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Geopolitics
ISSN: 1465-0045 (Print) 1557-3028 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fgeo20
‘Factivism’: A New Configuration of Humanitarian
Reason
Katharyne Mitchell
To cite this article: Katharyne Mitchell (2016): ‘Factivism’: A New Configuration of Humanitarian
Reason, Geopolitics, DOI: 10.1080/14650045.2016.1185606
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14650045.2016.1185606
Published online: 24 May 2016.
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Date: 19 September 2016, At: 00:11
GEOPOLITICS
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14650045.2016.1185606
‘Factivism’: A New Configuration of Humanitarian Reason
Katharyne Mitchell
Department of Geography, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
ABSTRACT
New actors and ideas about poverty management and humanitarian assistance have arisen in recent years. The underlying
context of this shift includes a growing awareness of the
limitations and failures of both military forms of humanitarian
intervention and unfettered market-based solutions to aid and
development. This paper explores the particular form that
global humanitarianism is taking in this millennial context. I
argue that a new configuration of humanitarian reason is
emerging that draws on both neoliberal and pastoral rationalities of governance. The former can be associated with efficiency, transparency, and quantitative evidence, while the
latter is articulated with individual compassion, devotion, and
Christian duty. Using the celebrity humanitarian Bono and his
rhetoric of ‘factivism’ as an illustrative example, the paper
explores the way that this message is transmitted through
geosocial discourses and networks. It indicates some of the
ways that the personal and media dissemination of this new
ideology of charismatic, yet rational care helps to weave pastoral rationalities into forms of political authority.
Introduction
In a 2013 TED talk, the U2 rock star and celebrity humanitarian, Bono, introduced
a new word to his audience: ‘factivism’. As a mash-up of ‘fact’ and ‘activism’ the
word heralded a type of contemporary humanitarianism blending evidence-based
practices with passionate commitment and advocacy for a cause. It also indicated
Bono’s recent conversion to the hard-edged power of transparency and accountability in his decades-old fight to eradicate poverty and ill health in Africa.1
This particular TED talk, and the dissemination and reception of its ideas, is
illustrative of a number of critical shifts in contemporary forms of humanitarian
reason. The newly coined word exemplifies the ways in which a neoliberal logic
sustained by the ‘rationality’ of facts and quantitative data (a hard-edged
accountability logic used in the measurement of social value) is articulated
with a more activist emotional responsiveness – the latter connected with an
implicitly Christian and pastoral sensibility of individual compassion, devotion
and duty. The emergence and diffusion of this unusual and highly effective
CONTACT Katharyne Mitchell
[email protected]
Smith Hall, Box 353550, Seattle, WA 98195, USA.
© 2016 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
Department of Geography, University of Washington,
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configuration occurs through the nexus of elite social networking and the global
propagation of these ideas primarily through the internet and new social media.
I argue that this novel articulation manifests a complex contemporary domain
of power in humanitarian governance, one involving liberal, neoliberal, and
pastoral rationalities. By liberal rationalities I am referring to understandings
that the preferred management of society is one in which a balanced and selfgoverning system is perceived as natural, harmonious, and pre-existing, and that
the role of the state is to help secure this system, but otherwise avoid “governing
too much”.2 In this framing government acts on the relations between people
and between people and things, helping to develop forms of expert knowledge
that can aid in the regulation and management of the processes associated with
population; it helps shape the character and lives of individuals in terms of their
capacity for human capital development and their pursuit of various goals.3 State
actions in excess of this are critiqued as forms of excessive government.
A neoliberal rationality of government maintains much of these emphases but
is more directly concerned with individual economic calculus and with a universal
assumption that human beings are inherently entrepreneurial and choice-making
economic beings. In this framing expert knowledge must be provided through
various forms of information and precise qualitative and quantitative evidence so
that the figure of homo economicus can make accurate cost benefit calculations (so
that he/she can, and indeed must, choose wisely). Li writes of this culture of
measurement and accountability: “Hence neoliberal governing consists in setting
conditions and devising incentives so that prudent, calculating individuals and
communities choosing ‘freely’ and pursuing their own interests will contribute to
the general interest as well.”4
In contrast with these cold, competitive and abstracted logics of governing ‘from
a distance’, pastoral power is characterised as a more direct and fundamentally
social relation between the shepherd and his flock. In this we can see the importance of the close, charismatic nature of the pastor in guiding the flock and having
them willing to follow. “Foucault illustrates a model of power, then, in which there
is a complex (and thoroughly affective) tie between the pastor who exercises
a minute and careful jurisdiction over the bodily actions and the souls of his
flock in order to assure their salvation, and the members of the flock who each owe
him ‘a kind of exhaustive, total, and permanent relationship of individual
obedience.’”5
My interest here is in how the current configuration, one that combines
elements of all of these rationalities of government, manifests a new formation of
humanitarian reason. But first we need to ask, what is the larger framework in
which this current configuration can be conceptualised? This particular formation
is part of a much larger moral economy of aid and development, a system of
governance that some have argued is central to modern liberal forms of power.6
Research in this arena investigates how Western imagining and depictions of
suffering, disease, and poverty – and associated liberal forms of care, aid, and
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development – are inextricably linked with the constitution of a liberal politics and
the expansion of liberal forms of security. These are, in turn, directly or indirectly
connected with Western imperial interests in capital accumulation and the formation of a specific global order. In this paper I am drawing on this prior research to
develop some new theoretical concepts in the field of humanitarian governance –
namely the emergence of a new or reconfigured domain of power. Moreover, I
ground these abstract notions by illustrating some of the particular actors and
specific webs of belief through which these rationalities are emerging – a process
wherein the social messages of pastoral power are being both generated and
disseminated through geosocial discourses and networks.
