About the lecture:
Under the banner of Corporate Social Responsibility, corporations have become major players in international development. Leaders in a new orthodoxy of business-led development that promises a union of economic value and ethical values as an antidote to harsh neoliberal reforms and the delinquency of the state. But nothing is straightforward about this apparent win-win. This lecture considers what lies behind the movement’s marriage of moral imperative and market discipline. By claiming the confluence of doing good business and doing good commitment to the market logic of maximisation is not only maintained, but endowed with a moral legitimacy and celebrated as the elusive win-win solution for which the development industry continues to search.
About the speaker:
Dinah Rajak is a lecturer in Anthropology and Development at the University of Sussex. Her research interests include the anthropology of global capitalism, development and corporate social responsibility with a focus on the extractive industries and Southern Africa. Her book on this topic (In Good Company: An Anatomy of Corporate Social Responsibility, Stanford University Press) came out in 2011.
