'poor women in developing countries' by development institutions, in relation to several interlinked factors: critiques of earlier representations of 'Third World women' as an essentialised category of 'passive victims'; the appropriation-and transformation-within neoliberal discourses of development from the 1990s onwards of concepts of agency and empowerment; and changes in the role of development NGOs in the same period. Through a discussion of recent publicity campaigns by Oxfam Unwrapped, the Nike Foundation and Divine chocolate, the article examines the specific and gendered ways in which these more recent visual productions are racialised, exploring, in particular, parallels and continuities between colonial representations of women workers and today's images of micro-entrepreneurship within the framework of neoliberal globalisation. The article concludes that, like their colonial predecessors, contemporary representations obscure relations of oppression and exploitation, and work to render collective challenges to the neoliberal model invisible.The ideas in this article have emerged from two interrelated areas of my research: first, an ongoing exploration of questions of 'race' and racism in contemporary development and, second, an analysis of the appropriation and transformation of feminist concepts by neoliberal development discourses. The paper addresses the shift to 'positive images' of women in the global South by international NGOs, donor governments, the World Bank and other development institutions over the past two decades. I provide a preliminary (and necessarily brief) account of how 'race' and racism have historically and conceptually been inscribed in notions of development, and how these processes have been gendered. I go on to describe how, partly in response to Third World feminist critiques, the notion of women's 'agency' has become ubiquitous within approaches to gender and development (GAD), and has been incorporated in neoliberal development discourses, with

For Western Girls Only?

“…Indeed this is all the more possible given the manner in which notions of women's empowerment have been appropriated and operationalized in the global South by the neoliberal Simidele Dosekun Final draft -April 2015 15 development industry. The 'gender and development' paradigm promoted by institutions like the World Bank, for instance, is concerned with gendered resourcepoverty and with issues such as girls' access to schooling and women's access to microcredit (Wilson 2011;Switzer 2013). These are important issues, certainly, even if feminists may problematize the ways in which they are hegemonically constructed.…”

“…A number of feminist scholars have begun to consider how such old tropes and figurations are being reworked in neoliberal, postfeminist times (e.g. Gonick et al 2009;Sensoy and Marshall 2010;Wilson 2011Wilson , 2012Koffman and Gill 2013;Switzer 2013). They variously find and problematize the fact that with, through, indeed buttressing the contention that the work of feminism is achieved in the West is the discursive displacement of its continued need to the non-West.…”

“…Via a new positioning of girls and women of the global South as ideal beneficiaries of development programming and intervention, such rhetorics are being operationalized by states, the neoliberal development industry and global corporate agendas (Gonick et al 2009;Sensoy and Marshall 2010;Wilson 2011Wilson , 2012Koffman and Gill 2013;Switzer 2013). Switzer characterizes this as a "(post)feminist development fable" about "young female exceptionalism" that takes gender equality and women's (2009,(88)(89).…”

Girl power and ‘selfie humanitarianism’

“…In response, from the 1980s, NGOs began using increasingly 'positive images' to depict their beneficiaries as self-sufficient, dignified, empowered, active agents situated in their communities and social contexts (Dogra, 2012;Wilson, 2011). It is in the context of this corrective effort that the empowered girl has emerged as a celebrated figure.…”

“…The broader commercial media environment dominated by brands and consumerism, and their own sector's highly crowded field, have led NGOs to increasingly adopt a corporate logic in their humanitarian communication influenced by business, advertising and branding models (Chouliaraki, 2013;Dogra, 2012;Nash, 2008;Orgad, 2013;Richey and Ponte;Vestergaard, 2008;Wilson, 2011). Humanitarian NGOs increasingly depend on the corporate sector and on 'playing the media's game' for their income (BBC Panorama, December 2013;Cottle and Nolan, 2009).…”