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Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School
2014 Water for Sport: The (Re)Production of Global Crisis Kyle S. Bunds
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COLLEGE OF EDUCATION
WATER FOR SPORT: THE (RE)PRODUCTION OF GLOBAL CRISIS
By
KYLE S BUNDS
A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Sport Management in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
Degree Awarded: Spring Semester, 2014 Kyle Bunds defended this dissertation on March 27, 2014.
The members of the supervisory committee were:
Michael D. Giardina Professor Directing Dissertation
Jennifer M. Proffitt University Representative
Joshua I. Newman Committee Member
Jeffrey D. James Committee Member
The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members, and certifies that the dissertation has been approved in accordance with university requirements.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
It is difficult for me to write this portion of the dissertation because I find myself struggling with the idea of definitively knowing when this journey began. In this struggle, I have come to understand that this project is so important to me specifically because, in some way, my whole life and those around me have been providing pathways for me to strive for solving injustices. Throughout my entire life, I have been a privileged individual receiving much more love and support than I or indeed any human deserves. Along my journey towards this magnum opus before you, I have encountered many individuals that have helped me grow and I feel the heavy burden of assuring each one of them of their special place within, not only steering me towards the consummation of my many years in education, but in my heart and my life. Although I typically like to build towards the most influential people, there is no better or appropriate place to start than with my parents. My father, Jack, and mother, Marcia, have no doubt been the biggest influences on my life. All the credit in the world goes to my grandparents Fred and Sharon Muller for raising my mother and being tremendous examples for my father. My parents have loved me unconditionally, especially in times that I probably did not deserve their support. As a sportscaster, my dad balanced a busy work load and home life while making me feel that he was always around. He made sure I went with him to football, baseball, and basketball games, or that I was able to come up to the television station with him to watch Los Angeles Kings games in the Spanish direct feed. While my dad satiated my appetite for sports my mom made sure that I knew how privileged I was. She always took my sister and me with her on Mondays and Fridays to work with single mothers and poor families at an organization called Birthright. There, I learned what it means to be without, which is not the same as my choosing to live without a luxury. The people my mom spent twenty years working with had to make difficult decisions about living with or without human necessities like winter coats or central heat and air. We also would spend countless hours working with Catholic Charities, Special Olympics, and mentoring physically and mentally disabled students. Through these experiences, I gained an understanding for how fortunate I am, a desire to help those in need, and an appreciation for what it means to be in need. As my mom always said, many of the people I encountered may not have been rich, but so many were rich in love and gave of their possessions and time for their fellow human being. She reminded us of what Mother Teresa taught: iii
At the end of life we will not be judged by how many diplomas we have received, how much money we have made, how many great things we have done. We will be judged by I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat, I was naked and you clothed me. I was homeless, and you took me in. These experiences helped me conceptualize what it means to be in need and who is really poor. Although, I must say that they did a much better job with my sister Monica, who inspires me daily with her dedication to her husband and children, they worked hard with me as well. My parents were fortunate enough to be able to raise my sister and me in a suburb of Tulsa where we were surrounded by people who cared for us. The people in the community of Owasso helped raise me as if I was one of their own. Mrs. Beams, Coach Hightower, Coach Parker, Coach Nantois, Coach Huggins, and Coach Rose all pushed me to be the best that I could be constantly keeping on me to be better; telling me I could make an impact on the world. They, along with my close friends, Drew Edmiston, Dallas Trahern, Zac Thompson, Chad Gill, Andrew Davis, Patrick Easterling, Kevin Thulin, Tom Persico, Christina Clayton, and Micah Summers, helped me in times of happiness and despair. Although I have often been overwhelmed by a fear of not living up to their expectations, those individuals taught me valuable lessons along the way that helped me as I endeavored to The University of Oklahoma for college. While at Oklahoma I was able to work under some great men in the equipment room. I can never thank Greg Tipton enough for giving me the opportunity to work for the football team; Dave Littlejohn for being the best equipment truck driver in the world and a great friend; and Brad Camp for teaching me what hard work really looks like. I also gained a lot of brothers and friends that will stay with me forever. Kyle Waid, Ryan Pitts, Adam Whitworth, Spencer Hunt, Heath Flowers, Shannon Begnal, Tyler Gray, Blake Kuenzi, Hillary Pitts, April Williams, Paul Buzzard, and Freddie Lovett helped shape my life in ways I never imagined. I must also thank Tiffany Welker for always providing me with entertainment and listening to my complaints when I needed someone to listen. All of these individuals were instrumental in pushing me towards graduate school where my four year partner in crime riding the equipment truck to road football games, Colonel Randy Garibay, hired me to work for him as a graduate assistant in athletic academics. I cannot thank Colonel Garibay enough for the influence he has had in my life. He was always tough, but he loves me even though I do not deserve his unconditional favoritism.
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Because of his misguided belief in me, I was able to learn from Dr. David Tan, Dr. Vicki Williams, Dr. Irene Karpiak, Dr. Juanita Vargas, and Dr. Gerald Gurney. I was also able to work with and become dear friends with Mark Berkowick, JJ Wood, Mike Smith, Brent Upham, Kevin Bost, Christie Smeal, G.K. Nwosu, Greg Wagner, and many others. Most importantly, however, I met my best friend who would become my wife, Natalie Swisher. I am not sure that there will ever be words to express my love and appreciation for Natalie. She, more than anything else I will ever accomplish, own, or cherish is my true happiness. Although she was not too keen on moving to Florida, she did so with no complaints – for the most part. Natalie believed in me and loved me without ever questioning why. She put her life in my hands and I cannot quite comprehend what that means – it is unexplainable. I am a better person because of her and I am forever indebted to her for providing me with a happiness I would never have imagined possible. Natalie and our two dog children, Fury and Oliver, make every moment of my life exciting and meaningful. Further, Natalie’s parents Thane and Jill as well as her siblings Alex and Megan have welcomed me into their family with open arms and for that, I am eternally grateful. I would not have made it through this program without their support. I also would not have ever been here in the first place without the blind faith of the great people in the sport management program at Florida State. I am eternally indebted to Dr. Y.K. Kim and Dr. Andrew Rudd who thought enough of me to admit me. Additionally, I wish to thank Dr. Jeffrey James without whom I would not have come to Florida State University and who has become a tremendous mentor despite his extremely busy schedule as department chair. I would also like to thank my outside committee member, Dr. Jennifer Proffitt, for her invaluable contributions to my growth as a scholar at Florida State University as well as her willingness to include me in various activities in the Department of Communications. I would be remiss if I did not thank the endless number of PhD students who have become great friends and have helped me exponentially throughout my stay: Justin Lovich, Jordan Bass, John Fletcher, Jun Woo Kim, Hyun Woo Lee, Lucy Lee, Katie Flanagan, Tim Kellison, Don Farr, Rhonda Ottley, Mar Magnusen, Dusko Bogdanov, Mike Naylor, Young Do Kim, Tom McMorrow, Mark Howard, Mark DiDonato, Yoon Tae Sung, Marlon McPhatter, Minjung Kim, Cole Armstrong, Rachel Shields, Eric George, Liz Delia, Chris McLeod, and Simon Brandon-Lai. Finally to end my extremely long acknowledgement section that I do not apologize for, my deepest, sincerest thanks goes to Dr. Josh Newman and my advisor Dr. Michael Giardina. Dr.
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Newman has helped me view the world in a different light, a light that makes me struggle with myself and everything I do all day, every day. I cannot thank him enough for being a great mentor and friend. He sincerely puts his students first and that is something extremely rare. Dr. Giardina has believed in me more than anyone should ever believe in anyone. His guidance, mentorship, and friendship have had a larger impact on my life than I thought would be possible. I legitimately would not be here without him. So, any problems with my project or me should be directed to him. I consider both of them as family members and acknowledge the extreme blessing they have bestowed upon my life. Okay, on with the show!
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
List of Abbreviations...... ix List of Characters ...... x Abstract ...... xiii 1. INTRODUCTION ...... 1 1.1 Preface...... 1 1.2 Water ...... 6 1.3 Water Charity ...... 17 1.4 Purpose of Study and Research Questions...... 23 1.5 Limitations ...... 26 1.6 Chapters in the Dissertation ...... 27 2. A BRIEF HISTORY OF WATER ...... 38 2.1 Prologue ...... 38 2.2 Introduction ...... 38 2.3 Water in Manifest Destiny United States ...... 46 2.4 Water in the United States Today ...... 51 2.5 Present-Day Water Worldwide ...... 53 3. THEORIZING WATER CHARITY ...... 60 3.1 Political Economy ...... 61 3.2 Social Marketing ...... 87 3.3 Sport for Development/Development Through Sport ...... 108 3.4 The Political Economic Underpinnings of Social Marketing in Development of Water Through Sport ……………………………………………………… ...... 118 4. METHODOLOGY ...... 120 4.1 Introduction………………………………………………………………………120 4.2 Descriptive Content Analysis ...... 122 4.3 Ethnography ...... 123 4.4 Interviews ...... 133 4.5 Methods in This Project ...... 136 5. CHARITY: WATER’S (RE)PRODUCTION OF CRISIS ...... 138 5.1 Contextualizing Charity: Water ...... 140 5.2 The Production and Circulation of the Faces of Crisis ...... 143 5.3 Consuming the Faces of Thirst ...... 161 5.4 The Reproducing Body ...... 167 5.5 Coda – Fundraiser as Focus ...... 170 6. MIAMI WITH TEAM WATER CHARITY ...... 174 6.1 Prologue ...... 174 6.2 Introduction ...... 176 6.3 Meeting in Miami ...... 179 6.4 Race Day ...... 191 6.5 Moving Forward ...... 205 7. YOU (ME?) AS THE CORPOREAL (RE)PRODUCER ...... 208 7.1 Fundraising Activism ...... 209 7.2 The Body in Abstract Production ...... 214 7.3 The Body in Tangible Production ...... 227
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7.4 The Body in Abstract yet Tangible Production ...... 229 7.5 Conclusion ...... 232 8. VANCOUVER ...... 234 8.1 Community Sport for Development...... 235 8.2 Meeting Brian ...... 237 8.3 Sport for Water Society ...... 239 8.4 Sport for Water as Community Sport for Development ...... 247 8.5 Connecting to the Local Community ...... 248 8.6 Discussion ...... 264 9. LONDON WATER CHARITY ...... 271 9.1 Prologue ...... 271 9.2 Going to London ...... 272 9.3 London ...... 274 9.4 London Water Charity Background ...... 275 9.5 Communication Abroad ...... 291 10. PRESENTING (PRODUCING) THE ORGANIZATION AND (RE)PRODUCING PEOPLE IN NEED ...... 301 10.1 Fundraising Directives and Goals ...... 302 10.2 Databases ...... 306 10.3 The Learning Labs – Telling “Our” Story ...... 312 10.4 The Website and Social Media ...... 319 10.5 Working with Governments and Other Organizations ...... 323 10.6 Implementing Sport Programs ...... 327 10.7 Coda – Figuring out Who Gets to Control Water ...... 330 11. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION ...... 337 11.1 Responding to the Research Questions ...... 339 11.2 Summarization of Findings – Constraints and Solutions ...... 360 11.3 Theoretical and Practical Contributions ...... 362 11.4 Research Going Forward ...... 365 11.5 Conclusion ...... 367 APPENDICES ...... 369 A. RANK ORDER OF MY METHODOLOGY ...... 369 B. FSU BEHAVIORAL CONSENT FORM ...... 377 C. IRB APPROVAL MEMO ...... 379 D. REGISTERING AS A 501(c)(3) ...... 382 REFERENCES ...... 385 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ...... 405
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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
CRM Cause-Related Marketing CSR Corporate Social Responsibility GSCE Global Social Corporate Engagement IMF International Monetary Fund IOC International Olympic Committee MLB Major League Baseball MNC Multinational Corporation NBA National Basketball Association NGO Non-Governmental Organization NFL National Football League OPEC Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries PCS Physical Cultural Studies RBI Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities REST Relief Society of Tigray RPF The Rwandan Patriotic Front PDF Portable Document File SDP Sport for Development and Peace SMART Social Marketing Assessment and Response Tool
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LIST OF CHARACTERS
The following is a list of characters with brief introductions meant to help the reader keep track of the individuals I interviewed and worked with while undertaking the study. Although some quotes in the text are drawn from sources not listed here, only the characters whose names are referenced directly in the text are present on this list. The list is broken down by city and by introduction in the text. NOTE: All names and organizations are pseudonyms; some details have been changed to protect the anonymity of my participants.
Miami – Team Water Charity
1. Sue – First woman I contacted with Team Water Charity. She was instrumental in helping me contact the organizers and participants at the Miami Marathon 2. Tim – Organizer with Team Water Charity who was in charge of overseeing events in Nashville, Tulsa, Indianapolis, Tampa, and Washington, D.C. Former basketball player. 3. Jennifer – Second person to contact me via email. She was very helpful in introducing me to other participants. 4. Rebecca – Third person to respond to my email. She was involved with different church groups and searching for new fundraisers at her church. 5. Christy – Coordinator of the Miami event. Former study abroad student who felt a call from God to help those less fortunate. 6. Juan – Oversees the New York event. Not overly talkative, but very good at logistical problems that arose during the event. 7. Sarah – Former athlete who used to work full time with Vision for Charity. 8. Rhonda – Volunteer. Has run the event in previous years but was hurt. Worked with me in setting up the tent. 9. Addison – Injured. She also helped me during tent setup and spoke often about her connection to her church and church group. 10. Mark – Normally would have run in and has participated in the event before but he, too, was hurt. Very talkative about the importance of his faith in his decision to work with Team Water Charity. 11. Amy – Married to Mark and was also injured. Has run the race before and is propelled to action by her faith. 12. Carla – Volunteer for Team Water Charity but she does not run. 13. Whitney – New to the Miami area and wanted to get involved with something. She was interested in helping people get closer to God and obtain water, so she joined the Team Water Charity group at her church. 14. Dan – Individual who does not like to run but believes in the cause. He was first introduced to the event through his church. 15. Samantha – New to the area and introduced to Team Water Charity through people at her church. 16. Rose – New to the area and introduced to Team Water Charity through people at her church.
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Vancouver – Sport for Water Society and Hope for Water International
17. Brian – Founder of Sport for Water Society. Avid runner and triathlete who was seeking a way to help those in need obtain water. 18. Carol – Brian’s wife, who was instrumental in getting Sport for Water Society involved with schools; still works with the schools on implementing Sport for Water Societies programs. 19. Misty – A teacher who was one of the first people to become involved with Sport for Water Society. She was incredibly passionate regarding teaching children about water poverty. 20. Hope – Name used for the individual who did most of the speaking on behalf of the two individuals I spoke with from Hope for Water International. 21. Greg – Commercial maker and promoter who works with implementing sport based programs in schools. He has been there since the beginning and was the first person Brian talked to when Brian considered starting Sport for Water Society. 22. Janet – A teacher who was very interested in implementing Sport for Water Society’s initiatives in as many academic fields as possible (i.e. Social Studies, Geography, Anatomy, etc.).
London – London Water Charity
23. Jacques – My roommate during my time in London. He was from France and studying for an MBA at Imperial College. He currently works for Rolls Royce. 24. Abby – Friend who got me in contact with Jacques due to their both being in the MBA program. She hung out with Jacques and me often and helped me learn my way around London. 25. Patrick – Very colorful chairman of the board for London Water Charity. He was a self- proclaimed billionaire who worked in many different financial and business arenas. We utilized his office space in Mayfair free of charge. 26. Lizzy – In charge of social media and helped the fundraiser contact individual donors and schools. Background in non-profit education initiatives. 27. Wendy – CEO of London Water Charity. Extensive background in operating charities, but little experience with water. She was very straightforward and extremely helpful. 28. Mary – At the organization as a consultant working with securing large funding from corporations and trusts. We shared a desk area in the large open room out of which London Water Charity operates. 29. Julie – Very experienced with water charity from her time working in Australia. Native Australia who oversaw programs and always kept me entertained. 30. Beth – Head of fundraising at London Water Charity. She was my first point of contact and the person to whom I directly answered. She was very experienced working with both businesses and charities. 31. Sam – Head of fundraising. Had incredible insight into water charities in Africa given that he grew up in a water poverty stricken area of Ghana. 32. John – Oversaw the programs division of London Water Charity. He was there for the first couple of days I was in London, but spent the remainder of the time in Malawi. Nevertheless, I was able to converse with him often during our group Skype meetings. 33. Terry – Also with programs and spent most of the time in Malawi. He is in charge of conducting the research for the group. Although he is doing a lot more, two of the main
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things he is doing is going to each well and making sure it is still working and then asking the communities members how the water is serving them and how it could serve them better. 34. Simon – Patrick’s assistant in business affairs. He made sure that Patrick’s partners were doing what they were supposed to be doing. Also, a very funny man. 35. Rose – Patrick’s assistant; she helped with scheduling and acted as a secretary. 36. Lauren – Overseer of Patrick’s coffee shops. She was from Chicago so we had a lot to talk about. 37. William – He started right as I was leaving, but is important because of his role as the grant writer for large grants offered by corporations and trusts. His hire is indicative of the organization’s philosophy.
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ABSTRACT
Water is a natural resource with which the Global North is familiar with, but unfamiliar – conscious of its importance, but unconscious of its complexity. People with access to clean water know that they receive water in their hands or glass when they turn on the faucet, but how it reaches that point is really unimportant over the course of their day. Yet, the battle for access to and control of water has been burgeoning for centuries: the Nile River Wars have raged on for centuries and continue today (Waterbury, 1979); access to clean drinking water was determined by social class in the middle ages resulting in impressive aqueduct systems and social division
(Magnusson, 2001); cholera spread throughout India during the colonization period as the caste system was introduced and clean water was a privilege strictly for the colonizers and elite
(Arnold, 1986); conservation of water through times of drought plagued the Southwestern United
States through the early to middle twentieth centuries leading to large dam projects and governmental subsidies for farmers (Glennon, 2009); and, water is currently a resource interwoven within a larger discussion involving environmental marketization (Bakker, 2007).
There has been a plethora of solutions proposed, greed exposed, and bodies decomposed, but the problem exists as much now as ever.
The era we enter into now is one of new media and technology that helps to expose individuals to the human body in need. This media exposure has led to the widespread adoption of the phrase “water crisis” and has involved a growth in the number of non-profits involved with water problems. First entering the public lexicon in 1991, “‘crisis’ over environmental issues have been presented by well-intentioned activists and organisations promoting the changes needed to bring about sustainable development” (Newson, 2009, p. 17). This crisis can be in large part accredited to failed government initiatives and privatization efforts that continue to
xiii create problems (Bakker, 2010). The non-profit era born from a turn in economic policies away from social welfare programming (King, 2000; Specht & Courtney, 1994; Trattner, 1999), has seemingly come to the rescue of the failures between the state and the private entity.
This turn toward an era dominated by non-profits and a discourse of the good, philanthropic American citizen has witnessed the rise of the social marketing conglomerate.
These social marketing groups are comprised of non-profit organizations, multinational corporations, local communities, and governments all working towards behavioral changes
(Kotler & Lee, 2009) on the part of the Global North consumer of their message or the Global
South receiver of their aid. One avenue the social marketing groups have chosen to utilize is sport. It is on this idea of sport and the human body as a site for the development and reproduction of historical struggles for life, power, and control that this project focuses.
To this end, I followed the water as it flows quite literally as a resource, to a commodity, to money, to commodity, and back again through multi-method qualitative inquiry. This interpretive ethnography (Denzin, 1997) consisted of three qualitative methods of inquiry. The first is a descriptive content analysis of the discourse of water and the implementation of programs providing clean drinking water to those in the Global South. The second type of analysis is semi-structured and reflexive interviews (Denzin, 2001) with participants in events raising money for water and members of social marketing groups. The final part of the analysis is a critical ethnography of water charities in the Global North. Through this method, I understood who gets to speak for whom and what type of bodies matter in the search for the answer to the world’s water crisis.
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CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
The idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that is wrong with the world – Paul Farmer
1.1 Preface
Overcome with grief after seeing pictures of African individuals starving to death, in
1984 Bob Geldof decided to start a band comprised of British musicians to assist the famine in
Ethiopia and surrounding countries (Bobgeldof.com, 2013). The band, Band Aid, formed the
Band Aid Charitable Trust in order to make money for the famine relief. The group, which was organized by Geldof and Midge Ure and included well known superstars such as Sting, Phil
Collins, and Bono, recorded a song called, “Do they know it’s Christmas” as their first attempt at raising relief funds. The fasted selling single in United Kingdom history raised £8 million for
African relief and inspired the group to try something bigger (Bobgeldof.com, 2013). From this success, Geldof decided to have a worldwide concert series called Live Aid.
On July 13, 1985 at 12:00 (GMT), Live Aid kicked off from Wembley Stadium in
London and continued at JFK Stadium in Philadelphia. Dubbed the “Global Jukebox,” the event including 60 live acts was broadcast live on BBC in the United Kingdom and Europe and parts of the concert were shown on ABC in the United States (Bobgeldof.com, 2013). Although
Geldolf initially hoped to raise £11 million for citizens in Ethiopia, the concert event raised £150 million for famine relief. The success of “Do they know it’s Christmas” and the Live Aid event
1 Throughout the manuscript, I utilize currency consistent with the country or source where the amount of money was acquired. For example, here I utilize the British Pound Sterling because this is how it was presented in the article. Later in the manuscript, I utilize the U.S. Dollar, the Canadian Dollar, and the British Pound Sterling when appropriate. For conversion purposes, at the time of these revisions to the manuscript (February 2, 2014), 1 British Pound is equal to 1.64 U.S. Dollars and 1.83 Canadian Dollars. The U.S. Dollar is equivalent to 1.11 Canadian Dollars. 1 sparked other recordings globally including the famous USA for Africa “We are the World” sung by superstars such as Michael Jackson, Billy Joel, Diana Ross, and Stevie Wonder
(LiveAid.free.fr, 2013). Further, the success of Live Aid made Geldof seek other avenues for raising money for Famine Relief. His next venture would be to raise money through sport at an event known as Sport Aid.
As explained by Webster (2013) on his website Sportaid.net, Sport Aid was a global marathon event on May 25, 1986 that combined “humanitarian aid and sports, united several millions of people across the five continents.” In an article published in USA Today, Geldof
(1986) explained to potential U.S. participants that they needed to be more active in their attempt to rains funds for the people struggling in Africa. The idea, according to Geldof, was to get people together in a physically active way to show support for those suffering from widespread panic. So, he decided that the event would be based on running.
Choosing running in the mid-1980s made a lot of sense considering what was going on with the running community at the time. According to Christopher McDougall (2011), best- selling author of Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World
Has Never Seen, running for exercise was popularized in the 1970s. Many factors played a part in running becoming a more mainstream activity outside of pure competition. Kamal Jabbour
(1997) detailed various reasons that running became popular on a broader scale in the United
States. Specifically, he believed that the 1972 success of Olympic Marathon gold medalist,
American Frank Shorter, ushered in the “start of a national running boom.” Further, women were first allowed to compete in the 1500 meter race at the 1972 Munich Olympics (Smith, 2007) and quickly gained a new superstar in Mary Decker (Voepel, 2013). Other women played a huge role in the movement toward equality including Kathrine Switzer who in 1967 triumphantly defied
2 the rules of the Boston Marathon by entering under the name “K.V. Switzer” (Switzer, 2013) and later went on to win the New York City Marathon in 1974 (James, 2009). These actions and triumphs opened up the door for the introduction of women into the recreational running world and were a part of the overall boom of running.
At the same time, Frank Shorter’s friend and popular runner, Steve Prefontaine, was helping to create a following that included many aspiring runners (Running the Highlands,
2008). Prefontaine was immensely important as the face of running in the United States (Nike
Inc, 2013), because his coach at the University of Oregon, Bill Bowerman, was the inventive force behind global shoe company, Nike. Although Bowerman originally started making shoes on a small scale in the 1950s, he entered into a business partnership with one of his former runners, Phil Knight, in 1964 (Nike Inc, 2013). The two formed Blue Ribbon Sports, but were busy working full time – Bowerman as a coach at Oregon and Knight as a financial advisor in
Portland – so they hired Jeff Johnson to help start the company. Although the company floundered for the first six years, it had the opportunity to flourish in 1972 when the University of Oregon hosted the U.S. Track and Field Trials (Nike Inc., 2013).
Just before the trials, Bowerman designed the waffle bottom to the running shoe for traction and the company reinvented itself as BRS with a new Nike line that featured a “swoosh” on the outside of the shoe (Nike Inc., 2013). Nike needed a person to market the shoe behind and
Steve Prefontaine became that man. Prefontaine became well known because of his never having lost a race in Oregon during his college career and his fourth place finish in the 5,000 meters at the 1972 Munich Olympics. He was also the first athlete spokesperson for Nike and his popularity grew worldwide (Nike Inc., 2013). Even after his death in 1975, his legacy lived on and he remained the face of Nike running.
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Nike and the growing shoe industry was paramount to the rise of running globally. BBC
Sport (2013) explained:
Introduced in 1979, Nike Air was the first trainer to incorporate an air bubble into
the heel of the shoe. Its [sic] phenomenal success led Nike’s rivals to develop
cushioned heels of their own, and the likes of Reebok, Asics and Brooks joined
the race to find the ultimate in footwear cushioning. Today, competition amongst
sportswear companies is more intense than ever – and fashion is just as important
as sporting performance. Athletes are sponsored, events are laid on and fortunes
are spent on advertising.
The various shoe companies’ influence on running as a cultural practice helped grow the sport through large marketing campaigns similar to Nike’s. This growth was evidenced by the fact that the New York City Marathon went from fifty-five participants in its inaugural race to nine thousand just eight years later (Bakken, 2007). Road races and walks of varying distances – including 5 kilometer, 10 kilometer, half marathons, and full marathons – began to rise in number and participants with four million Americans participating in road races in 1976
(Jabbour, 1997). Seeing this increase of road race participants, charity organizations saw the opportunity to join together with races in an attempt to raise money (Hamilton, 2013).
Although the Susan G. Komen Foundation for breast cancer awareness held its first road race and walk, The Race for the Cure, in 1983 with 800 Dallas residents participating, the Live
Aid event was the first one held internationally on a wide scale and intended for a broad audience. Webster (2013) stated that the event brought in $100 million from sporting activities held in 78 countries and 274 cities. In those cities 20 million participants came together for a single cause. Additionally, television viewers witnessed the public display of affection toward
4 those in need as almost half of the money raised came from broadcasters who televised the worldwide event for two hours reaching 750 million people worldwide. The success of Live Aid gave those seeking to gain more funding for their non-profit organization a reason to partner with running races.
The first charity to implement this strategy of partnering with established races and having fundraisers run or walk for a cause was the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, when it started its program Team in Training (Hamilton, 2013). These initiatives have been highly successful in raising money for causes. As Hamilton (2013) explains:
The rise in cause running isn’t surprising. Since the Leukemia & Lymphoma
Society launched Team In Training in 1988, race-charity partnerships have been
wildly successful. Running USA estimates that U.S. road races pulled in $1.2
billion for nonprofit organizations in 2012, more than double the amount from a
decade ago.
And, that is just the estimates in the United States. Macmillan Cancer Support in the United
Kingdom raised £3.5 million through running races alone in 2009 (Macmillan Cancer Support,
2013). Hamilton further relayed that:
The Run Walk Ride report identifies the top 30 running, walking, cycling and
other fitness-related events that earned a $1 million or more. In 2012, the top 30
programs grossed $1.68 billion, a 1.3% decline from 2011. But remove Susan G.
Komen 3-Day for the Cure from the equation—Komen suffered a backlash after
announcing funding cuts to Planned Parenthood—and the remaining 29 groups
showed a weak, but positive .3% increase.
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With the obvious growth in fundraising potential it should be of little surprise that charities continue to become involved in raising money through sport and particularly road races. One cause that has more recently become involved with raising money through races is the cause of bringing clean drinking water to people in need.
1.2 Water
Water in its purest form rests naturally in streams, ponds, lakes, rivers, and oceans as a vessel for sustaining human existence. Water is the catalyst for agriculture, utilized in electricity, and manufacturing of most goods and apparel (Take Part, 2012a). Simply put, without water humans, animals, and plants would perish. It seems fairly intuitive, then, to presume water, as the resource sustaining life itself, should be accessible for all. Yet, this simple act of consuming water has historically been problematic in terms of social division and regional accessibility to clean water. This can partially be attributed to the fact that resources are inherently distributed unequally across locations. Yet, water is both similar and dissimilar to other naturally occurring entities such as land. Similarly, water is unequally distributed naturally by rivers and waterway, deserts and mountains. For example, the Northeastern part of the United States has more water sources than the deserts of the Southwestern United States. Water in this regard acts like land:
The use values in and on the land are ‘free gifts of Nature’, and vary greatly as to their
quantity and quality…Relative surplus value (excess profits) can accrue to capitalists
with access to use value of superior quality – easily mined mineral resources, powerful
‘forces of nature’ or land of superior natural fertility (Harvey, 2006, p. 335)
Dissimilarly to land or most other natural resources, water is not alienable and monopolizable or easily distinguishable as private property (Harvey, 2006). Water and air hold the supreme order over other natural resources in this regard as both are inherently necessary for life and difficult to
6 distinguish as private property. Yet, air comes to people naturally (though we can certainly debate the degrees to which it is polluted in major cities around the world), whereas water must be processed and brought to individuals. Thus, there is a market surrounding water as something to be bottled and sold.
Today, it is estimated by the International Bottled Water Association (2013) that U.S. water utilities supply 1 billion gallons of water per hour per day. Further, the bottled water industry in the United States produces more than $10 billion annually in sales revenue.
Additionally, more than 10 gallons per hour is utilized to run an individual’s household appliances and 39,090 gallons are needed to build the average automobile (Take Part, 2012a).
Through these statistics, it is apparent that water in the United States and other developed countries is consumed in massive amounts by both private and public sources. Now juxtapose this high access and high usage rate with those in developing countries. Water in those countries is often contaminated, leading to diseases and a majority of the individual’s day being spent walking to water sources that are predominately contaminated (Charity: Water, 2012a). The lack of clean drinking water in various places globally has resulted in what has been termed a “water crisis” – a crisis which has produced an entirely different market.
If one were to perform a Google search for “water crisis” he or she would receive approximately 3,150,0002 search results. The inquisitive individual could click on the Google link for Charity:Water, A Glimmer of Hope, Take Part, Water for People; it does not matter which one because all of them will tell the searcher that one billion people in the world go without safe, clean drinking water every single day. There is always something that the individual can do about the problem; he or she could take a shorter shower; abstain from
2 As of January 2013. 7 watering the lawn; drink fewer manufactured beverages. Websites will also vary on their proposed solutions: water could be privatized with multinational corporations or governments selling it as a commodity; the water problem should be met with increasing interest from outside governments, corporations, and non-profits; or water should be a human right available to all without the intervention of multinational groups. In summation, there is talk of a crisis, there are a number of things that YOU can do about it, and there is no consensus on how to fix the
“problem” or if water is a human right. The conversation occurs thusly3:
Seth Maxwell (Thirst Project) Guys, you have no idea what’s going on in the
world (Take Part, 2012a)
Kristen Bell (Actress) There is a water crisis in our world; seriously, a
crisis (Charity: Water, 2012a)
Last Call at the Oasis (Film) The global water crisis will be the central issue
facing our world this century (Take Part,
2012b)
Merriam-Webster Dictionary Crisis – an unstable or crucial time or state of
affairs in which a decisive change is impending
(Merriam-Webster.com, 2012)
Malcolm Newson (Author) For 20 years now ‘crisis’ over environmental
3 The performative text in the pages that follow “fictionalizes” a conversation about the current water crisis through the actual voices of prominent figures in the current water discourse. The performative text itself follows the examples of Denzin (2007) and Giardina (2009). When warranted, I, as narrator, include my own reflections on the present. All quotes are taken directly from writing or transcribed directly from video and are referenced appropriately both in text and in the reference list. 8
issues have been presented by well-intentioned
activists and organisations promoting the
changes needed to bring about sustainable
development. Possibly no other ‘crisis’ has
received such widespread endorsement as the
‘world water crisis’ (Newson, 2009, p. 17)
Jessica Biel (Actress) Like most of us, water is not something I’ve
thought about through most of my life – it’s
just an ordinary part of an ordinary day. You
turn on the faucet or get in the shower and it’s
there. Then the severity of the global water
crisis became apparent, and the reality was
startling. I’m changing the way I live because
this isn’t a problem for ‘them’ or for ‘those.’
It’s a problem for ‘us’ and ‘we’ (Lipka, 2009)
Last Call at the Oasis Americans use 99 million gallons of water per
person, per day (Take Part, 2012b)
Erin Brockovich (Environmental Activist) We take for granted what happens in other
parts of the world and we always think that
never can be me. It already is you
(Movieclipstrailers, 2012)
Scott Harrison (Charity: Water) 5 years ago we learned that a billion people in
the world live without something they needed,
9
something basic, something we took for
granted – water (Charity: Water, 2012b)
Muhtar Kent (CEO Coca-Cola Company) Today, Charlie, one out of six people in the
world lack access to clean drinking water.
Imagine that – seven billion people, one out of
six lack access to clean drinking water, today.
By 2025, two-thirds, roughly, of the world will
have some issue in terms of accessing clean
water (BloombergTV, 2012)
Don Hinrichson (People & the Planet) In 2025, 48 countries containing about 3 billion
people will face water shortages. By 2050 the
figures will be 54 countries containing 4 billion
people, or 40 per cent of the projected world
population of 9.4 billion (Hinrichson, 2012)
Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland (Interaction The most important problems are all
Council) well-known. These include, inter alia: a rapidly
growing population with associated changes in
lifestyle and consumption patterns; competition
between sectors, such as industry, agriculture
and energy for precious land and water
resources; inadequate access to water supply
and sanitation services for what is now
becoming known as the ‘bottom billion’ on
10
this planet; the failure to adequately address the
issue of indigenous water rights and include
marginalized populations in water decision-
making processes; matters related to
environmental protection; and, growing tension
over transboundary water issues (Bigas,
Morris, Sandford, & Adeel, 2012, p. xi)
Narrator to Self So, what happens to people who do not have
water?
Scott Harrison (Founder Charity: Water) Women walked miles to muddy holes in the
ground, while children shared dirty water with
cows and wild animals (Charity: Water, 2012b)
Kristin Bell (Actress) Some families know their water is
contaminated with bacteria that cause diarrhea,
dehydration, or even death. But, what choice
do they have? (Charity: Water, 2012a)
Jill McGivering (BBC) Dams divert water… Wells have started to run
dry… In overcrowded cities, water is so
precious it’s spawned a thriving black market
as clashes breakout between those with water
and those with thirst… Water is pumped from
under the slums to the more affluent
neighborhoods. So children create leaks in the
11
pipes and water gets contaminated…
Sometimes there is not water for 3 to 4 days
(Aoflex, 2012)
Egyptian Protestor Chant (Translated) We get water or we die! (The Real News,
2012)
Water, the World Water Crisis (Short Film) Our bodies are made of up to 60% water. All
living things contain it and like us depend on it
for survival… 97% of the water on Earth is
saltwater, 2% is frozen, and only 1% is
freshwater (Illustrate-Ideas, 2012)
Water, the World Water Crisis (Short Film) Every 20 seconds a child dies from a water
related illness like diarrhea (Illustrate-Ideas,
2012)
Last Call at the Oasis We can manage this problem, but only if we
are willing to act now (Take Part, 2012b)
Live Earth (Charity) The water crisis can be solved through
increased awareness, water conservation efforts
and investment in sustainable, scalable and
replicable water projects (Live Earth, 2010)
Water For People (Charity) We can’t eradicate water poverty alone.
Everyone will form a platform for a collective
solution (Water for People, 2012)
TeamAlexander (A Glimmer of Hope) There are lots of needs around the world, but
12
this is where we’re choosing to help make a
difference and we are hoping that you will do
the same with us (TeamAlexander, 2012)
Scott Harrison (Founder Charity: Water) We asked for your help and you responded…
You did incredible things to raise money. You
biked, you ran, you walked across America,
you skated and surfed, you sang and you
danced (Charity: Water, 2012b).
Laure-Helene Piron & Tammie O’Neil (On Donor Policy) The trend is clear: both
(Overseas Development Institute) bilateral and multilateral agencies have adopted
or are in the process of adopting or refining
human rights and development policies. With
regards to bilaterals, a first wave of foreign
policy statements in the 1990s was often later
complemented by aid agency-specific
documents on human rights and development.
A shared characteristic has been an emphasis
on the ‘positive measures’ that donors can
support through financial or technical
assistance and dialogue so as to promote the
realization of human rights in partner countries
(Piron & O’Neil, 2005)
BluePlanetProject.net Water is precious and sustains all life on earth.
13
Access to water is a fundamental human right
(Blue Planet Project, 2012)
World Water Day The United Nations General Assembly
declared access to clean drinking water and
sanitation as a human right on 28 July 2010.
Access to safe and sufficient water is a human
right under international law, and under some
national constitutions (UN World Water Day,
2012)
Anonymous United Nations Speaker Just one perspective of this issue of rights;
There’s a difference between a right and an
aspiration. The world and citizens have
aspirations to good quality water, but a right
implies that you have a claim that someone is
obliged to provide that true food and that there
is an authority which can back up that
claim…Rapping (sic) it up into a right takes it
to a dimension where we don’t have the means
to produce it then we are asking for trouble
(Frankie Gotz, 2012)
Professor Bruce Pardy The Logic is simple: People need clean water
to live, therefore they should be guaranteed and
provided an adequate supply. The problem is,
14
in my opinion, it doesn’t work if you consider
the causes of water problems today: pollution,
depletion, corruption, conflict of interest,
monopoly, miss management, lack of
financing, and the unfortunate reality that in
some places, in some countries there simply
isn’t enough water…Which of those causes
does the human right to water fix? The human
right to water, as great as it sounds has the
potential to make things worse. And, that is
because it creates on governments the
obligation to provide things in a scenario where
there isn’t much of it to start with (Frankie
Gotz, 2012).
Narrator to Self So, water should not be expected and the
people of a nation should not control it and
have free access to it? Who should control it,
then?
T. Boone Pickens, Chairman, BP Capital Why should I store water for nothing? You
Management have an asset here, but it’s a dead asset until
you create a market for it… Water is the new
oil! (Prud’Homme, 2011, p. 262)
Karen Bakker, Ph.D. Water supply privatization was emblematic of
15
the neoliberal turn in development policy in the
1990s. Proponents argued that the private
sector could provide better services at lower
costs than governments; opponents questioned
the risks involved in delegating control over a
life-sustaining resource to for-profit companies
(Bakker, 2010)
Future Money Trends The Colorado River is being run dry by filling
the pools in Las Vegas… Of course we can’t
help but comment on how it is government that
essentially planned for people to live in the
middle of nowhere, to live in deserts. If a free
market would have reigned, we would see a
much more practical living condition with very
little living in the middle of the desert… In
some places in Africa, so much water has been
pulled out of the ecosystem in order to bottle it
and send it around the world that some towns
have become deserts (Vision Victory, 2011)
Egyptian Lady (Translated) Why is it like this? Why? We’re tired, we’re so
tired (The Real News, 2012)
16
1.3 Water Charity
The prospective resolutions to the water scarcity have been typically founded in an argument between public versus private control of water (Bakker, 2010). However, these arguments fall short in providing sustainable answers, which often leads to problems with policy, governmental failures, ecological setbacks, and private corporations taking advantage of the disadvantaged. To this end of solving the issues inherent with supplying clean drinking water to all citizens, myriad academicians have noted the importance of the growing water crisis and have proposed various remedies including: privatizing water (Frankie Gotz, 2012); government run water/water democracy (Shiva, 2002); ecological moralism (Clayton & Opotow, 1996); and water for the commons (Bakker, 2007). However, as Bakker (2010) explained, each of these instances in practice has brought their share of problems – either failing to help the human body in need or not having enough (popular or political) support to accomplish the goals of supplying clean drinking water. This context has provided a space for the introduction of the water charity.
In this project, water charities are defined as entities that exist for the purpose of raising funds to provide clean drinking water to those in developing countries. The funds raised often are appropriated to projects that range from digging wells to implementing new piping systems.
These water charities are headquartered in and seek support from individuals in the Global North in an effort to support those in the Global South4. Although charitable arms of groups such as the
United Nations, International Monetary Fund (IMF), and World Bank exist, they do so with an
4 In this project, the Global South is considered to be those countries distinguished by the United Nations General Assembly in 1971 as “developing.” In 1977 those countries made up the G-77, which now consists of 131 countries. The 131 countries are determined to be economically vulnerable, have a low income, and weak human assets. The Global North is defined as the nation-states generally considered to be “developed” (i.e. falling above the United Nations distinguished guidelines). For more see the official website for the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development found at UNCTAD.org. 17 emphasis on private contributions and away from government aid (King, 2000/2008). As governments have shifted focus away from providing aid and toward depending more on non- profit entities, the amount of water charities has risen. According to Water for the Ages (2013), more than 45 water charities operate in two or more developing countries. Some water charities
(e.g. Team World Vision, A Glimmer of Hope, Life Water, etc.) have religious ties to their organization and operate on a more grassroots level while other water charities (e.g., Charity:
Water, Pump Aid, UN Water, etc.) closely align themselves with corporate sponsorship and develop large social media programs designed to most effectively reach a target audience of potential charity contributors5. Regardless of whether the water charity is religiously affiliated or chooses to rely heavily on corporate involvement, both types of water charities are built upon the idea of social marketing. The idea of social marketing has consistently been attributed to Wiebe
(1951-1952), who believed that brotherhood could be sold in a similar fashion to the selling of soap – the original idea being that one could market good deeds enacting change for the betterment of society. The term social marketing was first introduced by Kotler and Levy (1969) and has gone through numerous growing pains as a field of study largely because of a lack of definition as to the purpose of the social marketing endeavor (Andreasen, 2003) and the fact that the political economic structure of society has been altered greatly since the first iterations of social marketing theory. Throughout the various definitions of social marketing, the emphasis has consistently been on behavioral change. Kotler and Lee (2009) suggested that “the purpose of social marketing is to develop constructive approaches to support desired behavior changes”
5 Corporate donors to these water charities include beverage manufacturers (e.g. Coca-Cola, Pepsi, etc.), equity firms (Select Equity Group, Knight Capital), engineering corporations (CH2MHill, CDM Smith, etc.), and Internet and technology corporations (Google, Cisco Systems, etc.), among others. 18
(p. 48). However, with water charities, numerous entities are involved, leading to the question of whose behavior needs to be changed and to whose benefit?
Kotler and Lee (2009) suggested that social marketing groups take a multi-layered approach to behavioral change and solving perceived social issues. Heeding the suggestion of
Kotler and Lee, water charities today predominately take a multi-layered approach, meaning that they are comprised of a joint venture between non-profit organizations, multinational corporations, and local governments working together as a social marketing group. Working together as a social marketing consortium, such groups meet one another’s needs while simultaneously working to solve a perceived issue or issues. Yet, the desired behavioral change might not be the same for all entities within the social marketing syndicate.
The corporation may be involved from a corporate social responsibility (CSR) perspective, where it is the philosophical goal of a corporation to attend to social needs beyond simply profit maximization that might lead to an increase in corporate reputation among consumers (Carroll, 1979). Further, the corporation might be involved through cause-related marketing (CRM), which “seeks overtly to link the buying public’s positive attitudes towards nonprofit organisations with the image of the sponsoring company or brand” (Bennett & Sargent,
2005, p. 798). Relatedly, CRM could lead to an increase in profit based upon merchandise sold with a particular logo of the charity. This was witnessed with the success of corporations such as
GAP Inc. and Motorola teaming with The (RED) Campaign by selling red products with (RED) logos (Giardina, 2010; Kotler & Lee, 2009). Thus, the behavioral change for the involved corporate provider will be a behavioral change for the consumer or potential consumer of their product. Conversely, the focus of behavioral change sought by the non-profit, local community, and government presumably would be on the change in the individual benefitting from the
19 implemented program (Kotler & Lee, 2009). Regardless of the viewpoint of each individual entity within the consortium, in order to receive donations and introduce initiatives to a large number of potential consumers, social marketing conglomerates must seek avenues that offer expanded consumer basis.
One of those avenues is sport.
Today, numerous organizations have become involved with raising money for water through various sporting events. For example, Team World Vision engages with teams of people running various marathons and half marathons including, but not limited to, The 2013 Allstate
New York City Half Marathon, and The Bank of America Chicago Marathon. These teams come together to raise money for World Vision by providing money themselves and asking for donations (World Vision, 2012). Team Living Water International works in a similar way by participating in events such as The Chevron Houston Marathon, the Go! St. Louis Marathon and
Half Marathon, and Bolder Boulder (Team Living Water International, 2012). Or, one can start his or her own MyCharity:Water project to run, bike, kayak, or many other sporting options
(MyCharityWater.org, 2012). These are just a few examples of the many organizations utilizing similar tactics. Although the various water charities provide video evidence that people in need are being served by donators money, it becomes less clear what the relationship between the sporting body, the water charity, and the body in need means in terms of the treatment of the human body and who is privileged in these relationships. As citizens come to consider these water charities as possible answers for the global water crisis, it is important that both the potentiality and problems of sport as a source of production and reproduction of money, body modalities, accumulation of capital, and creation of social relationships are considered. Further, it is imperative that academicians and policy makers start to understand whose interest is served
20 by social marketing conglomerates because, as Bakker (2007) stated, “significant differences exist between the public utility, commercial, and community governance models, despite the fact that these models overlap to some degree in practice” (p. 444). This requires that researchers take a more critical look into the utilization of the sporting body as a space for monetary accumulation than has generally been done heretofore.
Sport has been lauded for its potential to serve as a platform through which social change can be enacted (Kaufman & Wolff, 2010), as well as demonized for its ability to act as a catalyst for social division, control, and power (Brohm, 1978). Yet, scant literature has been produced evaluating the role of social marketing in sport (Naylor, 2012). The sport management scholars who have examined aspects of social marketing have focused on corporate or team reputation through CSR activities. Those inquiring into CSR initiatives have examined why teams and leagues participate (e.g. Babiak, 2010; Babiak & Wolfe, 2009) and reputational outcomes for the participating team or corporation (e.g. Walker & Kent, 2009). Studies focusing on CSR have lacked the holistic approach of looking at the impact of the initiatives outside of possible financial gain such as the potential for development through these initiatives. Still others have examined development through sport and the possible outcomes from the perspective of developing the individual (e.g. Danish, Taylor, & Fazio, 2003; Humphrey, 2003), the economy
(e.g. Baade, 1996; Baade & Dye, 1990; Coates & Humphreys, 2008), consumer bases (e.g.
Giardina, 2010), peace (e.g. Darnell, 2010; Kidd, 2008; Wilson, 2012), and charities (e.g. King,
2000, 2008). However, this relatively nascent field of inquiry has yet to examine the utilization of sport for gathering donations toward the funding of water charities. Further, evaluating how the body in need in videos and texts made by water charities is presented to the consuming
21 sporting body of the Global North and the outcomes of this relationship has not been considered when discussing water.
In this project, I seek to understand the water charity as it sits within the current political economic climate. To this end, I placed myself within the process of funding water charities as a co-embodied researcher (Giardina & Newman, 2011) by: 1) engaging in a descriptive content analysis of videos, pictures, and textual materials from Charity: Water’s websites depicting the human body both as “in need” and as disciplined subject in order to provide background understanding of the fundraising of a water charity that does not engage in actively implementing programs the organization raises money for; 2) interviewing participants in the ING Miami
Marathon who raised money for a water charity with religious ties while also helping and interviewing the three organizers of the water charity fundraising effort; 3) physically training for, interviewing organizers volunteering for, and participating in the Sport for Water Society6 half marathon while raising money for London Water Charity (a water charity with a corporate focus); and 4) traveling to London for a period of eight weeks to work for a water charity (and interact with its employees) that works closely with corporations. The multiple locations utilized in this ethnography are important for understanding the dynamics of water charity as malleable across the Global North. The run in Miami was chosen for this project because the water charity that organizes the Miami team was willing to talk with the researcher and fit the criteria of the religious affiliated water charity the researcher was interested in speaking with. The Sport for
Water event was chosen because it is a sporting event specifically oriented towards helping those in developing countries obtain clean drinking water and does not directly implement any of the services for which it provides funding. London was chosen because the organization was willing
6 All names in reference to organizations I worked with are anonymized. Additionally, all names have been anonymized. 22 to allow me to volunteer for them over the summer7 and work as a consultant contacting various sporting events in an effort to create symbiotic relationships. All of the sites were chosen in an effort to appropriately recognize that water charities are not confined simply to the United States, but are present across the Global North. By physically entering into the research space, I utilized my (researcher) body to understand the process of how the individual receives the message of the water charity through a descriptive content analysis of Charity: Water websites, how the running events are organized through ethnography and interviews, the way the body is disciplined during the process of training for an event and fundraising through (auto)ethnography and interviews, and how the water charities are organized and operate in an effort to raise and appropriate funds through ethnography and interviews.
1.4 Purpose of Study and Research Questions
The overarching goal of this project is to understand the communicative and management processes within international water charities and development through sport initiatives instituted by the water charities. These communicative and management processes include the video, text, and other material documents (i.e. portable document files, handouts, posters, replicate water jugs, etc.) associated with presenting the individual in need; the video, text and other material documents associated with the presenting the role of the volunteer – particularly the sporting volunteer; the educational initiatives instituted by water charities to educate the volunteer; the
7 It is important to note that I spoke with many water charities in the United States about the possibility of working with them. I would provide the information about my study to the water charity and indicate that I would like to volunteer in any capacity I could help. Most water charity representatives were dismissive of my attempts to work in conjunction with their organization. An example of the response one charity follows: “Thanks for reaching out to us! We receive tons of requests like this for informational interviews and project help. Unfortunately, between the small size of our staff and the large volume of work that we have bringing clean water to individuals in 20 countries, we simply don’t have the capacity to help with requests of this kind.” 23 sporting and volunteering body as communicative; the communication of water charities both internally and externally; and, the communication of water crisis more generally. To understand these communicative and management processes as they exist, during this interpretive
(auto)ethnography, I attempt to respond to the following guiding questions:
1.4.1 Production of water crisis
RQ1. In the videos, written texts, and portable document files (PDFs) released on water charity
websites, in what ways is the body in need depicted to the viewer?
RQ2. In the videos, written texts, and portable document files (PDFs) released on water charity
websites, how is the idea of volunteering presented to viewers?
RQ3. In the opinion of the Team Water Charity organizers, the Sport for Water Society board
members, and employees of the London Water Charity, what is taken into consideration
when spreading the message of those in need?
1.4.2 Development through Sport
RQ4. According to water charity organizers with Team Water Charity and Sport for Water
Society, why do water charities utilize sport for development of water systems in
underdeveloped nations?
RQ5. According to individuals participating in water charity sport events with Team Water
Charity and Sport for Water Society, why does he or she choose to participate in a
sporting event specifically oriented toward water?
RQ6. Do individuals raising money for Team Water Charity and Sport for Water Society
through their own physical activities believe that utilizing their body makes them feel
more connected to the individuals in need than just donating money?
24
RQ7. Considering the work of scholars such as Marx, who considers the productive and
(re)productive capacities of the human body in commodity development and exchange,
and scholars such as Markula, who understand the body as productive and (re)productive
in social capacities, through my own training and interviews with participants of the races
in Miami and Vancouver, in what way can I theoretically understand the volunteer body
as (re)productive?
1.4.3 Controlling Water
RQ8. In the opinion of the sport participants I interview, who should control water in
developing countries?
RQ9. In the opinion of the organizers of the water charities I work with, who should control
water in developing countries?
1.4.4 Organization of Water Charities
RQ10. To what extent do organizers of the water charities I work with interact with other non-
profits, event organizers, volunteers, governments, and corporations?
RQ11. What type of corporation donates to water charities?
RQ12. How do the Sport for Water Society and London Water Charity decide what corporations
to work with?
RQ13. In the opinion of the organizers with the Sport for Water Society, what are the benefits of
this race and the education material provided before and during the race to the
community of the suburban town, outside of economic gain?
25
1.5 Limitations
The problems surrounding the infrastructure and lack of clean drinking water in developing countries have resulted in a number of solutions presented by numerous water charities, vested water privatization corporations (e.g. RWE Thames), multinational organizations (e.g. United Nations, International Monetary Fund, World Bank, etc.), and scholars
(i.e. Bakker, Glennon, Shiva). This complex relationship between people in developing nations, clean drinking water, and those proposing solutions to the lack of access to clean drinking water would best be answered by undertaking a research study able to appropriately evaluate solutions proposed by water charities, water privatization corporations, multinational organizations, and scholars; has unlimited funding; has unfettered access to corporations, water charities, and the people in need; and could be conducted over the span of decades. Unfortunately, this research project is limited by the inability of the researcher to secure the best possible scenario for responding to the water crisis in developing nations.
First, the researcher has chosen to focus on water charities instead of other solution providing entities. Water charities were chosen as the focus because of the amount of money raised by water charities on a yearly basis8. Furthermore, water charities utilize sport to raise money, which is one of the primary aspects of the current project. Although the researcher believes the reasons for choosing water charities are founded in rational decisions as water charities appear to be the most popular way to provide aid given the current political economic background, focusing on water charities fails to respond to other possible solutions.
Second, this project is limited by a lack of funding and time, which could allow for a more in depth study across the multiple sites of inquiry. Because water charities utilize the entire
8 Charity: Water alone raised more than $17 million in 2011. See more from their annual report available at http://www.charitywater.org/annual-report/11/our-work/. 26
Global North to raise funds through multiple events and social media, the multiple sites are important for the project in terms of recognizing the dynamics between the different places in the
Global North and the interaction with the Global South. However, the mobility and restricted timeline of the project lends itself to scrutiny due to the fact that many researchers would recommend occupying all of these sites for months at a time (Falzon, 2009). Utilizing multi-sited ethnography (Marcus, 1996) to show that spatial distance matters due to the vastness of water charities operating in all part of the Global North and South, hopefully minimizes some of the critique as an in-depth analysis at one site would fail to appropriately address the dynamics of fundraising for water charities as a global endeavor.
Finally, obtaining access to water charities and the organizations supporting water charities was extremely difficult. Having only four water charities willing to speak with the researcher could lead to research findings that do not represent the vast array of water charities.
Further, I was not able to secure audience with corporations (i.e., their representatives) themselves. Therefore, the findings are relegated only to the non-profit entities within the social marketing conglomerate.
1.6 Chapters in the Dissertation
1.6.1 Chapter Two: A Brief History of Water
Chapters two through five serve as a background for the overall study. In these chapters, I provide a brief history of water – specifically, focusing on water as a product and producer of historical social divisions, introduce the key theories that underpin the analysis, present the methodologies to be utilized in the study, and present a descriptive content analysis of Charity:
Water that served to direct my study and was my first encounter with water charities as well as the driving force of my overall interest in studying this subject.
27
In the second chapter of the dissertation I provide a brief yet focused history of water in society. I begin by evaluating how water has been a site of contestation from the days of the
Roman Empire, through the Middle Ages, into the colonial period, and finally in present.
Through this, I begin to unfold the intricate differences in societies that have led to the current era of privatization and water charities.
1.6.2 Chapter Three: Theorizing Water Charity
In order to put the history of (contested) water into perspective as it sits today, I turn to a descriptive analysis of the political economic policies which lead us to the historical present.