New Forms of Humanitarian Governance and the Geosocial
Critical humanitarian scholars have shown how Western-based humanitarianism and the logic and reasoning behind it has shifted over time depending
on context: e.g., the factors associated with state development and market
expansion in different historical eras.7 With respect to state development,
humanitarianism, and the various rationales behind aid-related investment
and care, is clearly connected to the broad geopolitics of territory and empire
and their transformations over the past centuries. At the same time, humanitarian reason also develops in relation to the growth and development of
capitalism and the expansion of globalisation – the geoeconomics of connection, development and aid. These two geostrategic discourses have been
intertwined in complex ways for well over a century, with different logics
of territory and capital arising in different political economic contexts.8 As
Sparke and Essex have both noted, the most critical element to investigate in
these twinned global narratives and practices is not their chronological
transition from one to the other; rather, the more interesting question is
that of context: the particular ways in which geostrategic rationales may be
co-generative in different historical and geographical milieus.9
My argument here is that the co-generative conditions of early twenty-firstcentury geoeconomic and geopolitical formations are strengthening the power
and importance of what we might term the geosocial. By this word I mean
something that is similarly territorialising and global in scope, but also personal
and emotional – a form of micro power that is more geo-tactical than geostrategic,
involving specific socially networked actors and the experience and manipulation
of affective, charismatic relations across space. Bono’s wildly popular TED talk is a
good example of this type of geosocial discursive practice and its spreading
influence worldwide.10
What are the political and economic conditions in which this type of geotactical discourse has become so salient and pervasive? The emergence of this
particular humanitarian vision and message at this historical juncture is part of a
larger logic of humanitarianism in the context of post–Cold War geopolitics and
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the perceived market failures of the so-called Washington Consensus. As ReidHenry notes, the end of the Cold War created a power vacuum in which national
forms of military intervention and human rights began to converge in many parts
of the world into a contemporary form of ‘humanitarian war’.11 At the same time,
the worse effects of neoliberal regimes of privatisation and austerity were becoming increasingly evident vis-à-vis both their disastrous effects on the poor and in
the multiple forms of resistance they were engendering worldwide – including the
Seattle-based anti-WTO protests of 1999.12
I contend that these specific historical and geographical processes have galvanised the advance of more modulated or ‘compensatory’ liberal articulations of
post-national, market-based development and care.13 These compensatory configurations blend neoliberal ideologies of efficiency, evidence, and return on
investment with the anti-state, human capital logic of liberalism, alongside pastoral rationalities of individual value, charismatic care, and Christian duty.
Moreover they do so in a manner that indicates a much stronger interest in social
relationships that foreground individualising forms of care and duty at a global or
post-national scale. They thus remain firmly entrenched within a (newly configured) market rationale, but operating above and beyond a state-based rhetoric of
interventionism. It is a form of market foster care in the context of a liberal, postnation-state milieu. Bono’s humanitarian message of factivism and the workings
of liberal philanthropic foundations such as the Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation (BMGF) are examples of these types of contemporary configurations.
The BMGF manifests some of the new, highly managed partnerships that
have been developing in the twenty-first century between philanthropy,
business and, in some cases, the state.14 These types of partnerships demonstrate the emergence of socially modulated efforts to contain and manage the
violence of the state and the market through new technologies of biopolitical
government. Included among these new technologies and mechanisms are
what I term here the humanitarian geosocial.
Geosocial care discourses are personal and intimate, but simultaneously
deeply political and calculative; they go beyond emotional investments in
particular geostrategic ideals and visions by helping to reconstitute international relations and practices on the model of interpersonal relations.15 Thus,
as I show below, Bono’s universalising message of factivism is effective at the
level of both private emotion and public sentiment. It is important to
investigate because both the talk and its popular public and political reception indicate some of the ways that the vast media dissemination of this new
ideology of charismatic, yet rational care helps to weave pastoral rationalities
into forms of political authority.16
The importance of studying the politics of interpersonal relations and
‘geopolitical intimacy’ such as this embraces and builds on over a decade of
work seeking to bridge feminist geography and geopolitics.17 It recasts
abstracted and often vacuous ideas of global economic formations and
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geopolitical relationships into the figure of embodied social actors operating
in identifiable geosocial formations with ideas and technologies embracing
the power of social (or in this case pastoral) relations. Thus, studies of the
geosocial necessitate examining not just the specific actors and interpersonal
relations shaping the fields of action, but also the various emotions and
affective technologies that are employed by them.18 A key method involved
in these types of studies is the analysis of texts, images, and verbal encounters. Analysis of this type aids in the interpretation of the multiple ways that
human subjectivity and relationality is produced through discursive interactions; it enables us to see how texts and talk are imbricated in forms of power
through which subjects are both enabled and constrained in their ways of
thinking, feeling, and acting.19
Considering the development of humanitarian reason in terms of individual
affect and interpersonal communication and relations helps to direct our attention
to how power is socially deployed. The intersection of diverse forms of power is
implicated in the different ways that people think, feel, interact socially, conceptualise and practise moral trusteeship, and posit the most efficient way of providing hospitality, care, and the improvement of others.20 For example, the political
rationalities of humanitarian reason might involve religious feelings of individual
duty and compassion alongside a general interest in the development of populations, as well as abstract concerns about efficiency and freedom – all of these
sustaining a larger moral economy of care. As Foucault has remarked, these modes
of thought and feeling may be linked in “complex edifices” that are actively created
and responded to by individual actors – thus once again reshaping the terrain of
action and belief.21
In order to understand these critical contemporary formations and reformations we need to think of pastoral, liberal, and neoliberal rationalities not
as leading in a particular direction – a teleology of rationalisation – but in
articulations that may join up pre-modern or early modern webs of belief or
technologies of governing.22 In so doing, however, it is important to understand
these articulations as specific to the historical and geographic circumstances that
have conditioned their emergence and which are generative of historical change.
We can then analyse how and why a specific domain operates in the current
moment as a highly contingent form of liberal governance across space. As noted
above, the current nexus has emerged in the context of twenty-first-century
military interventionism and neoliberal market failure. Efforts at market resuscitation are made via a widening array of philanthropic partners – including
foundations, businesses, and the state, as well as for-profit and non-profit entities
of various kinds. Moreover, this growing nexus of market foster care collaborators
further constitutes and enlists individual celebrities, fans, politicians, donors, and
recipients in a geosocial moral economy of pastoral care, security, development,
and self-improvement that is often boldly post-political.
