New Media and International Development : Representation and affect in microfinance

This book brings together two sets of development questions usually considered separately: the affective investments in humanitarian and development aid and the latter’s use of visual representation and digital media. The author interweaves analysis of both to directly address young people’s investments in charitable giving, mediated through websites and tours. Using the example of microfinance - the inclusion of the world’s poor people into formal financial services – this book analyzes how the participation of financial inclusion supporters in global poverty alleviation efforts is shaped by affective sentiments, relationships and collectivities.

New Media and International Development is the first in-depth examination of microfinance’s enduring popularity with Northern publics. Through a case study of Kiva.org, the world’s first person-to-person microlending website, and other microfinance organizations, the book argues that international development efforts have an affective dimension. This is fostered through narrative and visual representations, through the performance of development rituals and through bonds of fellowship between Northern donors and Southern recipients. These practices constitute people in the global North as everyday humanitarians and mobilize their affective investments, which are financial, social and emotional investments in distant others to alleviate their poverty. This book draws on ethnographic material from the US, India and Indonesia and the anthropological and development studies literature on humanitarianism, affect and the public faces of development. It opens up novel avenues of research into the formation of new development subjects in the global North.

This book will appeal to researchers and students of international development, anthropology, media studies and related fields, as well as practitioners and professionals in the field of international development