Particularly, I focus on the times of the Industrial Revolution of the mid-19th century in Western
Europe and the United States until today. This is the focus of my literature review because this period has led most directly to the free market ideologies today that undergird all discussions of water and the impending water crisis. In order to appropriately address water and water charities in the context of the current political and economic climate, I theorize the political economy of water. From the initial introduction of political economics, I outline the history of political economics to the neoliberal practices of today utilizing the work of Giroux (2002), who suggested that neoliberalism:
refers to a political, economic, and cultural formation that construes profit making as the
essence of democracy and consuming as the only operable form of citizenship and
provides a rationale for a handful of private interests to control as much of social life as
possible in order to maximize their personal gain and profit (p. 2)
In this vein, I turn to a discussion of how political administrations and economic ideologies of the Global North came to follow neoliberalism and how neoliberalism works today. From this free market discussion, I trouble the role of the water charity as a social marketing conglomerate,
28 utilizing Harvey’s (2006) and Marx’s (1976) understanding of exchange to suggest that compromise might be paradoxical in the neoliberal era. By critically evaluating the history of social marketing from its foundation by Kotler and Levy (1969) to its present-day iterations, I attempt to provide an understanding for how it has become the dominant source of aid within society. In so doing, I provide a brief overview of the neoliberal switch from the role of the government being to provide aid and support to individuals to the role of the government to shrink itself so individuals can provide aid in whatever means necessary. The social marketing portion is completed by interrogating the discourse of the good American citizen as one who provides aid. The examination of the ‘good American citizen’ takes a natural progression into talking about development through sport historically and how sport has become a site for social marketing groups to produce money for aid. Further, I evaluate how the Global North sporting body gets privileged through its ability to be disciplined, and how bodies in need come to be perceived as abject9. I conclude this chapter by summarizing how neoliberalism, the body, and social marketing groups come together in relation to the project at hand and the theories I intend to incorporate while conducting my research in the United States and abroad.
1.6.3 Chapter Four: Methodology
In this project, I take an ethnographic approach to acquire first-hand insights into the events surrounding how social marketing conglomerates acquire resources for water for the
9 Abject is defined as, “1. utterly hopeless, miserable, humiliating, or wretched: abject poverty. 2. contemptible; despicable; base-spirited: an abject coward. 3.shamelessly servile; slavish. 4. Obsolete 5. cast aside.” (Dictionary.com, 2013). Further, I utilize Julia Kristeva’s (1982) ideas as outlined in her book Power of Horror: An Essay on Abjection, to inform my understanding of the abject and abjection that I utilize throughout this project. In her project, she details the deep social and cultural mechanisms of abjection as related to Mary Douglas’ work on defilement. Defilement is “what escapes that social rationality, that logical order on which a social aggregate is based, which then becomes differentiated from a temporary agglomeration of individuals and, in short, constitutes a classification system or a structure” (Kristeva, 1982, p. 65, emphasis in original). Simply, the abject is that which is jettisoned from the social world as a cast off. 29 human body in need, and how the sporting body is mobilized. Put simply, an ethnography is traditionally conceived of as “a form of qualitative research focused on discovering and describing the culture of a group of people” (Johnson & Christianson, 2010, p. 48). This we might understand as the method used in such classic texts as Whyte’s (1943) Street Corner
Society and DuBois’s (1899/2010) The Philadelphia Negro—what has come to be referred to as modern realist ethnography. However, and recognizing the interpretive turn away from such positivist-oriented texts, my project deploys what Denzin (1997) refers to as interpretive ethnography. Interpretive ethnography is important in this project, because, as Denzin (1997) detailed, it:
Reminds us that a theory of the social is also a theory of writing. A theory of writing is
also a theory of interpretive (ethnographic) work. Theory, writing, and ethnography are
inseparable material practices. Together they create the conditions that locate the social
inside the text. Hence, those who write culture also write theory. Also, those who write
theory write culture (p. xii)
I take a particular interest in the discourse surrounding the water crisis because “in discourse, cultural values are enacted and social structures come alive” (Denzin, 1997, p. 38). As a project that consists of attempting to understand the intersecting vectors of Global North political economics, volunteer culture, and the culture of the organizations that provide aid to those in need, interpretive ethnography best allows me as the researcher to make sense of the disjuncture and connections between the various parties involved in social marketing as it relates to clean drinking water.
Following the suggestion by Denzin (1997) that the researcher experience and self- reflexively conduct research on cultural practices, in this interpretive ethnography I recognizes
30 that while research is never neutral (and as Giroux [2001] proclaims, all researchers have bias) the researcher can still be ethical in his or her research. The project consisted of three levels of analysis following the suggestion by Denzin (1997) that researchers include text as well as experiencing research and the recommendation of Andrews (2012) who:
Point(s) to multimethod approaches for engaging the empirical (including ethnography
and autoethnography, participant observation, discourse and media analysis, and
contextual analysis) and how PCS might advance an equally fluid theoretical vocabulary,
utilizing concepts and theories from a variety of disciplines (including cultural studies,
economics, history, media studies, philosophy, sociology, and urban studies) in engaging
and interpreting the particular aspect of physical culture under scrutiny (p. 6)
More specifically, within this interpretive ethnography (Denzin, 1997), I first conducted a descriptive content analysis of Charity: Water’s website to closely evaluate the production of the body in need, and how the sporting body is sutured into that discourse. Second, I utilized a mixture of semi-structured interviews (Creswell, 2007) and interpretive (or “performative”) interviews (Denzin, 2003) as part of the study at sporting events in both the United States and overseas. The semi-structured interview allows the researcher to ask key questions, while prying deeper into interesting or important responses (Creswell, 2007). However, as I did not want to perpetuate the necessary power relations of my very being as a white male research in the field, I turned toward a more reflexive interview, which allows the researcher to co-create the narrative with the participant as opposed to structured or semi-structured interviews which may further manifest relations of power for the interviewer (Denzin, 2001). Finally, I incorporated critical ethnography (Giardina & Newman, 2011) while ‘on the ground’, allowing for self-reflexivity of
31 myself as researcher and individual as one in the same to better understand my own space within the complex structures of power.
1.6.4 Chapter Five: Charity: Water’s (Re)Production of Crisis
Chapter five is intended to provide background and contextualization to the project at hand; or, put simply, the purpose of the chapter is to be descriptive (rather than necessarily analytic). Further, what is depicted provides insight into my initial interactions with water charity. In this chapter, I present a case study of Charity: Water—specifically, via descriptive content analysis. Content analysis is utilized to provide a “detailed examination of a single unit”
(Flyvbjerg, 2011, p. 301) and the examination of “critical cases” (Flyvbjerg, 2011, p. 307).
Charity: Water was chosen as the critical case because it is a well-known water charity with the highest possible Charity Navigator rating that does not directly implement the solutions for which it raises money (Charity Navigator, 2013). Specifically, in this descriptive content analysis, I sought to begin to uncover and contextualize how the mediation of water as a human
“need” – separate from a human right. To this end, I focus this chapter specifically on Charity:
Water’s official website videos and press materials (i.e. texts and PDFs), reading them through the lens of what Harvey (2007) terms “accumulation by dispossession”, or the raising of capital by procurement of resources from those living in the area containing said resources. This perspective privileges a focus on the “appropriation of assets (including natural resources) through the ‘commodification and privatization of land’ via colonial, neocolonial, or imperial processes” (Harvey, 2007, p. 159).
The chapter itself logically comes together from a perspective of presenting Charity:
Water as it presents itself and moves towards critically examining each step along the production, consumption, and corporeal (re)production of money, water, and the human body –
32 attempting to weave seamlessly through their own words, to theory, to more critically examining their partnerships. In doing this type of analysis, I hope to provide a richer context for how the body becomes produced insofar as this production at once brings the Global North sporting body closer to those in need of help, yet further away through the displacement of time and space
(Whannel, 1992). This also brings the research closer to being in a space more suitable for analyzing the actual instances of the corporeal (re)production by the U.S./Global North sporting body taken up in the remainder of the manuscript.
1.6.5 Chapter Six: Miami with Team Water Charity
Chapters six through eight detail my work in North America. These chapters are primarily focused on my research while volunteering with water charities in Miami and
Vancouver. In these chapters, I a) take the reader through my experience interviewing people and volunteering with Team Water Charity in Miami, b) conceptualize the connection between the volunteer fundraiser and the bodies in need while training and raising money for the Sport for
Water half marathon in Vancouver, and c) present my findings on community development through sport for development based upon my volunteering, running, and interviews in
Vancouver.
In chapter six, I present my findings acquired from interviewing participants, organizers, and volunteers of the Miami Marathon who were supporting Team Water Charity. I worked with the organization on the Saturday before the race as well as before, during, and after the race on
Sunday. I helped at their booth on Saturday, helped setup the tent, blowup balloons, set tables, handout food, and cheer people on during the event on Sunday, and conducted interviews with the individuals both formally and informally. Throughout, I attempt to formulate possible responses for my research questions.
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1.6.6 Chapter Seven: “You” (Me?) as the Corporeal (Re)producer
The seventh chapter builds on the ending of the fifth chapter wherein I concluded with a discussion of the circuit of culture as it relates to the final stage of reproduction. In the traditional understanding of the circulation of culture (Hall, 1980) or Marx’s circulation of commodities as explained by Harvey (2006), the reproducer would reproduce the systems of culture or capitalism by purchasing products or supporting particular ideologies. What is different in the discourse and execution of raising money for water is the very corporeal reproduction of the systems of culture, money, and commodities by the Global North’s disciplined sporting body that results in un- valorized commodity and social capital.
While approaching the subject at hand with a theoretical basis toward attempting to answer key questions in the form of relying on my semi-structured interviews from Miami, I also look to co-create an understanding of the human body as reproducer through reflexivity and grounded theory. At its most basic level, grounded theory is “a qualitative approach to generating and developing a theory from the data that the researcher collects” (Johnson & Christianson,
2010, p. 49). This helped me develop new understandings through my research material based on both what the interviewees said, and perhaps more importantly what it is that they did not say.
All the while, I attempted, as a participant, to ethnographically build an understanding of the relationships between those being helped in developing countries and those helping in the Global
North.
1.6.7 Chapter Eight: Vancouver
In the eighth chapter I detail my work in Vancouver. In Vancouver, I volunteered for the
Sport for Water Society pre-race exposition, interviewed organizers, participants, people with
Sport for Water Society’s partner organization, Hope for Water International, and the members
34 of the board at Sport for Water Society, and ran the half marathon. In this chapter, I seek to understand how an organization can help build a community of globally conscious, healthy individuals while also helping to build water systems in Ethiopia. I do so by considering the interviews and my experience in conjunction with the sport for development literature and the goals of the organization as depicted by the founder.
1.6.8 Chapter Nine: London Water Charity
Chapters nine and ten are focused on my time working in London. Specifically, chapter nine is a critical ethnography (Giardina & Newman, 2011) of my time volunteering for the
London Water Charity. In this chapter, I follow the example of H.L. Goodall, Jr. (1989) in his book, Casing a Promise Land: The Autobiography of an Organizational Detective as Cultural
Ethnographer. Goodall’s project—which effectively popularized the idea of organizational ethnography into the lexicon of qualitative research—was written in a narrative fashion about his interaction with an organization. In his work, Goodall attempted to understand how the communicative rhetoric of an organization affected him. In this critical ethnography, while I self- reflexively attempt to unravel my role in the water charity, my main concern centers on the interactions between the different entities that the London Water Charity interacts with (i.e. governments, volunteers, non-profits, corporations, etc.).
I begin chapter nine by transitioning to London itself and provide the background information for London Water Charity. This chapter is laid out to introduce the individuals and structures that I worked with on a daily basis. Thus, this serves as a fairly descriptive/ informational chapter, which then leads to a deeper interrogation of London Water Charity in chapter ten.
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1.6.9 Chapter Ten: Presenting (Producing) the Organization and (Re)Producing the People in Need
Within this chapter, I took a social marketing approach toward understanding the deeper meanings of social structures at London Water Charity. Those studying social marketing effectiveness have typically focused on behavioral change (Kotler & Lee, 2009). Yet, what is less clear is the communicative processes behind this behavioral change (if it has occurred at all) and who benefits from said behavioral change. Thus, what I sought to do is work for London
Water Charity to determine how water charities as social marketing conglomerates work with other organizations and individuals to provide valuable drinking water.
In this chapter, I attempt to understand how the human body in need and the water charity is considered and presented in the project of providing water and whose voice is privileged in the conversation (Krog, 2011). Thus, I carefully negotiate telling the narrative of the water charity without myself speaking for those who are treated as abject. By uncovering the institutionalization, or lack thereof, of social values – what Kotler and Lee (2009) would call behavioral change – within the London Water Charity, I hoped to understand the philosophical goals of the water charity. Taking this approach, it was a goal of the researcher to determine what good, and possibly what harm, is done by these social marketing groups that create water while also, perhaps, creating (and perpetuating) systems of power relations, control through new markets, and a renewable rhetoric of crisis.
1.6.10 Chapter Eleven: Discussion and Conclusion
The conclusion consists of my reaction to the findings from my research material. As part of the conclusion drawing from the overarching interpretive ethnography, connections will be made between the results of the media analysis, interviews and ethnography in the United States,
36 and the work conducted at the London Water Charity. An understanding for how all of this works together to both help and oppress people will be considered. Within this conclusion, I seek to produce tangible ways in which we can further consider the human body in need as an active participant in their own lives. Additionally, I seek to offer future research ideas for how we can consider the human sporting body with its potentiality to provide aid as well as its potentiality to reinforce or create systems of power, control, and human bodily abjection. Through this, I hope to open a discussion for how we come to provide solutions for solving the worldwide water crisis by prioritizing the voice of the people in need.
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CHAPTER TWO
A BRIEF HISTORY OF WATER
Once social change begins it cannot be reversed. You cannot un-educate the person that has learned to read. You cannot humiliate the person who feels pride. You cannot oppress the people who are not afraid anymore – Cesar Chavez
2.1 Prologue
Chapters two through five provide background information for the research project at hand. The purpose of this “background section” is to provide the background information of the study. Specifically, I first trace the history of water focusing upon water as a site for social division historically (chapter two). Next, I provide the theoretical background for the remainder of the study (chapter three). Third, I provide the methodological practices that drive the research
(chapter four). Finally, I include a descriptive content analysis of Charity: Water (chapter five). I refer to this fifth chapter as a descriptive content analysis because I do not intend to code or critically analyze any particular themes. Rather, the chapter, as its presence in the background portion of the dissertation indicates, is designed to describe the productive mechanisms of water charity and set the stage upon which the ethnographic work takes place.
2.2 Introduction
I think it would be fair to say that we10 can all imagine a pre-modern society where man, woman, and child went to a stream and drank water directly from that stream as a source of nourishment for the body. This is a very direct relationship between human and water. It is not a process that requires a tremendous amount of thought. Each person or group of people has,
10 My use of “we” refers quite broadly to individuals living in the Global North, if only rhetorically. 38 historically, had to learn how to interact in this direct relationship with water. Communities were settled and built on the banks of rivers and places where water was easily accessible. It was a negotiation between human inhabitants and water that occurred rather naturally without particular interference from any other forces.
In the United States, and the majority of the Global North more generally, we typically interact with water in very particular, very prescribed ways. We go to the sink to get a glass of water; we take showers with showerheads that push out 2.7 gallons per minute – at least my
Delta showerhead does; we buy Fiji, Ozarka, Evian, Perrier, or Dasani brands of bottled water at the store; and we generally do all of this without really thinking about the interaction between water in the ground and water in our bodies. All that consuming water has come to mean for us in the direct relationship between water in hand and water in body is a necessity that keeps the body active and alive. It is indeed true that we need water to sustain livelihood and many people are interested in telling us exactly how much water we need to consume. A football coach in high school once told me to drink a gallon of water every day to make sure that I stayed hydrated during two-a-day practices in 100-plus degrees Oklahoma; my wife tells me constantly that I am not drinking enough water; and my doctor once told me to make sure I drink eight glasses of water a day – he never said what size of glass, so I remain confused to this day. Then, we have the corporation, which tells me I am not drinking the correct type of water: buy Ethos, not
Dasani; buy Fiji not Evian; buy Voss, because it comes in a designer glass cylindrical bottle; etc.
It all becomes very confusing when deeply considered as a procedural system of consumption, but it also becomes something that grows familiar to us and naturally assuages itself in the narrative fictions of our lives. Technological advances throughout history have made water available to us in our faucets, bathrooms, store shelves, and bodies seem like very naturally
39 occurring events. But, as Waterbury (1979) once asserted, “each technological advance has eventually entailed ecological setbacks” (p. 12).
As we have moved away from a Global North that, largely for the betterment of society, does not have to fetch water, we have also been faced by the reality of a complex relationship with water. Part of this complexity resides in the discourse we become privy to via multiple media outlets telling the American citizen of the worldwide water crisis. Another part rests within the complex mechanisms of providing clean drinking water – either by government or private entity. And, yet another complexity is mobilized in the manufactured drink transported worldwide. To wit, the division between those who have it and those who do not have it, those who receive it quite easily and those who struggle to receive it, has seemingly been ever-present.
Discussions for how to “master” water date back more than 7,000 years, to when those in the Nile Delta region began attempting to understand the best way to utilize their massive water source (Waterbury, 1979). In order to most appropriately utilize water, individuals and nation- states must determine who has the ability to acquire and maintain the water. For the people in the
Nile Delta region, there were huge divides between government planners as to who controlled the source of the water. Specifically, the battle for water dealt with the river source. Despite the fact that the White Nile flows north from Lake Victoria and the Blue Nile flows from the
Southeast in Ethiopia, toward Egypt in the North as well, Egypt has strongly controlled access to the water and has been an active damn builder throughout its history (Waterbury, 1979). This dynamic has been especially evidenced by the Egyptians and their treatment of the Sudanese, whom the Egyptians view(ed) as beneath them and residing in “a backward hinterland”
(Waterbury, 1979, p. 45). The battle that rages on today mainly hinges upon the Egyptians’
40 belief in a socio-cultural superiority, which is consistent with how water has been divided upon amongst even those residing in the same region.
Initially, during the period of the Roman Empire the people in Rome received their water from the Tiber River and local springs (Bono & Boni, 1996). However, by 312 BC, the water became increasingly polluted and dangerous for people to ingest. As a result, grand aqueducts were built to support the transportation of water to the people in the cities. They built several impressive structures with the capability to compete with water systems of today. Indeed, “Nine great aqueducts poured water into the Imperial City at a rate similar to some reservoirs of our time” (Decaluwe, Patry, & Savard, 1999, p. 2). These aqueducts became shining monuments for the Roman Empire. Indeed, Schram (2007) found that the Romans were so proud of their aqueducts that they utilized the image of the aqueducts on coins. More specifically, the aqueducts were constructed to provide water to the people in the city that were in need of water.
These grand structures, some of which stood through the Middle Ages, represented monuments of human achievement in the mastery of water. However, there is more to the story.
The water systems in the Roman Empire were indeed impressive monuments providing water for people in the city as well as for bathhouses, fountains, and Naval productions
(Turneaure & Russell, 1916). Passchier and Schram (2012) suggested that the building of the aqueducts that supplied the water for the public displays and private use was premised on an intricate network of trained experts who designed the plans and laborers who carried out the plans. The trained or skilled workers were of the elite class, having been trained for many years the nuances of how to lead armies or citizens and to provide solutions for perceived problems
(Dembskey, 2009). Indeed, the ability to reach a particular status of power in the Roman Empire was quite difficult:
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The Roman system did not permit an individual to reach the highest ranks without
training and experience. As early as the 4th century BC the positions of public office had
been arranged into an orderly progression known as the cursus honorum. The normal
course began with a period of military service, then a quaestorship or more probably a
series of appointments such as aedile, praetor and possibly even consul, followed by
censor and in some cases dictator. By 180 BC minimum ages had, rather sensibly, been
set for higher positions (Dembskey, 2009, p. 46-47)
Putting aside the obvious configuration flaws that would lead only some people born into certain position to be able to prosper under that system, for the construction of the aqueducts it meant that the elite would direct the laborers during construction. Dembskey (2009) noted that the laborers were made up of contracted citizens, members of the army, and slaves – which resulted in a fairly sharp divide in the social construction of the physical construction. What also occurred simultaneously was a division of who received water.
For the most part, it appears that the leaders of the Roman Empire were very judicious in allowing all to share in the water. However, there were still slight social stratifications. For example, individuals in poorer neighborhoods or those who could not afford to have water provided to them privately would have to walk to public water works to receive water
(Turneaure & Russell, 1916). Meanwhile, those who could afford to have water in their home were able to pay for that service. Furthermore, the government allotted the amount of water per citizen. When one died the government did not allow this allotment to go to the individual’s family. Instead, the government would decide how to reallocate the water (Dembskey, 2009).
The development of the aqueducts in Roman civil societies is the most well-known development and grand scale example where we can begin to see social stratification in regards to water. Due
42 to the size and global influence of Rome, these systems became commonplace elsewhere and tangentially water has continually been a resource of social division.
As Stretchie (2011) noted, the Roman Empire was truly global in scale. Thus, the influence from the magnificent works of scale was felt worldwide (or, at least, to the extent of what was considered the ‘known world’ at that time). For example, the influence of Roman engineering can be evidenced by the building of the Hadrianic Aqueduct of Corinth (Lolos,
1997). The Roman Empire’s influence and great architectural abilities were adopted by the decision makers in Greece when building their aqueduct system. The influence of Roman aqueducts was certainly felt on the Greeks who deemed it necessary to compete with the other cities in the Roman Empire that consisted of many bathhouses. Lolos (1997) explained:
The large influx of Stymphalian water was meant to satisfy the tastes of the city for
elaborate water displays and bath complexes. Every respectable city of the empire,
particularly a colony, would have had both elaborate fountains and a number of thermae
and aqueduct(s) supplying the water (pp. 301-302, emphasis in original)
The obsession with providing a spectacle ultimately would befall the Greeks when the aqueducts were largely dismantled after the sack of Rome (Lolos, 1997). As a result, the Roman aqueducts were not only discontinued, but grew unfamiliar to those living in what once was the Roman
Empire (Turneaure & Russell, 1916). Thus, by the Middle Ages, water systems had reverted back to an archaic form as did the social stratification of the water supply.
In her book Water Technology in the Middle Ages, Magnusson (2001) discussed the utilization of Roman aqueduct systems as well as their deterioration during the medieval period.
In the medieval period, there was a constant negotiation occurring between the potential conduit sponsor and the owners of land. Predominately, the waterways and systems for controlling water
43 were accessible first to the church. However, for the church to bring the flow of water from resource heavy springs or waterways it became necessary for them to build bottini – subterranean filtration conduits – and smiragli – ventilation shafts – which often required that they infringe upon private property (Magnusson, 2001). For example, in 1380, the Sudbury Dominicans found themselves pitted against many locals who did not want water taken from their land to serve the church instead of the local people. The debate became so intense that “in 1385, the king issued a public proclamation of protection for the friars’ men, servants, and laborers, who found themselves in peril ‘at the hands of certain rivals’ who were hindering works” (Magnusson,
2001, p. 44).
The relationship between the church and the local citizens was not always bad as it was often the charity of the church that paid for those in need to have water. Magnusson (2001) equated this charity to the shifting concepts of philanthropy: “Testamentary bequests as a restitution for sin were supplemented and to some degree supplanted by a new, activist style of preemptive philanthropy” (p. 130). Further, these were not all together pious acts of charity.
Rather, they were often driven by a personal ambition for prestige, posthumous honor, or political aspirations. Despite this clear attempt to make water accessible, it was still often dangerous to drink, especially for travelers who often did not know which sources were clean and which were not clean. The system of water coming to urban fountains accessible to all made
“water carrier” become a respectable job for many men and women (Magnusson, 2001).
Yet, in the mastery of water, there is also the question of who gets to master water. This was evident in the Middle Ages as private brewers started to control water, which caused disputes between the private organizations and the public (Magnusson, 2001). As a matter of principle, history has shown that those with the ability to manage and control the land are most
44 easily able to maintain control of the waterways. This was true in the medieval period and remains true to this day. Such was the case in the United States during the times of Western expansion that coincided with the Industrial Revolution – what Solomon (2010) referred to as the making of the industrial society. During the Industrial Revolution (both in the US and Europe), as urban populations exploded, the sewage system was extremely problematic in the sense that there really was no system for removing excrement from the cities. Thus, rivers in Europe, particularly the Thames in London, became polluted with fecal matter to the extent that in 1858,
Europe experienced what was referred to as the Great Stink (Solomon, 2010). This caused large- scale changes to occur in the use of toilets connected to sewer systems championed after
England’s first epidemic with cholera in 1831-183211 (Solomon, 2010).
Of course, cholera was not unique to developed European nations. Similar to the outbreak beginning in London, the Ganges River in India helped rapidly spread cholera out from Calcutta to many continents on steam ships (Arnold, 1986; Solomon, 2010). Once again, the cholera that spread from Calcutta was incased with the social divide that plagued the poor in Medieval
Europe and Rome. As Arnold (1986) explained, cholera was attributed by the colonizing British as being a result of religious travels by local Indian Hindus. The Hindus in India believed that cholera spread in conjunction with the British military, which heinously murdered the sacred cattle of the country. However, the colonizing British proclaimed that “Cholera constituted a punishment of Hindus rather than retribution against the British” (Arnold, 1986, p. 129). As a result of the diseases spreading, those who were wealthy enough to afford sanitary conditions began to implement similar strategies as those in Europe toward ensuring their personal health.
11 In fact, the Thames was considered “biologically dead” as recently as 50 years ago. As a result of aggressive regulatory control over factories that banned dumping into the Thames and a general trend toward ecological controls, the Thames is now considered the cleanest river running through any major city in the world. 45
In this very important industrial period for Western developed countries, the influence of social and cultural divides were extremely apparent in the mastery of water. Perhaps the clearest example of this is in the United States.
2.3 Water in Manifest Destiny United States
Water during the industrial revolution had a sizeable impact on Europe as evidenced by the discussion above. Similarly, in the United States, water was not only a source of strife and tribulations for cities in the East, but also a key problem to be mastered in the water deprived
West. During the period preceding the industrial revolution, the United States was fairly split politically between Hamiltonian Federalists and Jeffersonian Republicans (Solomon, 2010).
However, one thing that could easily be agreed upon was the westward destiny of the United
States. The waterways in the United States played a prominent role in the desire to expand as the
Mississippi River became the focus of many politicians and people looking to move west. In the
United States, the industrial revolution, coupled with increased ability to travel throughout the country (Solomon, 2010) and removal of Native Americans (Webb, 1981), made the water situation extremely unique and demanded that water be mastered.
The western expansion of the population in the United States and the more general ascendency of the nation on a global scale were made possible in large measure through the mastery of waterways (Solomon, 2010). The first large scale model for the future ability of the
United States to expand west was the building of the Erie Canal in 1825 (Solomon, 2010). Once completed, the canal provided a boom for investors in steel, among other raw materials, feeding nicely into the continued industrial boom during the industrial revolution. This project was so successful that other waterways such as the Illinois River and the Great Lakes were connected through canals. These canals made Chicago, Cleveland, Buffalo, Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh hubs
46 for trade and ultimately sites for mass production during the industrial revolution (Solomon,
2010). This continued success of the canals allowed the politicians in the country to believe that western expansion through the mastery of waterways was possible and intended by God.
One key to this western expansion and mastering of the waterways was the invention of the steam locomotive (Solomon, 2010). These grand structures, allowing for trade and movement throughout the country, helped the western movers navigate the mighty Mississippi River. The mastery of the Mississippi and the belief that it was the destiny of the United States to move west would become the key to selling the American Dream – a dream that in the United States, with hard work and ingenuity, one can create his own success (Terkel, 1980). Although the eastern part of the United States still produced the steel, electricity, and engines necessary for western expansion, the move west proved the ingenuity and prowess of the United States. While the biggest breakthrough on the international stage came through a waterway in the building of the
Panama Canal in 1914 (Solomon, 2010), the key to western expansion and the rise to prominence and the actions that would forever shape the future of water in the United States occurred in the Great Plains during the late 19th century.
The narrative of the lack of water in the west has been so prominent throughout history that cowboys in western movies are portrayed as perpetually thirsty (Tompkins, 1992). Evidence suggests that this narrative has merit. In Butter in the Well, Hubalek (1992) tells the story of
Maja Svensson, a young Scandinavian immigrant living in the Great Plains, and her struggle for survival during times of death, disease, destitution, and drought. In the words of Maja writing in the summer of 1881:
It has been a drought year. The hot winds withered the crops away. We had
thunderclouds, but they never developed into rain showers. Wheat harvest was hard work
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for very little grain. The crop was short and the heads were not filled out. We will get a
poor yield on the corn and sorghum too. We have worked hard days without much to
show for it…The churchyard is filled with little graves. Children have such a harsh life
stuck out on the homestead. When they come down with a disease there is no doctor to
help them (Hubalek, 1992, p. 92).
Despite the extremely harsh conditions and lack of water in the central part of the United
States stemming from west of the Mississippi to the prairies of Texas, Oklahoma Territory,
Kansas, Nebraska, and Colorado, people found ways to master water (Solomon, 2010; Webb,
1981). In order to overcome shortages, initially, farmers would team together to build irrigation systems close to the river basins (Webb, 1981). Under this circumstance, the irrigation systems became similar to joint stock entitling each member to a particular allotment of water. In this way the people of the region worked together to make sure each family was supported and able to live on their own crops (Webb, 1981). Unfortunately, this communal agreement did not last long as the wealthy individuals figured out that they could not only buy the land, but the water.
As soon as wealthy individuals figured out they could not only buy land but water, and maintain control of said water, they began either to monopolize the water for their own personal use or to sell it to the farmers at a profit (Webb, 1981). Interestingly, land was mostly free to anyone wishing to settle through legislation such as the Homestead Act, but access to irrigated water became controlled by the wealthy individuals willing to profit off of the local farmers
(Webb, 1981). In places such as Colorado, the first to divert the water owned the water
(Glennon, 2009). A rule was adopted stipulating, “If there is not enough water for all farmers, this rule of ‘first in time, first in right’ can prevent more recent diverters from taking any water in order to protect the senior diverters” (Glennon, 2009, p. 88). This allowed large organizations
48 such as Coors Brewing Company, large wealthy farms, and miners to effectively own the water.
This established rule was maintained until technology allowed access to the large underground
Ogallala Aquifer in the 1940s (Glennon, 2009).
The result of many of the laws that gave water away to the wealthy for nothing was that it encouraged economic speculation (Glennon, 2002). The maneuverings of water through various farms from different private owners resulted in a pay-to-use system that allowed a specific amount of water to be used by each paying customer. As Glennon (2002) noted, “Most importantly, allocating a specific quantity of water transformed water into a commodity, like gold or timber. The prior appropriation doctrine transformed water from a shared common resource into a private property” (p. 17). Essentially, any person who or company that could lay claim to the water was able to profit off of that control. This system of private ownership turning water into a commodity is essential to understand in the current discourse of water. At the time, the commodification of water resulted in an overuse of water and certain individuals getting privileged over others – such was the case with the Hoover Dam. The dam was another testament to the United States’ ability to be a world leader in the control of water and land (Solomon,
2010).
Standing at 726 feet tall, the impressive Hoover Dam rerouted the Colorado River’s water in order to bring water to modern day metropolises such as Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Las Vegas
(Solomon, 2010). This was not a new development. Similar to how Egyptian dams privileged individuals in Cairo above Sudanese and Ethiopians (Waterbury, 1979), dams in the western part of the United States certainly privileged city dwellers above those from smaller towns.
Essentially, people were able to settle in areas that were never suitable for homesteads. This is similar to those who first witnessed the prairies of Western Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, Nebraska,
49 and Eastern Colorado and New Mexico and viewed the land as generally uninhabitable (Webb,
1981). Yet, people did choose to move to the Great Plains and the results of dry farming with the prioritization of the Hoover Dam over the farming citizens led to the Dust Bowl (Worster, 2004).
As Worster (2004) explained, there were a number of circumstances that led to the Dust
Bowl. One of the reasons was poor modes of farming that overused the topsoil and led to loose dirt. Another reason was the droughts that had begun in 1927. An additional reason was the prioritization of city dwellers over rural farmers. However, Worster noted that it was President
Hoover’s blatant disregard for those in need during times of drought that most led to the Dust
Bowl. It was a disregard for those in the west that had been emblematic of Hoover’s presidency.
Instead of listening to the pleas of those suffering from the Mississippi River flood in 1927,
Hoover called the $45 million12 seed-and-feed loan approved by Congress in response to the flood “a raid on the public treasury” (Worster, 2004, p. 35). When the drought came and the people of the plains asked for help, they were similarly ignored or given small token relief that was nowhere near adequate. So, the problems proliferated and even the election of New York farmer, Franklin Roosevelt, did not help as Roosevelt ignored the people in the plains during his first year (Worster, 2004). Although 1933 proved frustrating for those needing help from
President Roosevelt, in May 1934, dust from an exceptionally strong storm that swept through the Great Plains reached the White House and grabbed the attention of the president. It took that unusual event in 1934, seven years after the first plea for help that went ignored by Washington, for Roosevelt to realize that aid was necessary.
12 Adjusted for inflation, $45 million in 1927 is roughly equivalent to $575 million in 2012 dollars.
50
As city water systems were developed, dams were built, water rerouted, irrigation systems abused, people in need ignored, and water treated as an opportunity for privatization and profit, a framework for water control and usage today was outlined. That is, through the industrial society and the “taming of the West”, the precedence for how water would be handled going forward was set. It was a continuance of the Roman Empire and Medieval Europe, of
Colonized India and North Africa, where those in the city who were able to pay for water came to be the ones who controlled it and those in the rural areas came to be told how to control it by those more privileged. Water in this time period was treated similarly to the Roman period where it was to be sold and profited upon. It is this view of water as something to be owned and sold that dominates the discussion of water today.
2.4 Water in the United States Today
Water as a product and producer of social division, as shown above, is nothing necessarily new: People trying to receive water have been failed by nature, government, private ownership, and corporations. This was true for those in Colorado who saw Coors Brewing Co. receive rights to formerly public drinking water (Glennon, 2009); those who saw Hoover build a dam in his name that rerouted water (Solomon, 2010); and those in Medieval Europe who had to passively watch as the church ran water through their property (Magnusson, 2001). Yet, even more than the social, cultural, and economic division with water in those times, today it has reached incredible heights as more and more people are becoming aware of the lack of clean drinking water for individuals worldwide.
Glennon (2009) further detailed the various water shortages in America and the rhetoric surrounding the lack of water, such as the water shortage in Atlanta in 2007. This shortage was met with much despair by the people, government, and corporations and was described as a
51 naturally occurring shortage. Individuals were told to limit water consumption and usage while companies with beverage facilities in Atlanta (i.e. Gatorade and Coca-Cola) were utilizing water at the highest rates in Marietta County. Indeed, “the Pepsi Gatorade plant in southwest Atlanta – the city’s biggest water user – gobbled up 70.8 million gallons in September alone” (Wheatley,
2007). Ironically, while a company such as Gatorade or Coca-Cola pays the county the same rate of any individual user of water – $2.02 per 1,000 gallons used – they can then sell it to people as
Dasani for $1.20 per 20 ounce bottle13. Coca-Cola itself led the charge in helping to promote alternatives to high individual water usage, even acting surprised that there was a shortage at all.
Bruce A. Karas of the Coca-Cola company stated:
We’re very concerned. Water is our main ingredient. As a company, we look at areas
where we expect water abundance and water scarcity, and we know water is scarce in the
Southwest. It’s very surprising to us that the Southeast is in a water shortage” (Glennon,
2009, p. 25).
However, perhaps it should not be so surprising to Coca-Cola that there is a water shortage, aided in part by that organization. As previously mentioned, the worldwide crisis of water is felt and proselytized worldwide (Newson, 2009). As noted by Glennon (2009), the
13 It should not be surprising that a corporation would have the same rights to a water source in the United States as any other tax paying citizen in the regulated zone. Under the 1886 findings of the Supreme Court in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, the court found that the county could not tax the Southern Pacific Railroad for improvements made on the railroad tracks by the Southern Pacific Railroad (See http://www.oyez.org/cases/1851-1900/1885/0; or http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=118&invol=394). Justice John Marshall Harlan gave the opinion that corporations were protected under the fourteenth amendment. This means that they were privy to the same protections of all citizens. The opinion of Harlan’s Supreme Court has been upheld in such famous court battles as Citizens United v. the Federal Election Committee which allows a corporation or union to provide funds, not directly to campaigns, but for the purpose of persuading the public vote (Citizens United v. Federal Election Committee, 2012). Thus, when it comes to questions of access to property, Coca-Cola has the same right to Atlanta’s water source as any citizen. One must wonder why the city of Atlanta does not bottle its own water and sell it to citizens. 52 worldwide clean drinking water shortage has reached a crisis level in the eyes of many. The water crisis in Central Eurasia and Africa led the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in 1992 to declare that a battle for water rites was imminent (Kobori
& Glantz, 1998). As noted by Glennon (2009), Kobori and Glantz’s (1998) book, Central
Eurasian Water Crisis: Caspian, Aral, and Dead Seas, was appropriately timed as it was in 1998 that the World Bank “insisted that the Bolivian government turn over its public water utility to the private sector, or else the bank would refuse to guarantee a $25 million loan for improvement of the water system infrastructure” (Glennon, 2009, p. 245). However, this move toward exploiting other countries for purposes of economic and cultural domination is not relegated simply to water. The statement made by the World Bank was in-line with other free-market notions for the treatment of developing countries (Harvey, 2007). Indeed, when Argentina was struggling with severe debt, it was American financial leader and International Monetary Fund
(IMF) and World Bank advisor, John Williamson, who declared that the hyper-inflation “was not a problem to be solved… but a golden opportunity to be seized” (Klein, 2007, p. 195). This is where the real crisis lies – in the developing world being “helped” by outside influences.
2.5 Present-Day Water Worldwide
The worldwide problem with water has led many scholars to consider why this problem exists. For most, the problem lies with the continued privatization of a natural resource they believe was never intended to be commodified or conceptualized as something to be exchanged.
This is particularly true for Barlow (2007) who explained in her book, Blue Covenant: The
Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water, how political leaders are failing people and actively participating in the corporatization of water. She pointed to legislative acts by the George W. Bush administration and other governments abroad that have allowed
53 deforestation resulting in the pollution of otherwise clean water sources. Barlow further passed blame to international institutions that supposedly provide help stating, “The United Nations, the
European Union and the World Bank have devised a water rescue plan for the developing world totally devoid of plans to deal with the growing rivers of sewage killing whole watersheds and coastlines” (p. 31). Most problematic for Barlow, however, is that political leaders are not attempting to solve the problems themselves. Instead, they are allowing private interests to drive solutions in the form of multinational corporations.
Of particular note, Barlow (2007) spoke of water privatization in the United Kingdom under Thatcher and later Blair. The privatization in the United Kingdom included the government allowing private corporations to own historical buildings and all of the natural and cultural assets related to water. Further, the privatization of water resulted in the laying off of workers and a higher cost for consumers resulting in “Millions (having) their water cut off when they couldn’t pay their bills, a practice Tony Blair ended when he came to power in 1997”
(Barlow, 2007, p. 37). Yet this policy orientation did not stop the large scale privatization effort in Europe, or smaller companies from being taken over by larger multinational countries as evidenced by the Thames Water company being purchased by energy giant RWE in 2002. At the same time Thatcher was changing the landscape of water relationships in Europe, the World
Bank was adopting the Washington Consensus14 philosophy of rescheduling debt repayments to poor countries in exchange for “Structural Adjustment Programs that required them to sell off public enterprises and utilities and privatize essential public services such as healthcare,
14 The World Health Organization defines the Washington Consensus as: “the set of 10 policies that the US government and the international financial institutions based in the US capital believed were necessary elements of “first stage policy reform” that all countries should adopt to increase economic growth. At its heart is an emphasis on the importance of macroeconomic stability and integration into the international economy - in other words a neo-liberal view of globalization” (http://www.who.int/trade/glossary/story094/en/index.html). 54 education, electricity and transportation” (Barlow, 2007, p. 38). What resulted was Third World debt growing by 400 percent since 1980.
In 1993, the World Bank released a policy paper stating that water should be treated as a commodity and the poor should be willing to pay for water services (Barlow, 2007). This means that water should be efficiently utilized and financially profitable. While the World Bank provided funds for over three hundred water projects between 1990 and 2006, they all came with stipulations falling under one of three basic types of privatization (Barlow, 2007). The first form of privatization is a concession contract, which gives rights to water to the company who can then charge citizens for utilization of said water. This puts all building, maintenance, and investment responsibilities in the hands of the private organization. The second form of privatization is leases, where the company invests and makes repairs for existing pipes and water services, but the government must invest in new water services. The final form of privatization is when the company is merely a management company but is not responsible for any investments.
Unfortunately, these initiatives have been very successful for the private companies in part because of the privatization support offered by the United Nations (Barlow, 2007) and have resulted in the deaths of many citizens worldwide whom have been locked out of access to formerly public water (Bakker, 2010).
Pearce (2006) provided an extremely well researched discussion of water privatization.
Of particular interest is his discussion of former Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi’s relationship with U.S.-based multinational corporation, Halliburton. Qaddafi wanted to gain access to water under the ground in Chad because his land in Libya was effectively absent of any sources of water. So, Qaddafi endeavored to build the “Great Manmade River” to supply Libya with access to water. Libya and the Western world have had a long disagreement with one
55 another philosophically on the surface. However, Qaddafi’s project – first devised when he took power in 1969 and finished in 1991 – was developed and headquartered in a London office building and engineered by Brown & Root, which at the time was a European subsidiary of
Halliburton. Thus, the American corporation largely benefitted from the $27 billion project that resulted in depleted oil revenues and cost many lives. Unfortunately, because of various issues, it appears that the project will never actually be able to be utilized by Libyan citizens (Pearce,
2006) and is another example of how multinational corporations can profit off of multiple elements of water projects.
Shiva (2005) attempted to move beyond the terrible atrocities of water privatization by introducing a solution she refers to as Earth Democracy. In her words, “Earth Democracy connects the particular to the universal, the diverse to the common, and the local to the global”
(Shiva, 2005, p. 1). The idea behind Earth Democracy is that the Earth and everything in it are all connected with one another. People should respect the land and treat it as something sacred that does not belong to man. Thus, the idea of being able to sell the sky, the land, people, or water seems incomprehensible to one who believes in Earth Democracy (Shiva, 2005). The key to
Earth Democracy is that there is a worth to all people, cultures, and species. This is where, as has been shown here, Earth Democracy is incongruent with the history of water as a resource that has been for the privileged chosen few. For Shiva (2005), the market is blind and should not be the focal point of interaction between people and the Earth. Rather, there should be water for the commons. However, history shows that this blindness of race, creed, and affluence has not occurred.
Bakker (2010) takes up this approach of water for the commons, stating that the idea of water democracy or water commons is opposite to the privatized idea of water as a commodity.
56
Where Shiva (2005) discussed how water commons was present in 16th century India allowing the people of the community to have access to water, Bakker (2010) viewed the commons versus the commodity as the main breaking point for private versus public. Specifically, Bakker (2010) utilized Cochabamba, Bolivia to explain her point. Cochabamba had long been riddled with water issues and grew worse with IMF intervention in the 1980s. By 1998, the IMF had offered to provide Bolivia with a new loan to replace the old ones they could no longer afford to pay back. However, they did so with the understanding that Bolivia would privatize the majority of state enterprises, including water in Cochabamba. This agreement was to last forty years and was run by Bechtel from the United States and United Water from the United Kingdom. Once they gained control, Bechtel raised prices and riots broke out resulting in the executives from Bechtel fleeing the city. However, once the protesters finally were able to remove Bechtel six years later, the switch to a community-based water system was not successful. Bakker (2010) believed this might have been because of inadequate planning and the decision to go with a community water supply not water commons.
Bakker (2010) stated that the main difference between community water and water commons is that community water can still exclude people due to water systems in poor neighborhoods or resource differentials between those in the city and those in rural areas. She defines the commons as common-pool water resource management in which “common-pool resources are those from which it is difficult to exclude individuals (either through physical barriers or laws) and for which use by one individual can reduce the benefits available to others”
(Bakker, 2010, p. 170). Thus, the opportunity to secure private property rights to water is difficult, both practically and philosophically. Consequently, common-pool resources can often
57 be overused and unregulated to an extent that water access can be destroyed. However, common- pool resources can be very successful when managed correctly and fairly.
What researchers have thus far failed to critically analyze, however, is the role of the combination of water charities as social marketing groups providing water to those in developing countries. Keeping in mind the very complex nature of water in today’s climate – where millions of Ethiopians are being displaced by private companies buying up land rights where the water rests (Maasho, 2012; Tran, 2012) – it is the goal of this researcher to move forward the discussion of water today to include water charities that are actively attempting to help individuals without access to water. In this way, I seek to build upon and critically interrogate bodies of water following the work of Solomon (2010), who stated:
Although the water crisis of the world’s poorest has been on the international agenda and
the subject of numerous, high-level meetings among serious-minded people since the
1970s, and the U.N. Millennium Development Goals, endorsed by world leaders at the
second Earth Summit at Johannesburg in 2002, included a specific target of halving the
proportion of people without access to clean water and basic sanitation by 2015, the truth
is that legions of the world’s water disenfranchised are continuing to swell. The familiar
dynamics of ruthless indifference among those far away and diffused political power are
at perpetual play… In a changing global order without a single dominating world power
to set the agenda, the task of rallying action is chiefly being left to an amorphous
international process led by weak, multilateral institutions and diverse nongovernmental
entities. If only a small fraction of the debate and study they have committed over the
years had been translated to concrete action, the water crisis might have been solved
many times over (p. 485).
58
Thus, it is my goal to understand these diverse nongovernmental entities teamed with governments and multinational corporations as social marketing groups impacting people both in the Global North and South, and the political economic structure that makes the dominance of social marketing groups possible. Therefore, I will next theorize how researchers and activists should come to evaluate water as it impacts billions of bodies throughout the world by looking beyond merely the privatization of water to a more dynamic global exchange brought along by the imperatives of neoliberalism.
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CHAPTER THREE
THEORIZING WATER CHARITY
As noted previously, there are myriad ways one can evaluate the current landscape of water globally. Some are concerned specifically with water in the United States from a legal perspective (e.g., Glennon, 2009). Others are more concerned with theorizing how water can be shared more democratically and from an ecological moralism perspective through Earth
Democracy (e.g., Shiva, 2005). Still others are concerned with the privatization of water and the perils of multinational corporations involving themselves in international affairs (e.g., Barlow,
2003; Pearce, 2006; Solomon, 2010). And, researchers such as Bakker (2010) take up Shiva’s
(2002) call to view water as a resource that should be pooled for the commons. All of these researchers have helped advance the understanding of water and have helped expose the failures of governments, corporations, and individuals. However, none of this previous research attempts to connect the current political landscape with the large network of charities by considering how the charities working together with other social marketing entities move bodies in the Global
North to “aid” bodies in the Global South. Thus, in the pages that follow, I seek to provide the framework for how I intend to examine the current neoliberal world order (Ferguson, 2006) and the prioritization of water as commodity, how social marketing groups work, and how the sporting body is utilized to both produce money and reproduce power, control, and ideologies of the historical past.
In order to most appropriately frame all aspects of the research project at hand, it is first important to understand the current political economic landscape dominating the Global North and, by consequence, the Global South. Second, I will examine social marketing: how it works, the political economic undergirding, and how it fits with sport and the body. Third, I will
60 examine the history of development through sport and theorize how development through sport can include social marketing as well as water charities. Fourth, and finally, I conclude by tying water, political economy and the commodity, social marketing, and development through sport together and conceptualize what this means for the Northern sporting body and the Southern body in need.
1.1 Political Economy
As noted by Barlow (2003), Glennon (2002), and Bakker (2010), among others, water is treated as a commodity in the historical present. In other words, water is something that can be exchanged for something of equal value. In order to examine what this truly means, it is imperative that the commodity is understood from a theoretical perspective. In order to do this, I deploy the work of Marx (1976) and Harvey (2007) to first examine the idea of a commodity.
Then, I interrogate the history and status of the current dominant political economic paradigm, neoliberalism, as it privileges the exchange of commodities and money as a commodity. Finally,
I evaluate what this means for the human body and introduce how social marketing is understood in the project as something that has arisen from reduced governments and increased privatization.
Marx (1976) noted that the commodity is made up of a qualitative aspect, use value, and a quantitative aspect, exchange value. Use value is simply how useful a commodity is to an individual. The understanding of usefulness in a commodity is tied up in social and historical knowledge of how a commodity can be used. For example, a coat has a use value insofar as it keeps an individual warm and the individual knows that the coat can keep him or her warm because he or she has come to know this from social and historical relationships with both a coat and the cold. Exchange value is the exchange of one use value for another use value of the same
61 value. Exchange value, then, is what one is willing to give up for said coat. In theory, one coat would be equal to the amount of yarn expended to make the coat (Harvey, 2006). In the art of exchange, one must believe that he or she is exchanging one commodity for another of the same use value. Simply put, exchange must always be equal. It is with this idea of water as a commodity – as Glennon (2002) noted, water is treated as such – that is interrogated here because treating it as a commodity means that it has an equal value to other commodities despite being a natural resource that is necessary for life. This is the paradox Polanyi (2001) discussed when he suggested that land, water, and the sky cannot be treated as commodities because they are necessary for life and therefore cannot be exchanged for something of equal value. Therefore,
I interrogate this value of exchange because of the dynamics with social marketing being the exchange of one behavior for another supposedly better behavior (Kotler & Lee, 2009).
Additionally, it is imperative to understand how something becomes a commodity so as to understand how water might be different than any other commodity. The realization of a commodity comes from the substance of value (Labor), the measure of its magnitude (labor- time) and its form, which stamps value as exchange-value (Marx, 1976). Certainly labor and labor-time can be found in the transformation of water to clean water just as labor and labor-time can be found in the transformation of cotton into a shirt. Yet, consumable drinking water has no equivalent. Unlike tradable commodities (i.e. cotton, iron, etc.), water is necessary for life regardless of the political economy within a society. For example, water makes people, plants, and animals live regardless of the society. Conversely, if there was no oil available, life would be altered, yet life would continue through finding an equivalent form; if cotton did not exist, silk or other materials could be utilized to make clothing; if corn did not exist, an equivalent form of
62 subsidence could be produced. Yet, water is the basis for all life and has no equivalent form besides life.
Specifically, commodities have two forms of equivalency necessary to the quantifiable aspect of the commodity – exchange value. Marx (1976) explains the two poles of the expression of value thusly:
x commodity A = y commodity B or; x commodity A is worth y commodity B. (20 yards
of linen = 1 coat, or: 20 yards of linen are worth 1 coat)…Here two different kinds of
commodities (in our example the linen and the coat) evidently play two different parts.
The linen expresses its value in the coat; the coat serves as the material in which that
value is expressed. The first commodity plays an active role, the second a passive one.
The value of the first commodity is represented as a passive one, in other words the
commodity is in the relative form of value. The second commodity fulfills the function of
equivalent, in other words it is in the equivalent form (Marx, 1976, p. 139).
Thus in the Marxist sense, each commodity must have a commodity of an equivalent form.
Because one might not have a use value for the commodity in the equivalent form, there must be a general form of commodity – a universal equivalent. Money, then, becomes the universal equivalent without itself holding any use or exchange value outside of the socially constructed universal equivalent form. Price expressed within money is nothing more than the human labor objectified in that commodity. Because everything that acts as a commodity can have a price form utilized in market exchanges, but a price form not necessarily representative of the true value of the commodity, and money does not reveal what has been transformed into it:
“everything, commodity or not, is convertible into money. Everything becomes saleable and
63 purchaseable” (Marx, 1976, p. 229). That is, everything is an external object with the ability to become private property.
However, water is different than other commodities because it flows in and out of private property, rests underneath public and private land, and is an entity that, regardless of political economic structure, is necessary for life. It appears natural to the person living in the current capitalistic era that everything can be viewed as a commodity. Theoretically, it would stand to reason that in a capitalist, market society, if everything is convertible to money, then everything can be treated as a commodity and exchanged in the market. Water itself can enter rather naturally into the circulation of commodities as Marx (1976) explains it. This would seem to be a fairly simple equation as water (commodity) changes to money which in turn changes back to clean drinking water (commodity). As it comes to be within all commodity exchanges, the interaction becomes more reminiscent of the circulation of money. Thus, with water charities the circulation goes as follows; money (from volunteers, donators, and other organizations) allows for projects searching for water (through labor), turns into clean drinking water (commodity) which turns into a production of quantifiable “results” and allows for more money creation (from donators, volunteers, and other organizations).
In capitalist society, this occurs seemingly naturally. However, in the capitalist society, it must yield surplus value to be treated as a tradable commodity. That is, profit becoming the focal point changes the relationship between individuals and water as a necessity for life. Where it holds that the circulation of water as a commodity would follow the pattern water-money-water, as noted above, it begins to resemble the circulation of money and valorizes itself as a process of capital accumulation and surplus through money. This does not simply occur naturally, but through systemic ideological overhauls which prioritize an adherence to systems of money and
64 profit. Because it has been suggested here that water has no equivalent form, cannot be held as private property in a similar form, and has yet been treated as a commodity through bottling and privatization efforts, it is important to note how a political economic ideology is able to penetrate a government to create what Harvey (2006) deems a state monopoly and what Polanyi (2001) called a market state.
3.1.1 The Market State
In the fifth chapter of his book, Limits to Capital, Harvey (2006) details how capitalism as an ideology comes to control the state, instead of the other way around. Free-market proselytizers such as Friedman (1962/2002), Hayek (2007), and Von Mises (2007) would suggest that the government should work to serve private enterprise. So, the state monopoly as it stands today is not one where the state owns enterprise; instead, private enterprise owns the state
(Harvey, 2007). Further, capitalism has become centralized to the point that protecting private property laws and protection of oligopolies becomes the role of the government. This seems like a reasonable statement as Super PACs (or, Political Action Committees) and the like have been ruled constitutionally appropriate, allowing corporations to largely control the political and social arrangements in the nation15.
Polanyi (2001) illustrated how this occurs by when he explained the market pattern within the market society:
The market pattern…is capable of creating specific institutions, namely the market.
Ultimately, that is why the control of the economic system by the market is of
overwhelming consequence to the whole organization of society: it means no less than
15 According to the Los Angeles Times Super PAC infographic (http://graphics.latimes.com/2012-election-superpac-spending/), $546.5 million was spent on the 2012 U.S. presidential election by 266 Super PACs. 65
the running of society as an adjunct to the market. The vital importance of the economic
factor to the existence of society precludes other result. For once the economic system is
organized in separate institutions, based on specific motives and conferring special status,
society must be shaped in such a manner as to allow that system to function according to
its own laws (Polanyi, 2001, p. 60, emphases added).
Thus, the commodification and marketization of everything including water appears natural in a society that functions to serve the market. As Polanyi (2001) points to, there is nothing inherently natural about markets, and policy makers and influential leaders must determine where to make distinctions between resources necessary for human function and the market.
However, the market society has only become more market-centric in the past thirty years. The ideology of prioritizing financialization, private property, the sanctity of commodity exchange
(Harvey, 2006), and the social construction of a public pedagogy producing knowledge forms supporting profits and mass consumption (Giroux, 2012) currently ruling the centralization of capital and/in the Global North is popularly understood as neoliberalism.
3.1.2 Toward Neoliberalism
Neoliberalism is founded upon the basic premise of liberal individual freedom, free markets, and limited state intervention (Ritzer, 2011). The course towards wide-ranging ideologies of free market imperialism and neoliberalism dates back to the late 19th century when the industrial revolution led to new forms of production and a defining split between the capitalist and the laborer (Brands, 2011). This period saw rising accumulation for capitalists and a turn towards market ideologies leading to speculative financing (Brands, 2011). However, this period of industrial, capitalist success would soon fall in what would become known as the market crash of 1929. This market crash led to what is commonly referred to as the Great
66
Depression. The Great Depression saw people lose their speculative money, the agricultural sector falter, and rising unemployment (Webb, 1981). This led to a reformation of the United
States government under the leadership of President Franklin Roosevelt. The reformation began with a change in fundamental ideologies and the growth of the welfare state.