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In what follows I investigate how one particular constellation of power – a
topology of metrics and activist empathy – works as a form of humanitarian
reason that transcends local and national scales and operates to nudge actors in
specifically market-oriented, state-vigilant directions. The term factivism is a good
metonym for this constellation and provides the illustrative underpinning for my
investigation. In the past few years Bono has become a factivist evangelist – joining
forces with other evidence-based promoters of humanitarian investment such as
Bill Gates, but adding his own particular investments in empathy, duty, and
charismatic care to the global cause of humanitarian aid. An investigation of
Bono’s activities, rhetoric, and relationships in the factivist cause provides a good
example of the social channels through which these recombined and redeployed
rationales flow and converge across distance. In this paper I show how this
geosocial realm facilitates the articulation of (warm) pastoral rationalities alongside (chilly) neoliberal rationalities of calculation and accountability in a complex
domain of contemporary power, one that is currently shaping how humanitarianism is conceptualised and conducted worldwide.23
Topologies of Power
A topological analysis is one “that examines how existing techniques and
technologies of power are re-deployed and recombined in diverse assemblies
of biopolitical government.”24 As Collier notes, this approach relies on a
reading of Foucault’s later work that emphasises the heterogeneous articulation of elements that are brought together, rather than a form of regulatory
power that targets and optimises control of populations. In other words,
there is no single logic, trajectory, or necessary link between different forms
of power such as one leading from sovereignty to discipline to biopolitics;
rather, contemporary configurations may manifest elements of some or all of
these, in unique patterns and combinations.25
There are two features of this approach that are useful for an analysis of Bono
and contemporary formations of humanitarian reason. The first is in the openness
to diverse elements brought together or recombined in a topological space that is
organised and coherent but not linear or pre-determined; this enables a reading of
factivism as something shaped by the simultaneous existence of co-existing rationalities. The second way in which this analytical lens is useful is in the foregrounding
of the work of actors and of thinking in the formation of new power configurations.
Collier writes,
In this view, thinking is not bound by a knowledge-power regime; it should not be
analyzed, as Foucault argued in a late interview, as a ‘formal system that has
reference only to itself’ (Foucault, 1984: 388). Rather, it is an activity that involves
a ‘degree of constraint as well as a degree of freedom’, that makes possible a certain
critical distance from existing ways of understanding and acting. In sum, the space
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of problematization is a topological space, and thinking is a driver of recombinatorial processes.26
This emphasis on the importance of actors and thinking in relation to
contemporary problems is critical in understanding how geosocial tactics and
webs of belief can form, travel, and influence political economic processes –
such as policies on social impact investment or the best, most efficient, and
most ‘moral’ ways of engaging with poverty worldwide. For example, Bono,
alongside Gates, Cameron, Merkel, GAVI, and other contemporary actors
and entities engage with and problematise contemporary market ‘failure’ in
the context of Washington Consensus–led systems of austerity and dispossession worldwide – at the same time helping to redirect interest in recombined and redeployed ‘solutions’ to these problems. These solutions involve
liberal rationalities of human capital development, neoliberal techniques of
efficiency and accountability, and highly individualising, often faith-based
forms of pastoral power. In almost all cases, the desired outcomes to which
donors and recipients are directed are market-based.27 Similar to Foucault’s
depiction of the Physiocrats in the 1978 and 1979 lectures, these contemporary humanitarians and politicians are actively engaged in reformulating and
recombining these elements – reacting to and operating within the context of
the crises, constraints, and perceived opportunities of the new millennium.28
The promotion of metrics and accountability measures displayed in the ‘fact’
segment of factivism, are elements of neoliberal governmentality that have been
documented in as diverse realms as insurance, policing, education, and health.29
The actuarial logic evident in these technologies relates to the statistical calculations employed in measuring bios, e.g., life expectancy, fertility, quality of life,
life course management and development, etc. These types of metrics are now
being brought to bear on the fruits of philanthropy itself, i.e., on the social value
that is incurred as a result of charitable interventions. In order to make a return
on a charitable investment, social progress must be measured and measurable.
As Prime Minister David Cameron said in an introductory speech to the G8
Social Impact Investment Forum in London in 2013, “It is not enough just to
incentivise social investments. We need a robust way of measuring their value
and in doing so connecting businesses that deliver social and environmental
value with investors seeking both a social and a financial return.”30
Thus, the evidence-based aspect of factivism manifests some of the cold logic
of counting, measuring, documenting, and assessing – even in diffuse, hard-toquantify realms such as the quality of foster parenting or the effectiveness of
prison reading programmes. These practices are emblematic of the broader turn
to ROI (return on investment) philanthropy, which is based on business language and practices, and where assumptions about market freedoms and efficiencies are naturalised and largely undisputed. As Bill Gates remarked in 2008,
“Naturally, if companies are going to get more involved, they need to earn some
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kind of return. This is the heart of creative capitalism. It’s not just about doing
more corporate philanthropy or asking companies to be more virtuous. It’s
about giving them a real incentive to apply their expertise in new ways, making it
possible to earn a return while serving the public who have been left out.”31
This market-oriented aspect of ROI philanthropy, or what some have
called venture philanthropy or philanthro-capitalism, is now well documented in the literature.32 What I am interested in here is the way in which this
hard neoliberal logic and its associated technologies of responsibility and
accountability, is tempered, augmented, and reconfigured in contemporary
humanitarianism by other rationalities such as pastoralism. While focused on
care and consent, pastoral power precedes and is distinct from biopolitics as
a regime of care (of making live), as it is individualising and faith-based,
drawing on the care and devotion for each sheep in the flock and of the flock
to the shepherd, rather than on the more generalising responsibility towards
and responsibilisation of the population as a whole. At the same time,
pastoralism is not a form of sovereignty or discipline; the shepherd wields
power over a flock of individuals rather than over land or territory, and does
so through constant kindness and watchfulness rather than through coercion
or sovereign power. Moreover, unlike systems grounded in law, the central,
indispensable role of the shepherd is key, as he gathers together dispersed
individuals and keeps them together; the shepherd has only to disappear for
the flock to be scattered. Foucault writes of this critical, highly centralised
position:
The shepherd’s immediate presence and direct action cause the flock to exist….
