David Jefferess

For sale - peace of mind : (Neo-) Colonial discourse and the commodification of Third World poverty in World Vision's 'telethons'

Abstract World Vision Canadas television fundraising appeals construct Canadian sponsor identity in relation to a ‘needy’ ‘Third World’ other. These programmes utilise structures of identification reminiscent of earlier forms of colonial discourse and are dependent upon discourses of consumercapital. World Visions presentation of the act of sponsorship as a life-changing act of self-fulfillment deludes the viewer or sponsor of the complex relations which perpetuate poverty, and in which Canadians are implicated. World Visions marketing discourse constructs world poverty outside history and sells the possibility of instant gratification through the act of sponsorship as a form of consumption.

To be good (again): The Kite Runner as allegory of global ethics

In this article I critically examine Khaled Hosseinis The Kite Runner, and specifically the novels ethical demand, “there is a way to be good again”, in relation to contemporary conceptions of humanitarianism. Using Mamdanis analysis of the distinction between the “good Muslim” and the “bad Muslim”, and reading the novel in dialogue with Appiahs notion of cosmopolitanism and Butlers theory of human interdependence, I argue that The Kite Runner reflects a shift from the supremacy of race and nation as primary markers of political community and identity to the idea of the “modern” as the framework for determining the “human”. As such, I read the novel as an allegory of global ethics.