John Maynard Keynes became the key force behind what Harvey referred to as embedded liberalism (Harvey, 2007). Embedded liberalism meant that the market was relatively free, but there was also strong social support. Although these programs with a focus on strong ties to the state were implemented and largely found to be successful after the victory in World
War II, simultaneously, the United States and the other world powers were joining in a global endeavor to regulate money internationally with a common rate of exchange in a treatise referred to as the Bretton Woods Agreement (Chomsky, 2011; Harvey, 2007; Klein, 2007). Established in
1944, Bretton Woods founded the IMF and created an international exchange rate based on the strongest currency at the time, the US dollar, which was tied to the gold standard (Harvey, 2007).
This establishment of the IMF would burst open the door for international trade and globalization.
Further, what was also taking place was the creation of the Mont Pelerin Society (Harvey,
2007; Klein, 2007). The Mont Pelerin Society was founded in 1947 by Hayek and included influential free market pioneers von Mises and Friedman (Harvey, 2007). The group established the key theoretical underpinnings for neoliberalism. They agreed that trust in the free market is the best way to assure human well-being, that the free market was necessarily tied to individual freedom, and that the state should be hands-off or laissez faire (Harvey, 2007). What they advocated for was a world devoid of what Ritzer (2011) referred to as heavy structures. Heavy structures in this context are the barriers that impede the flow of capital such as state
67 intervention, tax, and geography. Therefore, neoliberalism theoretically and economically presupposes that markets should be globally open and innovation is paramount to overcoming the spatio-impediments of geography, while politically the founders of neoliberal believed the state should be there only to assure capitalists of the ability to trade freely.
One of the first key elements that came to aid in the globalization of the free market was the cargo ship (Ritzer, 2011). Built upon by the idea of the war ship, cargo ships were deployed to increase global trade beginning in 1956. This was the first major breakthrough to occur in the move towards neoliberalization16 – the process by which neoliberal ideology infiltrates economic practices and socio-cultural relationships globally. Also of note was the boom of the airline industry. Though paradoxically the airplane and the cargo ship are “heavy” objects, they actually helped create the flow of capital worldwide (Ritzer, 2011). These entities were technological advancements that were global “nothings.” That is, they were not tied to any particular region and could be spread worldwide easily. As we will see later with the widespread implementation of global “nothings”, neoliberalism needs both “light” (i.e. money, credit cards) and “heavy” (i.e. ships, planes) nothings to move globally (Ritzer, 2011).
While it is seemingly a good thing to connect worldwide and to be able to flourish economically, it is vitally important that we come to understand neoliberalization under the guise in which it was founded. That is, from the beginning, neoliberalism was NOT about equality or the common well-being. We know this by looking at documents sent by George Kennan17 to the
16 The term “neoliberalization” will be teased out further in the subsection entitled “Neoliberalization of the Global North.” 17 As noted in Lukacs’ (2007) book, George Kennan: A Study of Character, Kennan was instrumental in the emergence of the Cold War and in the promotion of the World Bank and IMF – particularly when considering the gold standard. Specifically Lukacs explained: “It was February 1946. Bedridden…he read a routine telegram from the Department of State, transmitting a query from the Department of the Treasury…It dealt with the Soviet government’s 68
Department of Foreign Affairs. In a written document, Kennan expressed to United States officials that the key for the United States to flourish was to exploit the “third world” countries
(Chomsky, 2011). For Kennan and his fellow free market thinkers, the way to build monetary capital was to expand the borders and flourish on the impoverishment of others. As Dambisa
Moyo pointed out in a series of public interviews in 2012, the relationship between the United
States and developing countries worldwide has never been to promote trade. Rather, it has been for the countries of the Global North to profit off of the countries in the Global South. Her point is well taken and important for understanding how global inequalities exist in the neoliberal era.
With the shifts toward this global world order championed by Kennan came the influence of the Mont Pelerin Society of Austria into the American University (Harvey, 2007; Klein,
2007). The “Chicago Boys”, as they would become known due to their affiliation with the
University of Chicago, began teaching their neoliberal philosophy to hundreds of students at the
University. As they began gaining notoriety and continually attempted to proselytize their free market ideology, they wanted to expand their horizons. Importantly, the Chicago Boys felt it was necessary to expand their influence because they saw countries beginning to take on communist ideologies and prosper as a collective (Harvey, 2007). The group saw an opportunity in downtrodden Chile to expand their teaching and attempted to develop a relationship with the
University of Chile in Santiago (Klein, 2007). However, the predominately socialist-favoring disinclination to agree to the standard American proposals of adherence to the World Band and International Monetary Fund…Kennan’s reaction to this inquiry was anger. Here was another lamentably ignorant query about how and why the Russians were the way they were. Worse: it came from the treasury department…Kennan first thought to respond to their query with a curt answer, a kind of dismissal. Then…he began to change his mind…Kennan rang Dorothy Hessman…and dictated the – later so famous – Long Telegram of eight thousand words, from his bed… It arrived in Washington… Soon it was circulated, reproduced, sent and read by the secretaries of war and navy and, it seems, by President Truman himself. Historians came to regard it, rightly, as one of the principal documents and instruments of the change of American policy toward the Soviet Union, indeed, of the beginning of the Cold War” (p. 72-73) 69 university declined the invitation. Discouraged, the Chicago Boys did not give up and moved onto the Catholic University in Chile. Chile for them was important as a country full of natural resources and a prospective playing ground that could be an experiment for their transformation toward neoliberalism18. So, in 1953, the Catholic University in Chile agreed to send students to
Chicago to learn about free market ideology. From 1957 to 1971, the Ford Foundation and the
U.S. taxpayer helped pay for some of Chile’s best students to study in Chicago and some of
Chicago’s most lauded neoliberal thinkers to travel to Chile to help implement programs at the
Catholic University (Harvey, 2007; Klein, 2007).
Back in the United States, embedded liberalism started to fail as stagflation occurred, partially due to an imbalance of power in the hands of the worker (Newman & Giardina, 2010).
The stagflation, caused by a stagnant marketplace and workforce combining to create the devaluation of money leading to inflation, caused the dollar to fall from being the gold standard in 1971 (Harvey, 2006; Harvey, 2007). This was coupled with the Organization of the Petroleum
Exporting Countries (OPEC) oil crisis of 1973, which really opened the door for economic change. It was the first opportunity for the United States to test the third of Harvey’s (2007) four ways for accumulation by dispossession: crisis management.
18 More than 50 years later, we witnessed a similar ‘playground’ for free-market adherents. As Chandrasekara (2007) outlines in his book Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq’s Green Zone, the Coalition Provisional Authority established by the United States and overseen by L. Paul Bremer III effectively sought to implement as many free-market directives as possible, arguably in violation of international law, and intended to last in perpetuity—much to the detriment of things such as infrastructure projects and basic human needs. This view was shared by Klein (2004) in her article “Baghdad year zero: Pillaging Iraq in pursuit of a neocon utopia”, which appeared in Harper’s Magazine, as well by Palast (2007) in his book Armed Madhouse: From Baghdad to New Orleans. 70
3.1.3 Disaster Capital
To understand how neoliberalism took control, it is imperative to first understand how it was to be implemented. As I have noted, it is not often that mostly theoretical economists have the ability to actually see their ideas performed on a large scale. In order to be prepared for the opportunity to implement neoliberal reform, the key actors must understand how to capitalize on or create disaster, what Klein (2007) has referred to as the shock doctrine. First, I explore why this term is utilized by Klein and what it means to be shocked and have shock therapy used on the human body.
In her groundbreaking book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, Klein
(2007) intimately detailed the work of Ewen Cameron, a psychologist working at McGill
University in Canada who believed that he could change behaviors by implementing shock therapy to his patients. His methods were perverse to say the least, but what he was ultimately attempting to do was clear the mind of the patient in order to obtain what he called a “blank slate.” When the patient had a blank slate for a mind, he or she could be molded into whatever
Cameron wanted him or her to become. This therapy was implemented in multiple ways and was supported by the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States, which was attempting to figure out new ways to gain information from captives while simultaneously “fixing” the prisoner (Klein, 2007).
One way Cameron implemented the torture or “shock therapy” was to lock people in dark rooms for months at a time (Klein, 2007). The patient would be subjected to living in this dark room while having gloves taped to his or her hands, a blindfold over his or her eyes, and he or she would be fed at random so that he or she would not begin to develop habits. Another way the
71 shock therapy was implemented was to drug the patient with new types of synthetically concocted drugs such as LSD. Cameron would also literally shock the patient with electrodes.
What all of this did was indeed create a blank slate of a person (Klein, 2007). However, instead of being able to mold the person into whatever he wanted, Cameron instead created a body with no mind. The people would revert back to being children. Some would suck their thumbs and defecate in their pants. Many were never able to maintain a normal lifestyle ever again because of the shock therapy that was intended to “help” make them a better human being and citizen to the state (Klein, 2007). As I will show in the following, this is exactly the theoretical premise of disaster capital and “shock therapy” that was implemented in the developing countries through neoliberal ideologies. It is this dualism of seeing the human being as being of separate mind and body that allows this to occur (Sharp, 2000). Cameron broke down body and mind in order to recreate the mind by viewing the bodies as abject. This is what shock therapy does. The body is unimportant and the manipulation of the separate mind is the focal point of manipulation. This manipulation is articulated through the movement of bodies, the killing of bodies, and the privileging of bodies.
Borrowing from Cameron’s perverse way of thinking, Friedman and the Chicago Boys saw a rare opportunity to implement the free market in Chile through creating and capitalizing on disaster (Klein, 2007). Really at the heart of the little September 11th of 1973 was the ability for
Friedman, his colleagues, and his acolytes to implement all four levels of accumulation by dispossession (e.g. privatization and commodification, financialization, crisis management and manipulation, and state redistribution) that is so crucial to neoliberal capital (Harvey, 2007).
Further, they were able to use shock therapy quite literally from a political, economic, and militaristic purview. This ideological, financial, and resource driven accumulation by
72 dispossession did not necessarily occur in the order of Harvey’s script, but it occurred nonetheless.
3.1.4 Neoliberal Shock Therapy in Practice
For the administrators and those trained in the so-called Chicago School of economic thought, Chile was too socialist for their liking especially when considering that the United
States was fighting a war in Vietnam and worldwide against the ‘atrocities’ of communism.
Therefore, something needed to be done in order to open up the markets in Chile for foreign investment and for neoliberal reform. First, the group had to stage a coup where-in Pinochet would become the leader (Klein, 2007). Pinochet was receptive of the neoliberal ideas, if for no other reason than he could come into power by implementing those ideas and siding with the neoliberal group that was becoming quite prevalent in Chile through the influence of the Chicago boys. So, they outlined a coup for the initial implementation of shock. It was thought that once the country was in shock because of the coup, hard neoliberal economics must be implemented immediately and harshly so that the shocked citizenry neither had time to react nor ability to fight back (Klein, 2007). Therefore, Friedman and his followers provided a script that would lead to the immediate removal of social welfare programs and begin the process of privatizing the natural resources in Chile. This was how the various elements of accumulation by dispossession were to be implemented in Chile.
First, the Chicago Boys helped create and manage a crisis. This management of crisis was met with economic reforms that financialized the state by implementing the influence of the IMF and international banks. It was also financialized by the idea of rent seeking (Harvey, 2007). This is paramount in understanding how neoliberalism works today. By rent seeking, the independent capitalist is investing in a commodity, they are not producing something tangible. Thus, it
73 becomes nothing more than a financial transaction. That is how developing countries always stay developing. The capitalist invests in the land speculatively, which most people equate to risk
(Harvey, 2006). Yet, really the person is taking no risk. The commodity will continue to be produced, and by investing, the capitalist does not have to deal with fixed capital necessarily or at least not directly, so they are constantly developing more capital. Further, the crisis management meant the privatization and commodification of natural resources and land in Chile.
Finally, the crisis was met with state redistribution where-in social welfare program were cut and the so called trickle-down effect was supposed to make sure that people on the bottom were living well by the goodwill of the people on top. Chile is a great example to use because all forms of dispossession are present as well as the creation of crisis itself. It was also really the first time that there was an opportunity for the neoliberal theorists to put their ideals into action.
Yet, Chile was not the only place that this transformation occurred.
Once Chile started its transformation by allowing the Chicago Boys to influence their learning, the Ford Foundation quickly found ways to spread the ‘good news’ of neoliberalism to the rest of the Southern Cone – Argentina and Brazil (Harvey, 2007; Klein, 2007). The relationship between the United States and Brazil reached a crescendo when the CIA-backed
Junta overthrew the socialist government and installed a free market supporting leader. Further, the Berkeley Mafia – another Ford Foundation group similar to the Chicago Boys – was intimately involved in helping Suharto come to power in Indonesia (Klein, 2007). The Berkeley
Mafia’s implementation of neoliberal praxis led to the slaughter of one million so-called
“delinquent” citizens. Moreover, these changes have led to the financial insolvency of these nations for the most part. All of the Southern Cone countries have been in and out of financial troubles while being largely forced to adhere to neoliberal market forces. The thing that holds all
74 of these instances together is that they were implemented under authoritative actions. Thus, while according to Friedman neoliberalism in theory is tied to democracy, authoritative actions are the only way that they can be instilled. In the 1970s, leading to the neoliberal regime beginning in the 1980s under Reagan in the United States and Thatcher in the United Kingdom, the move towards neoliberalization of the global economy was in motion.
3.1.5 Neoliberalization of the Global North
As multinational corporations and those in the Global North watched the implementation of neoliberal ideologies in the Global South evolve into an opportunity for free-market ideologies to dominate globally, similar economic reforms were being put into place in the
United States and United Kingdom. This implementation of neoliberal ideologies in these two countries really helps in understanding the characteristics of the neoliberal state. The process of neoliberalization for the Global North makes sense when considering the trajectory Marx (1976) suggested capitalism must follow naturally. As Marx noted, and Harvey (2006) later clarified, surplus value is the imperative of the capitalist. The capitalist cannot put money forward without expecting a higher return. Thus, there are various techniques for enhancing the possibilities of a return on investment. For example, the capitalist could seek to exploit the worker further by offering less pay and more hours. Another option could be to improve technologies of machinery. Yet, because laws protect citizens in the Global North and technologies can raise the cost of fixed capital, another alternative is to relocate operations to a country where a different group of workers are available for exploitation – expand globally.
Initially, this could be problematic because of tariff systems. Therefore, loosening of governmental regulations must take place and governments have to work for the market, not the other way around – the market state (Polanyi, 2001). Thus, there must be a state monopoly
75 toward the free market which necessarily means that all activities conducted by the government are aligned with protecting the interests of the market (Harvey, 2006). In this scenario, social welfare programs interfere with the flow of the market and must be abolished (Friedman,
1962/2002). Free market ideologies becoming the focus of the government is the beginning point of the neoliberalization of the Global North that occurred under the leadership of President
Ronald Reagan in the United States and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the United
Kingdom.
For Reagan and Thatcher, the nation-state was there only to protect free market ideology; they believed there should be no welfare programs and the government should stay out of the business of business (Harvey, 2007). As Friedman (1962/2002) argued, the government cannot do a better job with an individual’s money than the individual can when acting in his or her own best interest. This was largely his thought process because for Friedman, the state could not possibly know more about the market than those working within the market (Harvey, 2007). This thought of the state as nothing more than a figure of hands dealing with the market place was jarringly apparent when Thatcher took over as Prime Minister and told the citizens of Great
Britain that they were no longer a part of a society. Instead, she suggested, British citizens were a group of individuals and families (Harvey, 2007).
Stepping back and thinking about it for a second, this simple statement, for me, really defines neoliberal ideology and is what connects the problems of social programs, private property, and sport. From this simple statement, it can be seen that it was easy to justify the privatization of housing in the United Kingdom (Harvey, 2007). If we as a society are all nothing more than a group of people not tied to one another in any way other than the fact that we as individuals share the same territory, then it is not problematic to assume that homelessness is the
76 fault of the individual or that not moving “up” in the world is a direct result of some sort of individual inherent laziness. It also becomes the fault of the individual if he or she is uneducated; it becomes the fault of the individual if he or she cannot afford to eat better than a quarter- pounder with cheese at McDonald’s; it becomes the fault of the individual if he or she is left on the periphery of the core tenants of neoliberal society and is an abject suckle on the state.
This line of thinking was in no way particular to the Iron Lady herself. Instead, Reagan came into power with the desire to “free” the people by making sure that they would be able to trade freely with one another. It is during the Reagan and Thatcher era where we begin to see the huge shift away from the public sphere and to the market sphere (Croteau & Hoynes, 2006).
Within the market sphere, everything is open to be commodified – culture, history, sexuality, gender, etc. This is so because the imperative nature of neoliberal relationships is born out of the ideology that money is the bottom line, not people. Thus, there rests a paradox within neoliberal thinking: In order for neoliberal countries to get ahead, they cannot view the well-being of humans as the focal point, because if they did, that would hurt the bottom line. I will attempt to demonstrate this by discussing the Volcker Shock and how it related to the United States’ relationship with Mexico.
First, the relationship between capital and the U.S. financial sector must be understood.
In 1973 with the OPEC oil crisis, it is largely believed that the United States offered an ultimatum to Saudi Arabia that they either invest in New York banks or they would face imminent war with the United States (Harvey, 2007). So, Saudi Arabian officials chose to invest with the New York banks. This created an influx of money into the United States-based banking system. As noted by Harvey (2006), money not in motion is stagnant and causes problems within the economy because if it happens on a large scale, inflation occurs. Thus, money must be in
77 motion to become capital and capital must be in motion to return to money form. Therefore, the banks were looking for places to invest. So, they leaned on countries that needed help like
Mexico and gave them loans. That led to the Volcker Shock of 1980 that greatly impacted
Mexico.
In 1980 the Volcker Shock was implemented19 which artificially raised the interest rate
(Harvey, 2007; Klein, 2007). Problematically this increased the rates on loans given out to other countries to around 20%. At the time of the interest rate increase, Mexico owed the United States and the IMF billions of dollars. Due to the higher interest rates, Mexico could not pay back its debt. This move was done with the financial solvency of United States banks in mind, not the people of Mexico. Therefore, it went against the well-being of the average citizen in Mexico.
What resulted was the first instance of the United States and the IMF forcing neoliberal changes on a country (Harvey, 2007). The United States and the IMF agreed to roll-over the debt in exchange for political economic reform in Mexico. Specifically, the country was forced to open its borders and trade to outside investment. When this occurred, financial institutions and multinational corporations swooped into Mexico and laid claim to the formerly public natural resources, resulting in an exploding class divide between haves and have nots. Additionally, as
Harvey (2007) noted, 17 of the 24 richest people in the world were involved in the privatization of Mexico.
19 Between, 1969 and 1974, Paul Volcker was the Undersecretary for the Treasury for Monetary Affairs, during which time he helped implement wide-ranging domestic and international policies. In 1975, Volcker was named the President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. President Jimmy Carter named Paul Volcker as Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve in 1979. He served as chairman between 1979 and 1987 where he had the ability to enforce large sweeping policy changes (For more, see: http://www.ny.frb.org/aboutthefed/PVolckerbio.html). The most pertinent of those for the discussion at hand was the event explained above, the Volcker Shock. 78
This is how to create and capitalize on disaster from an economic perspective. In more recent times, the problems of neoliberalism have not gotten much better. The events of
September 11, 2001 led to an incredible turn of events in which the privatization of military has witnessed the prominence of violence throughout or world. On a daily basis, American citizens remain bombarded with neoconservative20 narrations of fear (e.g., on Fox News, on military- themed television shows such as NCIS, and across the right-wing blogosphere) and dominated by popular forms of surveillance (e.g., security cameras, location-tracking on cellphones, and lawful if ethically ambiguous wiretaps governed by the PATRIOT Act and more recent NSA incidences). Further, there is a continuing adherence in this nation and Global North to the
McDonaldization (Ritzer, 2011) of all industry. That is, we are told to care more about efficiency, calculability, profitability, control of technology, and rationality than the well-being of individuals.
Citizens in the Global North, particularly, have witnessed wars and atrocities on a large scale that have made it easier for us to disconnect the soul or the mind from the body. We witness natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina that are met with rejoicing from people like
Friedman who believe that it is an opportunity to purge New Orleans of the poor and privatize education (Giroux, 2006; Klein, 2007). And, those countries in the Global North – following what has become standard operating procedure in foreign policy, from Chile in 1973 to Iraq in c.
2003-2004 – go to wars with corporations in tow (Harvey, 2007), a point Arundhati Roy makes clear in her widely celebrated conversations with David Barsamian (2004) as part of the critically
20 As Harvey (2007) defined it “Neoconservatism is completely consistent with the neoliberal agenda of elite governance, mistrust of democracy, and the maintenance of market freedoms. But, it veers away, first in its concern for order as an answer to the chaos of individual interests, and second, in its concern for an overweening morality as the necessary social glue to keep the body politic secure in the face of external and internal dangers. Neoconservites emphasize militarization as an antidote to the chaos of individual interests (p. 82). 79 acclaimed book, The Checkbook and the Cruise Missile: Conversations with Arundhati Roy, when she noted that “McDonald’s cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas”.
3.1.6 Neoliberalism and the Body
The desire to turn the body into a commodified entity is helped in large part by our spatial disengagement with actual bodies. Instead of being actively engaged with other bodies, we have largely become a consumer society built on consumption (often at a distance) rather than face-to-face human interaction (Baudrillard, 1994). This is substantiated by Harvey’s (2007) conceptualization that individuals form identities as consumers through the ethos of “I shop, therefore I am.” If we are to accept that people are defined largely by what they consume, then it would go without saying that we must consume that which can be consumed and we should control that which can be controlled.
As previously noted, neoliberalism is not only about economic solvency. Rather, cultural practices and indeed the human body become something that can and should be consumed. A body that is not consuming in the market or one that is believed to be contradictory to the prevailing interests of the market can be treated as an aberration. For example, Rail (2012),
Guthman (2009), Wright and Harwood (2008) all showed how the inactive body is treated as worthless and capitalized upon. All of these viewpoints are made possible through the disconnection between the body and mind, or the dualist perspective (Sharp, 2000) and the ideology that we are not a society, but a group of individuals (Harvey, 2007) that are only productive as implemented into the free market as commodities.
All of this means that some bodies are treated as more important than others. In the free market world under Darwin’s guise of survival of the fittest, people are valued based upon what they can do for the market – what they can consume. The individual body in need is no longer
80 viewed as unfortunate; instead the individual becomes a leach upon society, a loser. An individual in need is easy to blame for his or her position if one takes on board Hayek’s (2007) assertion that all men (sic) are created equal with equal opportunity through the market. Thus, one who does not fulfill his or her own needs is to blame for his or her own misery. However, because some are indeed not born of equal circumstance, it requires that those who have can help those who have not creating a very particular social relationship within free-market ideology and exacerbated by neoliberal philosophy.
Because all are not born of equal circumstance, certain lifestyle modalities become privileged over others leading to power relationships built between sovereign power and bare life. Georgio Agamben (1998) explained this in terms of the bare life of homo sacer. Agamben, in discussing the purpose for his book on sovereign power and bare life, stated “the protagonist of this book is bare life, that is, the life of homo sacer (sacred man), who may be killed and yet not sacrificed, and whose essential function in modern politics we intend to assert” (p. 8, italics in original). Homo sacer is the man whom people have judged on account of his crime. Having been judged as guilty of something, the individual is not necessarily permitted to be killed, but the one who does fulfill the decision that the guilty be killed is not to be charged with homicide.
However, despite the fact that homo sacer is unsacrificeable, “he can nevertheless be killed by anyone” (Agamben, 1998, p. 113). What evolves from this are decisions made based upon a life that does not deserve to live, one “devoid of value” (Agamben, 1998, p. 138). This is a very socially constructed idea of value and those who have power determine these forms of concrete life. Bare life goes against this idea of the socially constructed or concrete form. Conversely, bare means pure Being, which is something always in contention with the concrete social form through historical processes (Agamben, 1998). However, those who make the concrete decisions
81 have power over what is assumed to be pure. Thus, bare life is understood in the free-market world as one which consists of serving the market. That is, the lives that matter are those which serve to fulfill the ideologies of marketization. This is the social construction of the good life – the bios.
In considering the bios, or the proper way of living for a group or individuals, as explained by Agamben (1998), and its connection with state monopoly it is important to note how the market comes to affect what is considered the quality life. Agamben called it attempting to find the “bios of the zoe” (p. 9). What Giroux (2006; 2008; 2010) interpreted Agamban to mean by this is that life itself becomes something agreed upon by the people in the democratic sphere treated as both object and subject of the democratic process so that the bios becomes zoe
– the act of simply living. Giroux took this to mean that quality life becomes known through the market, thus rendering disposable those bodies that act in ways adverse to the logic of the market. In the free-market society, then, he who acts within the confines of the system prospers – economically or socially – while he who does not is perishable. In the neoliberal era, the government’s role is to serve private interest instead of social welfare. Milton Friedman
(1962/2002) provided insight into why this makes sense with neoliberalism.
Friedman (1962/2002) noted that social welfare worked outside of the market. At the time of his writing, social welfare programs provided subsistence wages for those in need. For
Friedman, this action of providing aid outside of the market interferes with the market.
Interfering in the free market necessarily slows the potential growth of the market. Instead of prioritizing the creation of capital and production, the interference with the market creates chasm’s which take away growth potential. In a true free market, this would not be the case. Yet,
Friedman does not suggest that the unfortunate in society should be hung out to dry. Rather,
82
Friedman introduced a new tax system that would not create what he referred to as “leaches” on society, but would instead sustain people while incentivizing them to work harder. Because social welfare can become a market in and of itself outside of the government, new entities must be introduced that can provide the work force for the social welfare market. This opens a space where a volunteer market must be created by the government and non-profit organizations and capitalized upon by corporate entities.
3.1.7 The Volunteer Market
In the 20th century, there was a large shift, predominately in the United States and United
Kingdom, in popular and political attitudes toward the free market as a result of what Hayek
(2007) deemed the failure of the state. It is largely because of the profit driven nature of corporations and the lack of funding for social welfare programs that corporate philanthropy, cause-related marketing, and social marketing began to saturate the social landscape (King,
2000). Specht and Courtney (1994), for example, postulated that the removal of funds from social welfare programs created an environment that prioritized the individual profit-making motive and moved aid away from truly helping people. As a result, aid became utilized for individual or corporate wealth. Therefore, in an attempt to make up for the lack of government welfare programs and in an attempt to stretch influence globally, non-profit organizations became interested in promoting the idea of Americans aiding in global crises – the idea of giving back. 21
Although charitable, voluntary organizations date back to the 17th century with the introduction of the Freemasons (Arnsberger, Ludlum, Riley, & Stanton, 2008), a combination of
21 I always ask myself, giving back what? To be able to give back, do you not need to own something? However, this becomes convoluted when addressing issues of water crisis, because nobody owns water naturally. So, what is there to give back? 83 events occurred during the last century in the United States that led to a total of 1,574,674 non- profit organizations accounting for 5.9% of the national GDP in 2011 (Urban Institute Research of Record, 2012). First, in 1917, tax incentives were introduced for individuals to deduct charitable donations from their income tax; in 1936, Franklin Roosevelt introduced the same incentive for corporations (Arnsberger et al., 2008). Second, the Supreme Court of New Jersey ruled that corporations could make donations to non-profits that met societal needs (Bloomberg
Law, 2012), assuming that it increased the perceived goodwill of the providing corporation leading to an intensification of corporate reputation (King, 2000). This ruling was accompanied by the third major event wherein the Internal Revenue Service introduced 501I(3) as a classification for tax free not-for-profits, which allowed charitable organizations, churches, and educational institutions, among others, to be exempt from paying taxes (Arnsberger et al., 2008).
Finally, the current influx of non-profits – where the total number of non-profit organizations has risen by 25% in the past decade (Urban Institute Research of Record, 2012) – has increased the marked trend toward promoting volunteerism and personal responsibility consistent with rhetoric advanced during Ronald Reagan’s presidency and reiterated during Bill Clinton’s tenure in office
(King, 2000). Further, Reagan “introduced incentives by reducing corporate taxes and increasing the limits on charitable deductions for corporations from 5 to 10% of taxable income” (King,
2000, p. 105) that continue to be heavily incentivized today. This turn toward an era dominated by non-profits and a discourse of the good, donating American citizen resulted in the introduction of the social marketing conglomerate.
One poignant example of this can be witnessed through the Bono22 led (Product)RED
Campaign, which began in 2006 (Kotler & Lee, 2009). This campaign to end the global AIDS
22 Bono is the lead singer for Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Band U2. 84 crisis involved a partnership with GAP Inc., Motorola, American Express, Apple, and Dell, among other notable brands (Kotler & Lee, 2009). The corporations made special products with the Red logo and raised millions of dollars in the process. It also allowed the corporations to advertise themselves as socially responsible, not to mention make money for themselves – seemingly a win-win. However, this was done through the work of the American shopper and the
“politics of pity” (Arendt, 1963, as cited in Giardina, 2010, p. 131). Indeed, Kotler and Lee
(2009) stated, “Thanks to the American shopper, money has come from Red to help support their services to those afflicted with HIV” (p. 32). However, as Richey and Ponte (2011) noted in their book, Brand Aid:
RED’s representations are deeply problematic not simply in the ways that Africa is
‘reimagined’ and thus can be assumed by Western consumers to be suffering from some
imaginative lack, but more fundamentally in the ways that AIDS in Africa is made into
something that you can know from a distance (p. 57)
Within this ideology of the American obligated to ‘give back’ is the clearly articulated vision of a community of aid providers. Water charities, along with other charitable organizations, develop the connection between the aid provider and the aid receiver by evoking messages of cultural citizenship. As Miller (2006) noted:
We are in a crisis of belonging, a population crisis, of who, what, when, and where. More
and more people feel as though they do not belong. More and more people are seeking to
belong, and more and more people are not counted as belonging (p. 1, as cited in
Giardina, Metz, & Bunds, 2012, p. 346, emphasis in original).
In his quote – and in the more general discourse of charitable organizations – Miller (2006) extols the concept of the communitas. Esposito (2010) explained that the communitas is:
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The totality of persons united not by a ‘property’ but precisely by an obligation or a debt;
not by an ‘addition’ [piú] but by a ‘subtraction’ [meno]: by a lack, a limit that is
configured as an onus, or even as a defective modality form him who is ‘affected,’ unlike
for him who is instead ‘exempt’ [esent] or ‘exempted.’ Here we find that the final and
most characteristic of the opposition associated with (or that dominate) the alternative
between public and private, those in other words that contrast communitas to immunitas.
If communis is he who is required to carry out the functions of an office – or to the
donation [elargizione] of a grace – on the contrary, he is called immune who has to
perform no office…, and for that reason he remains ungrateful [ingratus]…Whereas the
communitas is bound by the sacrifice of the compensatio, the immunitas implies the
beneficiary of the dispensatio (p. 6).
Therefore, if one desires to be accepted as a citizen, as a part of the Global North, he or she is required to donate and give aid. He or she who does not perform according to the social impetus of the volunteer market remains ungrateful.
Thus, there is a need to work toward understanding the neoliberal undertone that comes with the volunteer market; one that is mobilized to reach particular financial goals by CSR initiatives from groups “with their headquarters in the North [who] hijack more altruistic developmental creeds…Northern private interest can sometimes clash with local/Southern development priorities by usurping either domestic suppliers or non-profit organizations”
(Levermore, 2010, p. 253, as cited in Hayhurst, 2011, p. 4). That is, it is important to interrogate what it means to experience from abroad, speak for those in situations the speaker knows nothing about, and how that can create more problems than solutions. To understand how this relates to
86 social marketing groups providing answers to those in the Global South, it is important to examine the purpose of social marketing groups and their use of the body in motion.
3.2 Social Marketing
Generally, scholars (i.e. Andreasen, 2003; Bennett & Sargeant, 2005; Kotler & Levy,
1969) acknowledge that social marketing had its beginning with Wiebe’s (1951-52) questioning whether brotherhood could be sold like soap. Kotler and Levy (1969) introduced the idea that marketing could play a role in the social exchange of ideas. In 1971, the first definition of social marketing was introduced when Kotler and Zaltman (1971) described social marketing as the planning and development of changing ideas in society. Kotler and Zaltman believed that commercial marketing techniques could be used to implement social ideas. The general idea of social marketing was quickly rejected by scholars such as Luck (1969, 1974), who believed that social marketing took away from dealing with real issues in business and marketing and generally had no place within academia or practice. Further, Luck noted that the theory of social marketing was not a theory at all; it was just a context that commercial marketing may or may not fit within. Andreasen (2003) eloquently suggests that this period of time for social marketing could be equated to that of infantilism for a child. It was a field that really had no concrete direction and was not able to identify itself.
Bloom and Novelli (1981) attempted to articulate ideas for moving the field of social marketing forward, but unfortunately, as Andreasen (2003) pointed out, the field itself was in an identity crisis. There was not a consistent definition and the uses of social marketing were very confusing. Some believed that social marketing was first used in India in 1964 to help with the introduction of condoms, but nobody really knew what to call it at that time. The field continued to strive for notoriety as a legitimate field of inquiry until the 1990s and the release of Kotler and
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Roberto’s (1989) first book on social marketing. It was in this period of the 1990s that the theory of planned behavior and the thought that perhaps social marketing is about behavioral change became prevalent (Andreasen, 2003). Andreasen produced the first definition that included the idea of a marketing strategy of design, implementation, and evaluation leading to behavioral changes. As the early 21st century began, the field of social marketing was coming alive with a new journal, multiple authors contributing to work within the field, and a website started by
Andreasen (2002) called social-marketing.org. As the theory seemed to be rounding into shape at this time, extension of theory and ideas for implementing social marketing strategies started to form. Specifically, two frameworks are of importance, the one provided by Thackerley and
Neiger (2003) and the one presented by Kotler and Lee (2009).
First, Thackerley and Neiger (2003) attempted to move the theory of social marketing into the practical realm. They implemented their idea for what the marketing objective and goals of a social marketing ideal should be. This took shape in the form of the Social Marketing
Assessment and Response Tool (SMART) framework. The SMART framework suggests that social marketing strategies should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-based.
Further, Thackerley and Neiger introduced a seven-step model for how to implement social marketing into a specific problem. First, there must be a clearly defined plan and purpose. The social marketer or social marketing group must know why it is attempting to change the behaviors of a certain group. Second, the audience must be clearly defined. This is an aspect of market segmentation that clearly defines the target audience, demographics, and geography.
Third, the channel must be specified. The channel refers to the way that the message will be sent to the target audience. Fourth, the marketing mix must be implemented. This is where the product (idea), place (where the person can find out about the idea), promotion (how it is being
88 promoted), and price (what are the costs associated with contributing or with being a part of the program) come together. Price can sometimes be equated to opportunity cost where the individual is voluntarily giving up their opportunity to be doing something else while they are taking part in a social marketing program or intervention. Fifth, the idea must be developed. The social marketing group must make sure that it develops a plan for implementation and evaluation. Sixth, the idea for behavioral change must be implemented. Seventh, and finally, the intervention or program must be evaluated. This is an example of a good first step that will be a starting point for critique later.
Following that initial contribution of a plan for social marketing, Kotler and Lee (2009) provided an understanding that social marketing must be multilayered. The multilayered approach means that non-profits, government agencies, local communities, and multinational corporations come together to formulate a social marketing program. This opens the door for the ideas of social orientation, CSR/CRM, corporate philanthropy, sales orientation, and portfolio investment to coalesce under social marketing. One important element of Kotler and Lee’s book
Up and Out of Poverty is the ten-step model the authors asserted social marketing programs should follow. This model essentially builds off of Thackerley and Neiger’s (2003) model and brings social marketing to where it is today.
The first step of Kotler and Lee’s (2009) model is deciding the purpose of the social marketing campaign. The group must succinctly understand why the problem at hand is a problem and why it is interested in helping to solve the problem. Second, the group must perform a SWOT analysis to determine the strengths and weaknesses of its potential programs as well as the opportunities and threats to getting involved in the implementation of a program. Third, the social marketing group must decide who the target audience is. It must segment the market and
89 decide who it is attempting to persuade toward behavioral change in terms of demographics, geography, and culture. Fourth, it must implement and clearly distinguish their marketing objectives. It can do this by using Thackerley and Neiger’s (2003) SMART framework making sure that the objectives are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-based. Fifth,
Kotler and Lee suggest that the social marketers should analyze the factors that could influence the implementation and success of the program. By factors, they are really referring to understanding what barriers there are, what competition there is, and what opportunities there are. Sixth, the social marketing group should prepare a statement that it will present to the target audience. This statement should encapsulate what it hopes to get across to the audience and nail down really what the target behavior should be. Seventh, the social marketing group should implement the marketing mix of product, place, promotion, and price similarly to what was described by Thackerley and Neiger. Eighth, the group should formulate a strategy for the evaluating the social program. Is the program going to be evaluated from a profit perspective, behavioral change perspective, increased brand recognition, etc.? Ninth, the social marketing group must develop a budget that can account for sustaining the program, implementing behavioral change, and marketing the idea to other potential investors. Finally, the social marketing group should design a plan for implementing the social marketing intervention or program. This model really details how social marketing appears to be utilized today. The social- marketing.org website, which was started in 2002 and more recent scholarship (e.g. Kotler &
Lee, 2009), provide insight into how social marketing has been utilized to this point.
As Naylor (2012) noted, social marketing to this point has been largely utilized in the safety and health fields. There have been multiple campaigns in various countries for the utilization of condoms, drunken driving initiatives, seatbelt initiatives, etc. While the majority of
90 scholarship has noted that the fields of health and medicine are at the forefront, Andreasen
(2003) and Baker (2004) both note that some of what we have witnessed throughout the past forty years that has been not associated with social marketing can actually be considered social marketing. This mandates a reconsideration of how to evaluate social marketing. To really understand the progression of social marketing and how it works as a multilayered approach to behavioral change (Kotler & Lee, 2009), it is imperative to relate it with CSR, CRM, strategic corporate philanthropy, and social orientation.
3.2.1 Social Marketing and Related Concepts
First, it is important to make clear the progression towards a multilayered, integrated social marketing program. Starting in 1917, publicly traded corporations in the state of Texas wanted to provide causes with money – what can be considered straight philanthropy (King,
2000). This idea of giving money away to charities infuriated shareholders who did not agree with this being the responsibility of the corporations. In fact, as law still dictates, the role of the corporation is to profit maximize for the sake of the shareholders. This argument continued until
1953, when the State Supreme Court of New Jersey decided that it was possible for corporations to donate to charities in the case that the donation helps them market themselves to possible consumers and investors. Simply put, the philanthropic organization by law must use their philanthropy as some sort of leverage toward either reputation gain (the main idea behind CSR), or as a means to utilizing its products in conjunction with a cause that will ultimately lead to profit generation (the main idea behind CRM). Corporate philanthropy, then, necessarily had to be conducted strategically. Organizations gave to causes that would help them either financially or reputation-wise, which is really just a means to financial productivity (King, 2000).
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While corporate philanthropy continued, CSR was outlined by Carroll (1979) as a philosophical goal of a corporation to attend to social needs beyond simply profit maximization.
What this really meant was reputation. Similarly, American Express in 1983 implemented the first broadly discussed CRM initiative when it spent $4 million marketing the revival of the
Statue of Liberty. The marketing campaign entailed 1 cent from each purchase on an American
Express card going directly to funding the restoration of the Statue of Liberty and $1 being donated for every new application. American Express raised between $1 and $2 million for the restoration, but more importantly trademarked the term cause-related marketing and saw an increase in its reputation. This is the main idea behind CRM, which is to connect a product to a cause (McAlister & Farrell, 2002). Here, it is important to note that CRM and CSR are essentially arguing the same point. CRM utilizes a product to maximize profit and increase reputation. CSR theoretically cares about the society outside of profit maximization but does so in order to increase reputation so that eventually profit can be maximized. Regardless, CRM can also be evidenced by the (Product)RED campaign for AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis, which was aided by government funds, multinational corporations selling specific projects that contained the (Red) label, non-profit organizations, and local communities (Kotler & Lee, 2009).
More recently, scholars have begun to consider CSR as a subset of Global Social
Corporate Engagement (GSCE). GSCE takes CSR a bit further because corporations participating in GSCE intend on influencing political, economic, or cultural policy (Hayhurst,
2011). This is an important evolution of corporate involvement, but is considered here not too dissimilarly from regular corporate philanthropists that might want to influence decision-making.
Further, this understanding of only corporate involvement will serve this project well but does not include all elements of the social marketing conglomerate. Thus, in this project I seek to
92 differentiate the different ideals of philanthropy, CRM, CSR, GSCE, social orientation, portfolio investment, and how they fit with social marketing.
The (Red) campaign can help articulate the complex relationships between the different entities in the social marketing conglomerate. Further, I think it can help us to understand the complex relationship between the different concepts and what Naylor (2012) was talking about when he noted that societal orientation is a subset of social marketing. It is here that I want continue my assertions noted in chapter one to argue that CSR, CRM, corporate philanthropy, and societal orientation are all a part of the multilayered approach to social marketing and all desire behavioral change on the part of somebody. For the non-profit organization within a social marketing campaign such as (Product)RED they can take a societal orientation separate from the business perspective that favors other business objectives above society. Motorola can implement a product-based campaign where some of their Razr phones are sold with red covers indicative of profit maximizing product association through CRM. Other corporations can just give money that they then publicize in a strategic move of corporate philanthropy. Additional companies could give to the social marketing campaign in an effort to raise their reputation. Still other organizations with more of a sales orientation, such as investment firms, can utilize the campaign for portfolio investments (Ritzer, 2011) where they seek financial gain, not control.
This is how social marketing is utilized primarily today, and will be problematized later in this dissertation.
3.2.2 Organizational Orientation in Social Marketing
Beginning with the industrial revolution of the late 19th century and moving into the mid-
20th century, corporations typically adhered to a production or product orientation. With a production orientation, the idea of Say’s law dictates action (Kokemuller, 2012). Say’s law
93 indicates that supply will equal demand. Therefore, an organization taking a production orientation typically situates itself around the efficiency of production and keeping costs low for the company (Kokemuller, 2012). The practice was lauded in the early 20th century for being a productive way to run business. However, scholars and practitioners who favor marketing- orientation have argued that the production orientation looks too closely inside the organization while ignoring the outside, specifically competition and customers (Gummesson, 1991).
Similar to the production orientation, the product orientation also looks inwardly at the product made by the organization (Kokemuller, 2012). However, the product orientation is undergirded by an adherence to making a superior product. This obsession with the quality of the product necessitates the organization implement opportunities for technological advancement and constant refinement of product quality (Kokemuller, 2012). From a marketing perspective, product orientation, like production orientation, ignores the role of the customer. It is important to evaluate product orientation also from the perspective that political economists might take.
That is, businesses are concerned with surplus value (Harvey, 2006). Surplus value is greatly enhanced when fixed capital is securely in place. Fixed capital is the part of capital that is in motion only in the respect that it is used in the production phase of the circulation of capital – production/circulation, consumption, and reproduction (Harvey, 2006). If the organization has a product orientation and is necessarily conditioned to improve the quality of the product, it may purchase the new machinery. In this case, the organization with a product orientation and a turnover of fixed capital, actually resulting in a high rate of fixed capital, might cease to exist.
An organization with a sales orientation attempts to sell products that are already being produced by the organization (Dunnett, 2012). Contrary to a marketing orientation where the organization believes that the customer wants to buy the product or needs the product and seeks
94 to satisfy the customer’s needs, the sales oriented organization contains individuals that do not believe the potential consumer wants to buy the product. Therefore, hard selling tactics are implemented. This led to what Andreasen (1975) referred to as the dark days of marketing, when the organizations did not care about the consumer and instead tried to push them towards buying products.
An organization is said to have a marketing orientation once everyone in the company has positioned their roles in respect to the customer (Gummesson, 1991). More specifically, a marketing orientation puts the customer at the center of the organization. While an organization has full-time marketers, it will also have part-time marketers spread throughout the organization
(Gummesson, 1991). Gummesson’s (1991) idea of the part-time marketer means that everyone in the organization, not just the marketer’s, has a focus on customer relations. He suggested that this is extremely important because the service industry is beginning to dominate the organizational landscape. Gummesson noted that within the service industry, various elements come together so that at once a single individual could be the seller, the marketer, the provider, and the product. A marketing orientation necessitates the need for marketing management with a clear leader and clear followers dedicated to planning, developing, implementing, and evaluating marketing strategies (Bagozzi, 1975). Further, the marketing manager must understand the role of exchange. Within the role of exchange, there is restricted, generalized, and complex.
Restricted indicates the typical one to one exchange. Generalized exchange involves three parties where A satisfies B, B satisfies C, and C satisfies A. A complex exchange involves at least three parties and includes an exchange between a variety of members. The complex exchange will be discussed at length later as a possible theoretical explanation of social marketing.
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A marketing orientation has been praised for its ability to meet the needs and wants of the consumer, but it has also been met with disdain for the ignorance of the internal mechanisms of the organization (Heiens, 2000) as well as the way that it has been utilized to manipulate consumers (Andreasen, 1975). In response to the first criticism, Heiens (2000) attempted to develop a marketing typology. He was actually writing this in response to both the criticism that marketing failed and that marketing was nothing more than consumer orientation. Therefore, within this typology, he recognized four different aspects of marketing that separate it from a consumer orientation. First, the “consumer preoccupied” marketer is the marketer who does a good job of responding to the desires of the customer but ignores the competition. The “market warrior” is the marketer who is so concerned with the competition, that he or she forgets the consumer. The integrated marketer is the desired marketer who is able to understand the consumer and the market. This is the “best” type of marketer, but it also necessitates a well- funded organization that can account for both the market and the customer. Finally, Heiens described the idea of the inept marketer who neither understands the customer nor the market. In his discussion, Heiens does a good job of making a typology that is able to discuss both the strengths and weaknesses of having a marketing orientation.
Societal orientation is a very difficult concept to truly understand in the business society.
This is due in large part to the nature of business necessarily indicating that organizations must pay attention to the bottom line of financial performance. Naylor (2012) suggested that societal orientation is a subset of social marketing that places the societal good at the center of the organization. However, the societal good does not take priority over other business objectives.
This complex idea of societal orientation must be taken up in much greater detail and analysis.
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3.2.2.1 Societal Orientation It could be argued that the majority of non-profits and government organizations have a societal orientation. Further, it seems appropriate to suggest that professional sports leagues or health clubs have a societal orientation. For example, National
Basketball Association (NBA) commissioner, David Stern, noted that while the league has a fundamental requirement to be financially viable, its main secondary purpose is to have a positive impact on society (Babiak, 2010). This makes sense. After all, professional sports leagues are non-profit organizations. Interestingly, the National Football League is a non-profit that has a commissioner making $29.5 million a year, but it is still a non-profit. These sports leagues have utilized their stature within communities to team up with organizations such as The
United Way, Read to Achieve, and many others (Babiak, 2010). The main purpose for the affiliation appears to be from the perspective of either maximizing profit or increasing relationships with consumers. Although the affiliation between not-for profit entities and professional sport leagues has been called corporate social responsibility (CSR) by Babiak
(2010), Babiak and Wolfe (2009), and Walker and Kent (2009) because of the adherence to reputational enhancement, the core purpose for the organizations involvement with a program aimed at societal improvement lies at the societal orientation of the organization.
It is important to make clear the point that societal orientation is a position that an organization takes that is still reliant upon the idea of profit and does not neglect other business objectives (Naylor, 2012). It is difficult to find a publicly traded organization that has a societal orientation. Ben and Jerry’s ice cream is a famous example of a corporation that specifically stated that they had a societal orientation, but it has since been bought by Unilever and no longer strictly adheres to its goals.
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As part of a company’s marketing orientation, it could utilize CRM to raise awareness for a cause and produce revenue for the company. Or, the organization could call it CSR, which is really also just another way of marketing the company with a financial end. Socially responsible marketing can be utilized to help the environment, but that is not going to take precedence over profit (Baker, 2004). The point I am trying to make is that societal orientation does not make sense for a publicly traded business to utilize unless you are Milton Friedman. To Friedman
(1962/2002), the only social responsibility an organization has is to be financially viable and independent thus making a profit for shareholders. Therefore, every financially successful decision would be societally oriented.
Aside from Friedman, the key consideration about societal orientation in regards to businesses – which is how it has been positioned in the literature as outlined by Naylor (2012) – is to put it in perspective of the other forms of organizational orientation that have been discussed above. None of the other orientations come with the caveat that they are important, but not to the extent that they would interrupt other business objectives. For example, production orientation puts production first (Kokemuller, 2012); product orientation puts the quality of the product first (Kokemuller, 2012); sales orientation puts the aggressive selling of the product first
(Dunnett, 2012); and marketing orientation puts the customer at the center of the organization
(Gummesson, 1991). At no point do proselytizers of those orientations suggest that their respective position should take a back seat to another position. Even with those orientations,
Mavando and Farrell (2003) indicated that the different aspects of the organization come together with the common goal of financial performance. Putting financial performance as the end goal of a particular orientation does not make sense from a societal perspective. A company
98 can have a marketing orientation and care about society, but a societal orientation does not make sense.
Despite my argument that a societal orientation does not make sense for publicly traded or financial performance driven organizations, it could make very good sense for sport organizations at the local level. For example, Tallahassee parks and recreation is a government- run sport organization that conducts its business with a societal orientation. Having had the opportunity to speak with the director of Tallahassee parks and recreation (in my personal life, not related to this research), I have been able to develop a new appreciation for how government organizations at the local level try to improve the health and well-being of society. The parks and recreation division is a good example of how a sport organization utilizes a societal orientation because it really puts the society first. If a child is unable to pay for his football pads, the city will pay for them; if a child cannot pay for a baseball uniform, the organization pays for it. The bottom line in everything they do is focused first and foremost on society. This is what a societal orientation of an organization would really be if it were to be theoretically consistent with all other forms of organizational orientation. Sport on the local and global levels offers the opportunity for that.
More globally, Chatziefstathiou (2007) noted that the idea of Olympism is a socially driven sport ideal. Olympism was introduced to Coubertin in the late 19th century as a way to spread education, health, and sport. What resulted from Coubertin’s modern Olympic movement was the creation of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). This organizing body is supposed to spread the ideals of Olympism, but has oftentimes struggled with its own demons of putting profit in front of society. The IOC is so deeply embedded with corporations it could be difficult for it to separate and develop a truly societal orientation. However, if possible, the IOC
99 is a global organization that has the opportunity to run as a non-profit with the goal of helping society. It does not have to run at a profit and does not have to make its leaders rich. It could— and I would argue, should—run like the Tallahassee parks and recreation division.
Quite simply, there has been confusion as to what exactly societal orientation entails
(Andreasen, 2003) and it certainly is not a clearly articulated separate orientation for a publicly traded orientation. For non-profits and government programs societal orientation should be implemented, but unfortunately, non-profits have become concerned with the bottom line and government organizations are consistently seeing their budgets depleted (Baker, 2004). It is my belief that although a societal orientation can be financially viable, society should be placed before other business objectives. Thus, whereas production, product, and sales orientations do not theoretically or practically make sense in the free market and marketing orientation has suffered from poor operationalization as a theoretical construct, societal orientation fails to have an easily identifiable theoretical construct and does not fit within the general understanding of organizational orientation (as well as the other orientations).
Thus far, societal orientation only makes sense for non-profit organizations and government programs. Perhaps this is sufficient given the political economic climate, but it is important to note how this impacts how we understand CSR, CRM, corporate philanthropy, and social marketing. It is vitally important to understand what exactly societal orientation is so that we can begin to interpret its connection with social marketing and the intertwining of governments, local communities, non-profits, and multinational corporations. One way to possibly understand the relationship between the various entities, volunteers, and the people impacted by clean drinking water is to consider exchange theory in social marketing.
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3.2.3 Exchange Theory and Social Marketing
With the shift in social marketing theory towards behavioral change, one of the theories that has been predominately introduced is the theory of planned behavior (Kotler & Lee, 2009;
Naylor, 2012). This theory suggests that intent happens before behavior. Therefore, it is important to understand the target audience’s intent to change behaviors before engaging in social marketing campaigns. However, Kotler and Lee (2009) suggested that exchange theory is fundamental to social marketing. As the authors detailed, “the target must perceive benefits that equal or exceed the perceived cost. As Bill Smith at AED often exhorts, we should think of the social marketing paradigm as ‘let’s make a deal’” (p. 55). Therefore, the theoretical framework that I believe should be better understood for social marketing is exchange theory as described by Bagozzi (1975).
I believe exchange theory can be instrumental in understanding social marketing because, as Bagozzi (1975) and Kotler and Zaltman (1971) suggested, marketing is built on the idea of exchange. Although more recent scholarship has determined that marketing is about value creation, value creation does not necessarily fit with Kotler and Lee’s (2009) discussion of social marketing or with water because there is little value that can be created beyond the value of one’s life. Thus far exchange theory has not been understood correctly in relation to social marketing and water charity conglomerates. Considering Bagozzi’s discussion and the idea that the various concepts of social marketing, social orientation, corporate philanthropy, portfolio investment, CRM, and CSR are all related, perhaps social marketing can best be understood as a complex exchange. Remembering that a complex exchange occurs when three or more organizations come together to exchange various quantities or qualities that they have, we can use a social marketing example to relate this theory of complex exchange that might end the
101 argument still put forth by Peattie and Peattie (2003) that social marketing is not a distinctive field.
In the complex exchange of social marketing, there are multinational corporations, non- profit organizations, local communities as clients, international non-profit organizations, governments, and the target audience. My example here is going to consider the utilization of water charities because this best accentuates the connection and the complex relation of exchange. For example, the target audience for water charities of behavioral change cannot be thought of as the clients who receive the funding. Rather, the target audience is the consumer of the public service announcement. So the target audience is the American volunteer and donator
(King, 2000). Essentially, what the social marketing campaign does is exchange with the donator the ability to feel good as an American citizen who is supposed to be philanthropic (King, 2000).
In exchange, the social marketing campaign receives money. While this process is occurring, the non-profit with the societal orientation is implementing programs to affect behavioral change in the clients, who are the people in need of the water.
In the Global South, it is generally understood that the people in need of the water receive the water in exchange for giving up their rights to public access for water and their adherence to accepting the intervention of the Global North. The multinational corporations provide operational money to the water charity in exchange for one of two things. It could be that the corporation donates money to help the water charity in exchange for the ability to market itself as associated with that charity and the subsequent possibility for reputational gain and profit maximization. Conversely, it could be that an equity firm invests from a sales orientation and portfolio investment perspective in order to either gain control of the long term investment well sites, or to maintain a financial stake in the funds generated by those well sites. The government
102 organizations in the developing countries are then providing access to the non-profits and the multinational corporations in return for the ability to witness its citizens get out of the shock that is prolonged water crisis.
3.2.4 Neoliberalism and Social Marketing
The association between social marketing and neoliberalism is pretty clear. I believe that social marketing as it currently stands has everything to do with the global shift toward neoliberalism. As I have hopefully made clear, I consider the various concepts of CRM, corporate philanthropy, CSR, portfolio investment, and societal orientation to all be aspects of social marketing. Yet, I think that one reason for the prolonged infantilism of social marketing as a field of study has to do with the shifting political and economic philosophies that were taking place at the time that social marketing was just getting under way. This is brilliantly discussed by
Samantha J. King (2000) in her doctoral dissertation, Civic Fitness: The Politics of Breast
Cancer and the Problem of Generosity, which formed the basis of her landmark book Pink
Ribbons, Inc.: Breast Cancer and the Politics of Philanthropy (2008), as she described how the shift towards neoliberalism directly related to the rise of cause-related marketing.