The shepherd’s role is to ensure the salvation of his flock. It’s not only a matter of
saving them all, all together, when danger comes nigh. It’s a matter of constant,
individualised, and final kindness…. And individualised kindness, too, for the
shepherd sees that all the sheep, each and every one of them, is fed and saved.”33
Among other themes explored by Foucault, a key one is the obvious
Christian ties and symbolism of this form of power: the moral ties that
bind each to each, the personal submission of individuals to the shepherd,
the rendering of accounts necessary for salvation, the necessity of mechanisms of self-examination and conscience, of opening up and submitting.34 He
also notes the paradoxical relationship of pastoralism with violence, as well as
with modern political and legal systems. It is this paradoxical parallelism that
is of most interest here: the topologies of power that redeploy medieval
rationalities of retributive violence alongside modern legal frameworks and
political programmes, themselves juxtaposed with “a power we can call
‘pastoral’, whose role is to constantly ensure, sustain, and improve the lives
of each and every one.”35
Bono’s centrality as a celebrity humanitarian, guiding his fans and followers into relationships of devotion and responsibility to himself, to each
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other, and to the poor in Africa shares many features of the shepherd-flock
relationship. One of the key tropes that frequently emerges when he plays a
humanitarian role is his depiction as a messiah figure, a modern-day Jesus
who has returned from rock stardom to spread the word about humanitarian
compassion and duty.36 In his many calls to action, in talks, interviews, and
on websites, Bono embraces Christian symbolism and messages of spirituality, while simultaneously downplaying any formal religious component to his
actions. At the same time, he acknowledges the basis for the Jesus comparison, speaking of himself wryly as a “jumped-up Jesus” with a “messiah
complex” in his TED talk.
In several public engagements Bono uses different measures of emotion
and intimacy to draw in his audience and create the mechanisms for both
openness and submission.37 Magubane has noted how his references to his
underdog Irish ancestry and to his working-class roots give him an intimate
point of connection with many of his fans, one that simultaneously enables
him to sidestep contemporary issues and criticisms such as his own remarkable wealth, tax evasions, and potentially patronising attitude in seeking to
help Africa and Africans as a wealthy white man.38 Duvall and Chouliaraki
have also indicated that personal language and intimate gestures (such as
Bono often uses in his expressions of emotion, religious faith, and passionate
care), can give an aura of authenticity to celebrities like Bono, something that
is critical in building strong fan connections over time.39
These forms of intimacy and individual connection create and sustain the
feelings of shepherd and flock, thus nourishing the pastoral rationalities that
are an integral aspect of Bono’s humanitarian reason. At the same time,
Bono’s humanitarianism is firmly articulated with multiple forms of political
power and legal frameworks associated with the rationalities of liberal state
governance. These involve the freedoms and responsibilities of human development and accountability at all scales. It is this architecture of power, both
individualising and totalising, and involving redeployed elements of the
“pastoral game” and the “city-citizen game” in a post-colonial context of
violence and hierarchy, that make up the contingent configurations of
humanitarianism I illustrate below.
Factivism: The New Humanitarian Reason
So I’m here to – I guess we’re here to try and infect you with this virtuous, databased virus, the one we call factivism. It’s not going to kill you. In fact, it could save
countless lives. I guess we in the One campaign would love you to be contagious,
spread it, share it, pass it on. By doing so, you will join us and countless others in
what I truly believe is the greatest adventure ever taken, the ever-demanding
journey of equality. Could we really be the great generation that Mandela asked
us to be? Might we answer that clarion call with science, with reason, with facts,
and, dare I say it, emotions?40
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In this short segment of his TED talk Bono addresses his audience (now at
1.5 million) in familiar language as ‘you’, at the same time that he introduces
the desired result of infecting you – his audience – with the virus of factivism.
This virus joins science with reason, facts, and emotions, and has the excitingly contagious possibility of leading those so infected into the “greatest
adventure ever taken.” In this speech it is possible to hear the emphasis on
reason, which is equated with facts and science, as well as the passionate call
to witnessing and to account of the shepherd-preacher, who seeks to guide or
rather ‘infect’ his flock with the invocation to duty and action.
In a great irony, this same metaphor of virus, disease, and infection is
inverted when Bono speaks later of corruption. In this part of the talk Bono
is concerned with the political biases and economic problems of crony
capitalism and corrupt governments. These problems are also narrated as a
kind of infection, this one negative, which he indicates is most likely to be
found in countries such as Uganda. Fortunately, however, the solution to this
form of infection is facts, “open data sets,” and transparency in communication and government. Thus, the (mainly white, upper-class) audience members of his TED talk must be infected with factivism in order to fight the
infection of corruption in (largely black, poor) places such as Uganda. He
says,
And right now, we know that the biggest disease of all is not a disease. It’s
corruption. But there’s a vaccine for that too. It’s called transparency, open data
sets…. So let me tell you about the U-report, which I’m really excited about. It’s
150,000 millennials all across Uganda, young people armed with 2G phones, an
SMS social network exposing government corruption and demanding to know
what’s in the budget and how their money is being spent. This is exciting
stuff.41
Once again borrowing from the language of sickness and disease, it is
transparency and open data sets that are literally vaccinating the young millennials against the corruption assumed to be endemic in non-Western governments. Here, efficient and modern forms of humanitarian governance reach
across national borders to touch individuals, arm them with technology, and
inoculate them against horizontal (state-based) systems of social organising.
Bono indicates further that this approach will be victorious because it is inherently apolitical – outside the formal systems of government. “We are going to
win,” he says, “because we don’t play politics…” He goes on to sing the praises of
neutral groups of individuals acting as ‘people’ rather than in an institutionalised
capacity, i.e., in positions of political power: “The power of the people is much
stronger than the people in power…”
In these statements the criticism of corruption and the general disdain for
the government of Uganda morphs into a more general critique of statebased forms of politics and governance. Politics is presented as something
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inherently pejorative: “we don’t play politics”, in contrast with a more
amorphous conceptualisation of “the power of the people”. This postpolitical ‘power’ is shared amongst the flock of believers who are bound to
the pastor in their mutual understandings of obedience, duty, and individual
care – a form of care that stretches out and beyond the confines of nationstates.
