Rescuing African bodies: celebrities, consumerism and neoliberal humanitarianism

Abstract

This article examines the role of Western celebrities as part of new networks in the increasing commodification of humanitarianism in Africa. It explores the relationship between celebrities as neoliberal subjectivities and their shaping of ethical consumerism and humanitarian interventions. Using various case studies (Product RED, 50 Cent's SK drink, Save Darfur Campaign [United to End Genocide], Kony2012, Raise Hope for the Congo and the Eastern Congo Initiative), the article considers how celebrities frame humanitarian crises for public consumption, their link to accumulation by dispossession, and their impact on African agency and on international solidarity against corporate exploitation.

[Secourir des corps africains: stars, consumérisme et humanitaire néolibéral.] Cet article examine le rôle de stars occidentales membres de nouveaux réseaux dans la marchandisation croissante de l'humanitaire en Afrique. Il explore les relations entre les stars, êtres néolibéraux, et leur façon d’élaborer un consumérisme éthique et des interventions humanitaires. Utilisant diverses études de cas (Produit rouge Product RED, boisson SK de 50 Cent, campagne pour sauver le Darfour [unis pour mettre fin au génocide], Kony2012, Espoir pour le Congo et l'Initiative pour l'est du Congo), l'article étudie comment les stars formatent les crises humanitaires pour la consommation du public, leur lien à l'accumulation par dépossession et leur impact sur l'agence africaine et la solidarité internationale contre l'exploitation commerciale.

Mots-clés: stars ; humanitaire ; Kony2012 ; marchandisation ; consumérisme

Keywords:

• celebrities
• humanitarianism
• Kony2012
• commodification
• consumerism

Acknowledgements

This paper benefited enormously from the suggestions made by the editors and anonymous reviewers to whom I am most grateful.

Notes

According to reliefweb.int [last viewed 20 August 2012].

Quote taken from http://www.theglobalfund.org/en/about/partnership/civilsociety/ [last accessed 12 August 2012].

Also quoted in ‘50 Cent talks about his Street King Mission to feed starving Africans’, 20 October 2011 http://omg.yahoo.com/news/50-cent-talks-street-king-mission-feed-starving-183100358.html [last accessed August 2012].

SSP is a collaboration with Not on our Watch, the Enough Project, Sudan Now, Google Trellon, the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative and DigitalGlobe.

Debt, Aid, Trade Africa (DATA) and ONE are NGOs co-founded by Bono in 2002 and 2004 respectively, and merging in 2008. Both organisations target Western governments and audience in their anti-poverty campaigns. ONE boasts that it is a grassroots advocacy organisation, but its board and that of DATA are made up of some of the elites of neoliberal economic governance.

Jason Russell, one of the founders of Invisible Children, studied at the Institute of Creative Technologies at the University of Southern California, a US military-sponsored centre focusing on the use of cybertechnology as a counter-intelligence strategy. See Campbell (2012).

See the Rosebell Kagumire video at http://bit.ly/GTIv8T; Women Civil Society Groups in Uganda: Kony2012 Campaign, Blurring realities! at: http://www.isiswomen.org/ 16 March 2012; Cole, at: http://www.theatlantic.com; Lancaster (2011); Mamdani, at: http://www.monitor.co.ug; Campbell, at: http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/80989; and Atkinson et al. (2012).

28 April 2010. ‘UN official calls DRC ‘rape capital of the world’; http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8650112.stm.

See http://www.easterncongo.org.