For King (2000; 2008), Reagan’s presidency marked a shift in both political and economic ideology (a claim that has been similarly put forth by the likes of Harvey, Klein,
Giroux, and others). When Reagan took office, he immediately cut social welfare spending and implemented larger tax breaks for corporations who provided aid to charities. This move away from social programs that continued through the presidencies of George H. W. Bush, Bill
Clinton, George W. Bush, and now Barack Obama has necessitated that aid comes from somewhere other than the government. Taking a look back at Andreasen’s (2002) creation of the social-marketing.org website, we can see why social marketing struggled to grab hold
103 conceptually of what was happening. All of his examples are from government-supported charities. They all have to do with social welfare programs that are state or government funded.
In all of the readings I have encountered about social marketing, nobody seems to note this shift.
Perhaps this is due in part to attempted shifts in the field toward being a psychological and marketing blend, but it is certainly a curious omission for a field of study that works primarily with cases where social marketing has been employed in practice.
Returning to social-marketing.org, it is interesting that the website has really not been updated for the past five years. Once again, this might have to do with a reluctance to evaluate the social, political, and economical shifts that are currently taking place. Social marketing theory reacted to what was happening in practice. This is why Kotler and Lee (2009) then determined to shift toward a multilayered approach to social marketing. While there are many problems with this approach that I will get to shortly, the reasoning behind the shift actually makes sense. The reasoning is because there are fewer social welfare programs, we are no longer a society – instead we are individuals (Harvey, 2007), and neoliberalism has come to define our interactions.
Within this critique of social marketing as a product and reproducer of neoliberalism, I would like to focus on two main aspects of social marketing as it is currently framed. First, I would like to talk about neoliberal paternalism (Soss, Fording, and Schram, 2009). Second, I would like to talk about the idea of the exchange and relate this to accumulation by dispossession
(Harvey, 2007). Soss, Fording, and Schram (2009) described paternalism in the neoliberal society as a “shift in policy government from an emphasis on rights and opportunities to a stance that is more directive and supervisory in promoting preferred behaviors among the poor” (p. 1).
King (2000) also suggests that cause-related marketing groups do not have the authority to speak
104 for those in need. What happens with most social marketing groups in the United States is that they go and prescribe what should be done in another culture. They assume they know what is best and what is best typically serves the educated “Northerner.” As Soss and colleagues – echoing the words of Giroux (2002) – pointed out, this act of speaking for others helps to obfuscate historical pasts (if not outright serve as revisionist history). Further, Hall (1997) suggested that the global movement of bodies through tourism has allowed culture to be commodified and removed from its actual meaning. What this does is allow for people in more educated, wealthier nations to believe that what they understand as another society does in fact represent that society. Therefore, because we may think we know that society, we can provide the answers for them.
This is by no means meant to suggest that all aid is bad, but as Moyo (2012) noted, no country has ever gotten out of poverty by being given heavy amounts of aid. It is through trade and commerce that development happens. Aid can be beneficial when those attempting to help consider the desires of those in need as opposed to prescribing fixes that benefit the givers more than the receivers (e.g., the post-WWII Marshall Plan). Aid with no infrastructure does nothing, and when we prescribe through neoliberal paternalism we are excluding those in need from the conversation of what could best serve them. Therefore, when the social marketing group prescribes from afar, as Richey and Ponte (2011) have described, they are not considering the people in need of aid. Rather, the corporation or non-profit largely works to benefit its own bottom line.
In this way, the social marketing conglomerate breaks from the ideology of what marketing management itself should be about (Baker, 2004). Marketing management should be about first discovering the desires and needs of the consumer. However, this extremely simple
105 aspect of social marketing is absent in the theoretical framework. Referring back to the 10-step model that Kotler and Lee (2009) proposed, in no part does it suggest or insinuate that the social marketer should consider what the target audience wants. Social marketing groups can safely assume that the people in the Global South want water – of course, who does not want water? – and it seeks to design the best way for the social marketing group to make that happen by prescribing Northern solutions. Thinking back to Klein’s (2007) discussion of how Friedman and his followers instilled economic shock on already shocked people, this is what (I have come to believe, and will seek to understand) happens with water charities. Through social marketing, a plan is designed to change the behaviors of donators and change the circumstances for those without water, but it is done so on a population that is under perpetual shock. The people without water are certainly happy to receive water and will give anything to have it, thus there is nothing they can exchange that would be of equal value, except their lives.
This appears to be the current course of social marketing as it stands in today’s neoliberal world order (Ferguson, 2006). However, this does not necessarily have to be the case.
Organizations can choose to act outside of the influence of corporate control and can work to truly stick to what social marketing is supposed to be about, taking into account the wants and needs of the customer and helping society. Yet, this necessarily entails that the social marketing groups look at people beyond their orientation as customers and do not seek to prescribe behavioral change on every situation. Sport can be a great tool that is utilized to market through, but what we must strive to do as sport management scholars is problematize what exactly it is that we are doing. The outcomes academicians and those involved with social marketing groups should be looking at are not how fans perceive an organization that engages in CSR (Walker &
Kent, 2009). Rather, the outcomes that should be looked at deal with how all entities involved
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(i.e. the government, multinational corporation, non-profit, donator, aid receiver) are actually impacted by what social marketing groups are trying to do. It is not about behavioral change, but helping societies in need grow and develop. It is a difficult matrix of power to negotiate given the current political and economic climate, but social marketing needs to change course.
3.2.5 Social Marketing in Sport Management
Social marketing can be found in the sport management literature, particularly in the work conducted by Babiak and Wolfe (2009), Babiak (2010), and Walker and Kent (2010). My contention, however, is that it is misunderstood as being strictly CSR. For example, Babiak evaluated various professional sport leagues in an attempt to understand why sport leagues get involved with CSR. She received the typical answers one might expect to receive. Organizational members told her that they are involved in charity to help the community. David Stern declared that the NBA not only wanted to be financially solvent, but also wanted to help the community.
The research conducted on CSR in the field of sport management has certainly fulfilled the needs of organizations and leagues interested in understanding what impact its interaction with charities has on the consumer in terms of reputation and consumer intent. However, the interconnections between sport, non-profits, governments, and corporations in addition to the broader impact of the involvement of sport within the social marketing conglomerate has yet to be clearly considered.
First, it is important to once again note that the sport organizations in question are non- profit organizations, thus the exact phrasing of corporate social responsibility is rather confusing.
Second, it is actually a social marketing campaign when the National Football League (NFL)
(non-profit organization) works together with Reebok (owned by multinational corporation adidas) in an attempt to market their products towards the Susan G. Komen Foundation (another
107 non-profit) with support from other multinational corporations (e.g., General Electric through
NBC or NewsCorp through FOX) who pledge their allegiance to the cause. This is how social marketing works in professional sport and to this point in the literature it has not been carefully considered. Perhaps this oversight is in large measure because this is how societal interaction has been operationalized in the field of sport. The main aspects of CSR that have been considered are either theoretical (e.g., why leagues and teams are involved) or outcome oriented (e.g., how does
CSR affect the reputation of an organization or league). There has been little consideration for following through on what actually happens to the money invested or at looking at the complex relationships between the various entities. This is necessary for sport management scholarship to progress and social marketing could help explain some of the relationships.
What this leads to, then, is a space where sport can become an important hinge within the discourse and production of developing relationships and sustainable solutions. With its ability to reach and mobilize the masses, sport offers a unique opportunity for social marketing groups to reach potential volunteers and donators, as well as making a difference in the lives of those they intend to help. In this way, social marketing groups utilize sport as a site for development. Social marketing in sport has occurred predominately over the past decade, it has just been cast under the umbrella of either CSR or development through sport.
3.3 Sport for Development/Development Through Sport
Sport is increasingly recognized as an important tool in helping the United Nations achieve its objectives, in particular the Millennium Development Goals. By including sport in development and peace programmes in a more systematic way, the United nations can make full use of this cost-efficient tool to help us create a better world – Ban Ki-moon, United Nations Secretary-
General
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Sport has a crucial role to play in the efforts of the United Nations to improve the lives of people around the world. Sport builds bridges between individuals and across communities, providing a fertile ground for sowing the seeds of development and peace – Wilfried Lemke, Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on Sport for Development and Peace
Over the course of the 21st century, sport for development and peace has been included as a way to move humanitarian aid while making social relationships between various cultures possible and has been praised as a platform for helping the United Nations reach objectives for
AIDS awareness, food shortage awareness, and awareness of the water crisis (sportanddev.org,
2012a). Sport is widely conceived of by the United Nations as a physical activity beyond simple competition that can help to develop social skills, physical fitness, and mental well-being
(sportanddev.org, 2012b). Further, the United Nations implemented plans to utilize sport in peace and relationship building initiatives beginning in 2005 and moving toward governmental interaction by 2009 (sportanddev.org, 2012c). Although no update is provided by sportanddev.org as to the effectiveness of such initiatives, academicians have begun to research the utilization of sport for development. This is particularly important to note because, as much as the United Nations views sport as an important site for possible development and peace, others argue that sport can be a site for reproduction of power, control, and cultural strife.
Indeed, Sage (1990) explained:
Sport is considered to be an important site upon which dominant ideology is constructed
and maintained because sport’s institutional and ideological features have evolved in a
way that corresponds with, and helps to reproduce, the conditions upon which dominant
interests are based (p. 26)
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Thus, it is important to evaluate both the potentiality of and possible problems associated with development through sport.
Kidd (2008) recognized the bourgeoning discussions regarding development through sport. Therefore, he attempted to understand both the potentiality for development and the potentiality for problems. Kidd, a former Canadian Olympian as well as former Dean of the
Faculty of Physical Education at the University of Toronto, is a self-proclaimed activist and supporter of sport for development and peace initiatives, and has argued that one of the major problems is that these initiatives are often entered into without proper planning and underfunded.
One of the key distinguishing factors of Kidd’s work from others is that he acknowledges that previous research has focused primarily on sport development; that is, developing programs for the promotion of sport itself. Thus, he moves forward distinguishing sport development from development through sport. Kidd explained the difference thusly:
The latter programmes focus on strengthening basic education, public health, community
safety and social cohesion and helping girls and women, youth-at-risk, persons with
HIV/AIDS (PWA) and persons with disabilities (PWD) in LMICs. Sport for development
can be distinguished from ‘sport development’ in that it seeks out those not already
involved, and it is unconcerned about whether participants ever become involved in
organized training and competition (p. 373)
As Darnell (2007) described, “development through sport’ organizations use sport, physical activity and play as tools to facilitate social improvement in nations and communities targeted for development” (p. 560). In that same article, Darnell introduces an interesting look at the historical relationship between race and hierarchical decision-making; “Historical analyses of the political and legal organization of race highlight how biological inferiority, or a ‘natural’
110 racial hierarchy, was commonly used to justify racial rule” (p. 562). Of particular interest in his study was the relationship between Europeans and Africans where whiteness became a marked feature of wealth and blackness one of poverty. In his discursive analysis of sport, Darnell critically analyzes the assumption that sport offers some sort of utility in bringing together different cultures in a harmonious way. Darnell explains that sport is different than typical interactions between races and cultures because it is something believed to be very apolitical. He utilized the program Right to Play – a program designed to assure refugees in the Global North equal access to sport participation – as a site to engage with the possibility that sport might not be as apolitical as is typically believed. Although Darnell did find that sport does hold the potential to connect people of different cultures, he ultimately found that in their interactions, racial discrimination was still prevalent, thus suggesting that sport is not as apolitical as it appears to be.
Similarly, Hayhurst (2011) endeavored to evaluate corporate involvement with GCSE activities that utilized sport internationally. Specifically, she took a feminist post-colonial perspective toward examining wealth, power, and borders in the context of privileging Western understandings of women. Hayhurst wanted to understand how GCSE initiatives influenced a
European-based women’s right non-governmental organization (NGO) working in Uganda.
Through her ethnographic fieldwork, she found that the corporate entities involved with this
NGO were viewed as the experts in the operation and were able to dictate the actions of the organization. She also found that the girls that the organization was supposed to help were treated as unequal compared to their European counterparts:
Framing the girls and women in this refugee camp as the appreciative recipients of these
provisions and services simply reinscribes static elite conceptions of girls in the Two-
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Thirds World as victims, instead of questioning the broader social, economic and political
forces that lead to the private authority of MNC (Multinational Corporation) in this
particular situation (Hayhurst, 2011, p. 8)
Those with both the organization and the MNC believed that the implementation of sport programs for women would empower the females of Uganda. However, Hayhurst (2011) found that sport also helped amplify feelings of pity for those deemed poor because of their inability to live a Western life.
Both Darnell’s (2007) and Hayhurst’s (2011) research follow the research of Brohm
(1978), who critically interrogated the idea that sport brings people together. In questioning the broader role of sport in culture, Brohm stated:
While educationalists all stress the potential of sport for peace-making through the
bringing together of individuals, peoples and nations and development of mutual
understanding, in fact the opposite is true. There is a steady increase in violence in sport,
primitive aggression, deliberate brutality collisions, clashes and conflicts, which at inter-
state level reach war-like proportions. (p. 14-15)
Brohm (1978) further critiqued the utilization of sport in development as countries such as East
Germany mobilized and disciplined bodies to perform in the Olympics to help show the physical prowess and superiority of the country. Thus, the development that can occur is a very perverse development which is utilized to articulate particular ideologies. Yet, this display of power should perhaps not be overly surprising as displays of power are apparent in all social relationships. As Gruneau (1993) stated in his cultural Marxist account of sport and power,
“There can be no truth, no meaning outside of technologies of power, no values outside of
112 power, and very little sense that some meanings and values are more or less oppressive than others” (p. 104).
Such is the problem with attempting to utilize sport as a space for development. Sports can be designed and implemented by those in the Global North in such a way that those in need are helped, but positions of power may be maintained or created. However, power itself is not inherently evil in the post-modernist understanding – Foucault (2001) tells us this. Instead, we must consider how power is mobilized such that it can become problematic. A good example of this is the utilization of development through sport by PUMA in Africa.
In his analysis of PUMA’s endeavors in Africa, Giardina (2010) built upon the work of
Ferguson (2006), who problematized the neoliberal world order and the interaction between the
Global North and Africa. Similar to Hayhurst (2011), who found that the MNC’s involved with aid and development in Africa were mostly interested in building markets, Giardina interrogated the relationship between sporting goods companies and “Africa”. Traditionally, sporting goods companies had moved into Africa as a way to make money and open new markets. However,
PUMA moved into Africa with the intention of developing sport in the region and developing markets from a different perspective. Instead of merely looking for a market and toward exploiting the people of Africa for profit, PUMA sought to join the people of Africa by participating in the One Day/One Goal campaign. The campaign was one that spent one day a year in celebration for international non-violence and cease-fire. Giardina’s treatment of the interaction between PUMA and Africa is one that moves beyond just a simple critique of an organization opening markets acknowledging the possibilities inherent with an organization taking up arms with good causes. Giardina closes his rather back and forth, non-concluded discussion of PUMA and Africa stating:
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At the same time PUMA has endeavoured to treat Africa as an emerging market with a
unique history full of untapped potential, the politics of representation governing the very
same context in which it resides has not yet caught up to its (potentially) progressive
promise. Thus they’ve only gone halfway – Africa is no longer a site to be pitied, but to
become engaged with in order to produce change; its emerging markets – consumers to
engage with; its communication matrix – still stuck in a Western mode of racial politics.
But change is afoot, if slowly, and with a lot of baggage (p. 138)
Other authors provide additional hope that the world is moving in the right direction regarding the utilization of sport to provide aid. Kaufman and Wolff (2010) suggested that there is indeed support for the notion that sport can be used for positive change in various (if problematic) ways. However, they maintained that sport can still be an important vehicle for social change. It is the belief of Kaufman and Wolff that sport can be utilized as a catalyst to promote self-discipline, obedience to authority, and civic participation. While Brohm (1978) showed that this can be problematic, Kaufman and Wolff maintain that this can be a good thing for a democracy that requires mass involvement in order to best represent all groups. For example, Kaufman and Wolff suggested:
If athletes recognize how their pursuit of sports is dependent on working people across
the globe, then they may be more willing to support campaigns for fair and just working
conditions including a living wage, health benefits, safe working conditions, the right to
organize and bargain collectively, and the freedom from job discrimination of all kinds
(p. 170)
Further, despite the fact that, as Hargreaves (1982) noted, sport has become highly commercialized (which can be problematic), Kaufman and Wolff suggested that refocusing sport
114 as a device for human development could reprioritize how individuals view sport. In order to examine their beliefs, Kaufman and Wolff conducted in-depth interviews with 21 athletes that had been politically active.
The athletes interviewed by Kaufman and Wolff (2010) noted that their experience with traveling for various sporting competitions greatly impacted their lives, turning them towards activism. Furthermore, the opportunity to view suffering firsthand made some reevaluate their relationships with global sporting apparel partners that were present in the oppression of individuals through various interactions with the company’s workers in developing countries.
These experiences made the athletes want to act as activists to help cure some of the ills they witnessed in person. What Kaufman and Wolff took away from their research was that sport offers a space for activism and that such activism can be powerful. Thus, they argued that sport and activism are connected, despite what people would like to believe (i.e., that sport is or should be apolitical in nature) and can offer an important space for development through activism.
Kaufman and Wolff’s (2010) research is substantiated by the work of Wright and Coté
(2003), who also found that sport can be an important part of building and developing the individual. Particularly, they found that sport helped individuals develop and expose leadership skill, which can be invaluable in everyday life. Skinner, Zakus, and Cowell (2008) also found that sport can be an important avenue for building community. In particular, they found that the promotion of sport among community members helped build community continuity and bring people closer together. Thus, it is important to consider how marketing through sport and marketing of sport can be important to the current project of evaluating development of water through sport.
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3.3.1 Marketing Through Sport and Marketing Sport
In my opinion, Naylor (2012) was on the right track when he heeded the advice of Chalip
(2006) to move the field of sport management toward a larger investment in the health of society and the participation in sport. Social marketing can be a key to marketing sport. For most local governmental or non-profit entities attempting to promote health and exercise in the community, the support of the local community, the government, and corporations can be extremely helpful.
As discussed previously, the Tallahassee parks and recreation division is a prime example of this.
However, professional sport entities themselves can also use social marketing to market their sports.
An example of how a sport organization as a non-profit can get involved with a social marketing idea is Major League Baseball (MLB) and the Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities (RBI) program. MLB as a non-profit entity works together with RBI as another non-profit entity to develop baseball fields and programs in inner city areas throughout the United States (MLB
Advanced Media, L.P., 2012). Together, they seek to find corporate sponsors who utilize their membership with MLB and RBI to gain a better brand image or a positive reputation globally or within that community that ultimately leads to increased profit, ideally at least. Local or federal governments have the opportunity to provide property, perhaps at a reduced tax rate, in exchange for the beautification of the inner city that helps build the image of the local community hopefully leading to more businesses moving to that area and an increase in non-propriety connection with the city. The RBI program is directly about behavior change from kids getting involved with the wrong crowd to kids getting involved with sport. This is just one example of how social marketing could work to market sport. Other examples include but are not limited to the NFL’s involvement in Play60 or the NBA’s involvement with basketball globally.
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The seemingly more prevalent utilization of social marketing techniques could be seen with marketing through sport. This can be witnessed through the aforementioned affiliation between the NFL, Reebok, and the Susan G. Komen foundation. The Susan G. Komen foundation has been utilized to express the problems with marketing through sport (King, 2000) such as the obfuscation of what the breast cancer as a disease really entails and how to prevent, not live with breast cancer. The Susan G. Komen foundation not only is associated with the NFL, but basketball teams wear pink ribbons, baseball teams use pink bats and gloves, and running events are utilized to support the cause. Once again, the Susan G. Komen foundation must be understood through a different interpretation of who the target audience is when referring to behavioral change. As noted, the goal of the social marketing campaign is behavioral change.
Yet, behavioral change not only represents a change in the outlook of the people with breast cancer or the survivors of breast cancer, but it also means a behavioral change in the individual donator. For example, it is a behavioral change away from a non-donator to a donator or a non- volunteer to one who volunteers to help at a Susan G. Komen 5k.
Perhaps another example is necessary to accentuate my point of how social marketing can be utilized through sport. Relay for Life utilizes similar tactics as the Susan G. Komen
Foundation but, to my knowledge, sticks to a one weekend event in many different places.
Teams gather together to raise money as volunteers and donators themselves, they garner support from local governments, local businesses, multinational corporations, and governments to not only be able to put on the event, but to be able to donate money to cancer research. Once again this social marketing idea of exchange for the outcome of behavioral change must be understood from the standpoint of who is the target of the behavioral change. Certainly, the attitudes and behaviors of those who suffer from cancer are one outcome, but the goal is also to use these
117 sporting events as a way to change the behavior of the individual from a non-donator to donator or non-volunteer to volunteer. Thus, when Kotler and Lee (2009) make the statement that
“Thanks to the American consumer, AIDS has been greatly eradicated” (p. 32), the reader can understand where that sentiment is coming from. The behavioral change was not only directed toward the African person to use a condom or to receive testing, or insulin, the behavioral change took place on the part of the American to be a consumer of AIDS philanthropy.
3.4 The Political Economic Underpinnings of Social Marketing in Development of Water
Through Sport
Kaufman and Wolff (2010) might be correct in their assertion that democracy is spreading and sport can help bring about social change through developing the civic character of the individual. However, it is important to note that democracy has never been a precursor to capitalism despite the rhetoric of freedom and free markets being treated as one in the same by those who follow the teachings of Friedman (1962/2002). In fact, the complete opposite of democracy has been utilized for exacting changes to free market in the developing countries that have been allegedly blessed by the aid of the Global North (Harvey, 2007; Klein, 2007). Further, democracy has never been a precursor to social marketing groups. At no point do Kotler and Lee
(2009) or any of their predecessors depict a social marketing strategy that entails involving the individuals who the group intends to help in the decision making of said group.
We are in a space where water has become a focal point of many multinational corporations (Shiva, 2002); where we have witnessed the potentiality for sport to enact social change (Kaufman & Wolff, 2010); where groups are attempting to utilize sport to solve race and gender issues, yet perhaps inadvertently recreating those same tensions they hope to erase
(Darnell, 2007; Hayhurst, 2011); and, where sporting goods companies have utilized sport for
118 opening up markets in problematic ways through exploitation, but others, such as PUMA, have begun to involve themselves in activism arena’s with individuals from the Global South
(Giardina, 2010). What all of this means for the project at hand is very messy; but research of and within physical culture is always messy (Giardina & Newman, 2011).
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CHAPTER FOUR
METHODOLOGY
The reality of the other person lies not in what he reveals to you but in what he cannot reveal to you. Therefore, if you would understand him, listen not to what he says but rather to what he does not say. ~ Khalil Gibran
4.1. Introduction
The current project is a qualitative study consisting of descriptive content analysis, ethnography, and interviews. This multiple methods qualitative inquiry builds upon the work presented by David L. Andrews (2012) at the Florida State University Center for Physical
Cultural Studies Symposium, who stated that physical cultural studies research should engage
“multi-methods approaches…including ethnography and autoethnography, participant observation, discourse and media analysis, and contextual analysis” (p. 6). Furthermore, this project is conducted as an interpretive ethnography (Denzin, 1997) because, utilizing interpretive ethnography the researcher seeks to engage with the social world through the utilization of texts, interaction with culture, and reflexivity. Specifically, Denzin presented a nine-part thesis for interpretive ethnography that will guide how this research project is conducted.
First, theory, writing, and ethnography should be viewed as inseparable and should always turn back “onto each other” (Denzin, 1997, p. xii). Second, the ethnography must be thought of as beyond the boundaries of the nation to consider all the political economic and cultural formations of the world’s cultures. Third, the ethnographer must acknowledge that what he or she writes about in this very digital age is widely available to the world economy. Fourth, self-reflexivity of the ethnographer’s subject position must always, already be present in the study. Fifth, the ethnographer must understand that reality consists of myriad understandings of
120 race, ethnicity, nationality, and gender. Thus, the ethnography must be undertaken with a realization for not only who the researcher is, but the space and time that researcher is present within. Sixth, ethnography should consist of more than just a recording of observances and human experience. The ethnographer in practice should endeavor to tell the stories with a deep understand for the entire human experience in both the celebrations and tribulations of life.
Seventh, the interpretive ethnographer must maintain a humanistic commitment, a moral sacred position towards those he or she engages with during the ethnography. Eighth, the ethnographer should attempt to contribute to the sixth moment of ethnography – a moment defined by self- reflections on human experience. Ninth, the ethnographer should be careful not to engage in narcissistic or overly self-reflexive activities in lieu of obtaining an understanding for the concrete human experience.
These principles guided me as I sought to understand the media texts, sporting bodies, organizational structure, and implementation of water charities on the ground. The rest of this chapter will include a discussion for how I conducted this study23. First, I will explain how the descriptive content analysis fits within this project. Second, In order to do this interpretive ethnography (Denzin, 1997) I participated in water fundraising events as a volunteer for the
Miami Marathon and a runner in the Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada Sport for Water race, self-reflexively interrogating my own body as I trained and participated in the race in addition to inquiring into the personal attachments of other volunteers and participants, and performed an organizational ethnography of the London Water Charity. Therefore, in this chapter I seek to engage with the foundations of ethnography and present ethnography as it was utilized in this study. Third, I offer an explanation for how I interviewed the various participants in the social
23 In the appendix, I offer a more detailed glimpse into my epistemological and ontological reasons for choosing the particular methods in this study. 121 marketing conglomerates and participants in the sporting events in the Global North. Finally, I offer an explanation for how these methods were undertaken, at times concurrently, in the current study.
4.2 Descriptive Content Analysis
Content analyses have been mostly utilized in sport management and education more generally in order to form hypotheses (Johnson & Christianson, 2010). Content analyses are typically conducted utilizing specific cases that are either believed to be typical or far from typical (Johnson & Christianson, 2010). Flyvberg (2006, 2011) has discussed at length that the purpose of conducting specific case studies is to be able to deeply understand a given situation.
Wolcott (2009) goes so far as to say that every qualitative research project is, in fact, a case study analysis. Most researchers in sport management approach the case study from a post-positivist perspective where the content analysis is valuable only in order to gain a deep understanding that can later be tested. I have experienced this myself when I have discussed some of my other projects with more quantitatively inclined sport management academicians. Across the board, the question becomes, How are you going to test this? Certainly, in sport management, the strength of the case study is perceived to be its ability to create testable hypotheses and its weakness is its inability to stand on its own. For me, the weakness is that it is only utilized as a way to try to develop a hypothesis and the strength is its ability to stand on its own. Thus, in this project, I attempt to take the case study of Charity: Water as an analysis into the larger interpretive ethnographic study and attempt to understand how all the various elements of the social marketing group coalesce.
In this descriptive content analysis, I strive to be “analytic, but not rigid” (Altheide, 1996, p. 16). To this end, I focus specifically on Charity: Water’s official website and press materials
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(i.e. texts on the website, PDFs available through links on the website, obtainable information available on other websites pertaining to activities of Charity: Water), attempting to interpret them as they sit within the “complex structure of relations…production, circulation, consumption, reproduction” (Hall, 1980, p. 128) about those without water by focusing primarily on the accumulation of dispossession (Harvey, 2006) through privatization and commodification of water. Specifically, I focus on this case in an attempt to relate to the Marxian understanding of the circulation of commodities as well as Hall’s (1980) circulation of culture. In the traditional understanding of the circulation of culture (Hall, 1980) or Marx’s circulation of commodities as explained by Harvey (2007), the reproducer would reproduce the systems of culture or capitalism by purchasing products or supporting particular ideologies. What is different in the discourse and execution of raising money for water, I would argue, is the very corporeal reproduction of the systems of culture, money, and commodities by the Global Northerner’s disciplined sporting body. The corporeal body portrayed in the media to be both a producer and reproducer of water as a commodity and the discourse surrounding water, in addition to the mediated production of those receiving the clean drinking water is the focus of this part in the analysis.
Finally, I refer to this as a descriptive content analysis because, throughout the analysis, my purpose is to provide background information and provide a look into how I began to understand and conceptualize the connection between production of water charity and the sporting body. Thus, I describe what I saw and how I interpreted this from behind my desk in
Tallahassee. This forms the basis of the rest of the project.
4.3 Ethnography
As Clifford (1986) detailed, ethnography was born out of the field of anthropology. In the modern realist tradition utilized at the beginning of the 20th century, the ethnographer was
123 supposed to be an objective observer of those being observed. The idea was such that anyone who entered the culture or space would come away with a similar understanding for how those being studied lived and the unique aspects of their culture. Clifford noted that typically the ethnographer would interpret and prescribe upon the individual what their actions were. That is, the ethnographer would pass judgment or intention upon the individual, under the presupposition of maintaining objectivity. At the turn of the century, the ethnographer was often times the only source of information about a group of people and was able to report them in generally whatever way he or she wanted. Specifically, if one did research on a tribe in Africa, most in England and the U.S. would just accept his or her recounting as the truth. In a similar style, Chicago school ethnography continued to focus on ascribing intent on the individual as a realist practice of ethnography.
One of the classic examples of Chicago School ethnography was Whyte’s (1943) Street
Corner Society. In this ethnography, Whyte acted as a fly on the wall. He was present in the interactions with the street corner men of the Chicago Southside, but he did not implicate himself in the text. Rather, he told the story of their lives, ascribing intent upon the people he was studying. He observed and reported what he observed. In some of the Appendix comments of the
Street Corner Society, Whyte admits that we wanted to get more involved with the people, but as a researcher, that was not his role. He must stay objective and removed from the situation in order to appropriately disseminate the truth of the street corner lifestyle. Even when talking about going and watching the men box, he stated that he was a fly on the wall and would not get involved24.
24 The reader of Whyte’s work can see the struggle that Whyte went through to not get involved. In the appendix to his book, Whyte talked about his desire to get involved and somewhat acknowledged the possibility that his presence could have an effect on those he intended to 124
Today, Chicago School ethnography is still practiced by some. For example, Sherry et al.
(2001) provided an account of ESPN Zone Chicago by fully describing in detail every aspect of the workers, the structure, the store, and the patrons. Sherry and his colleagues ascribed intent upon the workers and the patrons. They ascribed intent upon the architecture of the panoptic surveillance towers in the middle of the restaurant. Instead of allowing the participants to give voice to their own voice, the research team did it for them. Another good example of a Chicago school ethnography today is Alice Goffman’s (2009) study of an inner-city Philadelphia neighborhood. She could have very easily explained her physical presence as a white female in a predominately African-American part of Philadelphia, or as a Princeton University-educated doctoral student of privilege in a neighborhood beset by poverty, but instead she kept with the
Chicago tradition of reporting what she observed and scribing the intent of the individuals she interacted with. This piece is a very good and moving piece (in fact, her dissertation upon which the article was based received the 2011 “Best Dissertation Award” from the American
Sociological Association and later was published as a book by the University of Chicago Press), but it falls short when we come to compare it to the more critical ethnographies that are becoming more readily available today25.
Critical ethnography moves the researcher past the point of being simply a fly on the wall and moves them towards an interactive presence within the research activity. That is, critical ethnographers acknowledge the voice of the researcher as participant. The critical ethnographer understands his or her place within the text and the possible impact that his or her presence might
study. As Denzin (1996) noted, Whyte’s work has been instrumental in the history of ethnography and Whyte, himself, later struggled with this idea of moving ethnography forward because he firmly believed that ethnography should be about facts that are objective. 25 Her book, On the Run, promises to be quite different from her dissertation and include deeply reflexive passages. 125 have on the research activity itself. The critical ethnographer understands – and acknowledges – how his or her “lifeworld” (Berry, 2011) impacts the research itself. The lifeworld entails the experience, knowledge, and viewpoint of the individual. In understanding his or her own lifeworld in relation to how he or she conducts and interprets the research is imperative in the idea of self-reflexivity that the critical ethnography welcomes and demands (Madison, 2011).
This act of self-reflexivity is important for the researcher to undertake as he or she develops an understanding for how he or she is implicated within the research and the conclusions drawn from the research.
One good example of a critical ethnography is Veissiere’s (2010) ethnography on the favelas of Brazil. In his writing, Veissiere located himself within the act of doing dangerous ethnography (Madison, 2009). He critically examined what it means for him to be sleeping behind a guarded wall in a nice apartment building while his research participants live on the street prostituting themselves and buying and selling drugs. Veissiere understands himself as implicated in that space. He was not a native to the favelas of Brazil; he does not have the same difficult life as those he interacts with. Yet, while trying to figure them out and come up with ways that he can impact their lives, Veissiere’s life was impacted greatly by their experience and their existence. In one case, his prostitute friend had to save his life. He introspectively hangs upon this experience and tries to understand it in a very real, sincere way. In this regard,
Veissiere moves us toward the performative/interpretive/auto-ethnography.
For Denzin (2003), the act of self-reflexivity is imperative for interpretive and auto- ethnography. Building upon his discussion of interpretive ethnography in his 1997 book, Denzin concluded that the distinction between ethnography and auto-ethnography is being erased. He suggested that the ethnography as co-created between the researched and the researcher breaks
126 down the lines of the typical interaction to become a co-interpretation. Further, what is interpreted by the viewer of the text or moving text is in itself an important element of the ethnography. Moving in the post-structuralist vein, the reader is the more important interpreter.
Thus, his writing coincided with Hamera’s (2011) understanding of what it means to do performative ethnography.
For Hamera (2011) doing ethnography is about the aesthetic and the performative. By this, she means to say that the researcher should not relay the research to the reader by telling them what happened. Instead, the writing should be to an aesthetic performance of showing the reader. In order to provide an example for this, Hamera employed Morse (2006) and her utilization of the recorder in Water Rites. Morse used a technique that mixed telling with showing. For example, she used a “recorder” from her time at the University of Ghana where she struggled to have water offset by her notes while she sat comfortably in a house in England looking up facts about the worldwide water crisis. For Hamera, this was an example of telling the reader facts and backing it up with showing the reader the facts in action.
Giardina and Newman (2011) discussed the importance of the body within the act of research as a physical performative endeavor. To illustrate their point, they utilized the research undertaken by Metz (2008), which showed her as implicated within the power relations that accompany being a media member-cum-researcher having access to Women’s National
Basketball Association (WNBA) players. She had to self-reflexively understand the structure of the media and her space as a researcher within it. She also had to contemplate the nature of herself as a person who only had access because of her father’s place within the media industry.
This act of research for her became so performative, so reflexive, that it blurred the lines between ethnography and auto-ethnography (Denzin, 2003).
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For the auto-ethnographer, it is imperative for them to approach the act of research from the performative-I perspective (Madison, 2011; Spry, 2011). The performative-I is always self- reflexive and critical of him or herself. A good example of taking the performative-I approach to auto-ethnography is found in the research by Laurendeau (2011). Laurendeau wrote about his experience with BASE jumping and the relational risk involved. He had to take an introspective step back and evaluate what it meant that he was okay with writing a letter to his family informing him of his death had he happened to have died on his BASE jump. Laurendeau had to critically examine what it meant for him to have a new wife and a new baby. Additionally, he had to do all of this while performing the piece by showing the audience his written, personal letters, and including conversations he had with his wife. All of this was done in order to perform himself in the text and provide an opening for the reader to interpret his actions. He did not tell them how to interpret them.
One of the most powerful pieces of self-reflexive and performative social scientific research was conducted by Vande Berg et al. (2008). In this piece, multiple authors came together to explain their experience with death and the loss of a loved one. The very graphic, very performed emotional piece is controversial in the eyes of post-positivist researchers because it does not have a conclusion. It does not tell the reader how to interpret the results. It is not concluded. Rather, it provides a way for each individual reader to interpret the story and to find a way to relate with it in his or her own unique way. When we read it in a doctoral seminar, some found it to be a sad story, some found it to have a happy ending because the husband of the deceased had moved on with his life, but some found it to have no conclusion at all and determined that it was not research at all.
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The Vande Berg et al. (2008) piece really ties back to the question of the politics of evidence. For research boards and post-positivist inquirers, the realist, Chicago School ethnography is the type of research that has some sense of validity. That is, the belief that ethnography should be carried out from an objective perspective and it should be valid insofar as others who enter that space should view it similarly. The move toward the critical and interpretive certainly individualizes the interpretation of meaning and action. The individual reader of the text is not supposed to interpret it the same as all the other people who read it. This is extremely problematic when concerning the politics of evidence because people want definitive answers and they want to be able to tell others what to think. Today scientific researchers and government’s alike want to be able to prescribe, predict, and control. They have no use for research that does not serve this agenda in the neoliberal university or the neoliberal government. They want to be able to control, but interpretive/auto-ethnography is not about control.
4.3.1 Critiquing Interpretive Ethnography
The importance of designing an evaluative tool for ethnography has been discussed at length by many authors. Some, such as Tracy (2010), Richardson (2000), Ellis (2000), and Pelias
(2011) have attempted to describe ways in which ethnography should be evaluated on a large scale. They would argue that there are criteria for evaluating ethnographic research generally and those are not built upon the general golden understanding of quality research. Ethnographic work is anything but a free for all and something easy to do. For Tracy, there are eight criteria, for
Richardson and Ellis there are five, and for Pelias there is one major overarching goal of ethnography. Each of these authors desires for qualitative research to be considered legitimate by the academy and attempt to put forth their ideas in order for others to begin to evaluate
129 ethnography in a similar way. The quest to find a consistent evaluative criteria for ethnography is deemed important in the qualitative world because gold standard criteria are preferred by research institutions and review boards. If qualitative researchers are to be treated as equals in the academy, they must get involved with the boards that do not respect their research (Gunsales et al., 2007). Thus, it is the belief of many that evaluative criteria must be distinguished. But, it is a little more complicated for ethnography in the performative tradition. In order to distinguish what I believe to be good – or at least effective – criteria for evaluating research, I will borrow from the work of Richardson, Ellis, and Pelias.
Ellis (2000) provided a very descriptive and detailed account for how she reviews a paper. She noted that she will evaluate it by how it moves her to act, think, or feel. If she does not feel anything, or believe that she wants to act upon what they are talking about, the piece falls short for her. Also, she wants to be able to move away from a piece and be able to come back with a sense of urgency because she cannot wait to find out what happens next. Richardson
(2000) delivered five criteria for evaluating ethnography. For Richardson, like Ellis, she wants the piece to move her to action and make her feel something. Richardson also discussed the idea that she was an ethnographer who provided an interpretation of truth. This is quite different from saying that she wants truth. Instead, she wants a believable interpretation of truth. Both authors want to focus on the aesthetics of the piece and want the researcher to have been critically self- reflexive in their writing and interpretation. Similarly, Pelias (2011) wants the piece to move him and make him feel a call to action. Taken from these authors, it can be surmised that an ethnographic study should move the reader to action, provide an interpretation of the truth, allow the reader to develop his or her own interpretation, be self-reflexive, and be performative.
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As noted, a re-occurring criticism of qualitative research is the notion that it has a general lack of rigorous guidelines that detail how research should be evaluated. This is only true if a particular understanding of ‘rigorous guidelines’ is accepted. For many in the interpretive community, evaluative criteria is embedded in the way that the research aligns with a moral- sacred episteme (Denzin, 2003), that moves the researcher to act (Pelias, 2011), that is critically self-reflexive (Richardson, 2000), and/or that provides an interpretation of truth (Richardson,
2000). The problem with the politics of evidence, and the academy more generally, is that none of these have to do with assuring the Academy of a level of validity, reliability, or generalizability (three terms which I and many others reject). Nowhere do qualitative inquirers
(e.g. Denzin & Lincoln, 2011; Ellis, 2000; Giardina & Newman, 2011; Richardson, 2000; Pelias,
2011) talk about every reader having the same interpretation, every researcher being able to interpret the actions of him or herself and the ones around them similarly, and none of the authors talk about the importance of staying objective. Thus, it is a difficult road ahead for many qualitative inquirers; Denzin and Lincoln (2011) indeed believe another paradigm war is at hand.
As Gunsales et al. (2007) suggested perhaps the only way of gaining credibility is for qualitative researchers to get more actively involved with research boards and make sure that their voice is heard; the politics of evidence are on the side of the currently en vogue gold standard, not the interpretive ethnographer.
4.3.2 Ethnography in This Project
In the fieldwork portion of the larger interpretive ethnography I sought to heed the words of Denzin (2003) and Hamera (2011) by engaging in (performative) (auto)ethnography. Within this interpretive ethnography, I engaged with the cultural circulation of social marketing
131 conglomerates as they act both in the Global North and the Global South. As such, I was engaged in what Marcus (1995) has called multi-sited ethnography:
This mobile ethnography takes unexpected trajectories in tracing a cultural formation
across and within multiple sites of activity that destabilize the distinction, for example,
between lifeworld and system, by which much ethnography has been conceived (Marcus,
1995, p. 96).
The multi-sited ethnography is implemented here because “cultural logics…are always multiply produced…at least partly constituted within sites of the so-called system” (Marcus, 1995, p. 97).
In this project, the system is free-market ideologies as mobilized into different cultures.
Although multi-sited ethnography has been critiqued for not appropriating the proper amount of depth to objects of inquiry, Falzon (2009) indicated that “It is not just time that transforms and makes, but also space” (p. 8). Thus, in this project, as I attempted to understand the relationship between places divided by space and culture, a multi-sited ethnography provided a different level of depth by connecting long distance relationships among the various entities involved with the water charity.
I conducted this multi-sited interpretive ethnography by participating as a volunteer at the
ING Miami Marathon as well as participating as a runner in the Sport for Water event. I then considered myself as a disciplined individual training for an event as well as actually participating in the corporeal production of raising money for water charities. This is the ethnographic component for the third section in the dissertation. In the fourth section/ninth chapter, I present the organizational ethnographic portion from my time as an organizational actor for the London Water Charity. This work is focused on conducting an organizational ethnography where-in I worked to understand the every-day management of the water charity. In
132 addition to endeavoring toward an understanding of the relationships between the various entities involved with the London Water Charity, I attempted (through the use of autoethnography) to self-reflexively locate and understand myself as a participant in the water charity. This approach is an important aspect that allowed me to best consider all aspects of the social marketing conglomerate.
4.4 Interviews
Interviews can be understood in this project as a part of the ethnography, rather than a method in and of itself. It is vitally important to divide interviews by type of interview, because interviews are not created equally. First, there are structured interviews. Structured interviews follow a script and are often used by (post-)positivist researchers. They are utilized to draw common themes and to attempt to generalize the findings across the population (Kvale &
Brinkmann, 2009). Semi-structured interviews are slightly different. They follow a script for the most part, but the interviewer is allowed to veer from the course if the option arises to perform a more in-depth analysis of a particular answer or area of interest for that participant. Importantly, in both the structure and semi-structured interview the researcher is in control of the interview and the researched is the submissive entity in the relationship (Kvale & Brinkmann, 2009). This type of interview also allows for a degree of generalizability around the main themes. In fact,
Kvale and Brinkmann (2009) noted that it is important to develop and code themes that result from the semi-structured interview. In a dramatic shift away from the structured or semi- structured interview, Denzin (2001) introduced the idea of the reflexive, or performative, interview. In the performative interview, there is no predetermined, structured interviewer/interviewee relationship. Rather, the interaction and findings from that interaction are co-created. It creates what Merriam, Caffarella, and Baumgartner (2007) described as a
133 sacred space where thoughts and feelings can be discovered. There is no superior; rather, the interview dynamic is viewed as a partnership.
In sport management journals, one will typically find post-positivist researchers utilizing interview as a way to substantiate claims they are trying to make. Occasionally, the interview will stand on its own such as in Babiak’s (2010) research on corporate social responsibility. Yet, it is never co-created and it typically follows a very structured or, at the most liberal, a semi- structured approach. Further, even in the case of Babiak who utilized interviews as the empirical material for her research, she suggested utilizing the information gathered from the interviews to form testable hypotheses. The strength is in finding common themes, but that is also the weakness. In the performative interviews the interview is co-created and built on a partnership rather than a power structure (Denzin, 2001). I believe this helps work through some of the problems that can occur during the interview process. That is, a semi-structured or structured interview could be problematic because a white male is asking a black female questions or it could be something as simple as not receiving quality answers because there is no relationship. A performative interview breaks down those boundaries and allows the co-creation to occur.
4.4.1 Interviews in This Project
In this project I conducted both semi-structured (Creswell, 2007) and performative interviews (Denzin, 2001). The semi-structured aspects of the interviews were intended to answer specific question in relation to the overarching reasons for participation and the organization of the social marketing groups. Specifically, I asked participants in the events the following questions as queues for more in-depth questions:
In general, do you consider yourself to be highly involved with charitable causes?
How often do you pay attention to human rights activities?
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How did you learn about (organization name)?
Have you viewed videos on water charity websites?
Why have you chosen to raise money for clean drinking water?
Why did you choose to participate in a sporting event as a way to raise money?
Have you donated to (organization name) in other ways?
Were you an active runner before choosing to participate in this event?
Does running make you feel connected with the people in need of water?
What obligation, if any, do you feel towards those without clean drinking water?
Do you follow what happens with the money you donate or raise?
Ideally, what would happen with the money you donate or raise?
Who should control the water in developing countries (communities, governments,
corporations, etc.)?
I asked the organization members the following questions as queues for more in-depth questions:
How is sport an important arena for raising donations?
How does (organization) find corporate sponsors that meet your
philosophical goals?
How does (organization) decide in which countries to implement programs?
How does (organization) decide in which locations within (country name)
to implement programs?
In what ways does (organization) interact with other non-profit entities?
What is (organizations) interaction with local governments in the countries
provided with water?
What is (organization) marketing strategy to people in the Global North?
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What role do corporations, governments, local communities, and other non-
profit organizations have in implementing clean water programs?
How does (organization) measure success?
At the same time, the interviews were quite performative and flexible as I recognize myself in the creation of the interviews (Hamera, 2011). That is, I participated alongside the race volunteers and participants as well as the organizational members. Thus, the semi-structured interviews act to enhance the performative interviews, not create social divides between the interviewer and interviewee and the key to the project hinges upon my ability to perform the interviews seamlessly as a part of the larger interpretive ethnography.
4.5 Methods in This Project
The various elements of the interpretive ethnography (Denzin, 1997) in this project work together to create an understanding for how social marketing groups mobilize and help, or hurt, the human body. This entire project takes place in the field as a practice of constant reflexivity and theoretical bricolage (Bush & Silk, 2010) by integrating marketing, political economy, and development through sport. As I interpreted the mediated production of the body in chapter five,
I sought to constantly reflect upon what this means for the human condition and who gets to speak for whom (Krog, 2011). In chapter six, I relay my interviews and ethnographic work from my time volunteering in Miami. In chapter seven, as I trained for my participation in the
Vancouver event and perform with participants raising money for water charities, I strived to maintain self-reflexive thought while co-creating a reality of the Global Northern sporting body as producer of abstract social relationships and commodity. Chapter eight follows with semi- structured interviews along with performative interviews and ethnography intended to provide an understanding for how helping people in another country can develop community continuity. In
136 chapter nine, I present the organizational ethnography of my work in London. The dissertation concludes with chapter ten and a discussion of what all of this means for the future of sport as a site for development, the human body as producer, and I provide a response to each of my research questions.
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CHAPTER FIVE
CHARITY: WATER’S (RE)PRODUCTION OF CRISIS
Chapter five provides the background to my journey of evaluating water charities from the inside, as one of “them,” an activist, fundraiser, and coworker to water charity employees.
Thus, this gives a glimpse into what I found out about water charities from sitting behind my desk. Although very narrow in scope in so far as it only evaluates Charity: Water26, I purposefully kept this way as an introduction to the rest of the material covered and believe it best to integrate the messages of other water charities I worked with in the respective chapters in which I explain those endeavors. Therefore, this can be thought of as a jumping off point for the project as a whole and an important part of the project which allowed me to formulate my ideas for how to evaluate the water charities when I did engage with them.
Specifically, in this chapter I evaluate the mediated production, consumption, and reproduction of the human body in Charity: Water’s web and social marketing practices through a descriptive content analysis in order to respond to research questions one and two as well as to provide a background understanding of the circulation of culture prior to examining the aspects of production, consumption, and reproduction from within the organizations. Charity: Water was chosen as the organization of focus due to its prominent stature within the water charity community both in the United States and abroad27. Therefore, I sought to critically examine
Charity: Water’s communicative systems through the perspective of a fundraiser. In so doing, I
26 The names of the charities discussed in chapter five are the real names. 27 Charity: Water’s stature within the community of water charities was very prominent throughout my research. When discussing Water charity in general with people in Miami, Vancouver, and London, all knew exactly what Charity: Water does. Further, individual organizers all had a strong opinion about Charity: Water – some good, some bad. These feelings that came out while conducting interviews and the larger organizational ethnography will be discussed in depth in later chapters. 138 uncover how the mediation of water as a human “need” – separate from a human right because
“there are many ways to supply human need. A human right cannot be sold or traded” (Barlow,
2003, p. 29) – within global flows of cultural and economic power obfuscate “historical pasts”
(Hall, 1980) and promote the conversion of a natural resource into a commodity (such as in bottled water, soft drinks, or sports/energy drinks) (Harvey, 2007).
To this end, here, I focus specifically on Charity: Water’s official website, emails, press materials, and popular press articles from other outlets discussing Charity: Water, reading them through the lens of what Harvey (2006) terms “accumulation by dispossession”. To reiterate what was brought to the forefront in previous chapters, such a perspective privileges the
“appropriation of assets (including natural resources) through the “commodification and privatization of land” via colonial, neocolonial, or imperial processes (Harvey, 2006, p. 159).
Specifically, Harvey (2006) noted that dispossession included four main features: privatization and commodification, financialization, management and manipulation of crises, and state redistributions. It is with the privatization and commodification of public utilities (water) that I direct my attention in this chapter. Further, I seek to problematize the literal dispossessing of the voice away from the individual in need. Therefore, the following critical interpretive analysis examines each step along the “complex structure of relations…production, circulation, consumption, reproduction” (Hall, 1980, p. 128) about those without water by focusing primarily on the accumulation of dispossession through privatization and commodification of water.
In order to do this, I became a member of the Mycharitywater.org community. Becoming a part of the community means receiving email correspondents from Charity: Water about upcoming events, fundraising initiatives, balls, celebrity involvement, and any other noteworthy events the marketing team at Charity: Water finds relevant to fundraisers and potential
139 fundraisers. Additionally, for a period of one calendar year – August 2012 to August 2013, specifically – I gathered information from the Charity: Water website, emails, press releases, and press releases from other outlets discussing Charity: Water. With this information, in the following parts of this chapter, I present this Charity: Water through the circulation of culture.
First, I begin by contextualizing Charity: Water within the larger water crisis and provide an example of what a Charity: Water video looks like. Second, I begin to unfold Charity: Water’s social marketing campaigns by examining the production and circulation of Charity: Water fundraising material (videos, emails, texts, PDF’s). Third, I seek to peel back the veil of production in order to examine who benefits from the produced and circulated products by interweaving theory and press material. Fourth, I theorize the consumption of the press material from the viewpoint of being a consumer myself. Fifth, I examine the corporeal (re)production through the prioritization of Charity: Water to get the mobile human body involved in providing aid to necessarily immobile bodies in need. I conclude by offering a discussion of how this analysis helped to propel the rest of the project and what questions arose from this analysis.
5.1 Contextualizing Charity: Water
Donating to water charities has become an easy process for those with access to the internet. All one needs to do is perform a Google search of “water charity” and he or she is provided with approximately 134,00028 suggestions of possible charities to donate to. Invariably, individuals seeking information about not-for-profit, non-governmental organizations (NGO’s) involved with providing clean drinking water to those in “developing” countries will come across Google’s number one suggestion, Charity: Water. When one clicks on the Google link to
Charity: Water, he or she is greeted with its mission statement: “We’re a non-profit organization
28 As of January 2013. 140 bringing clean, safe drinking water to people in developing countries. 100% of all public donations directly fund water projects.” The link for the 100% model leads to the explanation that in order to keep the 100% model guarantee instead of utilizing donated money to run the organization, the organization accepts contributions from “Angel Donors”. The peculiarity of
Charity: Water itself as a non-profit working within the water charity sector is that it acts only to raise money; it does not actually implement the wells or piping systems themselves, but works to produce a narrative that will garner monetary aid through very vivid pictures, graphs, stories, and videos. It is a website full of pictures depicting people in despair (presumably without water) and happy children (presumably those who have recently received clean drinking water through a
Charity: Water sponsored well or water system), telling the story of the “need” of water through various video’s instructing the viewer why the not-for-profit organization chooses to focus on water. The video, Water Changes Everything, tells the story as follows:
The clip opens with an animated picture of water that fades to the words “1 Billion” as a visual representation of the amount of people estimated to be without clean drinking water. The stationary visual then turns into an emotion-laden narrative of how water in its natural state of resting in a river, lake, or pond becomes contaminated water. The moving imagines are accompanied by the voice of actress Kristen Bell telling the story of how the world is in a water crisis. Bell says the word crisis is used because “it starts with water. But water affects everything
– education, health, poverty, and especially women and children.” The story of an individual family, likely living on less than $1 a day, is told in relation to the amount of time it takes to gather water from a source over a three hour walk away and the disease that drinking the far off, contaminated water might contain. Bell says “They don’t have a faucet; instead the women and children go off to collect the water.” This visual is accompanied by what appears to be the
141 animated father of the family rather hastily pointing the women in the right direction – a walk presented as problematic because it takes time away from the woman’s familial responsibility.
Indeed, a visually stimulating graph estimates that the women spend far more time collecting water than attending to cooking, cleaning, or collecting firewood. The viewer is then presented with more description of people dying from diarrhea and other water borne diseases. The first two minutes of the three minute and twenty three second video is quite depressing.
At the two minute and five second mark, however, the viewer sees the word “Until…” on the screen. Bell’s voice is dramatically quiet for several seconds before she exclaims, “Until, they get a little help.” The music picks up and the story evolves into a narrative of solving the water crisis through “water filtration systems and the classic water wells.” These initiatives in providing clean water come with promises of “freedom – freedom to get an education, start a business, or raise a family.” According to Bell’s narration, solving the “crisis” would lead to more children attending school, more money for books, and less dependency on medicine. The video finishes by telling the viewer that just $20 can supply an individual with clean drinking water in his or her village. “And this will mean more than clean water”, Bell proclaims as the video shows money turning into water, turning into a productive person, turning into money as the video closes with the suggestion that the viewers “Join us.”
The very visually appealing and seemingly well-intentioned video is just one example of many on the website. This video might be the most important one, however, because of the position it has of being the video that explains why people should get involved. And, getting involved with helping to save lives is certainly a good thing. However, examining this “flashy- yet-minimalist site that includes links to consumer-oriented tie-ins” (Giardina, 2010, p. 132) raises a plethora of questions. Specifically, who are the “angel donors” that pay for the operation
142 of the charity? What is their role? What does it mean to view water as a “need” instead of a
“right”? Or, to call water shortage a crisis? What does it say that Charity: Water seamlessly tells the story of turning water and people into commodities to be bought and sold? Who can speak for the ‘speechless Other’ and their dispossession of water? And, what does it mean for people to only understand other cultures from a distance as something to be consumed?