Factivism thus effectively links both highly individualised pastoral rationalities of the shepherd-guide and his flock of obedient and devoted believers,
with evidence-oriented, efficient and prudential rationalities of neoliberal
governance across distance. Moreover, factivist followers are exhorted to
get infected (with the right kind of virus), become contagious, and then
spread across the world to areas where the wrong kinds of disease and
infection are predominant. These are the diseases of undeveloped areas of
the globe, where there is a perceived lack of transparency and a dearth of
evidence or ‘facts’ to draw on in cost-benefit calculations; in these types of
areas development aid cannot take root efficiently and thus cannot create
either a social or financial return.
Bono’s talk illustrates the contemporary convergence of biopolitical and
pastoral rationalities in a post-colonial context with strong racial legacies and
overtones. This type of message and the related practices of social impact
investment and social entrepreneurialism in these regions have proliferated
rapidly over the past few years. How do these particular webs of belief – these
factivist ideas about social investment, human value, and poverty assistance
become common sense and travel so widely and so quickly? In the following
section I illustrate a few of the many ways that these rationalities are
deployed and travel transnationally through various kinds of geosocial networks. These types of affective networks can be both elite and banal; they can
involve, for example, social networking at Davos between billionaires and
politicians and simple interactions on a TED talk listserv.
Geosocial Networks and Webs of Belief: Spreading the Good News
(Virus)
Bono’s conversion to factivism came partly as a result of his budding relationship with Bill Gates, a strong promoter of evidence-based philanthropy. In
philanthropic circles, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) is generally recognised as the driver of many new ideas and practices as a result of its
size and global reach.42 In 2012, the year before Bono’s TED talk, the Global
Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (founded by BMGF in 2002),
initiated a new strategy of funding called “Investing for Impact.” As outlined on
the fund’s website, the new strategy is based on a stronger effort to invest
strategically “in areas with high potential for impact and strong value for
money.”43 The shift shows an increased interest in deriving maximum social
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and economic returns. The combined emphasis on evidence, efficiency, and ROI
is one that BMGF has embraced in other charitable venues as well, with Gates
himself writing and speaking of the importance of harnessing the power of
capitalism, drawing on technology and expertise, and deriving ‘value for money’
as important elements of humanitarian aid.44 The foundational logic and associated technologies here are a belief in the superior freedoms and efficiencies of
the market – for both social aid delivery and human capital development.
Bono’s relationship with Gates was evident at the TED talk, where Gates
tweeted “I’m in!” and in a joint interview of the men at the Forbes 400
Summit on Philanthropy in June 2013. At this meeting Gates and Bono were
joined by 150 other billionaires, multi-millionaires and social entrepreneurs
to share ideas on the so-called best practices vis-à-vis tackling extreme
poverty. Noting the importance of the BMGF in sharing and disseminating
these ideas, Bono said, “I couldn’t do anything that I do without the Gates
Foundation. We couldn’t move, neither ONE nor (RED).” Their mutual
influence, including Bono’s conversion to metrics, also came through in
another quote, after he was designated a new numbers geek by the media:
“That’s just me pretending to be Bill. I’m Irish, we do emotion very well.
You’re just experiencing some of it, and it can go on and on and on. I’ve
learned just to be an evidence-based activist. Cut through the crap. Find out
what works. Find out what doesn’t work.”45
The G8 Social Impact Investment Forum, at which David Cameron spoke
about the necessity of incentivising and measuring social investment, was
held just one day after this Forbes Summit, held in New York City. Both
meetings showcased individuals, primarily men, with unparalleled wealth
and a broad humanitarian impulse to improve the existing state of global
society. At the London Forum, financier and philanthropist George Soros
spoke about the great potential of social impact bonds to unleash new forms
of socially oriented entrepreneurialism; at the Forbes Summit a similar
message was disseminated.46 By the end of December 2013, a number of
initiatives had been launched in this vein, including the US-based Social
Impact Investment Taskforce, the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN),
the Global Health Investment Fund (GHIF), and the Global Learning
Exchange on Social Impact Investing (GLE), at the World Economic
Forum.47 At the January meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos,
2014, both Bono and Cameron were invited to a panel on new millennium
development goals where they spoke about global care and emotional investment and also took the opportunity to warn about corruption and the
necessity for political and economic transparency worldwide.48
In his global peregrinations, Bono has met with many other heads of state,
business and NGO leaders, members of parliament and congress, humanitarians, and activists. In many of these encounters his emotive energy,
passion, and charisma are recognised as highly effective in winning over
GEOPOLITICS
13
‘converts’ to his various causes.49 These types of geosocial connections and
institutional networks give some indication of the grand boulevards through
which geostrategic discourses travel, but it is equally important to investigate
some of the more mundane avenues and passageways that link up message
disseminators, conduits, and receivers, and the ways in which they are often
mutually constitutive. One of these pathways can be seen in the manifold
interactions with Bono’s TED talk.
Bono’s 2013 talk, watched by 1,516,193 viewers as of September, 2015,
produced thousands of responses in the form of direct comments, comments
on the reactions of others, and interview responses.50 Mostly positive, these
interactions convey the general captivation and engagement of both the
emotional call to action from someone perceived as a strong and caring
leader or ‘shepherd’, as well as the recognition of the need to be aware of
corruption, and the importance of facts and transparency in combating
poverty in developing countries. The Nigerian commentator Ogor Winnie
Okoye (with 4,903 followers), wrote, for example,
What a brilliant message by Bono! A must watch for everyone especially my
Nigerian brothers and sisters! He said the biggest disease in the world is corruption! Hear him; ‘We are going to win because the power of the people is “much”
stronger than the people in power’ {emphasis is mine} Amen!
