Royal beatings: the gift as a communicative act in international development

The gift has long been considered a space where the seemingly contradictory notions of selflessness and self-interest are simultaneously at play, this being the paradox of the gift. This work first traces the symbolic and material interests concealed by the gift through generations of historical projects designed to support populations described as 'in need' and 'developing'. Recently, there has been a rise in 'one for one' models of consumption that promise gifts to charitable organizations in exchange for consumer purchases. The emergence of this model in the field of international development is described here as the 'Development Good'. It represents a significant shift in paradigms by revolutionizing the articulations and roles of development aid 'actors' and 'incentive'.

The cases of Product (RED), TOMS and The Canada Collection will be used to argue that the development good's true appeal is its broad communicative capacity. It will be suggested that the development good serves two key functions for private sector actors: 1) the re-positioning of brand, commodity and consumption; and 2) re-negotiating the bounds of capital within the field of international development. This is clearly the 'big picture' of the development good. There is, however, a competing narrative identified here that points to an agency and integrity in the gift that is beyond simple manipulations of capital. The model, therefore, becomes a space where one is continually negotiating issues of interest, altruism, capital and the agency of the gift, against the natural impulse to give.

Mauss (1990) and Derrida (1992) certainly created the groundwork for rich theoretical discussions around the possibility, impossibility and power of the gift. Emphasis, here, also falls on recent scholarship focusing more heavily on the intersections between gift and commodity, as well as a re-consideration of the gift and its enduring value in late capitalism (Gudeman, 2001; Bourdieu, 1997; Cheal, 1988; Kopytoff, 1986; Gregory, 1982). Of particular importance are Fennell (2002), Komter (2005), Berking (1999) and Yan (1996) for their descriptions of the fluidity around the gift-commodity relationship, critical to understandings of the development good.