5.2 The Production and Circulation of the Faces of Crisis
Charity: Water utilizes the term “crisis” as a way to both encapsulate the seriousness of the water shortage and as a way to gain the viewer’s attention. Every September, Charity: Water, as part of its annual celebration of its anniversary or “birthday” as they refer to it, chooses one particular “special” project. The 2012 September campaign focused on helping Rwandans receive clean drinking. Rwanda is certainly a nation-state that has experienced severe crisis that has been commercially brought to the United States citizen. The events of the coup in Rwanda and the systemic murder of many citizens gained worldwide notoriety through the feature film,
Hotel Rwanda, which was adapted from the book, An Ordinary Man. In the book, Paul
Rusesabagina (2006) detailed his story as the man who protected 1,268 refugee Rwandan citizens from the revolution by extremists within the President’s regime who wanted to take power. This country, largely divided into two groups – Hutus and Tutsis – saw an estimated
800,000 individuals killed in the 1994 genocide (Human Rights Watch, 2009). This division between the two groups had a long history stemming from events that occurred forty-five years before the genocide: “In the campaign to create hatred and fear of the Tutsi, the Habyarimana circle played upon memories of past domination by the minority and on the legacy of the revolution that overthrew their rule and drove many into exile in 1959” (Human Rights Watch,
2009, para. 2). The genocide of Rwandan citizens began on April 6, 1994:
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shortly after assailants shot down the plane carrying the president. Within hours, specially
trained militia, soldiers and Presidential Guard began going door to door with lists of
targets…Militia simultaneously set up roadblacks across the city to prevent escape,
killing anyone with a Tutsi identity card and anyone who ‘looked’ Tutsi (Fujii, 2009, p.
3).
The systemic killing was not relegated merely to Tutsis, but also resulted in the murder of many
Hutus whom were not believed to be in agreement with the organizing party – The Rwandan
Patriotic Front (RPF) (Fujii, 2009). This well-documented, fairly well-known event in Rwanda that became a highly acclaimed featured film is the starting point of Charity: Water’s 2012
September Campaign video.
In the video, Charity: Water CEO Scott Harrison explains the dreadful conditions of the
Rwandan Genocide detailing how it lasted “100 days, this place burned to the ground.” Harrison rightfully discusses the resiliency of the Rwandan people who would not let war destroy their spirit. According to Harrison, fixing the situation entailed a new regime of strong discipline;
It started small with new rules that replaced chaos with order. There were fines for
littering, fines for talking on cell phones while driving, fines for being shoeless in a
public place, and although violations cost up to a month’s salary, these rules had a deeper
meaning. They helped restore a lost dignity – proud surroundings made proud citizens.
Unfortunately, these new rules did not help build schools roads, or provide clean drinking water.
Water was the most crucial element missing from the Rwandan recovery due to its rugged terrain and contaminated sources. The country knew that they needed help, so they asked Water for
People to work with them and provide ways for the Rwandan citizens to acquire water.
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The goal for Charity: Water and its partnership with Water for People is to provide clean drinking water for literally every citizen in Rwanda. Water for People has agreed to not leave the country until every person has access, and Charity: Water is there to provide them with an outlet for promotion and fundraising. While the government is contributing its own money to the project, they were $1.7 million short. Thus, Charity: Water’s September 2012 Campaign asked
U.S. citizens to generate/contribute the necessary funds. Through its interaction, Charity: Water asserts its hope to allow the Rwandan citizens to spend more time working and being educated and less time traveling through the mountains to dirty water holes. In the opinion of those at
Charity: Water, this strategy would allow the Rwandans to shift focus toward building a united county. Indeed, the videos discuss that the citizens of Rwanda do not have time to recover from a crisis of war and national identity in order to focus on the crisis of water. Thus, Charity: Water wants to “be there” to help because, as the front page on its website says, “More people die from dirty water and poor sanitation than all forms of violence – Including War.”
It is important to note the utilization of the word “crisis” when talking about the lack of drinking water in developing nations. Although used by well-intentioned activists for decades, what becomes problematic about deploying the term is that those in crisis are always in a state of needing help by any means necessary (Klein, 2007). Harvey (2006) noted that, when crises occur, typically capitalists and governments have allowed them to occur. Instead of helping, they have chosen to keep people in a state of crisis allowing for them to capitalize on the deluge of misery, because, from their point of view, that is the only way to actually see real change occur
(Klein, 2007). So they enter into a space where the rhetoric of crisis becomes important and they tell the people that, in order to fix crises, changes might initially be problematic but are necessary
(Klein, 2007).
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When considering the people of Rwanda, or any of those in developing countries, it is important to critically examine what it means to live a life of perpetual crisis. Much like the
German move to Nazism (as explained by Polanyi, 2001), those in need of food, water, and shelter are easily persuaded to change allegiances to those who come with answers. Those in need of water, who constantly are made aware that they are in a crisis by intervening social marketing conglomerates, might be more likely to exchange their ideologies or lifestyles for water. The problem in this scenario of perpetual crisis lies with who is making the decisions for the people in need. For Polanyi (2001), crisis leads to mutually exclusive ideologies for addressing the situation. Thus, the imperative becomes figuring out whose ideals win out in times of a water crisis. Charity: Water’s September 2011 anniversary campaign video provides a glimpse into the “who” of intervention in times of crises.
5.2.1 Who Calls the Shots?
The September 2011 birthday campaign video started out as a typical Charity: Water video with very somber music that sets the tone for the viewer feeling extremely disheartened for the people in the video. It reiterated the story that the people of Africa, India, Latin America, and
South America were in dire need of help five short years ago. But, narrator/founder Scott
Harrison says, “We believed we could solve it. So we started Charity: Water. While women walked hours for dirty water from holes in the ground; while children shared water with cows and dirty animals, we asked for your help, and you responded.” The music begins to sound more upbeat and the video brighter as the focus becomes the formation of Charity: Water and its New
York office. Harrison then talks about how they are a different company using 100% of donations for projects and “finding other ways to pay for staff and our office.” He even promises to prove Charity: Water’s progress by using photos and GPS-mapping to update individuals on
146 the status of their donation. As Harrison tells and the video shows the viewer, the amazing feats that individuals accomplished through previous campaigns have raised enough money to provide water to 2 million people in 19 countries. But now they are shifting their focus to bigger and better projects that will last longer and provide more water.
Roughly halfway through the four-minute and twenty-three second clip, there is a dramatic shift. Harrison moves onto a discussion about the future and where Charity: Water – and by extension all of “us” – is going. As Harrison tells the viewer, Charity: Water is now moving toward bigger and better ways of drilling for and maintaining clean drinking water that can reach more people. Charity: Water is doing so by teaming up with the Relief Society of
Tigray (REST) and its director, Teklewoini Assefa. REST estimates that the total cost of producing safe drinking water with new sanitation technology would be $1.2 million. REST states that 40,000 people could be provided clean drinking water with the new system. Therefore, the main emphasis for Charity: Water that year and moving forward was to improve the drinking water situation in the Tigray region of North Ethiopia by building new sanitation systems in conjunction with REST. Two main questions arise from the course of the video as read through social marketing theory and Harvey’s (2007) notion of accumulation through dispossession:
Who provides the “other means” through which Charity: Water conducts business? And, who gets to decide what is meant by “desired behavior”?
One way that Kottler and Lee (2009) indicated poverty can be fixed is through multilaterally utilizing systems of economic growth, redistribution of wealth, massive foreign aid, and population control. The authors utilized the World Bank as an exemplar of how major worldwide organizations are getting together to fix the poverty crisis through social marketing.
Social marketing theory and practice within not-for-profit organizations is largely driven by the
147 ideas of the World Bank, IMF, corporate CEOs, and public intellectuals like Kottler and Lee who promote a world where public, non-profit, and private sectors come together to fix the problems of the world. This sounds like a very good solution on the surface and, as previously mentioned, many have championed this approach by looking at the previously noted (RED) Campaign as a successful coordination between the various sectors. However, as noted by Harvey (2006) and
Klein (2007), among others, the intentions of the major financial institutions of the world may not always have the best interest of the people in mind as they primarily support a profit- maximizing strategy for their shareholders and stakeholders.
As I continued to research Charity: Water and many other aid organizations, I started to understand why Rwanda, India, and Ethiopia, among others, were prime locations for water charities to form. As noted previously in this chapter, these are countries in a perpetual state of crisis and crisis affords the opportunity to change by any means necessary. Further, Bakker
(2010) discussed how these are regions that have largely been hindered in terms of their ability to produce, live, and educate their citizenry because of corrupt government officials, poor planning, and the influence of other nations and multinational corporations. For Bakker, regardless of the source of failure, there has been a failure to provide for people in need, and privatizing water would not help the situation. However, there is more than the past and simply the rhetoric that plagues current efforts. Charity: Water’s work with REST sheds light on the current issues with the international interest in involvement with countries in “need.”
REST, led by Teklewoini Assefa, has done some very positive things in the past thirty years across the poorest region of Northern Ethiopia. According to Rest-Tigray.org, the organization helped hundreds of thousands of Sudanese refugees in the 1980s. Yet, in 1991, the focus of REST switched from relief aid to providing opportunities for development and
148 sustainability in the region. In this regard they adhere rather strictly to the strategy promoted by
Kottler and Lee (2009) of actively seeking out partnerships with community institutions, government organizations, and private/market forces (Relief Society of Tigray, 2006). According to REST’s own document, The Strategic Plan: 2006 to 2010, the Local governments, communities, multinational corporations, and non-profits work together with REST to develop regions until they no longer need help. The “exit strategy” takes effect when the citizens of the community are no longer living under the average poverty threshold of $1 a day. Once this is completed the group pulls out of the area when “the previous gap is now being filled by the private sector, government or other providers, better, more effective technologies have been introduced, or experience shows costs and/or associated drawbacks outweigh benefits” (Relief
Society of Tigray, 2006, p. 25). It is this idea of the exit strategy that comes into question when considered with the writing of Bakker (2010), who discussed the interaction between private companies and government in Bolivia:
In 1998, the IMF made a new loan to Bolivia, contingent upon the privatization of a
range of state enterprises, including Cochabamba’s water supply system. That same year,
the Bolivian government passed new laws that enabled incentives to be offered to private
water companies to manage public water supply systems…The private consortium that
signed the forty-year concession contract with the city government in 1999 included a
subsidiary of two of the largest water companies in the world: The U.S.–based
multinational Bechtel and Britain’s United Water… Shortly after taking control of the
water supply system, the Bechtel subsidiary sharply increased water prices… It became
clear that the company had overstepped its bounds…Tens of thousands of people took to
the streets… The government’s response was harsh…several leaders of the coalition were
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arrested and jailed after midnight raids, and violent confrontations between the military
and protestors left a seventeen-year-old boy dead and hundreds wounded (p. 166-167)
The turmoil and the deaths as a result of the privatization of the entire country, and specifically its water, led to a heated debate between those desiring water for the commons and those in favor of privatization (Bakker, 2010). At the core, those in favor of water for the commons argued against privatization because water is a right.
Privatization and commodification of natural resources is the number one problem
Harvey (2007) noted within the accumulation by dispossession framework. As Barlow (2003) stated, privatizing water allows it to become a tradable good, “with its use determined by the principles of profit” (p. 29). Previously, this has not worked out for countries where water has been privatized. Problems in Europe and developing countries have included “higher prices for water, cutoffs to customers who cannot pay, reduced water quality, bribery, and corruption”
(Barlow, 2003, p. 31). Barlow later noted that the privatization of water has been lauded by the
World Bank despite an increase cost of 20% per individual citizen of Argentina once their water had been privatized. The IMF has often, which has been implicated in many instances of global neoliberalization (Harvey, 2007), “demand(ed) that a debtor country privatize its water services in order to obtain debt relief” (Barlow, 2003, p. 34). The companies involved with privatizing water in the past have seemed fairly open with their goals of privatizing natural resources. This seems to be the ultimate goal of Tigray and the partnership with Charity: Water. They are open to having outside aid come in and have a stake in the future direction of the project. In fact, the main goal is to be able to turn over control to a private or market force (Relief Society of Tigray,
2006). Yet, the difference between these examples and the current discussion of Charity: Water is that their partners are not marketing themselves as being socially responsible. Instead they are
150 acting as silent partners that have to be sought out for those interested in learning about who partners with Charity: Water. Those opposed to this would side with the communal pooling of water as a human right.
It is important to also evaluate the ways in which referring to water as a right can be problematic as well – the argument against the commons. According to Bakker (2010), legislation regarding water as a right, can actually mean that water becomes something that can be allocated to individual rights holders. What has occurred in many instances through the introduction of non-profit entities is the ideologies of the minority, nonprofit corporation speaking for those in need has been dominated by key figure heads that impose their ideals from the outside looking in. When evaluating the production by Charity: Water, it is interesting to note the members on the Executive Board and attempt to find the partners with whom they interact.
The chairman of the board (as of January, 2013) is the Director of Citigroup Global Markets, the
Secretary is a private investor and corporate advisor for investment, the Treasurer is a private financial advisor, and other members have worked with Apple, Coca-Cola, JP Morgan Chase, and Saks 5th Avenue. One of the most prominent partners that does not explicitly detail its affiliation with Charity: Water is Google, which provides the technology to map the water sites so people can watch the progress of their donations. According to Google.org’s blog, the corporation recently teamed with the World Bank to help map the progress of public services in times of disaster. The partnership is supposed to provide data and the partners proclaim:
The data will also be useful for planning purposes, as governments and their development
partners can use the information to monitor public services, infrastructure and
development projects; make them more transparent for NGOs, researchers, and individual
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citizens; and more effectively identify areas that might be in need of assistance before a
disaster strikes.
Yet, while Google does allow citizens to make maps themselves, they do not share the data in the public domain. Thus, instead of being free as the agreement stated, they are able to sell the information to other corporations and governments. Development economist Owen Barder
(2012), who supports the development ideals of the World Bank and what he calls their ideals of democratic development (free market ideology), describes the deal:
I have no problem with Google, or any other company, making commercial use of this
data. I have no ideological objection to the profit motive. On the contrary: having
businesses looking for ways to make the best use of the data is a great way to generate
innovation and improvements. We want businesses to try to make money by competing
to serve the customer better – by providing better tools and services to access and use
data. But we don’t want businesses to try to make money by restricting access to the
information, which is a public good in every sense of the word, because this reduces,
rather than improves, services for the public. By entering into this partnership on these
terms, the World Bank is backing closed instead of open; monopoly instead of
competition; corporate fat cats instead of upstarts.
Through this partnership, the role of Google and its associates become inextricably linked to and problematized with Charity: Water.
Further, one particularly strong investment group affiliated with Charity: Water as a foundation funding its operation is Select Equity Group, which has helped fund water wells and helps fund the office operations and staff. Yet, Select Equity Group’s philosophy states:
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We seek to identify great businesses that are highly predictable—those with steady
growth, high returns on capital, and well-established barriers to competition. There are
many businesses that do not meet these criteria that we would not be interested in owning
at any price; we are investors, not speculators. Once we find and thoroughly vet a
company that meets our investment criteria, we believe that, with patience, the market
will provide us with an attractive opportunity to buy it at a fair valuation, though it may
take several years. Our investment criteria, coupled with our price discipline, underpin
our differentiated, long-term investment approach.
Therefore, one must question why a company like this would want to be involved with the not- for-profit organization and why the Board would be made up entirely of private and corporate investment specialists. Further, if these publicly traded companies are being silent about their affiliation, then they are not marketing themselves. If they aren’t marketing themselves to publicly strengthen the brand image, but they are also not violating the Supreme Court’s ruling… then their actions must be solely profit driven rather than philanthropically based (King, 2000).
So, the different corporations’ involvement with Charity: Water must, legally, be profit driven with their stakeholders in mind. Therefore, the companies necessarily must see the interaction with Charity: Water as a “portfolio investment” (Ritzer, 2011), which has to do with the purchase of companies in other countries for monetary gain (Ritzer, 2011).
Perhaps this interaction and benefit to the multinational corporation can be considered from the standpoint of Coca-Cola’s interaction with Deka Research and Development Group, non-profit organizations, and governmental agencies. Deka, under direction of Dean Kamen (the inventor of, among other things, the Segway), has developed a water purification system that can change “any” liquid into clean drinking water providing an entire village with water. Coca-Cola
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Chairman and CEO, Muhtar Kent, was able to team up with Deka and the Global Fund to Fight
AIDS to provide places in need with these water purification systems. Kent explains the relationship to Charlie Rose:
Large societal issues, um – opportunities – in the world today can only be solved by what
I call the golden triangle at work; the golden triangle meaning government, business, and
civil society collaborating, working together, to provide solutions, lasting sustainable
solutions… At the end of the day, the problem, the challenge can only really be solved if
you bring these three entities together. Civil societies, i.e. NGO’s, i.e. education, etcetera,
bring them together with business, bring them together with government, both at the
national or and at the sub-national level and really collaborate intensely to come to a
solution
With this partnership, Kent suggests that in 2014, those in developing countries receiving their help will receive roughly five to six hundred million liters of clean drinking water. This interaction between the various entities involved in providing the aid and deciding who controls what for whom – for me – is what Bakker (2010) was talking about when she stated that there is an element to the water crisis beyond privatization: one that gets at the core of social marketing
(Kottler & Lee, 2009). Yet, what does this really mean for the people in need and who is speaking for them?
5.2.2 Speaking With Full Mouths
One question that plagues many scholars is the idea of who gets to speak for whom. As
Spivak (1988) intimated, scholars from Marx to Foucault and Derrida have had these similar questions when considering the power dynamics of society. Working with and through the
154 influential scholars, Spivak began to questions whether or not Derrida’s “subaltern”, or the person viewed as lower class, can speak at all. He stated:
Can the subaltern speak? What must the elite do to watch out for the continuing
construction of the subaltern? The question of ‘woman’ seems most problematic in this
context. Clearly if you are poor, black, and female you get it three ways. If, however, this
formulation is moved from the first-world context into the postcolonial (which is not
identical with the third-world) context, the description ‘black’ or ‘of color’ loses
persuasive significance. The necessary stratification of colonial subject-constitution in the
first phase of capitalist imperialism makes ‘color’ useless as an emancipatory signifier.
Confronted by the ferocious standardizing benevolence of most U.S. and Western
European human-scientific radicalism (recognition by assimilation), the progressive
though heterogeneous withdrawal from consumerism in the comprador periphery, and the
exclusion of the margins of even the center-periphery articulation (the ‘true and
differential subaltern’), the analogue of class-consciousness rather than race-
consciousness in this area seems historically, disciplinarily, and practically forbidden by
Right and Left alike (pp. 294-295).
Looking at the implications of post-colonialism, Spivak believed that, in dealing with the formally colonized, the “West” maintained a power dynamic by considering itself to be of a higher class than the “subaltern.” Put simply, the subaltern has no voice.
While the question has been raised by philosophers and often gets raised among qualitative researchers interested in how to represent those they study (see Giardina & Newman,
2011; Krog, 2011; Pelias, 2011), Soss, Fording, and Shram (2009), Harvey (2007), and Giroux
(2001) build on what previous scholars have questioned and discuss the specific problems with
155 representing the voice of others in the political and economic arena. This questioning by the authors regarding who speaks for those who cannot speak for themselves due to their place in society, directly relates to the second question raised by the September 2011 Campaign video.
That is, who gets to decide what is meant by “desired behavior”?
On a larger scale, what this question really gets at is how culture and actual people are commodified and sold to the public through voices that stand-in for the real voice of the community. As noted, those who make the decisions for those in need of water are not those in need of water. Instead they are the CEOs of multinational corporations, heads of non-profit charities with backgrounds in the corporate world, and government officials. This can be evidenced clearly when one watches a water charity video. For Charity: Water, the viewer very rarely hears from the people that are affected by the clean drinking water. Rather, the promotional materials use celebrities like Will Smith or Kristen Bell, or organizational representatives like Scott Harrison, to tell the viewer the story of struggle and thirst. For Spivak
(1988), Soss et al., Harvey, and Giroux (and I think we can assume many other scholars) this is extremely problematic, for it deploys a very paternalistic view of philanthropy.
Specifically, as noted in chapter three, Soss and colleagues (2009), described paternalism as a “shift in policy government from an emphasis on rights and opportunities to a stance that is more directive and supervisory in promoting preferred behaviors among the poor” (Soss,
Fording, & Shram, 2009, p. 1). Paternalism in the free-market political economic environment of today (Denzin, 2003; Ferguson, 2006) has become an ideal that indicates that the decision makers are more equipped to make decisions for the citizens than the citizens are for themselves.
This belief fosters the idea that “the elite” must speak for the people, instead of letting decisions be made by the people in a democratic sense. Harvey (2006) further explained this cooptation of
156 voice as a problem by discussing how right-leaning political functionaries in the U.S. and other developed nations have promoted the idea of class privileging and authoritarianism. Giroux
(2001) suggested that this shift in what it means to think democratically has been taking place in education over the lifespan of neoliberalism. For Giroux, the act of decreasing public funds provided for schools and the shift toward prioritizing business in higher education has created an environment that does not allow the individual to critically understand his or her ability to creatively examine alternate ways of government. Thus, the neoliberal subject can lose autonomy to represent him or herself.
For Charity: Water, those who represent the oppressed people do not stop with the voices that are provided on the videos that Charity: Water website visitors hear. Instead, there is a much larger network of those who get to speak for the oppressed. For example, in the case of the
September 2011 Campaign video, the viewer is told the story of the oppressed through the mediated lens of Scott Harrison, REST, Google, and the other corporations involved with the production of water and charity. Thus, the members of the communities in “need” are disempowered and constantly subject to the water planners, the NGO’s, and the corporations who seek to privatize their precious resources. This is a clear example of neoliberal paternalism and relates directly to how water is promoted as perpetually a resource in crisis and consumed by individuals who watch these social marketing campaigns. Perhaps this should not come as a surprise to viewers of Charity: Water, because this co-optation of the voices in need has been occurring for decades. As I detail below, India provides an example for how this neoliberal paternalism has worked in the past.
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5.2.3 Aiding India
Going as far back as the implementation of the caste system in India, the colonizers came with their own prescriptions for how to “fix” India (Arnold, 1986). This is part of a larger relationship between those in the Global North and those in the Global South. For example,
Ferguson (2006) detailed how Africa had long-been a site where the will of the citizens was prescribed by outsiders looking to capitalize on resources. Similarly, Giardina (2010) detailed the interaction of corporations looking for specific markets to sell their brand. In India, as in Africa, the relationship is similar as evidenced by Coca-Cola seeking to find new markets in India through their interaction with Deka (Bloomberg, 2012). Returning to Muhtar Kent’s (Bloomberg,
2012) discussion with Charlie Rose, Kent provides an illustration for what these systems look like. They are impressive structures with televisions, people working to provide the clean water, a dish providing television on the flat panel television, Coca-Cola stickers plastered throughout, and everybody in the village is happy and productive. Listen to how he explains the interaction with the people being aided to Charlie Rose:
Muhtar Kent (Coca-Cola) In terms of local versus outside
(hiring), it is almost all local, so we
are a local business that hires locally,
produces locally, distributes locally,
sells locally, and pays taxes locally
Charlie Rose (Bloomberg, Interviewer) Alright. Developing markets have become
huge for you even more so than North
America, or not?
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Muhtar Kent (Coca-Cola) Well, let me just put it into perspective. We are
a consumer goods company so we sell to
wherever
Charlie Rose (Bloomberg, Interviewer) Right, right.
Muhtar Kent (Coca-Cola) Um, people are and therefore when you expect
that there, more than 95% of the population of
the world live outside the United States, you
would expect that we would have a much large
business outside of the United States
Charlie Rose (Bloomberg, Interviewer) Is it primarily Coca-Cola, not the company but
the drink, or is it all kinds of water products
that seem to be more in demand than ever?
Muhtar Kent (Coca-Cola) I think we talk, we just look at um
Charlie Rose (Bloomberg, Interviewer) What’s the product that people outside the
United States want?
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Muhtar Kent (Coca-Cola) We look at ourselves as the as the as the
number one and premier beverage company in
the world and we have, um, we offer 3,000
products, more than 500 brands and choice I
think is the key
Charlie Rose (Bloomberg, Interviewer) You have said, sometimes it is easier to do
business elsewhere than in the United States.
Muhtar Kent (Coca-Cola) Well, all I will say is that we are finding more
and more that there is much more
understanding every day for the need of this
golden triangle to work, here as well as
overseas.
For Coca-Cola, the market is what becomes important, not the people. It is interested in utilizing local resources that are scarce to sell its product. Coca-Cola has been implicated in the overutilization of public water worldwide, particularly in the United States and India, yet it has continued to promote World Water Foundation events. In describing the influence of Coca-Cola in India, Srivastava (2006) noted, “according to its own admission, the company used 283 billion liters of water in 2004. Any way you look at it, 283 billion liters of water is a lot of water- particularly in a world where over 1 billion people in the world cannot meet their basic water needs.”
This is what is at stake in analyzing the social marketing conglomerates utilizing water for private accumulation: In all of these instances, the outsider becomes the voice of privilege
160 and the person described as in need takes a passive approach to his or her own life. Yet, today, people have become nothing but part of a market for accumulation. Similarly, this is what occurs when Charity: Water produces the body in need, they are marketing people in need to people with privilege. It becomes the voice of the outsider that comes to represent salvation and the consumer of this message becomes an automaton of the saviors.
5.3 Consuming the Faces of Thirst
A large proportion of those who donate to Charity: Water will never have the opportunity to visit the developing countries water crisis in person. Instead, what the viewer comes to know about the problems with water in those countries is largely dictated by those vested stakeholders discussed in the previous chapter (i.e. actors, corporations, etc.). Yet, the mediation of events largely obfuscates the actual events instead of providing the viewer with a representation of the real (Baudrillard, 1994). Thus, the consumer of Charity: Water does not view the culture of developing countries, but rather a representation. This transforming of space and time (Whannel,
1992) disconnects the viewer from the people that they are supposed to be connecting with and helping.
The consumption of culture is something that Hall (1997) disapproved of vehemently.
Specifically, Hall (1997) problematizes the globalization of culture, from fashion to food. For
Hall, media “both form a critical part of the material infrastructure of modern societies and are the principal means by which ideas and images are circulated” (p. 209). That is, media technologies have allowed people to experience one another, culture, and poverty from a distance. This distance has turned the viewer into nothing more than a consumer of people, culture, and poverty. We can shop and consume virtually without ever having to engage in actual face to face interaction with one another. Hall categorizes this as being a part of culture’s
161 centrality. Culture’s centrality refers to “the way in which culture creeps into every nook and crevice of contemporary social life, creating a proliferation of secondary environments, mediating everything” (Hall, 1997, p. 215). Therefore, “it is almost impossible for the ordinary citizen to get anything like an accurate picture of the historical past without having it consumed, landscaped, and ‘themed’ into the ‘culture of heritage’” (Ibid). The history of culture and the personal histories told in the stories put forth by Charity: Water are disconnected from the people in the narrative specifically because their story has been taken from them and (re)represented
(Baudrillard, 1994). Indeed, “Today, the history that is ‘given back’ to us (precisely because it was taken from us) has no more of a relation to a ‘historical real’ than neofiguration in painting does to the classical figuration of the real” (Baudrillard, 1994, p. 45). Thus, while people might feel connected to what they consume through watching these stories and donating or fundraising, there is always already an inherent space between the individual and the event or persons in
“need” which makes it easier to view the imaged thirsty individual as non-human and therefore something that can be commodified; or, to view water as something to be tradable, privatized, and commodified.
Simultaneously, while viewers are using Google Maps or Charity: Water to survey the development of the less fortunate, the consumer is also being monitored in the interest of the hypermarket (Baudrillard, 1994). Therefore, the consumer also becomes a commodity of sorts, being able to be sold between advertisers. Harvey (2006) spoke directly about how everything can become commodified in the individualized neoliberal world order. As he explains it:
For the heart of liberal and neoliberal theory lies the necessity of constructing coherent
markets for land, labour, and money, and these, as Karl Polanyi pointed out, ‘are
obviously not commodities… the commodity description of labour, land, and money is
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entirely fictitious’. While capitalism cannot function without such fictions, it does untold
damage if it fails to acknowledge the complex realities behind them (Harvey, 2006, p.
167)
The commodification of everything is the exact force that turns people into nothing more than consumers put on Earth to consume. Or as the new materialists of neoliberals put it, “I shop therefore I am” (Harvey, 2007, p. 170). Therein lies the rub with commodifying thirst, water, and the consumer. Through the acts of social marketing groups such as Charity: Water, while much good has been done, the questions must remain, At what cost? and, Good for whom? Charities will suggest that the cost for helping others receive clean drinking water is for “you” to be disciplined and volunteer or donate. In theory, then, the cost is carried by “you” and the good is provided for “them.” To that end, the Charity: Water website is full of suggestions for how
“you” can get involved with the move towards fixing the world’s water crisis in developing countries. This complicates the understanding of reproduction from the individual as simply a consumer, which in turn reproduces the structures that oppress the individual (Harvey, 2007), to a much more complicated physically embodied reproducer – “You” literally perform the reproducing.
Specifically, there are four main areas that “you” can help (according to Charity: Water).
First, one can help out by simply donating money. “You” can donate money by filling out personal information and giving as much money as they want. If one donates money, he or she provides personal information so that he or she can track the trajectory of their monetary commitment. But, through the digital enclosure of the Internet, providing information also turns the individual into a commodity to be sold to advertisers associated with the charity or organization (Andrejevic, 2007). Charity: Water is very active in saying that it does not provide
163 information to outside sources. However, the wording in its privacy policy is, “We do not share this information with outside parties except to the extent necessary to complete that order”
(Charity: Water, 2014). Thus, it is up to their discretion to determine what information must be shared. While Charity: Water may not technically sell “your” information, its partners have it and nothing says that they cannot sell, use, or share it.
Second, Charity: Water promotes the idea of helping through consuming. This was a successful venture for AIDS awareness and the companies associated with AIDS awareness as well as those associated with the Susan G. Komen breast cancer foundation (King, 2000) and as noted is a way of fundraising that is prioritized in the multilayered approach to solving crises
(Kottler & Lee, 2009). On Charity: Water’s website, people are given the opportunity to purchase clothing, playing cards, iPad covers, and many other material goods. This attempts to build on the free-market ideal Harvey (2007) spoke of, but with an extension – “I shop therefore
I am” (p. 170)… a part of this organization and ultimately, the solution.
Third, Charity: Water promotes the idea of volunteering with the organization. In order to volunteer, one simply fills out a form and tells Charity: Water what he or she is good at. One can volunteer for many jobs such as lifting heavy objects to set up events, taking pictures of events, reaching out to possible donors, etc. Certainly, volunteering can be considered a good activity that is very helpful for organizations and society. Although Reagan began the push for the increase in volunteerism, Clinton was a major part of the increase in volunteers working for non- profit organizations (King, 2000). Specifically, Clinton in 1997 stated, “to be a good citizen, in addition to going to work and going to school and paying your taxes and obeying the law, you have to be involved in community service” (as cited in King, 2000, p. 29). According to King, this rhetoric of the good citizen as one who disciplines his or her time as part of private
164 organizations is a marked departure from Keynesian welfare programs. Instead of the job of the government being to promote a safe and prosperous society, the job of the government is to shrink itself and the individual becomes responsible for the welfare of others. While volunteering is not problematic in and of itself, this shift away from the collective to the individual as the lynchpin of neoliberalism causes class disparity resulting in the classification of extreme wealth and extreme poverty (Harvey, 2006).
Fourth, Charity: Water promotes the individual raising funds through biking, running, swimming, kayaking, giving up birthday gifts, and many other physical options that are designed to connect the fundraiser with the people receiving their charity. This appears to be its top priority as it is by far the most prevalently promoted giving recommendation on the website and videos. One can fundraise by creating a profile that allows the individual to track their fundraising and what happens with their money. Then the individual starts his or her own
“Mycharity: Water” where he or she explains what he or she is doing and asks people to donate money towards the Mycharity: Water campaign. Then, the job of the fundraiser becomes to spread the word to other potential fundraisers by making “it personal, share your passion to save the world” (Mycharitywater.org). Similarly to King’s (2000) problematizing of the rhetoric around Breast Cancer, where the uninvolved were de facto uncaring about the welfare of those with breast cancer, the rhetoric shared by Charity: Water inherently dictates that, if “you” do not raise money or donate to the charity, then you do not care about saving the world, and “you” are not a good citizen. And, the focus remains not on the people in need, but on the people creating the message and “you” as (re)producer.
Take for example, Charity: Water’s recent partnership with American Express’
#PassionProject. The video promoting the partnership features Scott Harrison talking about how
165 he came to do what he does. Harrison describes how he was a selfish club promoter who felt empty inside. Because of this emptiness and selfishness, he decided to make a change in the world. Harrison talks about how he was floored by the pictures he saw of people in Africa drinking dirty water, so he decided to do something about it. On his thirty-first birthday, Harrison had a birthday party at a club like he had in previous years. However, this one was different, instead of trying to make money off of his getting people to come to the club, he instead asked them to donate to his cause and promised to show them results. And, he did show them results by helping one million individuals in a region in Africa receive clean drinking water. But, he says, there are millions more without clean drinking water and he is excited to partner with American
Express to help spread the word of the water crisis and reach many millions more. Now, “you” too can get involved with American Express and raise money for your next birthday.
For social marketing to work effectively, it must involve behavioral changes (Kotler &
Lee, 2009). This is what Charity: Water is trying to promote when utilizing the individual donor, fundraiser, volunteer, or consumer as a site to reproduce the message of the oppressed and the message of the good work of Charity: Water. As a reproducer of this rhetoric, the individual becomes implicated as another voice speaking for the ones without water in developing countries. Instead of directly receiving the message from the people who do not have clean drinking water, through the promotion of fundraisers and donors reproducing funds and donors, the actual event of water shortage and oppression gets sent through multiple channels. First, it gets told by Charity: Water’s on the ground partners. Second, Charity: Water produces the story.
Third, an actor or a voiceover uses their personal inflections to prioritize certain aspects of the story he or she deem to be most important while the producer of the video takes creative liberties in turning people into faces of oppressions or cartoon caricatures. Fourth, the viewer of the video
166 reads it a particular way and reproduces the story leading to the fifth channel where the individual being told about the reasons to donate to Charity: Water is presented with a history that was never told by those who live it and is instead presented with a truth which has been
(re)produced four times. Thus, through the “circulation circuit” (Hall, 1980, p. 128) the
American citizens removed from the circumstances of developing countries do not know past histories of culture (Hall, 1997; Harvey, 2007; Giroux, 2001) and cannot be present in prescribing how to fix the problems of a society they know nothing about. Thus, there must be a connection between “you” and “them” – a corporeal reproduction.
5.4 The Reproducing Body
Bakker (2010) stated that “water is both political and biopolitical… carrying with it vectors of disease and pollution, water simultaneously connects individual bodies to the collective body politic” (p. 190). This is certainly an important instrument in Charity: Water’s production of the body in need, as has been discussed. Yet, this is also an important consideration toward the way in which Charity: Water creates a surplus army of volunteers and donators in the Global North. In the traditional understanding of the circulation of culture (Hall,
1980) or Marx’s circulation of commodities as explained by Harvey (2007), the reproducer would reproduce the systems of culture or capitalism by purchasing products or supporting particular ideologies. What is different in the discourse and execution of the raising money for water is the very corporeal reproduction of the systems of culture, money, and commodities by the Global Northerner’s disciplined sporting body.
The videos and written work on the charitywater.org website tell the story of becoming involved with Charity: Water by starting a “Mycharity: Water” campaign. These campaigns promote the idea of the American citizen raising money through running marathons, running
167 road races, bicycling, or giving up one’s birthday gifts in exchange for people to donate money to Charity: Water. The idea behind this is to allow people to feel more intimately involved with the process of donating. While not physically being able to experience the people they are helping, the donator can feel some sort of kinship through activity.
According to the website, one of the most successful campaigns came in 2011 when
Charity: Water CEO and Founder, Scott Harrison, asked people who have a birthday in the month of September (his birthday month) to give up their birthday gifts with him and instead ask for friends and family members to donate to Charity: Water. Additionally, he asked that all people fundraise or donate for the fifth “birthday” of Charity: Water. In the September 2011
Campaign video, Harrison talks about all that “you” did to make this possible:
you biked, you ran, you walked across America, you skated and surfed, you sang, and
you danced, you sold lemonade and recycled, you gave up thousands of birthdays and
asked for donations instead of gifts… In just five years, you took a simple story and did
more than we thought possible.
One poignant video by Charity: Water that advertises the idea of bodily movement for fundraising is the November 2012 video entitled, “Are you Ready? Get set, Let’s Go!” the video proceeds as follows:
The video begins with a little blonde haired, blue-eyed girl who looks between three and five year’s old saying “One billion people do not have clean water. The water is not good for the kids, it’s so dangerous.” The video tells the viewer, “This holiday season you can give the gift of clean water.” Another young girl talks about eating beans and rice for 25 days in order to raise money for clean water. After she speaks, the music picks up accompanied by a voice singing
“Are you ready? Get set, are you ready? Get set, let’s go.” In the background the video shows
168 people who are “quirky”, “sporty”, and “driven” among others and then provides examples of people who are those adjectives: Sarah raised $32,398 by swimming the San Francisco Bay naked; Cubby has raised almost $3,600 (so far) by growing a large beard; Juliana’s water balloon fight raised $350; Skateboarding tricks raised $2,000; and the list goes on to include those who swam in freezing water, did a lot of burpees, two men ran 100 miles, two other people ran an Antarctic marathon, and a group of individuals biked the Alps. The video ends by imploring the viewer to join in building 100 wells this holiday season – Let’s Go!
In fact, the tactics employed above by the organization have been quite successful in getting people to bike, run, walk, and do various other things to raise money. As The New York
Times guest columnist, Max Chafkin (2013), reported:
Harrison’s organization claims to have raised roughly $100 million — $33 million in
2012 alone, up from $27 million the year before and $16 million the year before that.
Today it is the largest nonprofit in the United States focused on water, with revenues that
are four times as great as those of Water.org, the group co-founded by Matt Damon.
Charity: water (sic) doesn’t drill wells or buy water filters but acts as a fund-raising
clearinghouse for locally based charities, which it subcontracts to do the actual work. It
markets its partners, mostly using its Web site and social media. ‘You could almost
imagine us a Kayak.com or an Expedia,’ Harrison says. But charity: water promises to do
more than a mere online travel agent does; it claims to verify that the wells its donors buy
are actually completed in a timely fashion. ‘We create an experience,’ he says, ‘a pure
way to give.’
In this experiencing of giving, the individual becomes a reproducing body. While being similar to Marx’s or Hall’s understanding of reproduction through consumption insofar as the Global
169
Northern body does consume the produced message, this is also a very different reproduction than reproduction through consumption. This corporeal reproduction involves a disciplined
Northern sporting body connected to a very real Global South body projected as immobile.
Charity: Water provides some individuals to actually experience firsthand the poverty of Africa, so they can then relay their experiences to other potential fundraisers29. And, the fundraiser always maintains the primary focus of the campaign – the body prioritized in the marketing schema.
5.5 Coda – Fundraiser as Focus
In 2013, Scott Harrison and Charity: Water did something he never thought the organization would – he went to Africa with almost fifty wealthy business people from Silicon
Valley (Chafkin, 2013). To be fair, it was more than just Silicon Valley executives:
“In addition to the techies, there were three actresses (Maggie Grace, Jessica Stroup,
Sophia Bush), one fashion model (Gelila Bekele), one pro skateboarder (Tony Hawk) and
one filmmaker (Jon M. Chu, who directed “Justin Bieber: Never Say Never”). ‘It’s like
sleep-away camp for geeks,’ Carter said, summing up the vibe” (Chafkin, 2013)
The trip – dubbed “African Charity Camp” by ValleyWag columnist Sam Biddle (2013) – was organized in order to allow large donors the opportunity to see the work in action.
In flamboyant style, a style Harrison says makes him uncomfortable, along the way, the group stopped in Dubai staying at the nicest hotels (Chafkin, 2013). The reasons for the trip are fairly straight forward. For Harrison, it was an opportunity to market to the rich and powerful. It was also a chance for Harrison to feed his need for the spotlight. As his business coach, Ross
Garber, told Chafkin (2013), “Scott the nightclub promoter no longer exists, but there are parts of
29 This idea is explored in much greater detail throughout the remainder of the dissertation, particularly in chapter seven. 170 that personality that need to be fed… He loves promoting, loves going hard, loves being loved.”
In a similar vein, those taking the trip with Harrison have the opportunity to feed their need for attention: “Charity: Water is surely one of the coolest causes young, well-to-do coastals can associate themselves with—and if they spend $5,000, they can go straight to the app-less void of the developing world and watch the donated money be spent” (Biddle, 2013). They also have the opportunity to have their names brandished as a signifier for the projects they help sponsor. “Our last stop before boarding the private plane back to Dubai was, in Harrison’s words, ‘Daniel’s well.’ It was a modest hand pump in the tiny village of Giramagogo that had been purchased by
Daniel Ek, Spotify’s CEO, for $7,000 (Chafkin, 2013).
Instances like the “African Charity Camp” bring with them larger questions about the water charity sector more generally. As Moore (2013) suggested when looking at what Charity:
Water is doing, these well projects cannot be considered the movement that Harrison makes them out to be. Rather, it is good branding. And, this branding has an impact that reaches millions of people, but falls short in the solution category. This can be evidenced by the case of
Brighton Collectibles who gave money to Charity: Water in 2008. During a 2011 audit, it was found that 31 wells donated by Brighton were non-functioning (Chafkin, 2013). Brighton sued and settled for $1 million, which they gave to another water charity. Perhaps this is unavoidable for Charity: Water, as it is an organization that does not directly implement the water systems for which it raises money. Yet, the question remains the same: when fundraisers and the organization itself as producer and (re)producer become the focal point, are solutions really obtainable?
The fundraiser being the primary focus of the marketing campaigns of Charity: Water leads to an understanding that the reproductive process is the most important part, but who gets
171 to be in this space? And why does the focal point and objective appear to become the fundraiser, not the person in need? Thus, Darnell and Hayhurst (2012) were right in their rebuttal to Lindsay and Gratton when they suggested that despite post-colonialism being different than colonialism hegemony still takes place as we see one prioritized over the other. It is within the tension between helping and patriarchy that I wanted to truly interrogate.
This chapter was focused on understanding the communicative processes presented in the production of water crisis by Charity: Water. In this way, I began to formulate an understanding for my research questions related to the production of water crisis – specifically, questions one and two. I learned, from behind my desk, how a well-known water charity portrays people in need and the possibility of utilizing people in the Global North to “solve” this “crisis.” However,
I knew that I must try to understand these productive and (re)productive communicative processes from the perspective of an individual working within these organizations. Therefore, this is not a project based on pointing blame – indeed this gets us nowhere. Helping millions of people get water is good. Taking advantage of people is not good. So, how do we come to understand this and how can we come to truly help people? And, how are bodies in the Global
North and bodies in the Global South connected through this water crisis? That is the focus of the project at hand and will be discussed throughout the remainder of the project.
Based on my background research, I sought to understand the communicative and productive processes of water charities. To this end, I wanted to quite literally follow the production of water from the volunteer runner raising money to the water system being placed in the ground and providing water to the people in developing countries. Throughout the rest of the dissertation, I look, then, at the volunteer sporting body as a producer of something tangible,
172 water systems, and something abstract, societal relationships (e.g. the relationships between the donator, organization, and benefactor).
173
CHAPTER SIX
MIAMI WITH TEAM WATER CHARITY
6.1 Prologue
Building on the questions arising from my literature review and descriptive content analysis of Charity: Water, in chapters six through eight of the dissertation, I focus on my volunteerism with two water charities and my training for and running the Sport for Water event.
It is important to note the courses of action that preceded my interactions with both Team Water
Charity and Sport for Water. As noted in the introduction, the process of getting to talk with a water charity was very arduous. It took me three months to receive my first positive response.
That first response was from Team Water Charity. Not only did the organizer of the Miami
Marathon team contact me, I had fundraising runners email me to let me know that they would be happy to speak with me. I was able to correspond back and forth with three team members for a month and a half before the event thus making the face-to-face interaction in Miami more comfortable as we already had an established rapport. This made it easier for us to co-create the narrative in our interviews and interactions as opposed to a more structured relationship (Denzin,
2001). The organizer of the event agreed to let me volunteer for them at the marathon expo the
Saturday before the event and work for them at their tent near the finish line during and after the event. Additionally, she promised to help me obtain people to interview on both Saturday at the expo and Sunday at the event.
My interaction with Sport for Water was very similar. I was able to speak with six of its board members through email as well as a couple participants. I also spoke with the director on the phone once. I explained that I was participating in the event and would be raising money for the London Water Charity. I asked for the opportunity to interview each of them one on one, if I
174 could interview participants, and if I could volunteer for them at their expo both Friday and
Saturday leading up to the event on Sunday. They were very courteous and excited to have me join and help them. Again, we continued to keep in contact for two months leading up to the event and the interactions were very comfortable. When meeting face to face, the conversation was very friendly and open.
In both instances, the conversations were both formal – in the sense that some were recorded – and informal – some were not recorded. For both the recorded and non-recorded portions, I had a pen and pad with me. For the non-recorded portions, I still had my recording device on my person and would, therefore, make little notes on my pad and when the conversation ended, I would immediately repeat as much as I could remember into the recording device. I asked all participants if they wished to receive a transcription of our conversations. I said that if they would like to know precisely what they said, I would be happy to email them all information. No participants accepted my offer. Therefore, as per the wishes of the participants and our agreement on the Institutional Review Board’s (IRB) Human Subjects contract, nobody has seen the transcriptions or heard the recordings besides me.
In the following, chapters six through eight unfold chronologically. I begin by discussing my interactions in Miami, including my volunteerism at the events, semi-structured and informal interviews with organizers, and semi-structured and informal interviews with participants and other volunteers at the event. In Chapter seven, I take the reader through my own training for the half marathon and attempt to understand my sporting body in conjunction with the participant interviews I conducted in Miami. Additionally, I theorize what it means for mobile bodies in the
Global North to aid immobile bodies in the Global South through participation in sport. Chapter eight begins with my interactions with the director of Sport for Water and the other board
175 members. I then discuss meeting the organizers of the Sport for Water benefactor charity,
International Charity, my volunteerism at the events leading up to race day, and discuss the race itself and my involvement in the race. I conclude by reflecting on the events in Miami and
Vancouver and offer ways that these two events and my interaction with three charities influenced my impending work with London Water Charity.
6.2 Introduction
Team Water Charity is the sporting arm of the larger non-profit organization Vision for
Charity. Vision for Charity is dedicated to bringing education, healthcare, food, and water, among other human necessities, to those in developing nations. While Vision for Charity has been around for over half a century, Team Water Charity started in 2005 at the Chicago
Marathon. Since 2005, Team Water Charity has raised more than $5 million dollars and helped over 6,000 people receive clean drinking water (Tim, Personal Communication).
My work with Team Water Charity began a couple of months before the event. That was the first time I spoke with “Sue.” Sue30 was an extremely nice lady who volunteered her time finding other runners to join the team in Miami. My point of contact in this instance was slightly different than in the other charities I worked with. Here, Sue became my liaison. Sue is a member of a large church in Miami and obtained commitments to the cause by networking within the church and having those in the church network with their friends outside of the church. She let it be known that the entire team would be happy to have me there and they would all love to talk with me. I liked Sue.
30 From this point forward, any names used in reference to organizers of events, participants, or organizational members are pseudonyms only. No real names are used in this project in order to maintain anonymity. 176
After Sue initially replied to me, two other women followed suit, “Jennifer” and
“Rebecca.” They two were eager to speak with me. Similar to Sue, they became involved with
Team Water Charity through their local church group. All of the women vowed to help me speak with others. They were so eager, I ventured to ask if they thought I would be able to work with the team at the Miami Marathon where the penultimate event of their fundraising journey would take place. The women seemed thrilled to have an extra volunteer for the event and said I could even maybe help at the expo on Saturday. Then, I received a phone call from Christy.
Christy is the coordinator of Team Water Charity for the Miami Marathon. When I received her call, I was very nervous because I had already planned my trip to Miami and was very excited about finally having a water charity speak with me. She was very cordial on the phone but wanted to know precisely what I was doing. So, she said, “What do you want from us?” I simply told her that I am working on research regarding the fundraising of money for water charities and specifically looking at the role of sport. She was happy with this answer but immediately went to the heart of the matter. Her main concern was not that I would misrepresent the organization. Rather, her concern was that I would represent the motives and objectives of the organization too well. That is, she was first and foremost concerned with the way my writing about their charity would reveal their “tricks of the trade.” She explained that they take a unique approach to reaching out to potential fundraisers in the community and did not want other charities in the “market” to catch-on to their ways of operating. I assured her that anything she did not want me to say would never be written. By the end of the conversation, she assured me that I could write whatever I wanted. This openness continued when we met in Miami.
This chapter, again, follows chronologically insofar as the overall narrative takes the reader from my pre-race experience through the volunteering process at the expo and
177 volunteering at the race. That is, I will, starting with the next subsection, begin with my initial meetings at the pre-race expo on Saturday and move through to Sunday, but with important interlays of responses from the semi-structured and informal interviews I engaged in with the three organizers present at the event and sixteen fundraisers31 whom I will refer to as participants from here on out. I follow this chronology because I spoke with the organizers and five participants on Saturday which carried into conversations on Sunday and informed my formal and informal interviews with other participants as well. However, after discussing the pre-race expo on Saturday and leading the narrative into Sunday, I then divide the remainder of this chapter into subsections based on the content of the interviews.
Thus, the remainder of this chapter is organized as follows: I begin by describing my initial interactions in Miami and my volunteerism; Second, I bring to the forefront important aspects from the initial interviews with organizers and participants while at the expo; Third, I detail the events of Sunday morning preceding the race including my dialogue with the organizers as we setup for the post-race festivities and my informal discussions with some of my fellow volunteers who have also been race participants in the past; Fourth, I move into interpretively assessing the interviews I conducted with the organizers and participants by framing them around the key categories they are situated within; Finally, I conclude this chapter by reflecting upon the critical take-aways from this interaction, the influence of the organizations
31 It is important to note the composition of the three organizers and fourteen other participants. The three organizers consist of; 1. The Miami organizer (Christy) 2. The team organizer for events in Indianapolis, Tulsa, Nashville, Washington, D.C., and Tampa (Tim) 3. The New York organizer (Juan). The 16 “participants” are made up of 10 runners and fundraisers from the 2013 event, 4 runners from previous years who were working as volunteers at the event, one volunteer who does not run, and the Miami team organizer (Christy) who participated as a runner and fundraiser in addition to organizing the team. In the case of Christy, I interviewed her as an organizer first and then as a race participant, thus I have included her as one of the 16 “participants” and as one of the three organizers. The total number interviewed formally was 18. 178 moral underpinnings on the overall ethos of water charities, and the critical issues derived from this event that were pertinent to the remainder of the project.
6.3 Meeting in Miami
My wife and I flew down from Tallahassee on Saturday morning in order for her to pick up the race packet – she was running the marathon – and for me to work the expo with Team
Water Charity. Upon arriving, we split up with her going to the condo her parents had rented to wait for her parents arrival and I went to the expo. We were staying in downtown and the expo was in Miami Beach, so naturally the cab driver and I got stuck in traffic on the bridge. In the awkward silence of the standstill, the cab driver and I struck up a conversation that would greatly help me in making connections with future interviewees. Like many of my interviewees, it only took a couple of seconds to figure out that the cab driver was a disgruntled Miami Marlins fan.
At the time, the city of Miami was going through what had become an extremely controversial issue surrounding the building of a new baseball park for the city’s baseball team, the Miami Marlins. As detailed in a series of Miami Herald32 articles, the Miami Marlins owner,
Jeffrey Loria, and Marlin Team President, Dave Samson, made false claims regarding the monetary status of the franchise in order to receive taxpayer funding for a new stadium
(Cameron, 2012; Jackson, 2012; Miami Herald, 2011, 2012; Schmall, 2013). According to blogger Jorge Costales (2011), despite showing the city commissioners how the team had been losing money, the team had actually recouped $300 million since 2002 in league revenue sharing
32 It should be noted that, while the Miami Herald should be commended in its efforts to bring truth to the community, the organization ran a series of videos on its official YouTube channel that promoted the building of the new stadium and held a time lapse of the construction. Further, the Herald gave voice to Dave Samson and allowed for him and the organization to put positive spins on the stadium, Loria, and the Marlins organization without critical examination or reflection despite the fact that people were already questioning the behind-the-scenes interworking’s of the deal. 179 resources. Further, the team had an operating budget of $154 million (Ozanian, 2013) while showing they had a negative balance (Elfrink, 2011).
The deal – that will cost the citizens of Miami $3 billion by the time the loan is paid off
(Ozanian, 2013) – was completed because of backdoor deals between beneficiaries of the project and county commission chair, Bruno Barreiro (Elfrink, 2011). Elfrink (2011) explained the relationship between the Bruno Barreiro and the beneficiaries who were dealing behind closed doors in order to make the stadium happen:
A New Times review has found that the former county commission chairman, whose
district includes Little Havana and the site for the new park, took almost $40,000 in
donations in 2008 — one in every six dollars of his total take — from firms with an
interest in bidding on the project. What’s more, over the next two years, the same
interests continued to feed other key stadium deal backers. Among these opportunists is a
hodgepodge of companies including Trigam LLC, Parsons, Skanska, Thunder Electrical,
and others. The Munilla family, a finalist to build the $94 million garage project, donated
$6,500. A number of the companies that gave Barreiro cash later earned lucrative
contracts to build the park; they include H&J Foundation, Contex Construction, and John
J. Kirlin Enterprises. Barreiro — who didn’t return messages left with a spokeswoman —
hadn’t always been a best friend to the construction industry. In 2004, when he raised
$63,000 for re-election, less than $1,000 came from the builders and contractors.
It was not only Barreiro. City commission member, Joe Martinez, held the deciding vote
(Elfrick, 2011). After initially striking down the bid, he suddenly changed his mind. It was found that he received, legally, money from Hunt/Moss – the firm chosen to oversee the building of the stadium (Elfrick, 2011). Additionally, Loria and Samson both invested in the re-election of
180
Mayor Alvarez (Elfrick, 2011). All went well, until the Miami Herald, Forbes, and the Miami
New Times figured out what was happening.
Despite the fact that the Miami Herald and Miami New Times had been reporting on these issues for the past year, I happened to be in Miami at the time that all of this information was becoming widespread knowledge. And, people were hating Jeffrey Loria and Dave Samson with a passion. My cab driver, who connected with his son and his Cuban roots through the game of baseball, vowed to never take his son to another game while ‘those two’ were still around. My cab driver was not alone. As Hanks (2013) detailed, the stadium did not have the honeymoon effect the team was hoping for as attendance for 2013 was down from previous attendance numbers at the historically poorly attended Sun Life Stadium. Only recently have city commission members suggested any sort of remorse for their actions (Jackson, 2012). But, for me, this truly horrendous ordeal opened a lot of doors. I knew of Jeffrey Loria and Dave Samson.
I knew what Samson did as President of the Montreal Expos, where he helped drive the team to relocation and an outright purchase by Major League Baseball (which was later subject to a
RICO investigation on allegations of racketeering). I knew Loria’s story too. I am from
Oklahoma, where Loria owned his first franchise, the Triple-A affiliate Oklahoma 89’ers, a team my dad had covered as a sportscaster more than once.
***
Upon arriving at the expo, I was blown away by the spectacle of the event. When first entering the building, the spectator was greeted by flags from the various nations that people in the race were representing. It was kind of cool to see different runners approach their respective flags, get excited, and pose for a picture in front of the flag. Then, you entered into the main expo center with a map of the route on the floor so runners can see an aerial shot of the different
181 landmarks they will be running through on the following day. Music was blasting extremely loudly and a general hip hop vibe resonated through my body. Honestly, it made me pretty excited to be there. I could really feel the excitement people had about running the marathon the next day – the nervous tension was palpable.