This comment was followed by three interactive comments: “Biggest disease IS corruption!…;” “People are awesome. There’s no doubt in my mind
that the power of connecting everyday people will define the next generation
of poverty alleviation;” “…It takes people getting active and vocal. If you
can’t do anything else at least SPREAD THE WORD!!”51
In addition to the individualising call to action and sense of people power
that is evident here (as well as the Christian references), it is clear that Bono’s
message about corruption in African countries is also heard, repeated, and
emphasised by many. These themes are reiterated in numerous other comments, such as that of Roberto Agosto on 18 March 2013, who wrote in
direct reaction to the metaphor of virus in the talk, “Go Bono! I believe it is
possible. Let’s start the vaccinations against corruption, inertia and bad
governance.” In a similar response, Barry McMahon (14 March 2013), picked
up on the factivist insistence on science and the application of reason and
facts as critical in the struggle to end poverty: “This is great news! The One
organization has been working toward ending AIDS and eliminating poverty
through applied methods that actually work.” Eileen Peterson’s
(14 March 2013) response displayed both the absorption of the message of
effectiveness and things that work, alongside the strong emotive relationship
with Bono: “I think I’m in love… ‘Answer the clarion call’ with economic
systems that WORK and are effective and honest win-win ~~ not with
14
K. MITCHELL
constant charity, but with ALL doing their part. It begins with awareness and
education. Wake UP, folks!”
Bono’s charisma and devotion links individuals to himself, to each other,
and to those in need of care and help ‘over there.’ The factivist message
resounds and is amplified by those (1.5 million) who watched the talk and/or
are global members of ONE (6.9 million) or are in numerous other ways
connected to U2/Bono and their respective causes.52 Bono and his linked
organisations and intermediaries become the connectors that enable transnational care connections for beneficiaries. They generate ideas and help to
transmit webs of belief about modern neoliberal systems of targeted efficiency and accountability (open data sets, 2G phones) along with liberal
beliefs in human capital development, and pastoral rationalities of faith,
devotion, individualising care, and global community.
Conclusion
In this paper I investigated the discourse of ‘factivism’ as an example of a new
configuration of humanitarian reason. This particular formation blends the
calculative rationalities of neoliberalism and the intimate connections of
pastoralism in new topologies of biopolitical power. I argued that this type
of configuration is growing rapidly as a common sense approach to aiding
and developing poor and underserved populations worldwide. It is manifested in increasingly popular political programmes of social impact investment, social impact bonds, and social entrepreneurialism.
These developments manifest the emergence of a third co-generative force
in the discursive geostrategic production of international political economy
writ large. This is the force of the geosocial, a form of micro power that
operates through affective relations and webs of belief that travel through
global social conduits. Geosocial discourses such as factivism are tactical
interventions in security, and articulate with more macro forms of humanitarian biopolitical governance. In the case of Bono these discourses flow and
take purchase through strong affective relations of empathy and care. The
charismatic shepherd, the message, and the wider global flock itself are
constituted through these pastoral forms of power and simultaneously
serve as the conduits through which the factivist message expands outward
and is woven into forms of geopolitical authority and policy.
Like the Physiocrats identified by Foucault, individual thinkers such as
Bono, Gates, and other celebrity humanitarians and elite politicians seek to
work through the problems that are specific to their time and place. This
time and place is one where the limitations and failures of addressing chronic
ill health and poverty through military humanitarian interventions and
unfettered market dominance have become evident, even to many market
proponents. Elite responses to these problems are manifold, but in this paper
GEOPOLITICS
15
I identified the actions, reactions, and social connections of some key actors,
arguing that the broader discursive field of humanitarian reason is shifting,
in part, because of the interpersonal relations and geo-tactical strategies of
these dominant players.
While the perceived failed set of market norms of high neoliberalism are
implicitly critiqued in this vision, they are nevertheless replaced with new
market norms that are post-political, and which draw on anti-state notions of
intrinsic corruption and corruptibility, individual duty, and pastoral care.
One can point, for example to the World Economic Forum at Davos in 2013,
where panels seeking to address the end of poverty with factivist-style futures
lead with titles such as, “Catalyzing markets through philanthropy”, and
“Turning transparency into growth: how can anti-corruption become a
core element of a company’s growth strategy?”53 Moreover, investigating
how these types of messages are received leads to the literally thousands of
comments by passionate advocates for the poor and ill, who respond to the
factivist message by critiquing corruption and offering technical or marketstyle solutions, rather than addressing poverty and inequality as relationally
produced and maintained in laissez-faire capitalist systems.
Bono’s TED talk appears neutral – from its ahistorical references to
poverty as a global condition, to its generalising call to care, to its technological fixes. But factivism illustrates a type of anti-politics machine that is, in
fact, deeply political. The depoliticising effects of the pastoral and technological messaging coupled with the ROI logic of social impact investment
manifest both the neoliberal market orientation of this particular configuration of humanitarian reason and the anti-state legacy of liberalism. In this
respect, it is a geosocial discourse as powerful and effective as those emerging
from any political or economic venue, from 10 Downing Street to Wall Street
to Davos.
Acknowledgements
With thanks to Matthew Sparke and Kirsi Kallio for helpful comments on earlier drafts of the
paper.
Notes
1. Bono, ‘The Good News on Poverty (Yes, There’s Good News)’, TED2013, available at
<http://www.ted.com/talks/bono_the_good_news_on_poverty_yes_there_s_good_n
ews?language=en>, accessed 1 Sep. 2015.
2. N. Rose, P. O’Malley, and M. Valverde, ‘Governmentality’, Annu. Rev. Law Soc. Sci. 2
(2006) p. 84.
3. Ibid., p. 87.
4. T. Li, ‘Fixing Non-Market Subjects: Governing Land and Population in the Global
South’, Foucault Studies 18 (2014) p. 37.
16
K. MITCHELL
5. B. Golder, ‘Foucault and the Genealogy of Pastoral Power’, Radical Philosophy Review
10/2 (2007) p. 167.
6. M. Duffield, ‘The Liberal Way of Development and the Development-Security Impasse:
Exploring the Global Life-Chance Divide’, Security Dialogue 41 (2011) pp. 53–76; S.
