Capitalist Humanitarianism

Lucia Hulsether

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The struggle against neoliberal order has gained momentum over the last five decades---to the point that economic elites have not only adapted to the Left's critiques but incorporated them for capitalist expansion. Venture funds expose their ties to slavery and pledge to invest in racial equity. Banks pitch microloans as a path to indigenous self-determination. Fair-trade brands narrate consumption as an act of feminist solidarity with women artisans in the global South. In Capitalist Humanitarianism Lucia Hulsether examines these projects and the contexts of their emergence. Blending historical and ethnographic styles, and traversing intimate and global scales, Hulsether tracks how neoliberal self-critique creates new institutional hegemonies that, in turn, reproduce racial and neocolonial dispossession. From the archives of Christian fair traders to luxury social entrepreneurship conferences, from US finance offices to Guatemalan towns flooded with their loan products, from service economy desperation to the internal contradictions of social movements, Hulsether argues that capitalist humanitarian projects are fueled as much by a profit motive as by a hope that racial capitalism can redeem the losses that accumulate in its wake.

Book Details

Publisher: Duke University Press
Publish Date: Feb 3rd, 2023
Pages: 264
Language: English
Edition: undefined - undefined
Dimensions: 8.90in - 5.90in - 0.60in - 0.80lb
EAN: 9781478019206
Categories: • Religion, Politics & State

About the Author

Lucia Hulsether is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Skidmore College.

Praise for this book

"Hulsether combines reportage, ethnographic research, personal narrative, and social theory to look at the ways in which the 21st-century global economic system has absorbed the very movements that seek to resist it. . . . [A] stance of constant resistance to an unjust system, even in the seeming absence of alternatives, is what Hulsether--who is a union activist as well as a teacher and scholar--calls us to take on. . . . Hulsether's book models this approach beautifully, urging us to "write a history of the impossible" in which 'survival is not the end.'"--Jeannine Marie Pitas, Christian Century

"Shifting between ethnography and history, between global systems and their material impact, [Capitalist Humanitarianism] shows how easily leftist critiques are coopted to allow well-meaning elites to feel good about themselves even as they facilitate the economic exploitation that lies at the heart of our global order."--Tisa Wenger, Reviews in American History

"Capitalist Humanitarianism is a fundamental book to understand how capitalism weaponises leftist critiques, especially in its neoliberal phase. Critiques are mobilised as new business opportunities rather than breaking with the system. As expected, these new strategies do not result in ending oppression or exploitation, but simply in reshaping capitalist discourses around its practices."--Carolina Flores Gusmão, Bulletin of Latin American Research

"Lucia Hulsether's Capitalist Humanitarianism is a brilliant and much-needed book. Hulsether writes a remarkably interdisciplinary, sharply argued, and deeply felt text supported by a creative assemblage of evidence. This book was persuasive; it often surprised me; and it left me with more new questions at its conclusion. It also moved me--and these four criteria, I've found, let me know when I've found a book I'll keep returning to."--B. Alex Beasley, Religious Studies Review

"One of the most striking interventions Hulsether makes to the study of religion is her argument that leftist social theory should be scholars' primary resource for the study of religion and capitalism."--Deonnie Moodie, American Religion

"The strength of Capitalist Humanitarianism lies in the combination of rich theoretical perspectives and dozens of ethnographic case studies. . . . Capitalist Humanitarianism provides insightful knowledge for scholars and students interested in understanding philanthropy's meaning and learning about its responsibilities and promises, defending philanthropy against its recent criticisms, and improving and supporting it for its inherent values."--Massumeh H. Toosi, Journal of Muslim Philanthropy & Civil Society