Structurally, the expo itself was setup in a large rectangle with a track around the edges and seemingly hundreds of vendors on the inside of the rectangular walkway. There was a large
T-shape through the middle of the vendors so I went straight for the middle. Vendors attempted to hand me socks, acai berry juices, wanted me to buy shoes and braces, it was a very commercial space to inhabit. After walking around the entirety of the complex to see what it was all about, I found the Team Water Charity booth. Despite speaking on the phone with Christy and emailing back and forth with other team members, I was pretty nervous – it was my first time to conduct actual interviews by myself. So, I walked around a couple more times and collected my thoughts. Finally, I was able to gain my composure and address the people at the booth.
“Hi” I said to a young lady standing in front of the booth, “is Christy around?” The young lady, named Sarah replied, “Oh, she is out getting some t-shirts from her car. Do you happen to be Kyle?” Taken aback by her knowing my name, but quickly realizing that my business casual dress and man purse gave my identity away, I quickly responded, “Yes I am – nice to meet you.” As we waited for Christy, I took the opportunity to talk to Sarah about her role with the organization.
Sarah and I spent a couple hours getting to know one another while talking about sports, running, and intermediately engaging people who were questioning what the organization was about. On occasion, people would ask me questions about Team Water Charity. I would try to
182 answer the best I could, but invariably when asked about my role with Team Water Charity, our conversation would turn to either, what does one do with a PhD in Sport Management or, man, that Dave Samson is an asshole, isn’t he? I was more comfortable answering these questions anyway, so the conversation switch suited me just fine.
After what seemed like forever, Christy arrived back at the booth. With Christy were the organizer of the New York City team, Juan, and the organizer of Washington D.C., Tulsa,
Nashville, Tampa, and Indianapolis, Tim. Again, despite having never met me or presumably, never having seen my picture, Christy proclaimed, “you must be Kyle!” More prepared the second time around I immediately provided an affirmative response and extended my arm to shake her hand. The booth was clamoring with interested people at this point in the middle of the afternoon; “Here carry this yellow jug full of water,” Christy told a mother and her middle- school aged son. “It’s the exact jug that little kids your age and younger carry three miles back from the water they have to retrieve each day in Ethiopia,” she explained. The kid struggles to even pick the jug up and they all laugh amongst themselves realizing how difficult it would be for them to do that every single day. “I know I couldn’t do that even one time, let alone multiple times a week,” the mother tells Christy.
I was intrigued by the struggle of everyone that went to go pick up the jug, so I decided to go over to the jug and give it a shot. I picked it up, took two steps, and set it back down. Tim came over and introduced himself after he was done putting the Team Water Charity shirts on the two mannequin’s position at the forefront of the booth. “See, it’s harder than it looks, huh?” I was actually frozen in the moment because, yes, yes it was harder to walk with the jug than I believed. The yellow beacon of poverty I had seen so often on water charity websites was now more real to me – no longer photoshopped simulacra of disparate conditions – but real. I gained
183 my composure saying, “Yeah, it really is. My name’s Kyle. Tim, right?” He replied, “Yes, I am
Tim. Pleasure to meet you, man. I am glad you are here with us.”
Tim was a pretty imposing guy standing at least half a foot taller than my six foot frame and certainly carrying more muscle than I had to offer. He had played college basketball and got into running and fitness events post-basketball. Tim came down from his home region of Tampa to help out with the event. It is general practice that other organizers will come and help out so that the main organizer of that event can participate with the runners and fundraisers. So, because
Christy wanted to run – particularly with her running group from her church – Tim and Juan came to help organize the expo booth, race day tent, volunteers on race day, and post-race festivities while Christy ran the half marathon. Tim brought a tremendous amount of energy to the booth and was amazing at interacting with people who came to ask questions. He was easy to speak with and we quickly exchanged pleasantries about our pasts. He told me about playing basketball, and I told him about being from Tulsa and working as a student manager at
Oklahoma. We both had something to say about the humidity of Florida.
Tim had only been with the organization for a brief time. He had a passion for helping people and for sport. Thus, he thought this was the best opportunity for him to do what he wanted and what is right. Tim knew all the stats and immediately started to rattle them off to me:
We started small in 2005, but once we got deeply aligned with the Chicago Marathon, we
took off from there. Last year, we were able to raise about $1.6 million from that race
alone. So, we are trying to expand, obviously. We have done pretty well in Miami, New
York City, Washington, D.C. And, I am trying to get it going more in Tampa,
Indianapolis, places like your hometown (Tulsa).
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With that, Tim had to go attend to some issue regarding shirts that runners were supposed to wear for the race the following day. I was not alone for long before Juan came in and introduced himself.
Juan was quite a bit more reserved than Tim. Juan was from New York and he did not seem to be interested in talking with me. However, as if forced, and even though I did not prompt him or ask anything about his job, he discussed his role with the organization and the logistical nightmare that is the New York City Marathon. For the New York City Marathon, as
Juan explained, many people are ferried over to the beginning of the race. Further, the start line and finish line are not close to one another like they are in many races and there is not a space for vendors to setup. Conversely, the Miami Marathon finish line was conveniently located only a couple blocks from the start line and had plenty of space for the different charity sponsors to setup post-race tents to hand out information to interested parties and celebrate those who fundraised for Team Water Charity. Juan explained that this caused many logistical issues and problems with building a cohesive community around the event. Suddenly, during our very brief encounter, Juan noted that he had to go check on something. I did not speak to him again that day, but he would warm up to the idea of speaking with me on Sunday while I helped setup the tent. His hesitancy to speak with me worked out as I was finally granted audience with Christy.
“Hi, Christy,” I blurted out rather enthusiastically. “Good to finally have a chance to talk with you, Kyle,” she responded as though she was genuinely excited to speak with me. We kept up a banal conversation about the weather and my wife’s participation in the event with jokes about the humidity and why my wife was not raising money for Team Water Charity. “Okay, so
I have some time now if you would like to ask me some question,” Christy stated. “I would love to,” I replied. I wanted to know what kind of person works in the water charity sector. I had an
185 idea about Tim and Juan; both were former athletes who wanted to help people so it seemed like a natural fit of sorts. Yet, I knew very little about Christy’s involvement with sport and charity prior to her position with Team Water Charity. So, I started with, “First just tell me a bit about you and how you got involved with Team Water Charity.” She replied:
I went to school to teach Spanish. I was an athlete and I taught tennis lesson. So, I have
always been athletic, but not a runner. And, I was at church on a Sunday three years ago
when the issue was challenged to me. The video was shown and they said, “Come learn
more if you want to learn more, come do the Chicago Marathon, it’s only 26.2 miles.”
So, I went to that meeting and thought I would sit at the edge of my chair and peace out,
like I thought I would leave when I heard enough and I don’t like it. But, I listened the
whole ten minutes and I stood up. We actually have people stand when they are
committed to doing it so we can give them a round of applause. I found myself standing
there and signing my life away on a race registration form. The 6 months that followed of
training for it and meeting knew people and praying for people I didn’t know existed and
just focusing more on the bigger vision and dream we have as a team, it just rocked my
world. It was a life changing thing for me and it is for a lot of people on our team. But, it
was so life changing for me that I decided it was what I wanted to do. I used to teach
Spanish. I went to school in college and lived abroad with some friends older friends.
Then they graduated and I felt lost for a little bit, but when I graduated I moved to Costa
Rica.
After we exchanged a bit more about our backgrounds and had a nice rapport built up, I got to the heart of my questioning.
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6.1.1 “Why Running?”
I was interested in attempting to understand the relationship between the sporting body in the Global North and the body in need in the Global South, so I asked Christy why she felt that sport was an important arena for water charities. She stated:
Anyone can do it. Half marathons are – the price is right – the cost is right for people to
be able to afford a $75 registration, shoes [are] the only equipment needed and the 13.1
[mile] distance is long enough to scare people but with enough encouragement and
coaching and hand-holding, they can do the distance. People can find time in their day to
train for a half marathon, it’s easy. Like, if they do it per mile, a couple dollars (from a
donor) per mile isn’t going to hurt. A full marathon is awesome for people to do that also
but the half is something we feel like is more obtainable, but it scares them also. So, to
have something that scares you, the reason we do half marathons and marathons as a race
is because it is something that – 90% of our runners are not runners – they are average
Joes that say “yes” to the challenge, so it’s a challenge that isn’t easy, but it’s better than
team sports, which we will get into I think, but you have to have some partnerships with
the organizations to pull that off. So, the individual challenge challenges them in a way
that allows them to tell a story. The race is something that everyone is excited about.
Everyone that is signing up for a race can tell everybody they know what they are doing
and that there is a lot of training involved. So, when you do a race you have months and
months you are training and there’s preparation and it’s during that preparation when
you want everybody to tell their story as to why they are running and hopefully the
reason they are running is because they knew they could make a difference in the lives of
these kids. So, it’s an opportunity to tell their story.
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She responded further that sport was an important arena for fundraising because when running she feels more connected to the children she is helping than by “simply” offering a donation:
Definitely, because you’re sweating and hurting and “quote unquote” suffering. So, it’s
like we talk about that on the team when you’re out there and it starts hurting, just think
of the kids. This guy [she pointed to a picture attached to her shirt] got me through my
first marathon. I was wearing him. I sponsored him the night before my first race, at our
team dinner. [The night before each event] we have a big team dinner and we give people
the opportunity to sponsor one particular child if they want through the organization and
run in honor of that child. So we try to make a one to one connection [to a sponsored kid]
so when they are running they don’t just think about clean water in a community, but
they are also thinking about this [pointing again at the picture] little boy’s face. So we try
to give them someone to think on and pray for and be inspired by. So, I started
sponsoring this guy three years ago, but I think the connection is there. Running is
different than writing a check, it is different than clicking a submit button when donating
fifty bucks or $10 thousand I don’t think the amount matters, but when you start
sacrificing your body, to be the story, to be the “okay I am doing the race because of
this” and when I run and I sprain my ankle and I’m down and out about it, yeah [the pain
does not matter].
That made me wonder how they recruit individuals to run given that “anyone can do it33,” it seemed fairly easy to convince people to participate. So I continued our conversation:
33 This quote will be teased out more in the following chapter when I reflect on the interviews I conducted in Miami and consider the connection between my training, the participants in Miami, and the idea that “anyone can do it.” 188
Me: So how do you recruit people? Do you recruit based on the story, or giving them something athletically to strive after? What’s the most effective way you have found to get people to join Team Water Charity?
Christy: So we normally catch them by surprise. I will sit down and talk with the leaders of the community. So, like the CEO of a small business, it might be a small company, or pastors at a church. But, when we have leadership buy into the vision of getting their organization, their network of people, getting in better shape and building camaraderie through that and kind of leading healthier lives and for a bigger purpose and cause. What we typically do with that leader is setup a meeting, a staff meeting at a school or a company lunch, or at churches on Sundays during the announcements before the pastor gives his sermon, we issue a challenge with a short video showing the need for clean water and talking about what’s happening around the world and how we can be a part of the solution and if you want to be a part of the solution, be a part of Team world vision and do something awesome, do something epic. We give them an invite to come learn more. Some people are hearing about it at an expo or a run club. I mean the invite is for everyone. But, we typically catch people by surprise by finding where they are already at.
They are already working, they are already at church. Our belief is that people are hungry for something challenging. I signed up not only because of the need for clean water, but I wanted to make new friends at my church, I wanted to meet new people I wasn’t already connected to, and it’s a way we can help build community in a church. And, give it a missions focus so we just kind of invite everyone, but we typically recruit at meetings or anywhere there is a group gathering for breakfast or lunch or staff meeting or sermon. We want to be there to have 1 to 3 minutes to talk about the need and how there is a need for
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clean water and then invite people to be a part of changing the problem. So, that’s how
we do it and then people come learn more at a 10 minute informational talk. So, the invite
is quite quick. I usually share my personal story of how it changed me to be on the team.
So, they hear the story of the recruiter because it helps them connect with someone who
wasn’t a runner and now is. But, then we give a ten minute talk where they get all the
details of the importance of a new pair of shoes and this is how much it costs and here is
where we train. And, we talk about fear a lot. In that ten minute talk, we spend 3 to 4
minutes talking about how you can do this and to not make decisions in life based on
fear, don’t let it hold you back. [I say] “If this is something you think you can do and
want to do but you are just thinking and doubting it, then don’t doubt, pull the trigger and
say yes and in good faith.” It’s like a step of good faith for a lot of people to sign up.
I responded, “So are you as an organization dedicated to a particular answer for the water problem? That is, what is the answer here? And, who should control water?” Christy eagerly replied:
Well, I don’t know how to predict what will be happening, I am no water specialist. The
work I saw in South Africa is so much different than what I saw in Haiti. It depends on
what country we go to and how our group works in those communities. In South Africa
the government works closely with our organization and we are so much more developed
as an organization in South Africa, and the government totally partners up with us
alongside our larger organization and our programs. I don’t know how to answer that. We
are in 100 different countries but I see the local government being involved and how that
has had success, but then I look at Haiti and see that government, it’s just not there right
now. I look at other countries and it is ideal when it is governed by the government, but I
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have no idea where it is going to go, we are just trying to help. I have no idea where it is
going to go and what. In terms of who should control water and whether it should be
publicly run or privately run, I am not a fan of corporate influence, which is why we try to
be grassroots. So, I would say no comment. Can I say no comment? That’s not good.
After my conversation with Christy, I knew what I really wanted to understand from the participants when I talked to them the following day. I wanted to know how they came to relate to the problem (and perhaps more directly, Team Water Charity), how they were impacted by watching videos produced by water charities, what connection they felt to the people they were effectively running for, how that might be different than donating, and what they felt was the ideal situation for water in developing countries.
6.4 Race Day
I woke up on the event day at 4:20am to make a toasted bagel with peanut butter on it with my wife. This is the meal she decided would propel her through the marathon. We had rented a condominium with her parents about a mile from the starting line – I say “we” loosely.
Her parents rented a nice condo and allowed us to stay there with only the presumption that we would allow them to buy us breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the next few days34. Because of traffic concerns and the fact that, though we had all visited Miami multiple times, none of us had actually driven in the city, we decided to stay as close as possible. So, we began our walk.
Although my wife was a collegiate diver at North Carolina State and was familiar with the spotlight of competition, and decidedly individual competition, she was nervous about the race. I tried to counsel her on how wonderful she is, but frankly my mind was not totally in tuned with that discussion as I was nervous about my volunteering and interviews I was going to conduct
34 I will return to this point of me as privileged later in chapters seven and eleven. 191 with a group of people I had never met. Also, I really was not sure where they were going to be or where I was supposed to go to meet the group.
Christy was running with the group so I planned on meeting with Tim, Juan, and the other volunteers around the finish line where the tents and booths for the sponsoring charities and corporate sponsors were to be setup. However, before looking for them, I had to watch my wife start the run. If one has been to a marathon event where over 30,000 participants are running, he or she knows the ridiculousness of looking for someone. They slot the participants into groups based on their reported running times. My wife runs with a religious fervor, but she would not be defined as a speedy runner. Thus, she was placed in group G which met somewhere around the 16,000 mark of the 30,000 participants.
As I nervously awaited the beginning of the race – my nerves being conflated between hoping for Natalie to finish her first marathon and my impending volunteerism with Team Water
Charity – I began to walk up the steps of the American Airlines Arena – home to the NBA’s
Miami Heat. I engaged in banal banter with my in-laws about how we were all hoping for
Natalie to do well, where we would meet up after the race, and how much we still hated the
Miami Heat for beating our beloved Oklahoma City Thunder the year before in the NBA
Championship round. While we were talking about the Thunder and our disappointment, I heard a voice come from behind saying, “you guys still mad about the Thunder getting beat?” It was
Tim and I was relieved.
Tim, Juan, and a couple other volunteers I had never met were carrying heavy cases of supplies to be utilized at the tent and had stopped by the start line to cheer on the roughly 300 runners running for Team Water Charity. Unfortunately, they were wearing bright orange shirts and the official ING Miami Marathon shirt was bright orange. However, they were able to find
192 the group and right behind them was Natalie. We were all satisfied with the raucous cheering we levied for our friends and family. Once they passed from our gaze, Tim turned and said, “Alright,
Kyle, can you carry this large flag about a mile to the finish line where our tent is?” “Of course,”
I replied.
When we got to the finish line, it was very easy to find the special area they had setup just for charities. There was a charity for dogs, one for homeless people, and a few other ones that had staked their claim alongside Team Water Charity as an official charity sponsor of the
Miami Marathon. After wading through corporate sponsors’ tents and finding the charity area, we saw our tent. It was the largest of all the charity tents and was stark white with nothing around it. I knew we had some work to do and quickly. As previously noted in my conversation with Christy, the majority of the people involved with Team Water Charity were running the half marathon. A couple of the people running the half were very fast runners expected to be done within an hour and a half of the start time. So, we quickly got to work.
Tim, Juan, Rhonda, Addison, Mark, Amy, Carla, Whitney, and I started setting up tables, putting out the spread of coconut water, bagels, oranges, bananas, and other good things you are supposed to eat after a long run, and blowing up Team Water Charity balloons to place on the table. I was in charge of the helium tank where I would blow up and tie the balloons in a knot before passing it to Rhonda who tied the balloon to a long ribbon before passing it to Addison who then tied the ribbon to a weight intended to keep the helium filled balloons from leaving our party. Tim, Juan, Mark, Amy, Carla, and Whitney all were in charge of staking in the orange construction style fencing around the area, making a lane for the accomplished runners to run through when they arrived so we could all cheer for them, setting up the tables and spread, and placing the balloons on the table. I was actually pretty nervous to be the person in charge of the
193 balloons because until that morning, I could not tie a balloon in a knot. However, I was very lucky and figured it out quickly without having to feel embarrassed or ask for help. That was my first triumph.
Luckily, this activity – while potentially embarrassing given my inadequacies as a balloon knot maker – gave me the opportunity to speak with Rhonda and Addison about their involvement with the organization. While tying balloons, I got my recorder out, had them sign the IRB forms, and just carried on a casual conversation. I began simply by asking them how they learned about Team Charity Water and why they were interested in joining. Addison explained:
Um they came to my church after the devastation [in Haiti] and ya know I wanted to help
in any way I can. I just had gotten into running so it was a Godsend. I had just finished
my first half marathon, the princess one, and this opportunity came about so I decided
why not do something I love for a good cause? I loved that they were the first team to
help rebuild [Haiti]. And the next year it was water. And, I just came back from Haiti in
October and it was awesome to see the water projects and to run for that. I did my
research because you always get skeptical. They are an awesome organization their
overhead is one of the best if not the best and I know it goes to a great cause. Being at the
water projects I got to see the lakes we helped to build and stuff like that.
Rhonda agreed that this was how she learned about Team Water Charity as well. They had both participated the year before in the run, but were not able to this year because of various injuries they had incurred. Yet, they wanted to be a part of the organization and tell their story to others.
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6.2.1 Telling the Story of Participation
My conversation with Rhonda and Addison was interrupted by the first finisher of the half marathon, a seventeen year old boy who ran it in under an hour twenty. We got together and celebrated his accomplishment by blowing old fashioned party favors with ribbons on the end, large vuvuzela-type blow horns, and we even had a microphone Tim yelled into and blasted his message throughout the charity village via a large speaker. After the first boy finished the participants starting rolling into the tent. So, I stationed myself next to the drinks to make sure there were always cold options available and to help some of them open the bottles of water as their hands were rather weak at the moment. I moved to handing out beads and helping to cheer on people who ran through the human tunnel we began forming around the entrance to the tent.
After things calmed down a little bit, and more people were there to help pass things out,
I began speaking with people who had just finished the race as they sat around the balloon filled tables. Immediately, I began to see that Christy’s hopes for how participants might feel connected to the organization and the organization objectives were supported by other runners like Sarah, who said:
If I am doing something physically that is strenuous for me, I do feel more connected to
the cause and the people that are having issues with the clean water for example. But, I
don’t know if I would do it if I didn’t do sports. If I didn’t do sports beforehand and
understand the need for water, I don’t think it would be as big of a passion as it is. I
mean through sport, I see the impact of just needing some water during playing or during
a timeout how that gets you refueled and rehydrated and ready to go so you can go
perform at your best level. And, that’s sports. I mean these kids can’t perform at their
best level in school because they are dealing with disease and sickness with this water so
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making the correlation between sports and the daily connection between sport and
everyday life, when I made that connection, it made a lot more sense to me, hence the
passion.
Mark and Amy, who finally had an opportunity to speak with me after spending the past hour furiously getting the tables in order, shared similar thoughts:
Mark: We did a race for faith that benefited Vision for Charity and so that’s cool, so it
does connect you much more.
Amy: And we also did the homeless one I was talking about earlier.
Mark: Yeah we felt a bit more like we were helping that cause.
Amy: Well, I can tell you that while I am running, I am envisioning those kids carrying
those buckets of water.
Mark: Yeah that’s no doubt a motivation when you’re dying.
Amy: Oh yeah when you’re dying and you can’t run anymore, you envision them
carrying those buckets of dirty water, ya know it’s dirty water, it’s not clean water.
Mark: Or, when you’re in pain you think of their pain.
Sarah came from the Pacific Northwest having played intercollegiate athletics at a
Division-I college. After college, she got involved with Team Water Charity while working for its parent organization as a contact center specialist. Sarah decided to focus on water and joined
Team Water Charity as a fundraiser after working in the parent organization and hearing about the desperate situations many of the children faced. She was drawn to the problem with water specifically because as an athlete she personally knows the requirements of making through a sporting event. As she explained:
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I understood that water was a thing I needed as an athlete to function at the top of my
performance to be the best that I can be. And, without it, dealing with some of the
bacteria in the water that the kids have to drink, or dealing with some of the side effects
of walking forever to get it and walking back and not being able to drink the water and
getting sick because of the water. I would… I mean not being able to perform at peak
performance at whatever it is that I did whether it was basketball, soccer, volleyball, or
even running. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t change the reality for at least one
child.
Some, such as Dan, indicated that they would not be participating in running of it was not for the impact they felt they could make through their running:
Dan: Yeah I mean it’s definitely, if it wasn’t for this group, I probably wouldn’t do any
more marathons, but for me it’s about the group dynamics and training with everyone.
It was evident from my various conversations that the participants felt a connection to the people they were trying to help through their physical activity and also felt a sense of purpose.
Upon hearing that they could do something about it, they seemed genuinely moved to do so. Yet, the participants only knew the story of need from the perspective of the person telling the story of those in need, and when the water charity “reached them” through the videos they produced or the stories told by organizers and other participants, the individuals I spoke with all explained how they saw their own importance in the issue and began to internalize it, and in fact put the issue on themselves. I asked other participants, how the videos and stories impacted them:
Amy: That’s exactly what I was meaning when I was running that first marathon around
the 24th mile, that’s all I could think about – those kids. And the way they carried that
water. It kept me going; it literally helped me finish while I was crying because I was in
197 so much pain from running a full marathon. Literally, that’s all I could think about and that’s what kept me going, I made it through the finish line in tears just thinking of the video I had seen the night before. Because during the dinners we have to raise funds, we do different events for fundraising, and one is a dinner before the race, all the runners get together and they provide a dinner for us. We pay to have dinner and they play the videos to show what’s being done and what happens if people don’t get water.
Mark: It’s very impactful. A visual that stays in your mind. Being there and having seen it, and so knowing that the video isn’t just a video, you know it’s not just a tear jerker, you know it’s a real video of what’s going on down there.
Addison: The impact is powerful, really. And, like I said I went to Haiti in October and water is your basic need, like if you don’t have that you don’t have anything. Any little thing we can do to provide a pump or clean water. Ya know anytime I see those videos and I have a sponsored child now so it’s just such a connection and anything you can do to help helps.
Samantha: I love pictures and photography [and] I like videos. I think it really helps people to see what is going on because we take things for granted. My subpump went out because of the Hurricane Sandy and it was filled with water and I’m bailing water and everything and it gave me a little taste of, I was like, man, if I had to be running around and getting water it would be very tasking.
Rebecca: They impacted me very much. I got touched by the kids that do not have clean water and I think we need to get other people to be touched and we get very spoiled and when we see that we feel that we get so much and they don’t even get water. It was very touching.
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Dan: I mean they made it hit home that this is a real problem and we take water for
granted a lot hear. When you finish the marathon here, you just kind of crunch up the
cups and throw them down and it doesn’t matter. When I went to the expo and I carried
the jug that the kids carry for three miles, I picked it up and was like oh my gosh this is
ridiculous.
As evidenced by the discussion above, all of the people I talked to internalized the videos they had seen and the stories they had heard to get to a point where they felt as though they understood the issue with water and wanted to tell people their story about working with the organization – Christy’s hopes coming to complete fruition. In the case of Mark and Amy, they had participated in the events before and traveled to Haiti after being impacted by Team Water
Charity. Even after traveling to the site, the emphasis was still on Mark and Amy. Having been introduced to the issue by Team Water Charity and having already internalized the message as it relates to them, the emotions and feelings of being a volunteer remained the object of their focus.
They and the other participants were interested in telling their story and spreading their experience as fundraisers to other people. All day at the expo on Saturday and the event on
Sunday, the volunteers and participants were very eager to tell their story as a fundraiser. They worked, then, to (re)produce the narrative of need from their own perspective and the perspective of the organization, not the people in need – a very important distinction which made me wonder what they thought should happen with water in developing countries.
6.2.2 Who Should Control Water in Developing Countries?
After hearing Christy’s hesitation to answer the question of who should control water in developing countries that Team Water Charity works in, I decided it was important to ask the people participating who they believed should control water. I felt it was extremely important for
199 two reasons: 1) In general I was interested in feelings of paternalism as they might emerge in instances where people with the power to help feel as though they have the answers; And 2) It occurred to me that most of the people associated with Team Water Charity mentioned that
Christy was a powerful influence for getting them involved. Therefore, if she was not able to articulate an opinion as to what should happen with implemented water systems I wondered if participants and volunteers would have a formulated opinion.
With this in mind, I chose to end all of the interviews I conducted with the volunteers and participants with two very straightforward questions: The first was, Who should control water in the countries Team Water Charity operates? The answers varied:
Sarah: Through my experiences, through what I have had in my own life, when you
place ownership on a community it is most successful. So if an organization goes in and
works with a community and allows them ownership in the project and the program and
the well for example, it lasts longer just because it is not something I am doing for them
for charity. It is something they maintain for their own health and benefit. So, personally
through things I see in my own community, when a community takes ownership over a
project or an issue it seems to last longer and be more successful.
Mark: I think it depends on the actual nation itself. I think as a nation has proven, or
proves itself, you can say ok, like here in the US it is public and because the public has a
certain expectation or demand and because quality is monitored, then certainly we trust it
is being done correctly. But in a country like Haiti where there is quite a bit of corruption
and not enough control, not enough testing, etcetera etcetera, then it’s best to leave it to
the people who have proven that they can do it. So at this point in time it is best for
organizations that are not the government at this point. I mean I am sure at somepoint you
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can, but at this point the infrastructure is not there. It’s ultimately because people care
that things are being done in places like that. But, until the government cares until there is
a connect between the demand of the people and somebody at that level that cares to do
what they can correctly, then it’s not going to happen. So they skimp on whatever they
can to pull the money out of wherever for their own benefit not the benefit of the people.
So, it’s unfortunate but that’s the truth. So, to have organizations intervening from across
the world like world vision or other charitable organizations, food for the poor whatever,
it’s awesome that they do that. The other thing you see when you go to those places is
that the locals appreciate that and they do value it.
Addison: Absolutely, we want the locals to run the water – for it to be community led.
We want them to have their own independence, build them up and give them the tools to
run it themselves.
Samantha: It’s difficult because depending on where you go in the world and what
forces are in control of it, it can be a power factor against people of different religions
and stuff so not the government I would say. But, within the community itself would be
probably the best balance. It’s a case by case situation, but if you can depending on the
structure if there are elders who can direct that. I think it just depends on the situation but
really the community should control it.
With those responses in mind, I thought it pertinent to ask what they know about where their money goes and how Team Water Charity operates in the developing nations. So I asked the second question: How do you understand how Team Water Charity operates in those countries – do you pay attention to where your money goes?
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Sarah: So, every place that I’ve heard of that Team Water Charity works, the person who is in charge of the project is also from that community. Because it is all about strengthening community, strengthening the people and belief behind the program that their own people are excited about. We will bring in specialists who are not of the country to help them with things, but ultimately the control and the excitement and the work ethic to make this work is going to be behind the community. That’s my understanding. We already have partnerships with different communities through the over 60 years that Vision for Charity has been in existence. And, so these communities in
Haiti, in Africa, know about world vision because they have seen our work in other communities and they will come to us and say we want you to help us and we use that as the avenue to get in or we will meet with local communities members and say how can we help you sustain these 5 different things that we are trying to do in your community for the long run. As far as corporate sponsorships go I don’t know a lot about that, but our goal is to partner with the local community toward helping them reach goals of self- sufficiency without the help of any outside parties.
Mark: Yeah that’s something that at one point in time [where their money goes], being honest, it was a worry, we want to be sure that the money we raise money for does what it is supposed to do with it. So, we definitely did some research and asked around. We were actually offered to go down to Haiti with Vision for Charity to see and experience first-hand what they are actually doing.
Amy: And all of their information is pretty transparent so we trust the charity, you can see it’s been around forever and you can see it gives back to the community and the
202 impact it has made in different countries. Clean water alone, ya know, the projects are amazing.
Mark: And, as far as we are concerned, on a personal level, it’s good that water is the method by which they are touched, but there is also the spiritual level, so that’s important for us as well, that it wasn’t just okay we provide wells. You can do that but ultimately you must be able to empower them. Empower them spiritually, physically, and teaching, they do all those things. It’s not just water, they do so much more with what they are doing there.
Amy: Well, God touched our hearts so I would say that literally we just felt confirmation in so many ways to do that in just so many ways and areas. We just trusted them we knew that it was them. But, would we exclusively work with Team Water Charity? Well no, we wouldn’t say that, because our hearts have grown in that way, but we would do our research for any company, but it wasn’t the longevity; that just helps.
Mark: Yeah it wasn’t longevity, it was just reputation based on what they have been known to do over time. Their values have not been, [they share] our values, they are held to a higher standard. They are a Christian organization so as a result of that, we just trust that they are faithful with what they are being given to provide and ultimately results show that.
Samantha: I feel like I trust them and know what is going on. They send yearly updates to let you know how your child is developing and I also read a blog called hole in the gospel by the president of Team Water Charity and that was very good to see his heart.
Just seeing all of that and the questions he raised, it inspired me and I felt like it was important.
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Rose: The mission of Vision for Charity is to teach the local community how to run the
water after they are gone.
Addison had even internalized the message of the organization so far so that she began referring to herself as a part of the organization:
Addison: Because I know the organization what it is, they do community building so
they trust Team Water Charity. So, there is a two year period where they really invest
into community trust. Then they train everybody how to do it so they will be self-
sufficient when we leave. They will have all the tools and education to do what you have
to do. We don’t just give you a water pump and then go because if it breaks what do you
do? So we train you how to maintain it and take care of it and that will be your job and
you go from there.
***
After about four hours at the tent, I had to go to the finish line to watch my wife cross. I went to Christy, Tim, and Juan to thank them. But, they told me not to leave: “Bring Natalie back so we can celebrate her too. We have gotten to know you and you are part of our family.” I was happy they considered me a part of their group. I had enjoyed my time there with them. I learned a lot. I liked the people I met and they surprised me. I honestly thought I would be extremely critical of the way they were operating and have nothing but negative things to say about the organization. I expected them to be patronizing to the people they are helping in other countries.
While there are issues to be discussed later, they were far from purposefully patronizing and they were very inviting. So, I was happy to bring Natalie back to meet them.
Natalie triumphantly finished even faster than she thought, and she was strongest her last
6 miles. She was so proud of herself, but I think I was even prouder. I met up with her and her
204 parents and we immediately went back to the tent. The roughly 100 people at the tent all cheered her on as she ran under the 20 person tunnel and toward the Gatorade. We chatted with the group for about half an hour while Natalie ate as many bananas as she could force down. Not surprisingly, she was not feeling tremendous and was extremely tired, so we said our goodbyes and started our walk back to the condominium. Before leaving, I thanked them all for having me there and told them how much I appreciated everything they did for me. They responded that they were happy someone was taking a critical look at them and trying to make a difference. As I turned to walk away, Tim looked at me and said, “Keep in touch. Good luck moving forward.” “I will. And, thanks, you too,” I said.
6.5 Moving Forward
While working in Miami with Team Water Charity, I began to formulate responses for my research questions. I derived some very clear implications from my time volunteering and speaking with the people in Miami. First, regarding the research questions on the organization of water charity (RQ. 10), it was evident that Team Water Charity was dedicated to implementing sustainable solutions in developing countries and they worked with local governments, churches, and individual volunteers to make this happen. As pointed out numerous times by both organizers and participants, the desire was to help liberate the individuals in the developing countries they worked by giving them control of their own destinies. This is accomplished by working with the local community members and asking them what they want. Allowing community members to be in control of the water was important to the organizers and many of the participants.
Second, regarding the production of water crisis research questions (RQ. 1-3), I found that individuals were impacted greatly by the videos and the stories told to them by people
205 involved with Team Water Charity. Most had seen either Charity: Water videos or the movie
Blue Gold. Through these produced videos and relayed personal narratives from members in the organization and other participants, the participants produced their own narratives. Thus, I began to see how the organization as a water charity produced the narrative, the people consumed the narrative, and the participants (re)produced their own narrative in telling other people about the good work of the organization and the people in need. In so doing, I found that the individual internalized the story of the people in need so as to fit with his or her own story. She or he would then tell the story of need from a personal standpoint, not from the viewpoint of the person in need. This helped to verify my expectations based on the findings from the content analysis and helped frame my outlook for the future interviews and ethnographic work.
Finally, in response to the research questions on development through sport (RQ. 4-7), it was made very clear that the participants in the race felt three separate connections. Initially many felt that participating in this event and with this organization to help people in need connected them with God. They were able to conclude that through helping people in need, they were doing God’s work. Additionally, the participants felt a connection to the organization through the community they felt with the race organizer and the groups they had become a part of through running. Many discussed the importance of a new community to be a part of. Some, such as Rebecca, were new to Miami and found that the group helped them build a sense of community with local people. And, the participants reported feeling a connection to people in need through the act of running for water. They very clearly articulated that, through the act of running, they were able to feel a connection with those who needed water because they were able to understand the human need for water. This made it clear that in fact running helped the individuals form a different connection than simply giving money.
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The above findings from the Miami marathon propel this project forward. From the knowledge gained during my time volunteering and interviewing people in Miami, I sought to consciously consider these connections while I was training for the Sport for Water in
Vancouver. Additionally, it made me consider how to better understand the running events so I would be able to ask better questions and be more prepared in Vancouver and London.
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CHAPTER SEVEN
YOU (ME?) AS THE CORPOREAL (RE)PRODUCER
As I volunteered for the Miami marathon, I interviewed organizers, participants, and volunteers about their decisions to be involved with Team Water Charity. After that, I knew that
I needed to understand the role of the fundraiser by becoming one. Therefore, I started my own fundraising website on a prominent charity website to raise money for the London Water Charity and participated in the Sport for Water. By entering myself in the process, I considered my own disciplined body as I trained for and participated in the half marathon in an attempt to better understand how my sporting body was utilized to provide clean drinking water. Through this interrogation I sought to understand the sporting body as a site for monetary accumulation for water charities as well as the socio-historical implications of my own sporting body in the volunteer market. In this way, the focal point of this chapter is not to understand myself through water charity, but to understand water charity through my Global North sporting body.
The purpose of Chapter seven, then, is to utilize my body to (auto)ethnographically – at times – examine and engage with the process of how the active, moving, sporting body is produced and deployed by philanthropic organizations to raise money for bodies in need in an effort to respond to research question seven. Specifically, in the following, I seek to examine the disciplined body in the water charity volunteer market by participating in that very market and reflecting upon this connection through theory. In terms of structure, I first introduce my training and purpose. Next, I explain technologies of the self and the body as a source of production.
Third, I explain the body as it sits within abstract (re)production of social structure, tangible35
35 By tangible, I mean material. That is, I am speaking here about the process of making (a) material something that people can use tangibly. 208
(re)production of water systems, and how, through running and fundraising, the sporting body participates in abstract (re)production and tangible (re)production focusing particularly on the process of valorization. Throughout, I reflect on my work in Miami and my own training, ultimately providing an argument for how we can consider the sporting body as producer in the volunteer market.
7.1 Fundraising Activism
I hate running. I honestly do. Every inch of my body dislikes the activity. I have never been good at running. The act itself has made me feel like an outsider. When we ran during elementary gym class, soccer, football, basketball, or baseball practice, I knew I was the worst of the bunch. I am slow, I have a weird gait, and I hate running. So, naturally, when I decided to participate in a half marathon as part of my research, I was fairly nervous.
Natalie tried her best to make me feel better about this endeavor saying things such as, “I did it so you can do it; once you get going, it is really easy; you can do the Hal Higdon plan and you will be fine.” None of these made me feel better. My wife was a Division-I athlete, I was a fan of Division-I athletes. I was also fairly certain that I would never be able to “get going” and the Hal Higdon workout had nothing on my inability to run. But, I needed to understand what it is like to be a fundraiser, to be part of the volunteer market (King, 2000, 2008). So I got going.
To become a fundraiser/producer of money for the London Water Charity, I had to change my way of running – from stasis to motion. I had already decided to change my behavior after talking to London Water Charity in December 2012, but really started and refocused after my January work with Team Water Charity in Miami. I began running with the help of my internet running mentor Hal Higdon and my new pair of New Balance shoes. I needed the right
209 type of shoe that would best compensate for my slightly higher than average arch and what has been described to me by running experts as a “v-shaped” gait.
Natalie and I got together and planned out each week from that point until the run on
May 26th. I started slowly, building up my fairly non-existent endurance. I was on the novice training plan, so the runs at first were fairly short, totaling only a couple miles per run, three times a week. I was also supposed to do other activities two days of the week. Therefore, I decided to take my dogs on a long walk once a week and do the P-90X plyometrics workout once a week. This proved to be a tall task as I tried to change myself, my habits, to become a fit person able to participate in this active fundraising world. I struggled at first, but I kept telling myself I could do it. I knew I had to change – I just did not understand why and to what extent quite yet.
But, I not only wanted to do this, I wanted to understand what it meant for me to do this.
If it is indeed true that behavioral change needs to occur for a social marketing strategy to take place, as Kotler and Lee (2009) suggest and my work to this point has held true, then how am I to understand these changes? I decided, then, to think of my body as a producing and
(re)producing body as water charities and the volunteer market dictate. I turned, as many sociologists have done before, to Foucault and Marx. Specifically, I turned to Foucault’s technologies of the self36 - leaning on Andrews’s (1993) understanding of discipline through biopower in an effort to examine the productive capacities of the human body.
36 Foucault identified four major types of technologies: “(1) technologies of production, which permit us to produce, transform, or manipulate things; (2) technologies of sign systems, which permit us to use signs, meanings, symbols, or signification; (3) technologies of power, which determine the conduct of individuals and submit them to certain ends or domination, an objectivizing of the subject; (4) technologies of the self, which permit individuals to effect by their own means or with the help of others a certain number of operations on their own bodies and souls, thoughts, conduct, and way of being, so as to transform themselves in order to attain a 210
Utilizing Foucault, Andrews (1993) suggested that there are two types of discipline through biopower. One comes from disciplinary institutions where-in this influence is then spread to other aspects of daily life. Foucault utilized examples such as prison, schoolhouses, and hospitals to explain this first type of biopower. Although the first is important, specifically, here,
I seek to understand the second understanding of biopower, “through which the body is more explicitly controlled and disciplined by itself. This level of biopower focused on the politicizing of the human body as a reproductive force” (Andrews, 1993, p. 158). The body as subjective agent in this level of understanding works to reproduce or reject predominately socially abstract ideals (i.e. heterosexuality, masculinity, femininity, neoliberalism, etc.). However, and very importantly, Burkitt (2002) – utilizing a Marxist interpretation of Foucault’s technologies of the self – pointed out that the body can work as a literal producer through the realization and formation of capacities as technologies of the self. Through training, learning, and knowledge development, the body becomes a producer of commodities that fit within societal mechanisms to produce capital. In this way, the body as reproductive force produces something tangible, a material something. In both instances pointed out above, valorization occurs.
As Marx (1976) detailed, valorization occurs when surplus value has been created and the money gained from surplus value has been transformed into capital. Valorization in the abstract reproduction through the body occurs through the formation of cultural capital and the strengthening or weakening of cultural ideologies (i.e. heterosexuality, masculinity, femininity, neoliberalism, etc.). Valorization in the tangible occurs when the commodity production cycle climaxes through the production of a surplus value which is thus put back into the circulation of
certain state of happiness, purity, wisdom, perfection, or immortality.” (Foucault, 1988, p. 18, as cited in Burkitt, 2002, p. 221). Here, as noted, I am concerned primarily with the technologies of the self and how that works within the reproductive capacities of the second type of biopower. 211 commodities through either variable or fixed capital investment. This process occurs so that the body present in these formations are impacted by the outcome – the person participating in hetero-normative ideological practices either confirms or objects to social ideology and is thus impacted directly by his or her act within that space; the capitalist investing money in the circulation of commodities has his or her investment realized in the form of a tangible object that creates surplus value in the form of money that is then is valorized through the ability to re-enter the surplus value in the form of money into capital production. These both occur inside the habitus37 of that individual acting as subjective agent. To be sure, these occur often simultaneously and are broken up here for simplicity of explanation and for purposes of extending our understanding of productive bodies, not as an assertion that the abstract and tangible are or ever can be separately situated. Yet, and what will be the primary argument unfolding here, there sits a third type of production through the body in the case of volunteers for water charities. In the instance of the volunteer market as it pertains to water charities (or, we can consider this relationship with charities that impact other bodies that are not an individual’s own
37 It is crucial to note the understanding of habitus to be utilized here. Habitus for this author is aligned more closely with Burkitt (2002) and Spencer’s (2009) understanding than Bourdieu’s (1990). Specifically, this means that I come to understand habitus phenomenologically as something malleable and ever-changing based on the acknowledgement that the individual agent has the ability to gain capacities (Burkitt, 2002) for changing behaviors or habits thus making the habitus a contested terrain of sorts. Spencer clearly articulates this difference: “In many respects, Bourdieu’s study of the Kabyle (1977) is brilliant in its attentiveness to the role of habitus and the embodiment of culture and class. Despite this, within this approach, due to the fact that the habitus is so stable and because of the close, reproductive link between the subjectivities of the habitus and the objectivity of the social world, it is very difficult not to view habitus and subjectivities as tied together in a closed feedback loop, each affirming the other. This model of habitus makes it difficult to account for change at the individual or group level, or even for experimentation (see Jenkins, 2002). As Crossley states, in comparison to Bourdieu’s notion of habitus: ‘[p]henomenologists generally have a more dynamic and fluid notion of the habitus as a lived through structure-in-process, constantly evolving as an effect of the interactions of the agent or group with both others and their physical environment’ (2004a: 39; see also, Katz and Csordas, 2003)”. 212 body), as will be seen in the following analysis, there is a reaffirmation of the abstract in the form of Global North relationships within itself through the volunteer market and there is a tangible material product produced through the building of water systems in the developing country of choice – the two occur simultaneously with different outcomes and processes.
However, the valorization is slightly different in this instance of material production. It is actually through the production of something tangible that another socially abstract idea is valorized – the idea of philanthropy. There is another level of complexity here that cannot be simply understood as the capital – rather cultural or economic – gained challenging/reinforcing a social ideal or returning to the one who provided the means for production. This idea stuck with me throughout the entirety of this project – the idea of the human body as a reproductive force valorized and its dialectic relationship with the formulation of the self in society.
As Andrews (1993) stated, in the second level of biopower, “normalizing pseudoscientific discourses disseminated from an institutionally framed level of power relations and began to act at a subjective level of influence” (p. 158). Thus, individuals formulate the self in accordance with the discourses that he or she encounters throughout his or her societal interactions. Put differently, as Newman (2012) might suggest, we formulate our selves with and against the places, racial tensions, teachings, traditions, and cultural formations we have lived in and within which we are currently situated. To create this self free of the institutional forces that create the individual habitus, an individual must always be self-reflexive in acknowledging his or her own subject-position: “Only critical self-reflection can result in a change to one’s condition.
To be able to think differently creates an opportunity to question the limitations of one’s freedom instead of merely coping with one’s situation” (Markula, 2004, p. 308). Thus, as I was attempting to understand the human body as a physical space for production and possibly
213 valorization through the circuit of commodities/culture, I felt critically interrogating my actions and the actions of others participating in fundraising through running events through this second lens would prove beneficial to the project at hand and an extension for how we develop the self around this profound envisage of philanthropy.
To understand the body as a source of production, I will first examine how discipline has been conceived of as a space for reproducing abstract societal norms. Second, I will detail how the body is understood in the production of something tangible – material production. Third, I seek to extend this Marxist ontological viewpoint by considering how production is at work in the circumstance of the runner/volunteer and how this Marxist ontological approach can relate to understanding the volunteerism of the sporting body in the Global North. Stylistically, I relate each of the theoretical discussions laid out in this paragraph with my own training and the conversations I had with participants of water charity races. In each instance, I consider how the self is both produced and producing.
7.2 The Body in Abstract Production
In this subsection – the body in abstract production, I seek to examine how the body is used as a (re)productive force in the abstract relationship working upon and within the sporting body volunteering in the Global North. By abstract, I mean, that the “product” reproduced is societal based ideology rather than a tangible material object. In this instance, socially prescribed ideals are reaffirmed – possibly challenged – by the creation of the volunteer market of runners, volunteers, philanthropic organizations, etc. This includes ideals that weigh heavily on the participants which compel them to act as fundraiser, which reaffirm/disconfirm relationships between organizing institutions, social ideals, and individuals. Utilizing this understanding of socially abstract reproduction, I first show how the reproduction of socially abstract ideals has
214 been considered in literature to this point – and, specifically, scholarship on the sporting body38.
Then, I present the ways that discipline worked on and through these runners as productive sources for reproduction of socially abstract ideals.
As Rail and Harvey (1995) inform, “Disciplines constitute concrete and distinct forms of power that are tools for the domination of bodies. These forms of power are distinct and new because they use normalization rather than repression to ‘invest’ bodies” (p. 166). Markula
(2003) noted that these disciplines that become normalized in everyday life can be used for domination but do not necessarily always have to be repressive. Rather, she pointed to feminist literature which explicated the dominate ways that masculinities placate ideologies of patriarchy while also elucidating scholarship that does the exact opposite, liberating femininities.
Looking at both the repressive and liberating aspects of domination, scholars of sport and physical culture have built on Foucault’s idea of the subject (Markula, 2003). Rail and Harvey
(1995) illuminated literature which does precisely this – brings about the good and bad possibilities inherent in the subjectivity of the individual. Most notably, the authors point to
Hargreaves’s (1986) discussion of the relationship between sport and discipline in his book,
Sport, Power, and Culture. In the book, Hargreaves argued that power and discipline have been present in sport particularly dating to the industrial revolution and the reliance on new social relationships based on the management of time. He noted that the elite largely dictated the rules
38 This is not done with the intention of providing an exhaustive literature review of all the ways that Foucault has been utilized to explain the sporting body. The information presented here is meant to be representative of the literature as a whole for the purpose of showing how the body through technologies of power and technologies of the self (Chapman, 1997) reproduces and reformulates socially created and abstract ideals. For those interested in additional information beyond what is presented here, see Andrews and Loy (1993), Rail and Harvey (1995), Markula (2003), and Markula and Pringle (2006). 215 of the games similar to their controlling stake of society. This took place in schools as well, where:
the school’s stress on the efficacy of team games, rather than the more individualistic
sporting events... was exactly appropriate; for team games allow a fine balance to be
struck between the utilitarian rationality and individualism that had gained ground among
the middle classes, and the necessity for the latter to conform to an already well-
established order which tended to place definite limits on such an outlook (Hargreaves,
1986, p. 43).
The school became a space where students learned moral lessons such as sportsmanship and how to accept the decision of the referee regardless of whether or not the individual felt the referee might have been incorrect. Hargreaves argued that these were utilized as modes of discipline that in effect prepared individuals for their roles in society. Physical education was taught in school so that it was “explicitly committed to views concerning the nature of the social order, which find ready agreement among dominant groups” (Hargreaves, 1986, p. 164). This was even evident in the choice of clothing for sporting events. As Hargreaves explained, clothes for cricket, tennis, and gym work were white to denote cleanliness. In this way, sport, and more specifically, bodily modalities acting in a sporting sphere, were utilized to reproduce notions of socially abstract ideologies of race, gender, and power.
Following the calls of Hargreaves (1986) and Critcher (1974), who studied the dialectic relationship between sport and society, Andrews and Loy (1993) sought to present “taken-for- granted practices to unfamiliar audiences” (p. 262). The two mapped out the tradition of British
Cultural Studies and Sport offering knowledge from previous scholars and future possible directions. Andrews and Loy found that authors of cultural studies and sport had presented
216 largely disembodied research in understanding the connection between sport and society. In mapping out this terrain of cultural studies and sport, the two found that previous authors:
Have failed to address exactly how the metaphysical realm of subjective consciousness is
connected to the actuality of bodily existence. The majority of cultural studies research
has focused on ideological levels of analysis and has unearthed the meanings,
representations, and significations associated both with particular cultural practices and
with the ensuing creation of related cultural identities. While this research has contributed
much to the critical understanding of cultural production and transformation, it is
seriously flawed because it fails to ground its ideological analyses in the realm of
corporeality (Andrews & Loy, 1993, p. 271).
Attending to the call of Andrews and Loy (1993), who believed that scholars had failed to understand human subjectivity in their analysis of sport as a contested terrain of dominance and discipline – besides acknowledging that Hargreaves (1986) was on his way there – Rail and
Harvey (1995) proposed that researchers should understand the underlying positive notions of
Foucault’s work on discipline, power, and subjectivity to elucidate ways that these social mechanisms can be utilized for liberation. Rail and Harvey believed that examining Foucault’s understanding of the positive aspects of discipline and power could lead to the existence of “a body escaping repression: an active, autonomous, and powerful body” (Rail & Harvey, 1995, p.
175).
Agreeing with the assertion that there can be positive aspects of discipline and power,
Markula (2004) noted that “Only critical self-reflection can result in a change to one’s condition.
To be able to think differently creates an opportunity to question the limitations of one’s freedom instead of merely coping with one’s situation” (p. 308). Markula enlisted the work of Lloyd
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(1996), who believed in Foucault’s notion that the individual had the freedom to invent him or herself through the act of critical awareness, to understand what she was attempting to do in her research of group exercise classes in London. She specifically attempted to understand how individuals in a “hybrid” class – consisting of both mental and physical exercises – and the instructors utilized exercise as a source of freedom and transformation. As Markula indicated,
“technologies of the self permit an individual to transform him- or herself by becoming recuperated, rather than disciplined, through power relations and relations of knowledge” (p.
318). However, she also found that the hybrid class as a form of individual freedom to transform was only individually liberating when critical awareness, or the act of self-reflexivity, was conducted by the individual participant. Hence, “the more critical awareness, the greater the possibility of practices of freedom emerging” (Markula, 2004, p. 319).
Similarly, Thorpe (2008) examined Foucault’s technologies of the self in the context of women’s snowboarding. In the article she sought to uncover the discursive formations that serve to both constrain and liberate the female snowboarder. Thorpe explained, on the one hand,
“Mediated discourses that promote snowboarding as a fashion for young women, for example, might work to limit some women’s cultural membership to consumption rather than active participation” (Thorpe, 2008, p. 207). However, on the other, “I [Thorpe] believe it is necessary to question the extent to which discourses of femininity, and particularly discourses of sexism, in the snowboarding media really do have a “discursive effect” on women’s snowboarding experiences” (Thorpe, 2008, p. 208). In this way, she believed it was important to not assign an understanding of particular corporeal acts as being either disciplining or liberating. Rather, she desired to understand how these corporeal acts can act both with and against social expectations of femininity.
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Taking the approach of scholars such as Markula (2004) and Thorpe (2008), I considered the volunteer, fundraising body as both disciplined by and liberated from socially constructed abstract ideologies. In this way, I wanted to understand how the volunteer sporting body reproduced social ideologies, but also liberated him or herself through these reproductive technologies. Thus, in the following, I explain the volunteer sporting body in the context of water charity as disciplined and liberated.
7.2.1 The Body as Socially Abstract (Re)producer in the Water Charity Context
Three primary sources of disciplining and/or liberation of the body to participate emerged from my conversations with volunteers and participants in Miami and my own experience. First is the disciplining power of society from the perspective of the healthy body, which will be informed predominately by Rail’s (2012) notion of the Obesity Clinic. The second form is asceticism, informed most directly by the work of Valantasis (1995) and Foucault (1988).
Finally, I reintroduce the idea of communitas and how the healthy body and the disciplined body both act in the community of volunteers to liberate and discipline the volunteer and potential volunteer body39.
7.2.1.1 Socially Abstract Understandings of Obesity Almost all of the runners I spoke with mentioned that staying in shape was something that they had been told, and in many ways believed, was important for a happy life. Christy, the main organizer of the event I worked with, noted that one reason they use races is because it was a good way to keep people healthy and show how much bodies need water. There appears to be an increase in keeping people healthy more generally. This can be evidenced by Michelle Obama’s work on healthy school lunches
39 The idea of development through sport initiatives building community or communitas is the basis of the discussion in the following chapter on my work in Vancouver. For now, it is utilized solely for the purpose of understanding the body as producing socially constructed ideology and relationships. 219 through the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act (Mader, 2013), the President’s Council on Physical
Fitness and Sport (See King-White, Newman, & Giardina, 2013), and the “biomedicalization, bioeconomics, and biocultural discourses” (Rail, 2012, p. 227) of obesity. As King-White and colleagues inform, the increase in obesity since the demarcation of excess body fat as a disease has coincided, perhaps not surprisingly, with an increase in diagnosis of obesity and in the discursive formations around bodily health. This has implications on how an individual who is overweight gets viewed as lazy or unproductive in society. Running, then, emerges as a sport which is utilized to combat obesity and the culturally associated self-loathing.
Two women in particular indicated that running made them feel better about themselves because they were formerly overweight. They previously hated running, but, as Rail (2012) suggested, they had been impacted by “the media stories feeding fear and anxiety over obesity”
(p. 228). So they were willing to discipline their bodies for weight loss and figured they might as well help others in the process. The two previously over-weight women admitted to being self- conscious about their weight. They indicated that they had previously disliked their bodies and knew they were in need of readjusting their behaviors. Largely influenced by media, family, and friends, the two decided, together, that they would do something about their bodies. Once they were successful with their weight loss journey, they turned to telling others about the positive impact running had on their lives. They learned to be disciplined under the threat of disease, and in this way, they were liberated from their own fears, while also reproducing the discourse of obesity.
Additionally, as Rail (2012) – utilizing Foucault – noted, there is no shortage of experts who tell you how to train and what to eat. I found this to be true when talking with participants and in my own experience. Each of us had our own plan that we talked about. Some started with
220 the couch to 5k program. I chose Hal Higdon and a website known as mapmyrun, but the water charity also provided them with a plan. Christy, specifically, noted that she helped the fundraisers with their own plans and told the stories of how this could help them in their own lives.
