[URBANTH-L]AAA 2008 CFP: Corporate Social Responsibility: A Paradigm for International Reciprocity?

Dinah Rajak d.r.rajak at sussex.ac.uk
Wed Mar 12 18:02:11 EDT 2008


Call for Papers
Proposed Session
American Anthropological Association (AAA), Nov. 19-Nov. 23, 2008
Hilton Park and Towers, San Francisco

CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY: A PARADIGM FOR INTERNATIONAL RECIPROCITY?

Catherine Dolan (University of Oxford) and Dinah Rajak (University of 
Sussex)

Concerns about mutuality and reciprocity lie at the heart of
contemporary practices and discourses of corporate social
responsibility.  Through company codes of conduct, international labour 
standards, community development projects, and a range of certification and 
labelling initiatives, corporate sector actors seek to engage in new forms 
of reciprocity with producers, consumers and non profit
organisations.

This panel aims to address at least three key areas of interest
around CSR from an anthropological perspective.  1) How can CSR be
conceptualised as a form of exchange and reciprocity?  In which ways does 
CSR resonate with other practices and forms of gift giving, charity and 
philanthropy? 2) How is CSR implicated in post-colonial efforts to imbue 
markets and market relationships with moral sensitivities?  Do CSR 
practices blur the boundaries between moral and market forms of exchange? 
How do fair-trade or ethical consumption provide us with a new angle to 
look at the 'morality of exchange'?  3) What sorts of relationships are 
constructed between donors and beneficiaries through CSR practices?  Does 
CSR offer a tool to challenge existing patterns of inequality and 
exclusion, or is it implicated in the reproduction of power inequalities 
and dependency (between countries, producers, etc?)

The panel aims to discuss a variety of ethnographically-inspired
and/or theoretically innovative contributions to any of the above (and 
related) themes in order to improve our understanding of the meanings, 
dynamics and impacts of CSR across social and cultural contexts.

Please send abstracts (250 words) to either Dinah Rajak 
(d.r.rajak at sussex.ac.uk) or Catherine Dolan(Catherine.Dolan at sbs.ox.ac.uk) 
by Friday, March 21, 2008.



Dr Dinah Rajak
Lecturer in Social Anthropology
University of Sussex
Falmer
Brighton
BN1 9SJ
United Kingdom

Tel: +44 (0)1273 678561
Fax: +44 (0)1273 673563
Email: D.R.Rajak at sussex.ac.uk



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