Reid-Henry, ‘Humanitarianism as Liberal Diagnostic: Humanitarian Reason and the
Political Rationalities of the Liberal Will-To-Care’, Transactions of the Institute of
British Geographers 39 (2014) pp. 418–431; D. Fassin, Humanitarian Reason: A
Moral History of the Present (Berkeley: University of California Press 2012); I. Hay
and S. Muller, ‘Questioning Generosity in The Golden Age of Philanthropy: Towards
Critical Geographies of Super-Philanthropy’, Progress in Human Geography 38/5 (2014)
pp. 635–653.
7. See, e.g., S. Reid-Henry, ‘Humanitarianism as Liberal Diagnostic’.
8. D. Harvey, The New Imperialism (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2003).
9. M. Sparke, ‘Geopolitical Fears, Geoeconomic Hopes, and the Responsibilities of
Geography’, Annals of the Association of American Geographers 97/2 (2007)
pp. 338–349; J. Essex, Development, Security and Aid: Geopolitics and Geoeconomics
at the U.S. Agency for International Development (Athens, GA: University of Georgia
Press 2013); M. Sparke, review of J. Essex, in Dialogues in Human Geography, 6/1
(2016) pp. 95–98.
10. See also K. Mitchell, ‘Celebrity Humanitarianism, Transnational Emotion, and the Rise
of Neoliberal Citizenship’, Global Networks 16/3 (2016); I. Kapoor, Celebrity
Humanitarianism: The Ideology of Global Charity (New York: Routledge 2013); J.
Wilson, ‘Stardom, Sentimental Education, and the Shaping of Global Citizens’,
Cinema Journal 53/2 (2014) pp. 27–49; L. Chouliaraki, ‘The Theatricality of
Humanitarianism: A Critique of Celebrity Advocacy’, Communication and Critical/
Cultural Studies 9/1 (2012) pp. 1–21.
11. S. Reid-Henry, ‘Genealogies of Liberal Violence: Human Rights, State Violence, and the
Police’, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 33 (2015) pp. 626–641.
According to Reid-Henry a good example of this type of historical convergence was
the ‘Responsibility to Protect’ doctrine evident in humanitarian interventions in places
such as Bosnia.
12. D. Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2005).
13. See also K. Mitchell and M. Sparke, ‘The New Washington Consensus: Millennial
Philanthropy and the Making of Global Market Subjects’, Antipode 48/3 (2016) pp.
724–749.
14. There are a number of studies of these types of partnerships, particularly in the fields of
health and education. See, e.g., research by K. Storeng, ‘The GAVI Alliance and the
‘Gates Approach’ to Health System Strengthening’, Global Public Health 9/8 (2014)
pp. 865–879; and work on education by K. Saltman, The Gift of Education: Public
Education and Venture Philanthropy (New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2010).
15. J. Mercer, ‘Feeling like a State: Social Emotion and Identity’, International Theory 6/3
(2014) pp. 515–535.
16. Cf. I. Kapoor, Celebrity Humanitarianism: The Ideology of Global Charity (New York:
Routledge 2013).
17. See, e.g., J. Hyndman, ‘Towards a Feminist Geopolitics’, The Canadian Geographer 45/2
(2001) pp. 210–222; L. Dowler and J. Sharp, ‘A Feminist Geopolitics?’, Space and Polity
5/3 (2001) pp. 165–176; J. Hyndman, ‘Mind the Gap: Bridging Feminist and Political
Geography through Geopolitics’, Political Geography 23 (2004) pp. 307–322; A.
Mountz, ‘Introduction: Reconceptualizing the State from the Margins of Political
Geography’, Political Geography 23 (2004) pp. 241–243; see also the special section
GEOPOLITICS
18.
19
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
17
on feminist geopolitics introduced in J. Williams and V. Massaro, ‘Feminist
Geopolitics: Unpacking (In) Security, Animating Social Change’, Geopolitics 18/4
(2013) pp. 751–758.
C. Pedwell, Affective Relations: The Transnational Politics of Empathy (New York:
Palgrave Macmillan 2014); E. Hutchison and R. Bleiker, ‘Theorizing Emotions in
World Politics’, International Theory 6/3 (2014) pp. 491–514; E. Hutchison and R.
Bleiker, ‘Emotions in the War on Terror’, in A. Bellamy, R. Bleiker, S. Davies, and R.
Devetak (eds.), Security and the War on Terror (London: Routledge 2008) pp. 57–70.
G. Rose, Visual Methodologies: An Introduction to the Interpretation of Visual Materials
(London: Sage 2001).
L. Dowler, ‘Waging Hospitality: Feminist Geopolitics and Tourism in West Belfast
Northern Ireland’, Geopolitics 18/4 (2013) pp. 759–778; T. Li, ‘Fixing Non-market
Subjects: Governing Land and Population in the Global South’, Foucault Studies 18
(2014) pp. 34–48.
M. Foucault, Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the Collège de France, 19771978 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2007) p. 8
For a great, in-depth examination of some of these recombinatorial processes as they
play out in the sanctuary movement, see the ethnographic study by R. Lippert,
Sanctuary, Sovereignty, Sacrifice: Canadian Sanctuary Incidents, Power, and Law
(Vancouver: UBC Press 2005).
In his lectures published in The Birth of Biopolitics Foucault also uses the language of
warm (moral and cultural values) and cold (impassive, calculating and rational forms
of competition) to describe the ways in which proponents of ordoliberalism seek to
make these ‘new’ liberal rationalities palatable to society; see M. Foucault, The Birth of
Biopolitics: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1978-1979 (New York: Palgrave
Macmillan 2008) pp. 242–243.
S. Collier, ‘Topologies of Power: Foucault’s Analysis of Political Government beyond
Governmentality’, Theory, Culture and Society 26/6 (2009) p. 79.
Ibid.
Ibid., pp. 95–96.
Mitchell and Sparke (note 13).
M. Foucault, Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the Collège de France, 19771978 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2007); M. Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics:
Lectures at the Collège de France, 1978-1979 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2008).