I was able relate to them on many other levels as well. In my life, running has not been simple. I grew up overweight with a deep indulgence focused upon the fine cuisine of cookie dough. People told me I was fat, or “husky” if they were polite. It is something I struggle(d) through and a scrutiny that eventually led me to lose almost 90 pounds in six months while in college. Despite my weight loss almost 8 years ago, and my 6 foot 170 pound frame, I was recently called obese by a woman (a professor who proudly professes the “great work” she has done with improving the self-esteem of children who have “weight issues”) and it haunts my thoughts as I still hate the idea of running and I hate the idea of my body – the fat unmasculine body with feet that point out too much, an awkward gait that gets pointed out constantly in the hallways, more fat than muscle in my pectorals, and a feeling of being an imposter when I see others who run much faster than I.
But, I knew at that time that if I am to be a part of this community of volunteers, I must discipline myself for the sake of those in need. So I trained and placed myself in the text as a fundraiser with my own website. As intended by organizers at Team Water Charity, placing myself “out there” does make me feel more obligated to running according to my training schedule. I started a fundraising campaign, told all of my friends and family about it, and signed up for the half marathon. This way, I had to continue because everyone knew that I was participating in the half marathon. I also had the opportunity to carry the heavy jugs that little children carry three miles a day during my interaction with Team Water Charity – I could barely
221 carry it. I felt that as I ran. I have become obligated to the cause. So I was training for not just my health and bodily liberation as I understand it in the obesity clinic but also the health of others.
However, this was not only a selfish, liberating and reproducing endeavor for the people I spoke with at the event; it also served a higher purpose.
7.2.1.2 Asceticism Team Water Charity is not secretive about its desire for Christianity to spread through its work. Although it does not force Christianity upon those it helps, members actively pray in front of those receiving help and have organized services in the areas they help.
And, through using churches as a major space for gaining volunteers, they openly activate the feeling of muscular Christianity upon their donators. As noted in Chapter six, Amy indicated that she pushed her body farther than she thought she could because she wanted to use her body to bring glory to God by helping people. Mark and Amy both indicated that they believed disciplining themselves for God’s glory would in turn impact the people they were helping to turn to God. Further, Sarah said she participated in the race mainly because she felt it was important to do something bigger than one’s self, and Dan matter-of-factly said he would not run if it was not for the opportunity to help people and spread Christian love. It was clear that the
Christian mission of helping fellow humans was central to the involvement of those fundraising for Team Water Charity. This seemingly unique reason for activating bodily discipline on one’s self perhaps should not come as a surprise, because disciplining one’s self for a higher power – known as asceticism – has been a unique form of self-discipline since the ancient Greeks.
Asceticism refers to any act of self-denial undertaken as a strategy of empowerment or gratification (Valantasis, 1995). So, simply, asceticism is based on the idea of power relationships. Valantasis (1995) incited Wartenburg and Foucault to suggest that:
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Power, may be intended either to dominate other people, the essentially negative
construction of power found in modern theories, or to transform them, as is evident in
recent feminist positive appraisals of women’s ways of exercising their power in
relationships and family. And, power is always a dynamic social construction (p. 779).
Importantly, as has been discussed, power is socially constructed based upon knowledge and whose knowledge counts. Acknowledging that power is socially constructed is important when attempting to understand what power the individual is subjected to. “In western Antiquity askesis referred to training for athletic events. The root metaphor of ascesis is taken from sport and connects the definition of power with the subject’s empowering training for success” (Valantasis,
1995, p. 793). However, as time progressed, the idea of askesis transformed to explain the connection with a God. Valantasis continued, explaining, “The extended arenas for asceticism were transferred from physical development to the development of the higher powers belonging to the spirit. The ascetic endeavor involves the manipulation, regulation, and renunciation of physical and spiritual power for a higher purpose” (p. 793-794). Most recently, this has come with a Christian ethic.
Foucault (1988) understood that the individual in Christian asceticism, through technologies of the self, had to improve him or herself before tending to the group. He explained:
We can see that Christian asceticism, like ancient philosophy, places itself under the
same sign of concern with oneself… Teachings about everyday life were organized
around taking care of oneself in order to help every member of the group with the mutual
work of salvation (Fouault, 1988, p. 21, emphasis added)
Importantly this quote connects the two ideas being talked about here – that of personal bodily health connected to the salvation of others. Indeed, the Muscular Christianity ethos of using the
223 body for God (Watson, Weir, & Friend, 2005) through this form of ascetic discipline is clear when examining the participants of the Miami race. It was not only the fact that people received water that was important to the members of Team Water Charity, but also that the ones receiving water should see God through the actions of Team Water Charity and thus receive salvation through the acceptance of God’s grace. Through physical discipline and training for success to fit a social norm of body type, the individual participant as volunteer was also using his or her body for a higher purpose – to help the people of God.
Talking with the volunteers, it was clear that they were interested in working for a higher
(Christian) purpose. That is, it was clear that the volunteer fundraisers were not only interested in their own bodily health. Rather, they felt the need to use their bodies as a source of accumulation for a higher purpose. And, they wanted to make sure their money was spent correctly. As evidenced by many conversations I participated in, the concern for people or corporations profiteering off of their volunteerism directly impacted what organization they chose to volunteer with. That is why they chose to work with Team Water Charity – the Christian mission was important to them and they trusted Team Water Charity to be adverse to those aspects of non- profit organizations that have exploited people in the past. This is largely because of the 60 years of “good” service provided by Team Water Charity’s parent organization. For this reason, participants, as people who had the time and money to provide aid, indicated they were willing to become a part of the organization by disciplining their bodies in the name of a higher calling.
Further, they felt the desire to join a group of likeminded individuals interested in helping people in need.
7.2.1.3 Community of Volunteers All of the participants I spoke with in Miami mentioned that they enjoyed being a part of a community of fundraisers that were interested in
224 participating in an activity that was both healthy for the fundraisers (related to the obesity clinic) and served a higher purpose (asceticism). Further, this community of volunteers was extremely beneficial for the water charity itself because, as Christy told me on more than one occasion,
“(Running) races are the best place for raising money. Everyone can train for and run in a race – it does not cost them anything in equipment. Plus it helps connect the fundraiser with the person in need and can reach a large number of people.” Christy went on to say that all you need is the right shoes, the right eating habits, and the ability to get people to give you money.
Where does the free part come in? – I wondered. And, who gets to run for health and higher purposes?
As illustrated in Chapter six, the idea for Team Water Charity and those that proselytize participation within the active Global North sporting body is for one to connect with those that are in need of water. They employ “your” body to help “others” bodies. Thus, they invoke feelings of needing to be a part of the volunteer market. Thinking back to the background of this study, I reflected on the volunteer market as a communitas. Remembering Miller’s (2006) words regarding the crisis of belonging, I thought about what it means to be included in the community and maybe more importantly, what it means to be excluded from the community. The fact is, running for the purpose of raising funds is not “free.” In Miami, to even do the research and be a part of the group, my in-laws had to pay for our place to stay. In Vancouver, I would be using credit card debt and a small grant from the university. In London, I was hoping I could pay off the debt before my financing rates went up. And I am the “right type” of person for the water charity. I am privileged; I am middle-class; I do have support systems; I do have people willing to support my fundraising efforts; I can make time to run.
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Indeed, capital, both cultural and economic, must be invested if one is to be a part of the community of fundraisers. Culturally, one must inhabit the right neighborhoods, groups, and social clubs. Economically, one must have the capital to invest in the right equipment, pay the fees for running races, and have friends willing to put forth their own money in support of the runner as fundraiser.
So, it is not that simple to become part of the community – to be the global citizen in the nonprofit, neoliberal era. Participants I talked to run in nice neighborhoods or in private gyms. I run in my nice neighborhood and if it rains, I go to the private gym. I have no children and my wife runs. I do not have to work multiple jobs. I also noted that the people who raised money through their running had wealthy friends and knew people in prominent positions with large companies. This, it would seem, is a de facto prerequisite for raising funds. Not only must you be wealthy and have time to train, your friends must be wealthy enough to provide you with donations. I struggled with this through my fundraising as I noticed that I did not want to ask my friends for money because, even though I come from a privileged place, my friends are all between 25 and 30 and I could not ask them for their nonexistent disposable income. So as much as I fit in, I still don’t totally fit in to the perfect person the organizers are looking for.
Is it, then, that anyone can do it? If we take up Marx’s claim that, “Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past.
The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living” (Marx,
1852, para. 2), what does this then mean for who can participate? What does this mean for those who cannot participate? How do we then understand our habitus as volunteers seemingly naturalized into this space?
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As noted earlier, it is largely because of the profit driven nature of corporations and the lack of funding for social welfare programs that corporate philanthropy, cause-related marketing, and social marketing began to saturate the social landscape in the first place. As a result, aid became utilized for individual or corporate wealth. And, this has developed a community of volunteers who fundraise for a higher power and are at once liberated through the individual freedoms to do so and disciplined within the infrastructure of socially constructed narratives around the importance of individual charity through the volunteer market (King, 2000/2008).
Thus, through their bodily performance – their production of and through self – volunteer fundraisers reinforce and at times are liberated from societally created abstract ideologies of community volunteerism, obesity, and asceticism.
7.3 The Body in Tangible Production
In the previous subsection on the body as reproductive, I examined how the body can be utilized to reproduce socially constructed ideas of health, charity, and community. In this subsection, I turn to an investigation for how the body is utilized to produce tangible material products. By tangible material products, I mean something that is made of raw materials into something usable such as a jacket, desk, chair, or water system. I utilize Burkitt (2002) to begin to understand how technologies of the self are related to the production of tangible material products. Next, I consider what is tangibly produced in the context of water charities. Finally, I begin to unfold how we can understand the body as productive in the context of the fundraiser running for water charity.
7.3.1 Technologies of the Self in Tangible Production
Burkitt (2002) informed us that “Every technique of production requires a modification of human conduct… The body is both the object and the means of the technical activities of
227 humans” (p. 223). Later he stated, “Humans, then, learn all their capacities—be they aimed at the production of works of industry, services, or art, or be they moral—in their social activities through which they appropriate the social heritage” (Burkitt, 2002, p. 231). Importantly, Burkitt continued, humans are more interested in the outcome of their production than the process itself.
Utilizing a Marxist understanding for the means of production, Burkitt took the reader through precisely what the human body means for production of commodities. He utilized Foucault to suggest that people learn capacities through technologies of the self. That is, one’s habits are formed from the social surroundings he or she is born into, but the individual also has the ability to develop knew capacities and within those capacities, works of industry are present. This is actually not a very different conceptualization of the process of production than the understanding Marx puts forth. Specifically, when one enters into the mode of commodity production, he or she learns how to produce a tangible product.
As one sifts through Marx’s work (particularly here, I utilize Capital: Volume I, Marx,
1976), a clear vision for the productive technologies utilized for capital and the human body as productive force (laborer) in this process formulates rather succinctly. The body confronts production first in the labor market. He or she, when hired, becomes a part of the circulation of commodities, first in the production phase. It is in this phase that the individual laborer with the productive body capable of developing new capacities learns how to perform a function along the lines of production. In this way, the laborer becomes an important part of the process through his or her ability to form new habits and contribute to the process. When the body enters into this production of the commodity, or tangible material, as the source of money, he or she is the capitalist.
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The capitalist similarly learns to be a capitalist based on a (re)formation of his or her habits. The capitalist enters into the process of production first in the labor market, similar to the laborer, but instead is investing variable capital into the laborer. The capitalist also puts forth fixed capital in the form of structures and machines needed to produce the commodity. Then, once the commodity has been created by the laborer and sold in the market place for more than the capitalist put into the cycle of production, the capitalist is left with surplus value. However, the capitalist must not keep the surplus value. In order to keep the flow of capital alive and accrue more surpluses the capitalist must reinvest the surplus value back into the circuit of commodities.
Through the act of reintroducing the money into the circuit of commodities, the money invested is valorized and the laboring and capitalistic body is a form of producer and reproducer.
Something tangible is created through this relationship in the form of a usable commodity.
Similarly to the reproducing body in the abstract where the individual production is valorized through gained and reinvested cultural capital, here valorization occurs through the creation of capital accumulation and reinvestment. We must consider how this occurs in the instance of fundraisers raising money for the production of tangible material products they themselves never see valorized. That is, one must consider how, through these technologies and techniques of the body, habitual forms of action are instilled in humans that are passed down through the traditions of the social group. And, how simultaneously, tangible products are formed out of these relationships.
7.4 The Body in Abstract yet Tangible Production
In the previous two subsections, I have argued that the body has typically been thought of as productive in two ways – the production of socially constructed ideologies and the
229 production of commodities. However, there is a third way that the body is productive that helps to explain the connection between the volunteer and the process of implementing water systems in developing countries. First, let me explain the individuals involved in the creation of a water system by a water charity. I do so by beginning with the fundraiser.
In the instance of the water charity using the sporting body as a source of producing money utilized in the implementation of water systems in developing countries, I first must consider from where the capital comes. Initially, the cultural capital formulated around the abstract societal ideology of the volunteer market (King, 2000/2008) is produced by the water charity. As discussed in Chapter five, the message of need and how YOU as volunteer fundraiser can help is produced. This builds upon the socially abstract idea that citizens of the Global North should give to charity and be volunteers (King, 2000/2008). Additionally, the messages of a
Christian’s purpose to act for a higher power (Valantasis, 1995) and cultural formations of obesity as disease and illness (King-White et al., 2013) are consumed by the volunteer runners.
Next, the volunteer fundraiser – this would be the participants I interviewed and me – running a race must learn new habits or reinforce old habits aimed at being able to complete a race and raise money through this act of running. He or she must raise money – learn a new behavior as
Kotler and Lee (2009) might suggest – through the advancement of this new technology of the self (i.e. the capacity to learn new habits, inclusive of running and fundraising habits). This helps to reinforce the ideology of asceticism and the obesity clinic, while (possibly) liberating the body to perhaps be healthier.
The fundraiser as laborer must seek the capitalist in the form of an individual willing to donate to the water charity as a sign of support for the sporting volunteer and, potentially, takes on the role of capitalist by donating money him or herself. In this relationship, the donator is
230 providing the monetary capital necessary for the building of water systems. The money is then advanced to the people on the ground in the developing country who are building the new water systems either through the water charity the runner is running on behalf of or through a water charities sister organization. Thus, the monetary capital advanced ultimately produces the tangible product.
However, it is not implemented by the capitalist or volunteer sporting body and perhaps not even by the water charity. Rather, the volunteer body creates the money which is used to purchase materials that are utilized in the production of the water system. Hence, by utilizing his or her body as a source of accumulation, the volunteer acts as capitalist entering money into the creation of a commodity. Yet, and very importantly, while the socially abstract ideals are reproduced and perhaps transformed within the social group thus valorizing the cultural capital forwarded by the volunteer, the tangible products produced in the form of water systems are not valorized and no economic capital is created directly. That is, there is not surplus value regained in the form of monetary accumulation that can be reinvested other than abstractly engaging with other potential volunteers and donators. Instead, what is valorized through the tangible material products is the abstract socially constructed label of philanthropist.
Thus, we must move beyond a simply Marxist understanding for commodity production when attempting to understand philanthropic production. In a general sense, circulation of commodities can be understood from the equation, commodity – money – commodity. That is one commodity exists, has money invested in it to yield another commodity. When surplus value is gained and valorized through reinvesting the surplus value in the process of commodity production the equation becomes, money – commodity – money. However, philanthropic production in the case of water charity acts quite differently. Here, there are two concurrent
231 streams, one production from the viewpoint of the fundraisers in the Global North, the other from those receiving the water in the Global South. When looking at the circulation of water charity in the Global South aided by those in the Global North, the equation develops as follows, dirty water sold to (potential) fundraisers in the Global North by water charities – water consumed by those in the Global North to allow for laborious bodies – fundraising activity (for example a race) – money raised – money given to individuals in countries in the Global South to build water systems (perhaps a result of commodities built in the Global North) – dirty water consumed by laborious bodies building water systems – labor used in building water systems – clean water produced – clean water sold to (potential) fundraisers in the Global North by water charities. This results in the individual fundraiser investing financial capital that does not yield a financial reward. Rather, this capital yields an abstract feeling of being a philanthropic individual.
7.5 Conclusion
I trained for Vancouver in order to run the half marathon and hoped I would not die. I also raised money. Yet, throughout, I was bothered by the relationships forged within the charity sector. I questioned why I and others like me ran and raised money while someone else can do none of those things. And, I needed to consider how I could come to understand the role of the body as producer of socially constructed ideas and commodities. These came down to acknowledging the body in the formation of abstract and tangible production and how the sporting body worked in relation to the act of running for water charity.
The first way that the body acts as a reproducer is in the (re)production or (re)formation of socially abstract ideologies. The second way the body acts as a producer is in the
(re)production of tangible, material objects. In these first two forms of bodily production, the
232 process of valorization occurs which allows the individual to reenter the original framework. The individual utilizing social capital gained through volunteering, asceticism, or weight loss, reinvests those ideologies into the processes of everyday life thereby valorizing the surplus value gained from the reproduction or reformation of socially abstract ideologies. The capitalist investing money in the production of commodities reinvests the surplus value gained into the process of commodity production thereby valorizing the surplus value gained from the production of the commodity. Therefore, abstract production yields abstract valorization and commodity production yields commodity valorization.
Yet, in the third act of the body as producer, through technologies of the self – particularly that of capacities built on the change of habits – the capital in the form of money invested for the production of commodities never yields commodity valorization. Rather, the monetary capital advanced that produces the water systems yields abstract valorization in the form of the volunteer feeling, acting, and reproducing narratives of philanthropy.
And, this is extremely important to consider when attempting to understand what role charity serves. If the way countries escape poverty in this political economic landscape is to adhere to the rules of capitalist production and the people in need are dependent upon those in the Global North to constantly produce the never monetarily valorizable water systems as commodities, how then can countries be expected to grow out of poverty? What purpose does this process serve? Who does it serve? And, what is the role of the community in the Global
North within this bodily production of philanthropy? It is this last question that I sought to answer in Vancouver.
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CHAPTER EIGHT
VANCOUVER
In May, I left my friend’s house in Chicago and headed to Seattle. I had to fly to Seattle because I was flying standby on one of my other friend’s Buddy Pass list and the flights to
Vancouver were full. It was fine, however, because the rental car situation worked out better in
Seattle, as did my flight to London that would occur the day after the race. Once I arrived in
Seattle, I got my rental car and headed to British Columbia. The race itself was located just outside of Vancouver and I had to turn my cell phone service off when entering Canada, so I was glad that I paid a little extra for the navigation system in the rental car. I was supposed to meet with the founder of Sport for Water, so I called and found out where to meet him while I was still in the state of Washington. Despite having already established a pretty solid rapport with Blake, I was excited and nervous to begin the fairly formal interview we had setup in the months leading up to the race.
I was mostly nervous because I knew I was going to have to ask critical questions of the organization, but I was also nervous because I had already spent nine months at this point building relationships and understandings of water charities. I had put a lot of work into this project and knew that I would mess something up somehow. I also had a lot of very specific questions to ask Brian and the other nine board members I was to meet with – I did not know at this point in time that I was also going to have the opportunity to speak with a member of the
Sport for Water’s affiliate organization, Water for Hope International. I wanted to know Sport for Water Society’s background, how it was organized, and how this race for water impacted the community. I needed to know these things and I was nervous. Regardless of the nerves, I had arrived.
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***
In the following, I take the reader through the occurrences after my arrival in the suburban town outside of Vancouver. I had two main goals. First, examine how Sport for Water
Society organizes and attempts to create a community of global citizens by producing a community sport event built around raising money for those in need. Second, explore how Sport for Water Society raises critical awareness of global citizenship and worldwide water poverty through community sport and scholastic events. In terms of organization I will begin by laying out the framework for the chapter. Next, I provide the background information of the organization I received from Brian in our initial discussion. Within this, I also asked Brian important questions about how the organization functions and how the individuals in the organization see their role in speaking for people in need. Then, I ethnographically – through the use of interviews, personal reflection, and personal interactions – present the findings elucidated from my working in Vancouver as I began to understand them through community sport and development through sport theory. I conclude by providing insights into how this type of activity can offer social impacts in the community beyond monetary accumulation and economic benefits and how the community in British Columbia felt a sense of connection with Ethiopian citizens receiving their water charity.
8.1 Community Sport for Development40
Sport as a source for development and non-economic benefits for communities is the focal point of Community Sport Organizations (Misener & Doherty, 2009). Misener and Doherty
40 I briefly reintroduce the idea of sport for development as a way to reset the stage and introduce a slightly different way to look at sport for development in terms of it being a way to bring a community together. Thus, while some points are rehashed, I felt it beneficial to the reader to pinpoint exactly what I mean by community sport for development and how an event that’s sole purpose is to educate and raise funds for water can be considered in contrast to and sometimes in conjunction with other charities. 235
(2009) defined Community Sport Organizations as “nonprofit, voluntary organizations whose essential goal is to provide a range of opportunities for people of various ages to participate in sport and physical activity” (p. 457, adapted from Allison, 2001). As Schulenkorf (2011) suggested, scholars have pointed to these nonprofit and governmental sport agencies as sources of developing a communities health, economic development (e.g. Getz, 1997; Green, 2001), sport opportunities, and social capital (e.g. Misener & Mason, 2009). Sporting events, and particularly running events, have been popular in sport for development settings as well
(Schulenkorf, 2011). Additionally, Wilson, Van Luijk, and Boit (2013) found that running in
Kenya helped bring together a community of people in turmoil. This sport for development initiative brought together local community members in turmoil and helped bring peace to those participating in the running event.
As noted previously, community-based running events for charity first became popular when the Dallas-based Susan G. Komen race in 1982 witnessed 800 participants running for breast cancer awareness. Since the Susan G. Komen race of 1982 and Bob Geldolf-launched
Sport Aid in 1984, sport for charity events have become increasingly popular (Hamilton, 2013).
Hamilton (2013) reports, “Running USA estimates that U.S. road races pulled in $1.2 billion for nonprofit organizations in 2012, more than double the amount from a decade ago.” Yet, these events exist for different and important reasons. On the one hand, running events such as the
Susan G. Komen foundation are implemented with the hope of raising financial resources, awareness, and support for breast cancer survivors (King, 2000, 2008). Thus, the majority of people that participate have a direct connection to someone with breast cancer, someone who survived or did not survive breast cancer, or are aware of the imminent threat of breast cancer possibly impacted their own lives at some point (King, 2008).
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Yet, another type of charity running event exists – one where the participants in the event are not the beneficiaries of the event, or even know personally people impacted by the outcome.
This can be evidenced by the multinational Live Aid event that raised $100 million for hunger relief in Africa (Webster, 2013). However, to date, there has been a dearth in research examining the impact of the sport event on the community that is seeking to help people in need in another continent. That is, it is unclear how a community sport event directed at benefitting those – continents away – in need of sustenance can impact the event participants.
Therefore, and in following the lead of Kellett, Hede, and Chalip (2008), who suggested that sport events offer the opportunity to connect individuals of one community with those in another, my purpose in this chapter and time spent in Vancouver is to examine how Sport for
Water Society as a non-profit water charity organizes and attempts to create a community of global citizens by producing a community sporting event built around raising money for those in need and how they raise critical awareness of global citizenship and worldwide water poverty through these sport and educational events.
8.2 Meeting Brian
When I arrived to the exposition pavilion where the volunteers were preparing for the next day when all of the participants would be picking up their packets and interacting with the various vendors, I was immediately met with a boisterous “Hello! Welcome to our town!” It was
Brian’s wife, who is very active in the organization and event. She is mostly involved with contacting schools and implementing their curriculum in school programs. We barely had a minute to talk when Brian came up and said, “I could use a coffee. Let’s go talk at a coffee shop around the corner.”
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So, we got into his car and began talking like we had been friends for a long time. We were very similar. Both of us knew of our privileged positions in life and both fit the mold of the volunteer. We spoke about the weather, his kids, Roberto Luongo, Patrick Kane, weather, and anything else you would talk to an old friend about. We spoke about what one might expect us to talk about, sports and those sports which tell a little something about ourselves. We arrived at the quaint coffee shop on the bottom level of a four-story condominium/storefront building and ordered our drinks. I definitely needed some caffeine after my early morning flight and drive.
Plus, it was about fifty degrees Fahrenheit with a light drizzle – something unfamiliar to the
Florida weather experience I had become accustomed to living. I bought the drinks as a thank you for his time and we laughed about the slight Oklahoma twang in my voice and the way Brian says the words “organization” and “been.”
I had a sense of the kind of man that Brian was. He was a good man who wanted to do good things. Brian and the other nine members of the board had full-time jobs outside of working with the Sport for Water Society. They had families and jobs, yet took an incredible amount of time out of their lives to give to a cause that they firmly believed in. Brian was also a very self-aware individual. Brian knew he was fortunate to live in the circumstances he was born into and continues to reproduce – there was no pretending in his voice. Brian also knew that he did not have all the answers. And, this, above all else, made our conversation authentic. I told him I might ask tough questions and he was free to stop the questioning at any point if he felt uncomfortable. I took out my piece of paper to have him sign, and awkwardly explained what the form said. He replied, “Oh, I had to do this for research before when I was in University. Don’t worry about it – I get it.” So we started.
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8.3 Sport for Water Society
The Sport for Water Society originated in 2007 when founder Brian decided that he wanted to do something meaningful with his life. In Brian’s words, Brian had been an avid triathlon participant while working on his degree in Business and, later, his MBA. He married and had children. After marriage, he saw his first images of the destitute nature of water poverty.
In Brian’s words:
Me: In your own words, how did you get started and why?
Brian: Well I will give you the personal piece and then move onto more the institutional
answer. I had gone to way to much school, kind of like you, haha. I didn’t go for a PhD,
but I did get a Master’s. I finished my schooling and started running because I was
slobby. I figured out, “wow! I am really self-indulgent, from school to fitness.” And, I
realized there are no events in the Fraser Valley for people who live over here. Then I had
an epiphany. That is cheesy. But, it happened. It caught me off guard. I was going
through a Life magazine that had a little boy in a parched land and it said “every 19
seconds a child under 12 dies because of a lack of access to clean drinking water.” So, I
have two young kids and all the sudden you start to personalize some of that stuff. And I
realized that water is so important as a justice issue. I don’t see it as a charity issue but
something that needs to be taken care of because people have to have it. So, then I said,
“I have a passion for running, we don’t have any community events, and I want to
respond to the economic imbalances in the world.” I knew a guy with our partner
organization and said to him, “hey I am doing a triathlon and I would like to raise money
for a project you guys are working on, what might that look like? Is there any water
projects?” He said, “Yeah, we have a whole project in Ethiopia.” I said “Cool, I can raise
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$50041” and he said that he wanted to challenge me and told me to raise 10 grand. I said
that I couldn’t raise 10 grand but he continued to push me and said that he bet I had 40
friends that would donate $250. So, long story short, I sent out an email asking people to
sponsor me and give money to Hope. Within a week and a half, I raised $9600 and I gave
$400 to make it 10 grand. And I realized the power of events and the sport.
Do I have that many wealthy friends? Do I have that many friends? I thought.
Because water charities function differently with some aiming to simply act as fundraiser
(i.e. Charity: Water) and others working as fundraiser and service provider (i.e. Water for
People), I wanted to obtain an understanding of the goals of the organization. It is important to understand how Sport for Water functioned in relationship to other organizations, but also I desired to know their vision for water. Therefore, it was necessary for me to ask how Brian believed water should be controlled and distributed in developing countries that Sport for Water works with:
Me: Where do you see the role of the government in the developing world in regards to
clean water?
Brian: This is my dumb white guy answer, but when we left Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, it
was remarkable to see that outside of the major city, the government just didn’t care. I
mean, I have an MBA in economics and have worked in business so I go there and a
large part of me thinks, “Are we enabling here? What does this actually mean?” If we are
not here, World Vision has a notion that individuals die – ya know people die one person
at a time and so they are going to help one person at a time. So I think there is something
very human about that – the micro, the humans. But if you step back and see how aid and
41 In Chapter eight, the currency is in Canadian Dollars. 240
development should work, there are a lot of opinions, but I am bothered by a government
who said to us, “As soon as you get water there, then we will go in with health care and
help those people.” So, they were like holding us ransom where if you can attract a poor
NGO to help you then we will help you but other than that, they will just let you die.
There are ineffeciencies and hard questions that need to be asked and too often they are
not. China is getting hugely aggressive structural and infrastructure. So, at what point are
they going to be held ransom? That is concerning stuff. When are they going to shut off
the taps? Maybe that’s a bad way to look at it but it’s a question. The layers of politics.
And I know some of the criticism’s of NGO’s is that they blindly go into places and don’t
know what they are doing and that is valid. But, also I can’t sit back and say, hey I am
going to wait until they get their shit together and then I will help. They need help now, I
have seen it, and it needs to be solved.
Brian’s words struck a chord with me. A lot of my motivation in conducting this research had been to come up with a better solution than water charities. I believed the organizations were manipulative and looking to (re)create social dynamics that ensured the Westerner always knows better, is always the one in the power position. I agreed with his criticism of NGO’s and I also agreed with his criticism of those that sit back and blindly demonize people like Brian who are trying.
So, I began to wonder about the importance Sport for Society put on presenting, for lack of better term, a marketable cause or organization. I was aware that Brian struggled through the attempt to provide a message that was helpful without completely dispossessing the individual in need of his or her voice. Previously, he told me that he did not like the “$35 donation will save a kids life campaigns.” Brian specifically did not like those because they did not represent what
241 was really taking place, what he had personally witnessed. Instead, all of the instances, as noted by organization participants in Miami and, as the reader will see later, in London, are contextually specific. Therefore, the idea of saying things that promotional materials such as the
“$35 campaigns” indicate is in some ways inappropriate to say – the cost of each system built varies on a number of factors. I wanted to know, then, why he chose to work with Water for
Hope International and what he had witnessed when on trips to visit the people that the money raised was going to help that made him comfortable with their working relationship:
Me: Earlier, you said you have been concerned about casting people as a people of pity –
in the words of Arendt – and making sure you represent people correctly. What made you
think that Water for Hope International is different?
Brian: First of all it is a function of taking their word for it, but what cemented it was
going to Africa with them. A couple of things that impressed me and the other board
members from the get-go. They don’t have people like you and me doing the work, they
have all nationals. The first guy we bumped into was a national finishing his doctorate in
hydrology. Hey there is a science behind this all the good will and charity, all the
application is scientific and we have to deliver the water to these people in the most
efficient ways possible. So, when we got there we were immediately impressed. It’s
holistic and now that you have water what does it mean for economic opportunity, health,
gender equality, and we were impressed that the people there owned these projects. We
saw a 17 km pipeline being installed. That’s amazing with this clean water and a spring
in the mountains, so they capped this spring and the gravity-fed systems brought the
water to the people below. It wasn’t like Water for Hope International came in and said
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“hey people rally around us we need 18 inch trough dug for 17km in two weeks. Gotta do it part of the deal.”
Me: So everybody got together and started to dig?
Brian: Everyone is pitching in. They own it. Water for Hope International works with the people that are impacted and established a water committee. The water committee has a balance of mostly women. Their philosophy is that if the women are the ones who carry the water, they will be the ones running these projects. We are going to now help these women be empowered. All of that together underscored that Water for Hope International gets it in terms of the application on the ground. It wasn’t, “Hey us white guys are going to tell you what to do.” That’s not the system. I appreciated that.
Me: I got that impression. In terms of long term sustainability, a lot of charities have had issues with building stuff and then those breaking. How long do you, through Water for
Hope International, plan on staying in communities to train them? Is it a long term deal?
Brian: That’s a great question and something we have struggled with. So, as the group that’s on the ground to raise funds, the sexy thing to do is to say, “hey this year we are going to Ethiopia, next year Sudan. And, who is in the spotlight this year lets chase that.”
So, what we have decided to do with Water for Hope International’s guidance is, there is a part of southern Ethiopia [that] Water for Hope International has dubbed “the forgotten poor.” It’s not like an accessible region. It is the middle of nowhere like I had never imagined. They are in the middle of nowhere, African flooded roads, handcarved roads, villages next to each other that will never meet each other. So, we are in Southern
Ethiopia and we said, “Okay we are going to sort of bypass the notion of hopping the globe and doing the highest media profile and just stay with one.” So we just work with
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one province. When we first started only 5% had access to clean water. We won’t leave
until 97% have clean water. And then we will move on to the next region. The
sustainability to the region is important because these people don’t lobby or vote and we
dedicated ourselves to helping these people get water because they are forgotten.
Because, once they get water then, how do you, what’s the next step for sustainability?
One of the schools we visited that previously had issues with access to clean water had
problems where now the girls are all going to school so it’s like the school is now
overrun and cannot sustain itself because of the population increase and the girls being
able to get an education. The school was bursting at the seams. Great problem to have,
but it brings up other issues that need to be solved. We also witnessed these health care
units that had been built or they wanted to be built and they said they can’t do anything
towards health without clean water. So, microfinancing might be one answer but it is
about, how do you respond to these types of questions and sustaining these people? All of
the holistic level, all the challenges that arise actually after water is provided. Water is
kind of the foundational level.
It was clear that Brian had a vision for not only his organization in relation to the need for water in Ethiopia, but how his partners would function in their role. Brian wanted to work with a strong organization committed to sustainability and self-functioning, not charity. In talking to the people with Water for Hope International, it was evident that this sentiment from Brian was reflective of their mission as well. Thus, the relationship between these two made sense:
Me: So how do you understand Water for Hope International’s mission to make their
projects sustainable for these communities?
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Hope: The key ingredient, there are two. We want the community to own the program, when they are involved it is theirs. When we go in and talk to them it is theirs. We go with them they work with us everyday and put in the materials. The effort they put it makes it theirs. And the effort they put in makes sure that they realize the hard work and it is theirs. A lot of training comes about with the materials and making sure we are training them to deal with the materials. So those are the key ingredients. My goal is to make sure that what we are doing is good so that we don’t have to be there, ya know.
Me: How long is Water for Hope International usually in a place?
Hope: It really just depends because different places need different things. We worked in a place where it took a year and they got water and were able to build other things. But, sometimes we work in communities for longer. We work as long as they need us there.
Generally, we are there a couple of years. It’s hard to say one amount of time. If they need water, and health, and are very dependent then it takes longer.
Me: Are you often asked to come back to the same place?
Hope: In my time here, generally speaking, back in the 1980s and late 80s we started to work with a group to help them and had to come back to help them after we started some activities for help, so sometimes those relationship come back, but the goal is for them to not need us to come back and generally speaking, we stay in contact, but the goal is to move on and have them be self-sustaining with proper training. When the water supports the local people, they can work with the local government, and other groups.
Me: So, these are community led water wells and resources. How do you see the local government fitting in?
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Hope: It depends, when there is a functional government, we at the very least let the
government know what is going on. In Ethiopia, outside of the cities, the government
doesn’t care about people. In Cambodia, often the government will take over after we
initially put it in. And, again, we don’t want to be there forever, so ideally the
government and community will work together.
Me: In Ethiopia for example, pardon my ignorance, but it is broken into regions, so how
does that work, is it working with regional governments or national?
Hope: Yeah it is broken into regions so mostly it is regional governments. But I don’t
work there so this is off of memory and knowing other things about what we do. The
regions are very different in Ethiopia. But, the national governments involvement is very
different in different regions. It is really about making connections and resources.
After my initial meetings with Brian and Water for Hope International, it was clear that they were conscious of the way they represented the people in need. There was a clear effort made to connect the people in British Columbia to those in Ethiopia through running, education, and community events. Brian expressed that the overarching goal of the organization was to get the community involved by connecting with the local community. Specifically, he pointed to four goals of connecting to the local community; 1. He wanted to provide a high caliber fitness event for athletes in the area that would connect the runners with the people in need; 2. Connect with local businesses 3. Foster awareness of water poverty by providing educational material to children and adults in the area detailing the importance of water and provide an ethos of global citizenry; And, 4. Develop a social bond within the Simon Fraser Valley community through helping people in need that they will never know. With these goals clearly articulated, I followed
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Schulenkorf’s (2011) suggestion to investigate the “the management style and conditions needed to achieve social benefits” (p. 162) in sport for development organizations.
What also became clear was the tremendous amount of resources that must be mobilized in order to accommodate such a social movement. Indeed, organization of key partners and local citizenry became a key component of our conversations regarding not only implementation of water systems in developing countries and in organizing a community event. Therefore, I proceed by returning to additional interviews I conducted and analyzing how the Sport for Water can be understood from a development through sport perspective and attempt to determine what the outcomes of such an event are for the community and the people the community are attempting to help.
8.4 Sport for Water as Community Sport for Development
When speaking of community-based sport for development initiatives, Schulenkorf
(2011) acknowledged that there can be numerous goals and outcomes from community sport for development events. Schulenkorf stated that the goals and outcomes could be social, physical, psychological, cultural, educational, economic, or environmental. Importantly, it is crucial to understand the goals of the organization and what type of community the organizers are trying to facilitate. Schulenkorf expanded on this saying, “Fundamental to the idea of community participation is an emphasis on ‘building from below’; in other words, a development initiated within communities” (p. 164). The author went on to suggest, “Running a [sport for development] project in Sydney, Australia is dissimilar from managing a [sport for development] project in Port Vila, Vanuatu” (Ibid). Because, as Schulenkorf explicated, the communities involved are vastly different and the goals of the organizations involved in sport for development are different, it is important to understand how the organizations intend to meet their goals.
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It is my concern here, then, to evaluate how organizers intended to bring a community closer together through a sporting event based on helping a community in need. As noted above,
Schulenkorf (2011) suggested that researchers make a more dedicated effort to understanding the organization of the community sport for development event. Therefore, and in taking from
Brian’s stated goals of the organization, I examine how the Sport for Water Society benefits the local community and beyond the economic benefits actualized by those in developing countries in need of water.
Procedurally, I break down the analysis by critically and performatively interpreting the narratives constructed by the organizational members (Smith & Sparkes, 2009). To best present this interpretive ethnography, I divide the following into themes based upon the work of
Schulenkorf (2011) and – consistent with Markula and Silk’s (2011) assertion that researchers adapt the thematic framework of phenomenological, ethnographic work as the research unfolds –
Brian’s stated organizational goals. Stylistically, in the following thematic breakdown, I purposefully intertwine interviews, field notes, reflection, and theory to best explain the phenomenon at hand. This analysis is intended to represent the performance of the research act so as to best provide an understanding for the circumstances of putting on an event that connects communities and community members (Hamera, 2011).
8.5 Connecting to the Local Community
When I first met with Brian, his wife, Carol, his co-founder, Greg, and a board member who helped reach out to local schools, Misty, they were very clear with the main “needs” of putting on a successful race. The first was finding an organization that carried similar ideals of building sustainable solutions. Second was involvement of the local community members. As
Schulenkorf (2011) noted, it is extremely important for the organization to have a clear
248 understanding of community and what is meant by community. In this instance, Brian and his fellow board members reported that they were interested in attracting people to the event that lived in British Columbia, predominately. In discussions with various board members, the board members consistently suggested that gaining audience with local business leaders was particularly important as well given the fact that putting on a race was not cheap. The board members for the Sport for Water Society had a very defined goal for connecting to local community non-profit organizations, individuals, and businesses. In order to do this, they had to priorities: First, attract strong competitors and those interested in staying healthy so they could spread the word of need to a large group of people; second, find local businesses to work with.
8.5.1 Attracting Local Athletes
To understand how Sport for Water Society implemented strategies to attract local athletes, I had to begin by asking why the organizational members decided sport was a good way to raise funds. So I asked, “Why do you choose a sporting event and why do you think people choose to run to raise funds instead of the easy answer of just clicking a button on a website?”
Brian: Yeah that’s a great question. The best answer is a Simpsons episode I saw, it said
“Come wreck your knees for charity.” And, it is a joke from the standpoint of the
episode, but really people want to live in a community. They want to be part of a group,
part of something. Any one of the 5,000 people could go run the half marathon by
themselves, but some want to be competitive and try to see the time they can beat or the
people they can beat. We only have a few competitive people. But, most are just there
and don’t want to do it alone and want to look outside of themselves and be in a group.
It’s fun and how we are wired. We want to feel we are bigger than what’s around us.
Also, you can get access to water, and many people who have blogged about our race
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noted that they have thought about all the people who have had to walk 6 miles for water
and it’s weird that I can hydrate during a run easily while they can’t even survive. It
helps us through the event and we need it for life. I think people just do it more so for
their own satisfaction. Our group is made up of 15 people who are Christians, we have a
Sikh, an agnostic, and Water for Hope International is Christian. They don’t preach it and
just live through the Gospel as they see it. It seems convenient to be self-indulgent and I
don’t care why you participate. All it comes down to is if you care at all about people. It
doesn’t matter the religion of Ethiopia or those that Water for Hope International helps.
Worldview does matter and truth isn’t a Christian idea and power does not come from
that. Some churches use our race in place of a morning Sunday service. We are open to
everything and all understandings of the world. We just want to help and want people to
help us help.
Previously, I had believed that races might be no different than, well any other social gathering.
People wanted to be part of something bigger as I had noted in chapter 7. However, in considering the words of Brian and thinking back to those I spoke with in Miami, particularly
Christy, those who ran understood to a different degree what it means to be thirsty. Having the individual run and feel thirsty was important to many of the participants who wanted to feel closer to those in need. A surface level connection to be sure, but still a connection that was brought out by each individual participant with whom I spoke. So, I asked the two members of
Hope for Water International about why they believed a running event meshed with the organizations objectives. Those who worked for Water for Hope International shared similar responses to Brian:
Me: So have you been involved with Sport for water before?
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Hope: No, I ran it 2 years ago when I first had moved out here, to work with Water for
Hope International. I volunteered for the Sport for Water and ran it. I am running the half
this year.
Me: I am too. I am slow though so I won’t be winning. How do you view running events
or other sporting events raising money for water projects?
Hope: Anything that gets people involved and motivated to learn and do something is
good.
Me: Do you think it is different to have your body involved versus just donating?
Hope: A lot of people want to participate in community events, so I think a run like this
definitely does get people involved. It connects people. But, there is a flip side, and
people run so they don’t really fundraise or raise awareness, they think running is their
contributions. So, they pay the entry fee but that’s it. Sport for water keeps coming back
to the important parts and raising awareness to participate in a concrete way. So, running
is a very concrete way to understand that the body needs water.
As Brian noted, the organization wanted to attract local people interested in participating in a quality running event no matter the background or the reason for participating. Initially,
Brian and his co-founders were able to attract people by word of mouth. The organization had ten board members all with fairly influential positions in the community. Brian was a businessman, Greg a commercial maker and promoter, and others were teachers and business people. That led to them having around five hundred individuals participate in the initial race.
They were pleased by this number, but they wanted to attract more. Brian and Greg found that making the race a qualifying race for other, more high profile marathons greatly helped in recruiting quality runners. Further, they knew they had a particular advantage as the flattest
251 course in the area. Yet, as the first couple of races saw good turnout, they were not getting the types of number needed to make a difference.
The board members had some decisions to make in terms of how they would structure what Greg referred to as “the material” around the race. When speaking of material, the board members meant the paraphernalia that would attract people to the race. Brian explained that the material around the race led to the most disagreement among members of the board and in fact led some people to quit. There was some division on how this works. Some on the board believed that it was wrong to commercialize the event. Others, such as Brian, agreed that they wanted to represent the people in need appropriately, but commercializing the event and delivering the best “swag” would bring more interest in community members. Brian explained the situation thusly:
When [a sponsor] cuts a check, we tell them where the logos and banners go. At our own
discretion we are transparent and tell everyone how we work. Our society just stages
events and other small things. If we run a surplus it goes back to Water for Hope
International and starting next year’s program. So, our donors don’t profit off of selling
the gear at all. All the gear you see with Sport for Water Society on it, all that feeds back
to Hope for Water International. It feeds back to the society’s books. At our expo there
are all sorts of companies. We will have [sponsor’s name] selling shoes and it is a big
commercial thing. We debated about it and struggled with this because that is not what
we are about. It’s a struggle and a process. This guy selling a potion or massages. But the
bottom line is, hey, if we want them to stroke a check and people are getting money
through 5000 people flocking to a spot, we sell that, shamelessly. Every vendor pays to
be there and we live in this tension. We could get less swag or cotton t-shirts or less
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advertising because any dollar not spent goes to the cause. But, I am convinced that if we
take a business approach and understand you have to spend money to make money then
you can be more successful and help more people. You get elite athletes to tell elite
athletes about us. It’s because we can say you walk away with a great experience and
execute with excellence while helping the cause. And we are shameless about it… We
always think that we should always be living in the tension and be stressed about all the
decisions that we make and our board has 10 people and 10 answers. People quit because
of the commercialism and I got that but we want to expand and we have been able to help
more people.
The organizers wanted to be able to attract the best athletes possible. Therefore, they made the course competitive and offered services that competitive people and novice runners would appreciate. Additionally, they attracted an internationally renowned adventure sport athlete to their cause. This made it possible to reach a broader audience through his connection.
However, with this expanded audience also came an increased interest from sponsors. This worked positively and negatively. Positively, more participants were attracted and more money from sponsors could be given to Water for Hope International. Brian realized that this must be done cautiously, because the neoliberal imperatives of profit-making for sponsors and elevating the sponsors place in the sport for development schema might work to obfuscate the goals of the organization – specifically, the goals of building community and global citizenship through aiding people in need of a necessity resource for bodily function.
In this way, the organizational objective of getting local athletes involved, directly related to the goal of getting the local businesses involved. As noted, it did not sit well with some members of the board, but the majority was able to accept this reality. However, in the beginning
253 the board members noted that they were simply trying to attract as many companies as possible.
This led to a number of disagreements. As explained in the next subsection, this disagreement and contradictory nature of getting a community involved with helping a cause thousands of miles away is messy. Acknowledging this contradiction means a careful negotiation with how to foster awareness in the way that Sport for Water Society presents the people in need.
8.5.2 Connecting with Businesses
When trying to consider how Sport for Water Society envisioned presenting the people in need, it was important that I understood how the relationships worked with local business partners. Particularly, these businesses were the ones who would allow Sport for Water Society to spread their message. Therefore, I believed it necessary to understand how Sport for Water
Society chose business partners given the consideration of presenting the people in need in a humanizing light that helps build the global citizenship they as board members continually professed. While speaking with multiple board members, I had the opportunity to ask the members of the board how they wanted to build global citizenship through their key partnerships. One member responded:
As a society [we have] a vision to build awareness and global citizenship particularly in
youth while raising funds and bringing a profile to the water crisis. And, we want to do
that primarily through the community running event. We go to the sponsors and ask if
that fits with their mandate. Our idea is that a mature relationship with a sponsor is to tell
them what we are about and not sell ourselves but if it works for us and them, then we go
with it. We have matured that way. When we first started, it was a take all comers’
mentality because we needed it, but now we can step back and really understand who we
align ourselves with and why it makes sense. The brand recognition is great and
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everyone in the region has heard of us, so now we have people trying to contact us. Some
sponsors want exclusivity and we have to deal with that. For the most part, they buy in
because it aligns with them. We tell them precisely what we are about and if that aligns,
great, if not that’s okay.
The contradictions and controversies evident in the development of working relationships with corporate companies in the community and people came down to pressing questions of how to present the people in need. Brian and the rest of the society members are cognizant of this relationship. They set up the society so that any extra money made would go to Water for Hope
International or to capital costs for future events. This means that the businesses that sponsor the
Sport for Water Society do not get any tangible return on investment from the race or the society directly. They get exposure and are able to sell their own goods at the expo. However, they are not allowed to sell anything with the Sport for Water Society logo on it.
Some members of the board are more straightforward business people than others and believed it possible to allow businesses to use the Sport for Water Society logo in order to make money. This extended to how those members believed they could present the need to people and, more specifically for one member, businesses. For example, one board member did not believe there was anything wrong with fabricating numbers or stories that made it possible to bring in more money. For the member of the board who felt this way, the bottom line was the imperative
– the bottom line being making money to build water systems in the developing world. Because getting money from business relationships was the most important part of the equation for Sport for Water Society, making business connections, regardless of how the business wanted to present the need or utilize the Sport for Water Society brand, did not matter.
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However, for the majority, there was a moral imperative in working with businesses that made those board members believe that it was more than simply business in these connections.
Water for Hope International works in a similar manner to Sport for Water Society. Its representatives relayed that they, too, wanted to ensure that Water for Hope International and its partners represent the people in need. In business partnerships, they wanted, “people that want to agree with our business philosophy i.e. giving to the community giving them the power and putting them in the driver seats.” This meant giving the people in need a voice and allowing them to dictate how they are presented.
Both organizations made clear to business partners that the businesses were to promote their businesses through the partnership but not try to tell the story of need for business profit beyond the association. Neither organization wanted business partners to spread incorrect information. For example, the people at Water for Hope International reiterated Brian’s feelings by saying they did not want business partners to campaign for them with false hopes like the
“$35 donation will save a kid’s life campaigns.” While occasionally the organization utilizes that rhetoric to make a point, the majority of the time Water for Hope International avoids those often-incorrect statements. Similarly to Brian, the representative for Water for Hope
International specifically did not like those campaigns because they did not represent what was really taking place, what he had personally witnessed. Instead, all of the instances of water poverty are contextually specific. Therefore, the idea of saying things such as the $35 campaigns is in some ways irrelevant to the issue at hand.
Once Brian and the rest of the board decided the best course of action going forward with their business partnerships, they were able to focus on what was often referred to as their main objective within connecting to the local community, creating global citizens through community
256 participation. First, they had to sort out how to present the people in need so they could implement strategies for developing global citizens.
8.5.3 Creating Global Citizens through Community Participation
Before implementing any plans, Sport for Water Society first had to sort out how to present the people in need so they could implement strategies for developing global citizens.
Me: You seem conscious of how you present people in need. So, how do you present
them to people you are looking to get donations from? What is your marketing like,
basically? What do you focus on?
Brian: That is something we really struggle with. So we look at our event and we look at
the number of people participating versus the number of people who are fundraising.
And, it’s an important metric. It is not that high. If you include the students, it is still only
15% or so that participate, fundraise, and donate. So, we want to do that better. We make
ourselves out to be a high caliber event and try to attract the best athletes. Also, we point
out that you are going to learn about water and hopefully in the future you think about
donating. So we use social media and a huge database. Everything we do we let people
know about. My wife does the education piece and is tied to the schools. We will hold
gala events and we will go to the schools. Last year we taught curriculum at 24 schools
and had mini-runs. We are conscious about not pushing fundraising in schools because
obviously you have the issues with socio-economic class and it is certainly not about
trying to separate those who can donate and fundraise versus those who cannot. So, we
make it simple and have come up with a metric. I don’t really love the idea because it
isn’t necessarily accurate, but we tell the kids that, hey $35 can give a kid water for life,
as a sort of crude metric based on Hope’s math. So, we put it out there to the kids and
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asked them all to raise $35 a piece and we raised $60k. They learn through curriculum,
through assemblies and the message is different from grade 2 to 10, but even my 9 year
old goes to bed and says that she can’t sleep because she is thinking about all the people
who don’t have water. And that is kind of our goal to instill the qualities in our kids to
care about others. That’s what I want in my kids, for them to care about others, so that is
kind of our goal to build up the understanding of being a global citizen. No not everyone
in the world is the same and some can’t just turn on the tap, so how do we change that?
That is the point of entry for kids. We don’t need to grow much more, but if we can get
the 15% that fundraise to become 50 or 60%, that is what I am looking for.
After sorting out how to present the people they are attempting to serve, they attended to building their audience. To create the largest audience and create global citizens through the running event, the first decision they made was to adopt a format that allowed for a 5k fun race, a
10k race, a half marathon, and a full marathon so as to entice the highest number of participants.
This was done with the idea that any type of fitness level could be accommodated and the best athletes would be interested. There is no time limit and the day is about celebrating helping those in need and the contributions of the local community members that make that possible. The second decision dealt with how to create the largest amount of community members dedicated to global citizenship and build the fundraiser database. To best accomplish this feat, they decided to utilize Janet, Misty, and Carol’s expertise of teaching education.
Misty stated that they believed in spreading their education initiatives beyond British
Columbia and the Pacific Northwest – in this instance the Pacific Northwest being comprised of
Southern British Columbia and Northern Washington State. She said that they believed in spreading the network to a global community of educators and students. Therefore, Janet, Misty,
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Misty’s husband, and Greg all took to spreading the word of global citizenry in elementary schools, middle schools, and high schools.
The group sought to develop a connection with the people in need and the students in
British Columbia. Two members of the board who were teachers, Janet and Misty, along with
Misty’s husband and Greg went to teachers they knew and asked what type of curriculum they would want to see developed for spreading the word of global citizenry and water poverty. Based on their own individual knowledge and discussions with other teachers, they developed programs in science, geography, social studies, and physical education that could connect with everyone in grades K-12. Brian explained the process of developing the curriculum:
Misty is a teacher and wrote a rough curriculum to hand to teachers. We posted it online
and people were enthusiastic. We thought it was an opportunity. We went to Envision
Financial, a credit union, and they are passionate about their presence or our presence in
schools. So, they funded the development of professionally written curriculum and it’s
our job to promote that curriculum. Free, downloaded online, and works towards the
ministry of education learning outcome.
Misty, particularly, initially became invested in finding new teachers to support the program. Misty explained the reason she got involved on the side of education was because she wanted to use her talents to help. She stated that it is “funny as a teacher you can’t donate your services like a plumber or something so I thought I could write a lesson plan and put it on the
Internet so students could learn about the problem and the children walking.” After putting it on the Internet and having a credit union support the endeavor, they had fourteen teachers in the first year commit to helping the cause. Misty explained that the curriculum developed by the professional writers is influential because water is a hot topic in the current moment. Therefore,
259 it was easy for Sport for Water Society to make a curriculum “about dealing with water and how you can deal with water. Understanding geography and being landlocked, with climate change rivers are dried up and it’s all tied in and the lessons are current” and “that are easily accessible to students of all ages.”
Greg knew the educational writers and took an active part in spreading the word. While
Misty spread the word of Sport for Water Society through personal networks built on extensive social capital (See Misener & Mason, 2006), Greg went to the schools and put on programs. In these programs they:
Require one day [dedicated to Sport for Water activities] and we also have assemblies
with mini runs if schools want to do that. Envision calls it “Envision a Better World:
learn, create, run.” So they learn, create something, then run. They used to have to do a
project to qualify for the subsidized funding for the run, but this year, we ask that they
just take pictures of what they are doing and post them on the website.
Moreover, they have designed ways to connect the children to the people in need while showing the health benefits of water:
We had a lady come talk to us from UBC [University of British Columbia] and she does
incredible research about how helping others makes you healthier. She took blood
samples from kids and found that kids that helped were healthier. When I saw that kids
who don’t have a lot but gave a couple dollars, they were so thankful to help someone
and it gave them purpose, so that is an opportunity for them to give back and feel good.
Janet reported that there are about 25 schools now implementing the programs and the educational packet has been downloaded all over the world. The students at these 25 schools helped account for roughly $60,000 of the $358,000 raised this year for water projects. Further,
260 they are creating global citizens active in spreading the word of water poverty. As one of the teachers told me:
We have been blown away with the response of the kids and I think it is because they are
the same age as the kids that have to get the water. So, we have board members go take
video and show them who they have saved. It is within months that lives are changed and
kids love that and seeing kids on film.
Moreover, the Sport for Water Society reported that the socio-economic status of the children does not limit the giving capability and desire to help among the children involved.
Although there are differences in the amount raised, Misty reported, “my school is very poor and they managed to raise 4k [$4,000] this year through different dances and raised money through being entrepreneurial. We had a school that raised 9k [$9,000] and they are wealthier, but we are thrilled either way.” In the case of Sport for Water Society, they found that this outreach to the community and developing a desire for volunteering helped develop a community of giving in and out of schools.
