Beyond Poverty Porn - Celebrity Humanitarianism

Disrupt Development

Despite various strides made by the global development sector in reforming its communication, humanitarian campaigns still (too) often contain racial stereotypes, dehumanizing images, and colonial narratives. In our Beyond Poverty Porn series, which we make together with Emiel Martens and Wouter Oomen from the Expertise Centre Humanitarian Communication (HuCom), we open up the conversation about ethical, respectful, and inclusive communication in and on global development.

In short episodes of about 15 minutes each, Martens and Oomen will take a critical look at trending genres within the field of humanitarian communication. Following their general critique on the 'new' approach of hope-based communications in the previous storycast, they now zoom in on the challenges of celebrity humanitarianism - i.e. celebrity involvement in humanitarian issues and the media coverage that this creates. They do so by first discussing the colonial tradition of white saviorism and then by approaching the celebrity humanitarian as a white savior who unavoidably but problematically takes center stage in stories of the suffering of global Others.
Music credit: Shapes in the Clouds on Hooksounds