The humanitarian makeover

Shani Orgad and Kaarina Nikunen

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: We examine how the makeover paradigm is mobilized in contemporary humanitarian communications—a practice we call “humanitarian makeover.” We demonstrate its operation in the Finnish television programme Arman and the Children of Cameroon and Plan's 2013 International Day of the Girl event. The analysis shows how helping distant others is configured within a makeover and self-transformation narrative, providing a stage for performance of an “ethical self.” We argue that while the humanitarian impetus is to disturb and redress global inequality and injustice, which includes exposing and interrupting the failures of neoliberalism, the makeover paradigm is intimately connected to and reinforces individualized “moral citizenship,” which conforms to and reinforces neoliberal values.

Keywords: makeover; humanitarian communication; self-transformation; NGOs; television (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J01 R14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015-07-15
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Published in Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, 15, July, 2015, 12(3), pp. 229-251. ISSN: 1479-1420

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:62629

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