Batman Saves the Congo: How Celebrities Disrupt the Politics of Development

How celebrity strategic partnerships are disrupting humanitarian space: Can a celebrity be a disrupter, promoting strategic partnerships to foster ideas and funding to revitalize the development field, or are they just charismatic ambassadors for big business? Examining the role of the rich and famous in development and humanitarianism, this book argues that celebrities do both, and that understanding why and how yields insight into the realities of neoliberal development. Contents: Introduction Chapter 1. Celebrity, Disruption and Neoliberal Development Chapter 2. Narrating the Congo: Dangerous Single Stories and the Organizations that Need Them Chapter 3. Choosing the Congo: How a Celebrity Builds a Development Organization Chapter 4. Marketing the Congo: Products that Sell Development Chapter 5. Saving Congolese Coffee: Celebrities and the Business Model for Development Chapter 6. Celebrities and the Local Politics of Development: As Seen from Kinshasa Chapter 7. Conclusions on Celebrity and Development: Disruption, Advocacy and Commodification Epilogue: COVID-19 and Making ECI Relevant Again Acknowledgments Appendix A. Methodology and Data Collection Appendix B. Affleck, ECI, and ECI Partner’s Interactions with Congress, 2011–2017 Appendix C. K&L Gates Lobbying on Behalf of Eastern Congo Initiative Notes Bibliography Indexhttps://ecommons.udayton.edu/books/1098/thumbnail.jp