See, e.g., J. Donzelot, The Policing of Families (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University
Press 1997); R. Lippert, ‘Neo-liberalism, Police, and the Governance of Little Urban
Things’, Foucault Studies 18 (2014) pp. 49–65; T. Popkewitz, Cosmopolitanism and the
Age of School Reform: Science, Education, and Making Society by Making the Child
(New York: Routledge 2008); the essays in G. Burchell, C. Gordon, and P. Miller (eds.),
The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press
1991).
Prime Minister David Cameron: Social Investment Can Be a Great Force for Social
Change’, Gov.UK, 6 June 2013), available at <https://www.gov.uk/government/
speeches/prime-ministers-speech-at-the-social-impact-investment-conference>,
accessed 25 Sep. 2014 (italics mine).
B. Kiviat and B. Gates, ‘Making Capitalism More Creative’, Time Magazine,
31 July 2008, pp. 29–30 (italics mine).
See, e.g., I. Hay and S. Muller, ‘Questioning Generosity in the Golden Age of
Philanthropy: Towards Critical Geographies of Super-Philanthropy’, Progress in
Human Geography 38/5 (2014) pp. 635–653; K. Saltman, The Gift of Education:
18
K. MITCHELL
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
Public Education and Venture Philanthropy (New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2010); I.
Kapoor, Celebrity Humanitarianism: The Ideology of Global Charity (New York:
Routledge 2013).
M. Foucault, ‘Omnes et Singulatim: Towards a Criticism of ‘Political Reason’’, The
Tanner Lectures on Human Values, delivered at Stanford University, 10 and 16
Oct. 1979, p. 229.
Ibid., pp. 236–238.
Ibid., p. 235.
S.-S. Duvall, From Walking The Red Carpet To Saving The World: Global Celebrity,
Media, And Commodity Activism, PhD dissertation, Indiana University, May 2010.
Mitchell (note 10).
Z. Magubane, ‘The (Product) Red Man’s Burden: Charity, Celebrity, and the
Contradictions of Coevalness’, The Journal of Pan African Studies 2/6 (2008)
pp. 101–125.
39. Duvall (note 36); L. Chouliaraki, ‘Improper Distance: Towards a Critical Account of
Solidarity as Irony’, International Journal of Cultural Studies 14/4 (2011) pp. 363–381.
40. Bono (note 1).
41. Ibid.
42. Total grant payments since inception are $33.5 billion, making BMGF the largest
private grant funder for global causes over the past fifteen years. Its scale and power
in grant-making, particularly in the field of global health, is recognised in numerous
books and articles. On education, see, e.g., P. Kovacs (ed.), The Gates Foundation and
the Future of U.S. ‘Public’ Schools (New York: Routledge 2011). In global health, see,
e.g., D. McCoy, G. Kembhavi, J. Patel, and A. Luintel, ‘The Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation’s Grant-Making Programme for Global Health’, The Lancet 373 (2009)
pp. 1645–1653.
43. See The Global Fund “Strategy”. From the Global Fund website: <http://www.theglo
balfund.org/en/about/strategy/>, accessed 27 Feb. 2015.
44. See B. Kiviat and B. Gates (note 31), ‘Making Capitalism More Creative’; B. Gates,
‘Annual Letter 2014’, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, available at <http://www.
gatesfoundation.org/Who-We-Are/Resources-and-Media/Annual-Letters-List
/Annual-Letter-2014>.
45. Passage quoted in R. Lane, ‘Bill Gates and Bono on their Alliance of Fortune, Fame,
and Giving’, Forbes, 17 Nov. 2013, available at <http://www.forbes.com/sites/randall
lane/2013/11/17/bill-gates-and-bono-on-their-alliance-of-fortune-fame-and-giving/>,
accessed 10 June 2015.
46. The idea behind these bonds, as with social impact investing more generally, is that a
return on investment can be obtained, but that the return is contingent on the
achievement of desired (and benchmarked) social outcomes.
47. All of these initiatives have active websites and numerous programmes in operation as
of 2015. For an overview of the attempt to ‘mainstream’ and draw greater attention and
interest in social impact investment beginning in 2012, see ‘From the Margins to the
Mainstream: Assessment of the Impact Investment Sector and Opportunities to Engage
Mainstream Investors’, World Economic Forum, Sep. 2013, available at <http://www3.
weforum.org/docs/WEF_II_FromMarginsMainstream_Report_2013.pdf>, accessed 1
Sep. 2015.
48. See Bono and David Cameron at Davos 2014, ‘The Post-2015 Goals: Inspiring a New
Generation to Act’, <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/davos/
GEOPOLITICS
49.
50.
51.
52.
53.
19
10594485/Watch-live-Bono-and-David-Cameron-at-Davos-2014.html>, accessed 1
Sep. 2015.
The right-wing evangelist Senator Jesse Helms was one of these. See, for example, M.
Bunting and O. Burkeman, ‘Pro Bono’, The Guardian, 18 March 2002, available at
<http://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/mar/18/usa.debtrelief>,
accessed
1
Sep. 2015.
Comments on the talk have appeared in a number of sites, including on the ONE
website, on the TED talk website, and on a number of individual blogs and sites. In the
past two years, as well, numerous commentators have been asked by ONE and other
organisations such as Transparency International and the United Nations Millennium
Challenge, to respond directly to the ideas presented at the talk, such as “peoplepowered, technology-facilitated activism” or “Millennial Factivism.” For the latter, see,
for example, the interview of Nigerian Activist Japheth Omijuwa at <http://www.
okayafrica.com/culture-2/interview-japheth-omojuwa-millennial-factivism-panel-unevent/>.
Comments are posted at <http://www.one.org/us/shareworthy/bono-at-ted/>. They are
often updated, but these comments from 2013 were still accessible as
of September 2015.
Another example is fan clubs such as Zootopia, or smaller groups such as the Bono
Street Team. For more on the emotional connections and responses of these types of
communities, see Mitchell (note 10).
See ‘Insights: Catalysing Markets through Philanthropy’, World Economic Forum, 2013,
available at <http://www.weforum.org/videos/insights-catalysing-markets-throughphilanthropy>; ‘Turning Transparency into Growth’, World Economic Forum, 2013,
available at <http://www.weforum.org/videos/turning-transparency-growth>, accessed
2 Sep. 2015.