8.5.4 Evidence of Community Development
In discussing the role of community sport programs on social capital, Misener and Mason
(2006) proposed that “it would seem logical that the organizers of sporting events who set up formalized structures that allow for broad community consultation and generalized inclusiveness are more likely to facilitate community development” (p. 48). Through their connections, Brian,
Janet, Misty, Greg, and the rest of the board were able to bring about social change using their social capital. They also developed a network of volunteers through their actions. As Cuskelly and O’Brien (2013) elucidated, building a mindset of both internal and external continuity can lead to individuals developing a sense of lifetime volunteerism. In the case of the Sport for Water
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Society, the goal was to develop community continuity through lifetime volunteerism as aid provider and evangelist. Therefore, the community development driven here is a development of a community committed to service of people in need.
This is exactly what I witnessed and experienced in my four days with the Sport for
Water Society. They did not want people to only participate in the race, they wanted them to be part of a community of giving, and tell fellow friends and colleagues about the needs of society.
Simply put, they wanted to get people to come together through a cause and they saw sport as the best way to achieve the maximum number of audience members. As noted above, this clearly took place through the sport and education initiatives put forth at the schools involved with Sport for Water Society. It was also evident from the vantage of a volunteer and participant in the race.
When I first entered the town, the streets lamps were lined with signs promoting the upcoming race. It was something impressive to see as the highway was also strewn with signs for the race calling it “the fastest marathon in British Columbia” and signs insinuating that the community was deeply invested in helping Water for Hope International bring water to those in need. When I checked in to the hotel, they asked me if I was going to participate in the upcoming race. When I said yes, they smiled and talked about how great of an organization Sport for Water
Society is and the woman working the front desk mentioned how grateful she was that the organization was in her town. She had never participated in the races, she claimed she was too old, but she supported them and had many friends who did participate in the run.
The fervor for the organization was evident throughout the entire town as I left the hotel and settled into a seat at the bar of a local grill to eat lunch. Although this was only Friday and the race was not until Sunday, the first thing the bartender asked was if I had come to town for the run. I was in nice clothes and had my satchel with me because I was going to work with the
262 group and talk with the board members, but the bartender still believed I had something to do with the organization. It was one in the afternoon and nobody was sitting at the bar with me – perhaps an indictment of me – so the two of us had ample time to speak. Similar to the people working the front desk, the bartender knew all about the run and had previously participated in the run. I asked him how it impacted him to which he replied, “they taught me a lot about the need for water, just the booths they had up at the race and the information they handed out. And, as a runner, I could see that need.”
On Saturday, while helping setup for the finale of the ultramarathon that a select few were participating in, I had the opportunity to chat with five people walking around the expo booths and simply asked them why they chose to participate. The responses varied. A couple of women said they were avid runners and this was a way to use their running for good (what King
[2003] has referred to as the idea of “doing good by running well”]. Another suggested that her son had participated in a program at school and it was a way for the whole family to come together. However, one comment that was consistent was the desire to spend time as a community coming together for a good and very real cause. It was evident with those conversations and conversations I had pre- and post-race Sunday with participants and volunteers that they viewed volunteerism as an important part of global citizenry. For the participants, the volunteerism was their time training for the run, actually running the race, and spreading the word of global water poverty. All of this made them feel a sense of community with the citizens of the town, but also with the ones who benefit from their volunteerism and charity.
Nowhere was this connection felt more so than at the Saturday evening dinner held for the board members of the Sport for Water Society. At that dinner, I had the opportunity to speak with each of the board members, a couple of spouses, and the international running celebrity. I
263 asked them why it was important for them to connect with the community of British Columbia and help the people in need. They all gave very simple and straightforward answers as if in unison, along the lines of ‘because citizens must help those who cannot help themselves be able to one day help themselves.’ This profound acknowledgement rests at the pinnacle of the organization’s goals and is what the members told me was the reason they were able to come together as a community – because the goal was always something bigger than themselves. This may have led to disagreements and difficult decisions, but, through the act of putting on a sport event to help others, they developed a community centered on helping other communities.
8.6 Discussion
In Vancouver, I had a unique experience with a successful organization that helped me develop an understanding for how sport can be used for social good and the people in need can be prioritized all while helping to educate a large population about water crisis. In this way,
Sport for Water Society helped me begin to formulate responses to all of my research questions.
Specifically, I understood how it chooses to produce the story of water crisis by considering what content they use and the appropriateness of using material that does not reflect the truth (RQ 1-
3); how sport is used as a way to develop informed global citizens (RQ 4-6); how the individuals working with Sport for Water and those participating in the race believed water should be controlled and, most importantly, how well educated individuals were about water crisis (RQ 8-
9), and as evidenced by the main components of the chapter, how the organization works with individuals, governments, other non-profits, businesses, and one another (RQ 10-13).
In this chapter I outlined the importance of creating and following goals when attempting to impact, not only the water crisis, but also the local community members involved with the race. Further, it provides an interesting look into the communicative processes of an
264 internationally focused social marketing group. Through the research, it was clear that the Sport for Water Society followed the outline set forth by Kotler and Lee (2009). Brian identified the problem, formulated a plan utilizing his expertise of sport programs, implemented goals and educational programs for behavioral change of local community members, and enacted those goals. Through this, he and his society have been able to raise over $1 million toward building sustainable water systems in Ethiopia and have built social consciousness among the local community members of British Columbia.
In so doing, and in consideration of the research questions pertaining to development through sport, I found that Sport for Water Society helps set forth an interesting course for considering international sport for development organizations. Giulianotti (2010) argued that there have been three stages in the sport in the global society literature and practice that he calls
Sport/Global Society 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0. Specifically, Giulianotti asserted that the first phase introduced sport as a colonizing activity where sport was utilized as a civilizing instrument.
Version 2.0 witnessed the development of sport projects for “third world” countries that were supported by the IMF and World Bank. Sport/Global Society 3.0 is the sport, development, and piece era we are currently situated within. In this era of sport and global society, Giulianotti asserted that there have been two periods. The first marked the expansion of sport for development initiatives that failed to come up with sustainable solutions for keeping these programs active. The second period of Version 3.0 (Sport/Global Society 3.2) has witnessed SDP agencies, “adept at engaging with public and private donors, notably national governments, intergovernmental organizations, transnational corporations and sport federations” (p. 212).
I submit, here, that in this a third phase there is a Sport/Global Society 3.3 which has to date been disregarded. That is, the development of transnational (Giulianotti, 2011) organizations
265 that produce sporting events participated in by people in the Global North with the goal of helping those in the Global South while building an understanding of global citizenship. In this chapter, I showed how a water charity that utilizes sport in the Global North develops this community and helps build water systems in developing nations. Further, I provided empirical evidence for how these international water charities operate in an effort to reach their goals of helping people in need while developing global citizens and community continuity
The research in Vancouver provided me with an understanding for how an organization operates in an effort to connect people. These findings helped me work through some of the questions I had from the previous chapter and all connected to my research questions.
Additionally, the research in Vancouver would become paramount to my work in London. But, I was not finished in Vancouver.
***
I woke up the morning of Sunday, May 26th with what seemed to be the largest butterfly of all time sitting in the pit of my stomach. I had never run an event beyond a 5k, and, as noted earlier, I have never been a good, let alone great, runner. So, despite the training regimen and the hours spent putting my feet to the pavement, the half marathon seemed like a tall task. I went down to the lobby for the free continental breakfast and grabbed a banana nut muffin. I love banana nut muffins and, although I hate running in the morning, muffins seem to be good for me before running. I went back to my room, grabbed my rain coat, iPod, headphones, and room key and started the one and a half mile walk to the race.
On my way to the race it was pouring down rain and was in the mid-40s Fahrenheit – keep in mind I live in Florida which is often in the 80’s during the month of May. By the time I made it to the tent to check my coat and room key, my feet were soaked. I took this as a bad sign
266 for the actual race. Looking around at the booths setup with information on anything from nutritional bars to athletic wear to the water poverty in Ethiopia, I was taken aback by the resolve of these 5,000 participants and, roughly, 1,000 other community members there to support one another and the organization. I kept thinking to myself, would they be doing this if it was not a sport event? Does sport matter? If it does matter, is that good or bad? Are the people here to support those without water or to support Brian and the members of Sport for Water? Does it matter who they are there to support? What did Bill Clinton say about helping people?
Something like, “It doesn’t matter if the act is self-indulgent, it matters that people act.” Is that true?
The emcee awakened me from my day dream by announcing that there were ten minutes before the start of the half marathon, “Everyone start making your way over there!” Evermore nervous, I made my way over to the start line where I saw Brian and some others I had recognized from the dinner. They wished me the best and before I knew it, the half marathon began and I was off to the races.
To be clear, I had no thoughts in my head of winning – I simply wanted to finish. Yet, I wanted to think during the race; think about what I have done so far; think about the questions I had just raised; think about what would happen if I died during the race – how would they get my body back to the US? The first few miles were downhill and gave me the opportunity to kind of enjoy what was going on around me. Yes it was raining and just about up to 50 degrees
Fahrenheit, but there was something nice about the day and there were a lot of people lining the streets to cheer us on. For a smaller town, the support continued to astonish me even as the air was becoming harder to take in.
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I thought about what it meant for me to be in this place, able to run this race. I knew I was privileged, I have noted this before, but I thought about why I was doing this. Most of the people I talked to wanted a sense of community; Natalie loves the sense of community that running groups share. I do not like running with people. I suppose it stems back to my days as a fat kid that could not run very long and the constant surveillance I feel. I worry someone will make fun of me, so I run on the back streets and try to stay out of visible sightlines. Yet, I still felt compelled to be in Canada running a race. Why? I thought.
Maybe, part of me feels bad for being privileged and being able to run a race. Perhaps I have taken this for granted in the past. I feel slightly bad for being out of shape and not conforming to whatever health standards I am supposed to fall in line with – a fear of the obesity clinic, no doubt. Perhaps, I feel a sense of duty to a higher purpose. I was raised Catholic and I still practice my faith. Were my mom-prompted years of service to charities influencing my decision to be here, now? It is clear by now, that I believe in the dialectic ontology, that we are not born into circumstances of our own choosing, but what made me choose to do this, now?
I felt a bit like throwing up around the halfway point. I had made it this far without walking, but the rain was really picking up and the blisters on my feet were getting slightly severe. This pain stopped my daydream in its tracks. I walked for a few minutes and ate these gummies that Natalie swears by. Looking to my right, I saw open farmland with a large silver barn that reminded me of my time working with my cousin on our grandparents land. Maybe I was doing this research so I could get a job and not have to go back to the farm – I loved being with my family, hated working on the farm. Am I that selfish? No, that cannot be it, I thought. I started running again.
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Although my side began to ache around mile eight, I was able to go back to my thoughts.
I began to think that maybe I am practicing a form of asceticism. I do believe in God, it works for me. I do not necessarily care if anyone else does or not. I certainly do not feel the need to tell anyone that I am Catholic – in fact I really do hate the idea of religion. I just want to help people and my spirituality is what brought me to this thinking. So, am I doing this for God? Do I fit with the beliefs of Team Water Charity? Not exactly, I think. I would never go to Haiti with the intention of bringing them my religion or even hoping that they find God. If we do have an afterlife – the thought of the lights just turning off at the end makes is not reconcilable in my head, it scares me – I would like everyone to be there. Somebody not getting in to whatever place we might go to after death does not mean I do not make it. I do not even necessarily care if they were bad people, how do I decide what bad is? I just want everyone to have a chance at life.
Maybe my asceticism is driven by what I view as the higher purpose of life – to be good to one another and giving everyone a chance. So, how is this accomplished?
Mile ten I began to struggle. The race organizers very inconsiderately decided to have the last three miles include a fairly steep incline for all three miles. My legs burned, but I tried to stay focused on my thoughts. How is being good to one another with the goal of everyone having a chance accomplished? I thought about running. It is good because it brings people together.
Would people come together in the same way for anything community driven? Maybe, people seem to enjoy art festivals, but that is only a dedication of an hour or two in one day, would that be enough to get people invested? Those I talked to in Miami and Vancouver certainly indicated that running and running with a community of people dedicated to helping others made them feel more connected than simply donating. Have I been wrong about sport? I have viewed it as slightly a bad thing in terms of placing a priority on sporting bodies that always have a voice
269 over those in need and that is bad. But, could it be a bit messier than that? Does it have to rest at one point or the other? Can the answers be more dynamic?
Sport certainly seemed to be different than other community gatherings for the people in
Miami and Vancouver – the money raised shows that alone. It is easier for a race to be put on than for a community to get Bono to stage a concert. How can sport be utilized for good, but still be conscious of the voice of those in need? It seemed to me that Sport for Water was doing its best to struggle with these ideas and make positive impacts. Brian and the board members were actually educating individuals in schools and at community events and getting people involved.
Also, the organization was working with Hope for Water International to implement the solutions that the communities in need wanted implemented. Can this change the power dynamics? Is there hope after all? I finished.
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CHAPTER NINE
LONDON WATER CHARITY
9.1 Prologue
In chapters nine and ten, I interrogate the everyday working environment and communicative processes of the London Water Charity through an organizational ethnography.
Drawing from Goodall (1989), who reminded us that such organizational analyses cannot be done from the outside; rather, they must be done from the inside, as one of “them”, in order to levy both honest critique and propose realistic solutions, I immersed myself in the organizational culture of London Water Charity. What I was really attempting to do here was understand the intricacies and tensions that the international water charity must navigate from the inside – seeking to, as Down and Hughes (2009) suggested in their work on co-producing narratives, experience and portray organizational life as it is lived.
To this end, I worked at the London Water Charity as a volunteer and researcher all at once, seeking to provide them with avenues for funding in order to gain access. This work is no doubt messy. A work that involves critique, but supports – if not creates – that which I critique, involves a certain sort of self-awareness and negotiation. In chapter nine, I introduce the key features of London Water Charity and the major actors in the organization. In chapter ten, I detail my work thematically, while telling it narratively. More than anything, I highlight the communicative processes occurring within the organization. I tell it thematically based on my experiences to stress the importance of certain events and topics surrounding my work with the
London Water Charity and international development more generally. In so doing, the narrative follows rather chronologically, yet, importantly, the block quotes utilized from formal interviews predominately took place in the exit interviews I conducted. They are interwoven into the themes
271 as warranted in an effort to tell and express the organizational ethnography most appropriately.
The themes themselves are taken from the projects I participated in and important aspects of the organization. I tell it narratively to provide a sense for the process that is doing organizational ethnography in a foreign country at an international agency and, for that matter, the processes of international development. I situate myself in the text attempting to show the reader how I struggled with the things I was doing both personally and professionally, and how this work helped me realize the importance of, not only critique, but offering solutions that can actually be applied and living within these tensions when trying to do something about that which I study.
9.2 Going to London
I was exhausted. Physically, mentally, emotionally exhausted. I ran the half marathon in the Vancouver suburb, talked to the people I met while in Vancouver and immediately went to shower. (Personal advice; if you wear a dri-fit shirt while you run in 48-50 degree Fahrenheit weather during a downpour, wear something over your nipples to reduce rubbing. I cannot express the importance of this enough. I had not been warned about this rubbing. Or what this rubbing might lead to.) Scarred, I traveled to Seattle, from where I would be flying to London the following morning. The travel took longer than expected because, a couple hours after traveling over the Skagit River Bridge on my way to Vancouver four days prior, the bridge collapsed. This caused a fairly severe detour and making the relatively short trip on Sunday back to Seattle quite a bit longer. This made my legs tighten up, which comes into play shortly.
I thought it a good idea to get my mind off of my nervousness. I had been nervous to conduct the interviews in the Vancouver suburb; I was nervous to run in the event; and, now, I was nervous about my upcoming time in London. I was already missing my wife and dogs I had left two weeks prior. Worse yet, it would be a few months still before I saw them. So, I decided
272 to spend the post-race afternoon at a bar and grill near Pike’s Place in downtown Seattle. I love the beautiful landscape of Seattle. Sitting at the bar watching the Texas Rangers take on the
Seattle Mariners while enjoying my first adult beverage in some time and looking at the beautiful water was just what I needed.
If anyone reading has been to Seattle, he or she assuredly acknowledges that the hills in downtown are extremely tall, particularly when your legs are dead from running a half marathon and driving for a relatively long period of time. Unfortunately, parking is not as friendly in the downtown area as one would hope and I had to park uphill meaning that I had to walk up said hill when I finished my lunch and the baseball game ended. I struggled and walked backwards at one point, but made it to my car. Upon arriving to the airport hotel around 6:45pm, I crashed until 6:00am the next day when I awoke for my flight.
The flight itself was pretty decent. I was flying standby on my friend’s American Airlines
Buddy Pass and was fortunate enough to get a great seat on my flight from Seattle to Chicago and was very pleased when I was awarded a business class seat from Chicago to London.
Despite the incredibly comfortable sleeping arrangements, I was unable to sleep – partly because it was my first international business class flight and it is exciting to be fed pretty good food and alcohol, and partly because I was now even more nervous. This was happening. I was going to live in London, by myself. To work with and for people I had never met. To conduct research on and with them and their organization. I had prepared for this moment, but now it was all on me. I worried I would mess up, that I would say the wrong thing. After all, I was critiquing their practices in my attempt to help people in need access water and understand human connection through distant, abstract relationships. I knew it could all go very poorly very quickly and I had
273 already paid roughly $230042 for two months of rent. Regardless of what would happen next, I arrived.
9.3 London
I arrived in London at 8:15am Greenwich Time, 3:15am in my home state of Florida, and
12:15am in Seattle. After cruising through the priority line of customs because of my status as a priority flyer in Business Class, I felt pretty cool, until I waited about an hour for my bag. I quickly encountered my first barrier, the Oyster card. The problem was that I had a swipe credit card, not a chip card that the United Kingdom utilized. Thus, it took me some extra time of standing in line and getting yelled at for not having a signature on the back of my card.
Eventually I made it on the Tube, got on the Piccadilly Line, and headed toward the apartment at the Baron’s Court stop where I met my roommate Jacques.
Jacques, a student studying for his master’s in business at Imperial College in South
Kensington, was a French native from the town of Bordeaux. I knew of Jacques through a mutual friend, Abby, who was studying at Imperial with Jacques and knew his roommate had recently moved out. We immediately got along and he helped me figure out where I was going as the maps I had looked at were slightly unclear regarding what I did after I got off the Tube at the
Green Park stop and headed toward the office where I was working. Jacques and I exchanged pleasantries and I was off for the quick fourteen-minute Tube ride and walk to the offices of
London Water Charity in the Mayfair district, just east of Hyde Park.
42 This is in U.S. Dollars because I do not remember the exact number in British Pounds, but have the exact number on the receipt from my U.S. bank in U.S. Dollars. 274
9.4 London Water Charity Background
9.2.1 The Coworkers
I honestly cannot remember what time I actually arrived at the London Water Charity that
Tuesday morning as it had been roughly twenty-four hours since I had slept and the jet lag was impacting my equilibrium along with my thought processes. I was also mindful and nervous about my meetings with the individuals I had spoken with through email and once on the phone.
I entered into the building near Green Park. The building itself was very nice, but we all sat in one large open room, which made me uncomfortable at first. It seemed like one giant fishbowl and made me have to pay attention all day – something I struggle with. The office space was rented out by the Chairman of the London Water Charity Board, Patrick, who was a self-made
“billionaire” – or at least that is what he told us. I have no reason to doubt him, as there were several influential people who came to the office to meet with him including, but not limited to, a popular 1980s rock band, media moguls, influential London real estate financiers, and one Sheik.
I knew of Patrick from previous phone conversations and knew that he was a tough, but successful, businessman who intimidated the majority of the people who met him. I was very glad he was not there on my first day as I do not think I would have been prepared to encounter such a strong personality. Fortunately, all of the rest of my cheerful coworkers were there that day.
First, I met the social media director and fundraising assistant director, Lizzy. Lizzy was a very friendly young woman from Manchester. She had recently graduated from “Uni” a year prior and was very good with making connections through social media interfaces, as many in her age group are accustomed. She described her job as consisting of “a lot of boring research for trust and foundations.” I immediately knew that her bubbly personality would be welcomed as I
275 transitioned to an everyday desk job far different from my usual confines at Florida State, where
I work in a windowless office by myself. I was “assigned” to work with Lizzy on most projects and she directed me toward what would be most helpful for the organization as a whole. Lizzy explained why she started working at London Water Charity:
I went to Manchester and studied geography. I got involved with Read International and
started fundraising for them, which led me to here…My mom worked in London and I
always wanted to work here. There aren’t many international development places there
[Manchester], so I came here [London]. I held out and tried not to lose faith. I had a
project about [London Water Charity] at university. I liked the direct link from pump to
village to individual, not just a pool of development money.
Second, I met Wendy, the CEO of London Water Charity. Wendy had a very strong and somehow reassuring personality. There was never a doubt where Wendy stood on issues and I learned that from just our first encounter. She was pleased to have me there, but had the most questions of anyone and offered me the first opportunity to make a mistake. When I explained again what I was doing and that I just wanted to help the charity deliver water to people in need in a “better” way, Wendy was happy with this response. Although Lizzy did not have a lot of experience, Wendy certainly did. In her words:
I was born near the Welsh boarders in a small area and couldn’t wait to get out. When I
was 17 I applied to do a gap year to work overseas. I wanted India, but I went to Kenya
with an organization where I taught science for a year before going to University. That
inspired me to work in international development. Since then, I still want to go to India
after 30 years, but I go back and back to Africa. I have been based in the UK but a lot of
work in Africa. My degree is environmental biology and I worked in environmental
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work. I started my career with an NGO as an organizational manager after being there a
bit. So, I have been CEO’ing organizations for a long time now. I mostly work on small
contracts where I try to turn around a bad situation and establish [organizational] health. I
came here on a short-term contract to manage change through a bad situation. But, three
years later, they have wanted me to stay. I have worked for the private sector as well, but
in relationship to CSR. Nothing specific to water charity before coming here.
The third person I met was Mary. Mary had recently come to the organization as a consultant and was really getting to know the organization as I entered the fray. I ended up sitting next to Mary almost every day – I say almost because some days she worked from home – and we grew rather fond of one another. In a certain vain, we were there doing the same thing.
They hired Mary specifically to critique them and help them reach out to corporate donors. Large corporate donations were her specialty. She explained her trajectory to London Water Charity thusly:
My experience with water charity is limited to the last few weeks, but I have worked with
UK non-profits as a fundraiser. I was director of a small trust giving out grants for
research – mostly medical. It is an overlap with how charities operate and money. It is
assumed to be a different culture and approach but it is very much the same. People think
they are different but they are not. The overlap is clear. I think it comes from a cultural
point of view and personalized stuff for why charities exist.
Fourth, I met Julie, who would be my desk mate on the other side from Mary. She was from Australia and made a clear distinction between those from the United Kingdom and those from Australia. She was very proud of her heritage, to say the least, and made very nuanced arguments that explained why Australians were very different from the British. I never got the
277 feeling she was overly committed to the idea of staying in London and she clearly longed for the day she could go back to Australia. However, her longtime boyfriend lived in London, so she had moved with him. Julie had a tremendous amount of experience with water. Explaining her background and experience, Julie very thoroughly reported:
I have a degree in conservation science and a postgraduate in environment engineering. I
was in environment manager. I worked with indigenous communities in northern
Australia. I worked there for a year and a half until I went to Kenya to work with rural
farmers to increase their access to larger markets and hopefully their income. I went back
to Australia to coordinate an environmental market program in Australia. It is
controversial and is kind of a carbon credit but is more for the environment. If someone
knocks down a tree, they have to replace it as part of a conservation credit. And, then I
came to London and started working for [London Water Charity] in February. I was
always [into conservation] growing up. We camped growing up, my dad’s into the
environment and I had a teacher in primary school who got us into recycling and thinking
about the environment before it was cool. They think about recycling and environment in
Australia way more than in London. So, before that was the norm, we started a compost
system for the school. So, she made me start thinking about it and of course I am into the
outdoors. As an environmental engineer, I focused on water resource management
particularly developmental areas. I worked on contamination in Papua New Guinea and
got into river health. It is a problem in Australia, because it is a dry country that was in
drought for 15 years.
The fifth person I met that first day was the woman I ended up spending most of my time working with and for in some regards. Beth was the head of fundraising at London Water
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Charity. Beth was incredibly kind and had been the person I was most directly involved with in the months leading up to my travel to London. She had a very unique background having been born and raised in the United Kingdom and attending school there before traveling to Hong
Kong to work with a non-profit organization that developed relationships between different business organizations. She explained her background:
I did a history degree at University, then after that I didn’t know what I wanted to do so I
volunteered in Ghana for 3 months and I really wanted to work with sub-Saharan Africa
So, I got job working in Capetown working for an adult literacy charity. Back in the UK I
got a role working in fundraising for the largest children’s charity in the UK. I moved to
Hong Kong with my partner and I worked in a non-profit that wasn’t a charity, but I
worked getting businesses together. I went back to the UK to get back into charity
because that is my love. I worked with a human rights organization for a year. I started at
London Water Charity after a year because I wanted to work with sub-Saharan Africa and
international development. My background is more charity than international
development. My experiences in small and large international and local charities have
given me a mix of experiences, but all are about building relationships more so than
international development. So, I have to learn the theory about building.
The sixth individual I met was Sam. Sam was in charge of finances at London Water
Charity. He was deeply involved in all sectors of London Water Charity and, like the rest of the people working at London Water Charity had an interesting background. However, his interest in water was more deeply connected than some of his coworkers. As Sam explained:
Professional background, I started working in the commercial sector, but I worked in
charities in my home country of Ghana. I realized to switch to charity in the UK because
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I realized you could make a career out of it. So I can combine my passion and my career.
This is the third charity I have worked for full time. I work with three others voluntarily
as the honorary treasurer, one I am a council for volunteer services, I help the local
community in the burrow in Bromley work with this charity, then I work with a charity
that supports work in Ghana and I help young black men reach their maximum potential.
I do speaking for them.
Me: As someone from Ghana what was your relationship with charities there?
Sam: Interesting. The nature of life is different there than the UK. Growing up there
weren’t many. It was as things got more complex and difficult with a change from
dictatorship to democracy, it opened the door for charity. We are a philanthropic country,
so people joined the bandwagon when people came and we all started to help. So that is
my connection to charity. I came to the UK for adventure and I went to school here.
Me: So what brought you to London Water Charity?
Sam: The focus, because I know the problems with water. I experienced it first-hand. I
know the impact it has on the community. I was drawn to them because they are dealing
with an essential problem. In Africa you are always at one of two ends of the spectrum
you either have floods and too much water, or no water and drought. So, [London Water
Charity] is essential in addressing the difference
The six people intricately introduced in this section thus far, along with Patrick, were the people I worked most directly with throughout my time at London Water Charity. However, there were other individuals that worked there as well. John and Terry both worked with Julie in the programs division of London Water Charity, but they spent most of their time living and working in Malawi with the office in Lilongwe, thus I did not get to intimately know them as
280 much as the others. There was also Patrick’s assistant, Simon, who worked directly with
Patrick’s business affairs and did not have anything to do with London Water Charity. He was an important part of the office and was an incredibly funny individual, but his relationship to the work I conducted was moot. Simon also handled Patrick’s important Banksy paintings.
Additionally, Patrick had two full-time employees that ran his business affairs and coffee shops, respectively. Rose was Patrick’s assistant who worked in the office answering the phones and arranging his meetings. Lauren handled the day-to-day operations of Patrick’s multiple coffee shops and was a fellow American. She always helped me out in the multiple battles we would have in the office regarding the proper spelling of words. (With the diverse backgrounds, the arguments were often epic and I was glad to have someone on my side.) Finally, at the end of my stay, a man from New Zealand, William, started working there. I will introduce him later when talking about his key role as the new addition to grant writing.
Although I was exhausted and trying, without much success, to remember everyone’s name, I immediately wanted to get to work. The first thing I did was meet with Beth, the head of fundraising, and Lizzy, the head of social media, because that was the sector I would be working most intimately with while at London Water Charity. The two took me into the conference room and Sam, Mary, Julie, and Wendy decided to join us in order to give me an appropriate account of the organizations history and purpose.
9.2.2 London Water Charity Organizational Background
When we entered the conference room, there were muffins from Pret a Manger (Pret for short), which was a few blocks away and quickly became one of my favorite places to stop for coffee. I was starving and accepted their offer of the almond croissant (I highly recommend this delicacy if ever near a Pret). After grabbing a quick bite to eat and chatting with them about my
281 run and my background a little bit, we got down to business. Despite having discussed their directives on the phone, through email, and scouring the organization’s website, I wanted to hear how the organization was founded in the first place and the organization’s mission in their own words.
Beth Explained how London Water Charity was founded:
In 1998 our founder was British working in a school in Zimbabwe with two Zimbabwe
teachers. A couple people got sick and died from drinking bad water. So, they looked at
options and found one that had been used in China for centuries and he developed this
into the African context. He found it made a huge difference and other communities came
and asked for them to do that for them. All the other options were foreign pumps not
suitable because they were too expensive. So it is really grassroots. It was developed in
Zimbabwe. The UK organization was founded to help out. It didn’t come from Britain to
tell them what they need, it came from them.
What resulted from this was a pump system designed to cover wells and deliver clean drinking water to those in need. She explained the pump system:
It’s a rope and water pump so basically, it is interesting. Basically you have them fitted
on open wells. First, we line the well, meaning we don’t let the water get contaminated
from animals shitting on the surface. You line the well until basically the soft earth gives
way to harder earth to keep it clean. We go to an appropriate depth so that it doesn’t dry
out during the dry season. We build a concrete casing on the top and a spillway. Then
basically the mechanics are basic: the ropes and washer go to the bottom and they draw
water up through a pipe that brings it to the top. It is easy. You compare that to the water
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coming up instead of a bucket bringing the water and it’s easy. Sometimes you chlorinate
the water from the beginning to make sure it is clean and basically it is easy from there.
Understanding that the charity grew rather organically, I was curious how the organization decided who to work with. Namely, did they go seek communities out or did communities come to them? Wendy explained how they come to work with the communities in need:
It works both ways. First we have to identify the districts that we are going to work in,
where there is need. Is the hydrology appropriate? Will our solutions work? We build the
pumps on shallow wells. So are there shallow wells that are suitable for the pump? Are
they exposed, are people suffering with contamination? So, basic general
contextualization. Then, we work with the government and what are the traditional rural
authorities. There are the local tribes and some elected or inherited. The districts are more
formal coming from national government and there will be a number of traditional
authorities in the district. So we work with the district, then the local. When we start
working in one tribe, others in the district will then ask us to come help them as well and
we will try to go and deliver.
Put another way, their PowerPoint presentation for potential donors explains the planning process of going into a community and implementing water systems:
Before we start work, London Water Charity will talk to the water and irrigation
authorities of the district or province and of course the communities themselves, usually
with the traditional chiefs. The planning process usually takes place in the rainy season,
so that we can start the work in the dry season… The parts are produced locally and
implemented by local individuals… London Water Charity trains the community
members on maintenance issues such as replacing the rope and washers. Health and
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hygiene workshops also educate the community about the dangers of drinking
contaminated water, practicing unsafe hygiene activities and not having effective
sanitation (Effectively, everything one would expect from a social marketing
organization given Kotler and Lee’s [2009] definition).
Beth explained how they decide to work with local communities by utilizing the words of the former head of fundraising to reiterate what is evident on their website saying that the goal of the organization is to “bring appropriate, affordable and sustainable water and sanitation solutions to rural Africa.” Importantly, their work, like the majority of the work conducted by water charities, focuses on rural Africa. Sam explained why the main focus is on the rural areas:
In a lot of cities it is just like the developed world, you pay the water authorities. But, as
cities have grown, there is a problem keeping up with the growth and some people in the
cities don’t have access. So they have big water tanks, and you buy some water from
these big tanks for you household. In the rural areas there is a wide variety, hand dug
wells, river water, but there are contamination problems. In the city it is clean, in the rural
areas it is a mosaic. Where there have been charity work it is quite good. In other places
not so much, but the locals have their own ways and means.
Regarding London Water Charity’s role in rural Malawi, Lizzy added:
There are still 1.1 billion people without water in the rural areas predominately and
Malawi where we work is one of the poorest places on Earth. It is too bad because the
water is only 3 meters down but they don’t have the resources. So, we give them the
resources.
It was with the contamination problems that Sam attested to that interested London Water
Charity and was also how they developed as an organization. Because of the organic beginning
284 of the organization and its dedication to fixing the contamination problems, ensuring community ownership was paramount to their objectives. As the paper they handed to me in my initial meeting stated, their goal is community ownership. The paper included the following explanation:
Recently we discovered that decorating the pump housing with inscriptions or logos
relating to our donors was having an unintended consequence. Villagers were interpreting
the messages as a mark of ownership and were under the impression that day-to-day
management and responsibility for the pump lay with the donor, NOT the users. It is
critically important that once a pump is installed and working that the community
assumes responsibility for it. We therefore now limit inscription to a coded donor ID on
the platform base. Our existing donors have been very understanding of the issue and we
are happy to discuss alternative branding opportunities if required.
The organization desperately wanted to make sure that the people in the community felt that they were the ones in charge of their own water. Because of the close ties and commitments to the to the community, it was important to the individuals at London Water Charity to be thought of as a group bringing sustainable solutions rather than a group providing charity. They individually explained the difference. First, Beth:
The principles of development are increasingly about sustainability and helping people to
find their own answers. In our approach we don’t build them the pump, we ask them what
they need and what their concerns are, how can we help you? How can we help what you
are currently doing? We need to know the point of what they need. It’s about working in
partnership to provide them with skills and resources – not give a man a fish. We provide
a technology they can manage themselves. It is sustainable and about teaching and
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facilitating change, not just doing it. In educational projects, you teach teachers locally
not just bring them from overseas. We are farther down that path in Zimbabwe. In
Zimbabwe, we will work with microfinancing organizations and other sources. To help
them basically where you ask the household to help each other so that when one house
needs a pump, the people around them help pay for that house to get a pump and when
that has helped them economically, the next house will get one, and so on. So it is about
community work. But, Zimbabwe has more cash so you can do a more business-based
approach than Malawi. Create a market solution; that is pure development.
Lizzy reiterated those ideas and offered how the actors in the organization believe they plan to fund these implemented sustainable programs through education initiatives in the United
Kingdom:
We set up water point committees in the communities so they can use local materials and
local people to fix the problems. Our oldest pump is 15 years old, which shows that they
can maintain it themselves. And, we are undertaking a huge research project to check on
them all and it is sustainability at the source, because they are all trained. Schools in the
UK will be a big part in raising the money for these sustainable projects and connected
kids with kids. I used to work mainly in schools doing workshops with Read
International. We put them in their shoes, ‘What would you do?’ We have to get them
involved with thinking about it. We are trying to work with similar organizations who do
sanitation in schools. They are very important; schools in Malawi can connect with
schools in London.
In the interest of paying for these sustainable projects, one of the biggest concerns was costs. Sam as the financial analyst, Wendy as the CEO, and John as the international director
286 working in Malawi are most directly involved in organizing the operating cost. Wendy explained who travels and the costs associated with travel:
Last year it was mainly me with the finance manager once and the fundraiser head once. I
went back and forth a lot. I spent a third of my life there going for a week or two at a
time. Now I don’t go as much. I haven’t been this year because we have people from here
that know what they are doing there. We spend a lot of time on Skype. The travel budget
is built into our program cost so it is our policy that it is built into the cost of the pumps,
which we plan before the year so we know how much we have to spend about $5,000 or
£3,000. That is the minimum price and we don’t have a profit to share. The principal of
full cost recovery is the same.
Wendy also mentioned that insurance is a large cost for the organization as it has to insure the various individuals that go to work in Malawi or Zimbabwe. During election cycles, particularly, it is hugely important that security is provided because the elections, as described by the members at London Water Charity, are very dangerous and can be violent. Local Malawi individuals had robbed many people working with the organization, thus there was an even greater fear around election periods and a need for constant security.
Additionally, they provide cars, cell phones, lodging, and office space. All of these are taken into account when pricing out the cost of a well system. On occasion they make up some money by simply selling pumps to other water charities that then implement the system. In this way, the organizations costs are extremely minimal, yet remain fairly variable in terms of overall costs with each transaction. With these prices being variable as material costs fluctuate, travel costs are inconsistent, and insurance seems to increase yearly. Thus, the projected finances can be difficult ascertain. Sam detailed the importance of projecting ahead:
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I try to project as far as five years ahead particularly now in these days where there is
such a competition for money. We are in a recession and there are cuts to funding that use
to be available, less trusts, less individual donations. Charities must be very careful.
Most importantly, Wendy, Sam, and John all constantly reiterated the importance of understanding the different sectors of London Water Charity and knowing what each is doing.
9.2.3 Sectors of London Water Charity
In the London Water Charity, assignments were broken into distinct sectors. There is the
Board of Trustees – with Patrick as the Chairman, Wendy as the CEO, Beth as head of fundraising, Sam as overseer of finance, and programs with Julie, Mark, and Terry. Starting from the top of the organization, Wendy explained the role of the CEO and the members of the board of the trustees:
I am the chief executive. I report to the unpaid trustees. They don’t have any decision-
making powers but they agree to frameworks and govern. There is a stronger emphasis
on hands off boards that just govern in the UK, that is different in the US. So I am
responsible for everything and the buck stops here. In the last three years I have taken an
organization that had grown fast but didn’t have any managerial systems in place. They
primarily grew on the idea of building pumps. So, I asked if that is charity or are we
making a difference to people by making an impact through greater access and clean
water, then if that is the case, building pumps doesn’t really deliver any of the higher
goals, we have to do more than that. In the last year, we have been doing a lot of research
through Terry going in there and measuring the water from external partners who can tell
us that the water is clean so we have valid and reliable statistics that grant partners want
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to know and we can provide that evidence that says we are doing good work and making
an impact. So it is more than just building wells and pumps.
While Wendy oversaw the entire operation, Beth, as the head of fundraising helped oversee Lizzy with social media and Mary (and, later in my time at London Water Charity,
William) with grants, trusts, and corporate funding. Lizzy explained the organization of fundraising rather succinctly:
Someone donates, it goes to the fundraising team to the program team and your money
goes directly to implementing wells. Most money is for pump building and it is very
specific and allocated for the pumps. I do pump sponsorship, so the money comes in and
the money is used to fund that pump.
After the fundraising team secures the money it gets turned over to programs. Programs oversees the implementation of virtually every aspect of the organization. Working in conjunction with one another, Julie, John, and Terry oversee the communication between fundraising and program operators, as well as ensure the implementation and management of newly built systems. Julie explained the process and some of the hurdles that programs have to navigate:
I have redesigned the program to have more of an impact in terms of more than just
putting wells and pumps in the ground with education and sanitation. Digital data I do
myself. In terms of the program, we implement external training because we need
facilitators in the community to teach them. The people we hire might not speak English
and we need people to speak to local community members. We hired a woman down
there who does menstrual education, which is important and will train people there. We
are testing a new program out in August in Zimbabwe.
Me: Are you involved in Zimbabwe?
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Julie: It is in my contract but we aren’t doing much there. The program manager is really
good there and doesn’t need much help, but if we get past the governance stuff, then I
will be more involved. But, I can talk about Malawi. It’s kind of like working here
because my job is to sit at a desk, haha. I spend a lot of time with our program officers. I
wasn’t in Lilongwe, but I was in Mchinji in the car a lot and talking to the field officer. I
asked him questions while working on my project. This most recent time I was pretty
much in Lilongwe in the office working with finance and other things.
The programs sector as the responsible party for program implementation relies heavily on communication with Sam, the overseer of funding. Sam explained his role:
My primary role is to manage the financial resources, what comes in, how much we have,
thinking about the future. How can we best deploy our resources for our projects? How
are we staying on the right side of the law because it is heavily regulated? We have to
report to the relevant sources. We have to tell people what happens with their
contributions. I also help with the IT and infrastructure.
Me: Is it difficult to manage dealing with the government in the UK and Malawi?
Sam: In the UK it is straightforward. There is a list of regulations that you have to follow
and it is direct. You work according to them. In Malawi it is hard because there is a lack
of clarity around what is required. Sometimes you have to go by common sense. I
wouldn’t say it’s a shortcoming on their part, but they are what they are. In the UK we
have Internet available everywhere and we are all connected. In Malawi they set up a
charity body to oversee charity but they didn’t have an office and it wasn’t clear. So it is
tricky there. Everyone there knows we are there to help them so they are helpful. In areas
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where we haven’t done the right thing in terms of ticking the right boxes, they tend to
work with us because they want us there.
Sam and Julie’s responses elucidated the importance of intra-office and external communication.
One thing that they struggle with as an organization was their intra-office communication due to the large distance between the office in London and Lilongwe and Mchinji. Therefore, they took great care to organize all of the communication between the various sectors.
9.5 Communication Abroad
One constant that appeared in all of my conversations with London Water Charity workers was the importance of intra-office and external communication. The individuals at
London Water Charity knew that they had a difficult setup – they maintained an office in
London, two bases in Malawi (Lilongwe and Mchinji), and were reasserting themselves in
Zimbabwe. This was not too surprising to me. As Kotler and Lee (2009) suggested, social marketing groups must maintain a high level of communication introspectively and also keep a succinct message in its external communication. This was a constant battle and one that I focus on throughout the remainder of the chapter and the next as it relates to external communication techniques of the non-profit organization. Particularly, I focus on the communication from the organization to the fundraiser or funding organization. However, first, it is important to establish how organizational communication occurs internally and to the people in need. I discuss each in turn.
9.3.1 Intra-Office Communication
From my perspective, the intra-office communication appeared solid. I, as an outsider, quickly learned what everyone was doing and knew what was going on at all times. I believed that this might have been because I was openly attempting to understand what everyone was
291 doing and the fact that I was really only dealing with individuals working in London. I also knew that it was difficult to remain connected between the various sectors of the organization and between three countries with four major offices. So, I asked them individually about the intra- office communication between the various sectors and whether or not they believed it was effective. They responded:
Julie: Communication is shockingly difficult. The administrative side and field side just
get frustrated with each other. There is team-building work that must happen there. It is
not good. It is difficult for people in the field, particularly, to know what happens with
the different parts. Particularly when I try to talk to people in the Malawi office, I have
trouble. It’s difficult for me because they don’t recognize my accent like the British
accent and there are differences. John is very colonialist with old-fashioned English
which makes it difficult [for him to relate to those working for London Water Charity in
the field]. In terms of communication you just have to be aware and say your words
carefully. I use the white board a lot so they can hear my voice and see my words.
Everyone is so busy and there is a strong mobile culture there. You need to draw people
back. People will be on their phone in meetings and just chat with their friends in the
meetings. Talking with London is difficult because Malawi doesn’t understand what
London does and London doesn’t understand what Malawi does. Also, we have had
strong personalities that have been in conflict with each other so I have to work around
those issues. I have to tell people they are doing a good job when they are because that
doesn’t happen for people in Malawi often. So, I have to go there often because things
just do not translate over email very well. You need to do it in person.
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Beth: [Communication] is quite good but always improving. Recently we have new staff and we haven’t met them yet so that is difficult. But the time difference isn’t crazy and we Skype and email often. The funding in Malawi is self-contained so I just get updates and that’s enough. In all of my experiences there have been a strain in communication between programming and fundraising and here it is actually not bad. Programming here understands that they need fundraising, but technical problems that arise and things being overpromised can cause problems when you wait a long time for a report and you don’t hear back because someone is sick. It is pretty good and people understand the importance of keeping funders happy. In terms of the board, we have monthly reports to the board and they meet quarterly. They are engaged and I have separate meetings with some of the board about fundraising if they have a potential fundraiser they know. We all have quite good relationships with the board.
Wendy: We lose a lot of information on the way so agreeing what we are communicating and what we need to see is difficult. Our reports are different and we can’t make sense of what Malawi is saying and they can’t make sense of what we are saying. We have spent a lot more time explaining what we need, why we are doing what we are doing. We aren’t working on assumptions, we are talking about the data, what the evidence means, and what we will do because of what it says. We are aligned more now.
Sam: The approach we adopt is an integrated approach so we regularly meet with all the other parts and we are very open. I talk to them easily, the board is good. The most difficult part is having to have separate accounts here and in Malawi. This just makes an additional spreadsheet and makes me have to explain more.
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Mary took a more general approach to communication within a charity or non-profit setting when I asked, “In terms of internal communication in a charity, can you talk about the importance of communication between the different programs in a charity”:
It depends on two factors, how they are setup and what field they are in. I worked with
big cancer charities that worked with the NHS [National Health Service] so it primed
those posts a lot, so it has to have a tied relationship because they are all tied together in
that instance. That drives how the charity operates, it depends on where the NHS is. They
shift all the boundaries and the charity must change its infrastructure. Other charities are
random like the most recent one I was with that works with babies and sick babies. They
were set up by sport celebrities, they do a golf tournament and raise a lot of money and
the charity didn’t do any research, they just threw the money to a medical research group.
And, nobody in the charity had any idea about medicine or research. Over time we began
to think that was weird, and we were more a celebrity agency. And, other charities have a
lot of non-experts dealing there and there is no finance or marketing expertise so that
leads to a bit of an issue. Instead, it is just people who care. And, you can have the other
side of the coin where nobody cares and that is bad. But, then you have so many like
breast cancer who just work on the same street as another charity and it is bizarre. They
fill other needs, like having jobs for people, but what does that do?
In an effort to attend to these very difficult negotiations between the various offices and the different sectors of London Water Charity, we held weekly meetings. We would have meetings every Monday morning at 9:30am to discuss the last week and the upcoming week. It was an opportunity for each part of the organization to know what the others were doing. Additionally, the Malawi office would hold meetings on Tuesday and we would be updated on Wednesday as
294 to what was going on there and vice-versa. When necessary, we would Skype with the others.
This became more constant once Terry and John went to Malawi. When they left, it became more paramount that we knew what was going on in Malawi so that we could understand what to target in terms of fundraising. Fundraising worked with programs to make sure that pumps were sponsored or that money was going to the correct places. For example, one grant the organization had been for ten thousand pounds (approximately $16,500) toward materials. This meant that fundraising had to find match funders for the rest of the aspects of pump building that go into actually building the pump (i.e. security, insurance, travel, etc.). So, it was extremely important that we had these meetings to make sure everyone knew where funding was coming from and how programs was using the funding43.
One of the most important aspects of the weekly meetings was discussing the intra-office agreement to use specific formulae for how the pumps were priced. Earlier in 2013, the organization had hired a new woman to work in Malawi assisting in program implementation.
While she did her job incredibly effectively and the organization was pleased with the hire, the individuals in the London office were struggling with her changing the prices of the pumps. She would give the cost of the actual pump to funding agencies, communities, and individuals in
Malawi without considering overhead, subsidization of replacement material, etc. Therefore, certain groups and individuals would be told a different price than others. The organization, particularly Terry, John, and Wendy realized that they had to make the price of the pumps and all that goes into figuring out the price of the implementation of those pumps much clearer for the individual workers in Malawi so there would be no confusion.
43 This will be discussed in more depth later in the chapter, but was important to discuss at this point due to its pertinence in relation to intra-office communication. 295
The cost of the pumps needed to be standardized for the purposes of using the moneys lent by certain grants or organizations to the particular materials or systems the donating source wanted to fund. For example, if company x says that it wants the grant to fund project y, then
London Water Charity, once the money is accepted, must use that money the way that company x agreed to and London Water Charity employees must show proof that they executed the plan.
Thus, the woman in Malawi saying incorrect figures caused a huge problem as villages compared price with one another. Further, she was not giving them correct information. The members of London Water Charity were very aware that each pump cost different based on various factors in implementation, but they decided that three thousand pounds (~$5,000) would cover the average cost – some were more, some were less, but the average was three thousand pounds.
Importantly, the charity cannot lie openly about variable costs, thus, it had to provide a breakdown for each organization that granted it money – individual donations are not necessarily bound to the same restrictions, which will be important later in the chapter. London Water
Charity employees had to have a general breakdown and base the money they asked for from trusts and granting institutions on the table of figures drawn from previous projects. For example, the London Water Charity fundraising department must make it clear to potential donors and donors where the money goes. In our meeting on July 3rd, we decided that we could authentically tell potential funding sources that the organizations overhead was ten percent even though it typically is between twenty and twenty-five percent. This is not a lie as those in the organization stated that they expect to spend ten percent on overhead, but it does not usually work out that way. However, the employees also had to include a disclaimer that each pump implementation cost differently and the figures provided are simply guides.
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This was the most pressing issue in intra-office communication at London Water Charity particularly because of the stakes involved. If any employee did not know the costs and could not properly communicate that to the community and to potential fundraising outlets, then London
Water Charity would not be able to function. Therefore, it was important that each sector knew what the other was doing and that the sectors were all on the same page. This was extremely important before going out to talk to people in the communities that the organization was trying to help, and as I will discuss later, the potential funding sources.
9.3.2 Communication with the Community in Need
As previously noted by Wendy, the organization worked with communities that asked for help as well as those that clearly needed help. The most important aspect of working with communities in need – whether in the capacity of implementing wells or helping with problems the community might be experiencing – was proper communication. This idea of proper communication was stressed by all members of the organization. Particularly, communicating the purpose of the interaction based on what behavioral changes the organization wanted to implement in these communities and selecting the appropriate individuals to interact with community members in Malawi was vitally important.
First and foremost, Wendy alluded to the fact that the most important part of communicating with the community in need is communicating why the charity is there and how the organization is going to help the community implement sustainable, community driven solutions. For Wendy, this comes down to basic communication of training – training behavioral changes. She expanded on this thought detailing how difficult it is to actualize these behavioral changes:
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It’s a big challenge, we are moving from training people to maintain a pump, which is
straightforward. We have guys who are pump builders that are local. They have a
checklist of how to train people, but it is easy to maintain the pump. The more difficult
challenge is that we can’t just rely on the local health workers to do the behavioral
changes around hygiene so it is more effective for us to have our own team of community
builders looking at behavioral change around impact and activity. There is a lot of data
gathering going on, but primarily what they will do is behavioral change. It is not so
didactic like the pump building. This is different and difficult for people to think
critically and we can’t come in with people who are not local. So, we hire local people to
get at the behavioral change. It is a big science and one of the challenges at getting people
to make change is around who they trust. One of the big challenges is that a lot of people
get some education and tell people what to do and being told what to do is a killer in
terms of changing and helping people. If we get well educated people who they see
people in the villages as stupid, and say they need to be told what to do because they are
ignorant. That approach doesn’t work on the ground so we need to get people who are
able to understand and deliver a more subtle approach. It is a challenge but it doesn’t
work for people to think they are superior and treat others in such a way – it can be [a
challenge].
A conversation with Julie helped further elucidate both the implementation of desired behavioral change and the importance of selecting the appropriate people to work in Malawi.
Me: Talk about sanitation behavioral changes. What are you trying to get to?
Julie: Open defecation is a huge problem. People don’t use latrines. They go in their
maize plot or behind a house. There is not a lot of hand washing so then a lot of people
298 don’t understand the risk of having shit lying around. Kids are crawling around and bringing it in the house and they eat it as it falls on food, so people get sick and they don’t understand. Plus, they have dirty water and they get sick. They get clean water from a pump, but then it gets dirty sitting in the house and they get sick. So we have to get them to realize that they need to change their behavior or else they will continue to get sick.
Me: So how does that work? Do you talk to people? What is the facilitation?
Julie: Community led total sanitation is what we will try. Oxfam does it and it is often with the whole village. So someone standing in front of the crowd. They use words like
“shit” because it shames people and they don’t want to soften it so they know it is bad. So they ask people where they go to shit and they map out a shit plan and where the water sources are. Then they do a demonstration by rubbing mud on a leaf and then he rubs his hands and shakes someone’s hands and they show how it is transmitted because there, it is rude to not shake someone’s hand. It should be light hearted a bit, but it is important that a local person is there. It is most important that we have people that facilitate these changes. It is so hard, in an interview, someone might seem like a good communicator, but in practice people often try to tell them what to do and we want someone who can work with them and work with the group.
Me: So who are the people that usually go in there and tell them what to do? Government or other NGOs?
Julie: It’s just African culture in general where someone in a higher authority tells people what to do rather than talk at the same level. There is a big power thing in Africa. It’s
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very much socially divided by classes and areas you’re from. It’s very racist and they
don’t like other regions.
Sam explained that it is not so much racism that cuts individuals off from being able to instill behavioral changes in a community. Instead, he believes it is finding people with the correct approach and training those workers to approach people:
A lot of that has to do with the approach you adopt when you are the stranger. I make it a
point to firstly learn as much about the culture as possible. There are key things when you
are a stranger, how to greet people, what words mean. When I attempt to speak their
language it helps open doors. Greet them how they like and it removes barricades. They
are suspicious but that’s natural. Once you establish there is nothing to fear that goes
away. I went that way and didn’t encounter much.
Through these conversations, it was clear that implementing behavioral changes that the organization attempted to implement was an extremely volatile proposition. They each had to be astutely aware of the goals of the organization, know all of the information precisely, and communicate that well to the individuals in the community they were attempting to serve.
Further, London Water Charity was clearly aware of the necessity for good communication and some of the communication problems within the organization. Thus, they made sure to attend to communication internally within the organization, externally the community in need, and, seemingly most importantly, the fundraiser. This intricate and complicated relationship between the organization and the fundraiser is what I worked with on a daily basis and what I will focus upon in chapter ten.
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CHAPTER TEN
PRESENTING (PRODUCING) THE ORGANIZATION AND
(RE)PRODUCING PEOPLE IN NEED
I was a part of the fundraising sector of London Water Charity. Therefore, I worked directly with how we as employees in the organization attempted to present the organization, communicate our message internally and externally, and how we planned to raise money.
Specifically, in exchange for access to all of their material, the fundraisers wanted me to help them obtain new sources of funding and organizing various databases. Predominately, then, what
I did was help them organize previous individual donors, trusts, grants, and corporations into the
Sales Force database providing information such as how much the donation or grant was, if the money was designated for anything in particular, contact information of the donor and funding agency, and reason for stopping donation if the person or organization stopped donating and a reason for the discontinuance if available. Based on this information, I then focused on building databases of information for various corporations, private water companies, private water cooler companies, fraternities and sororities in the United States, information for becoming a 501 I (3) in the United States – including a breakdown for which state would be the best to claim domicile within – and I compiled a database of sporting events in the United Kingdom and contacted the sporting organizations that I believed would drive the individual donor base. During this time at
London Water Charity, I focused on analyzing and understanding how it communicated the message of need to potential fundraisers. Presenting the people in need and the organization to potential fundraisers was really the focus of not only my work at the London Water Charity, but the focus of fundraising and the organization more generally.
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In what follows, I show how the London Water Charity produces the organization and need for water by thematically taking the reader through the aspects of fundraising I participated in, and I show how organizational objectives are difficult to achieve when facing demands from funding sources and the general difficulty in the process of international development. Further, I show how and why I converted from critiquing sport as a way to raise funds in the overall project, to my semi-epiphany that perhaps sport offers the best avenue for raising funds and implementing sustainable solutions on a practical level. To this end, the chapter proceeds with the following categories in an attempt to tell how international fundraising at a water charity operates: 1) I will provide a general guideline of the fundraising directives and goals; 2) I provide a breakdown for how I contributed to the development of concise databases that helped guide fundraising. 3) Detail the learning labs designed to construct the story of water poverty; 4)
I take the reader through our new website and social marketing initiatives; 5) I detail the difficulties in dealing with governments, trusts, and grant organizations and provide a distinct example of dealing with a government grant; 6) I detail my conversion to (kind of) believing in what I claimed I set out to do from the beginning, implement sport programs for raising money;
7) I discuss the organizational stance on how water should be controlled; and, 8) I conclude the chapter.
10.1 Fundraising Directives and Goals
Beth succinctly explained the directives and goals of fundraising at London Water
Charity:
The budget is about one million pounds a year. My key objective is to build fundraising
on a sustainable platform. That means diversifying who we get funding from. So, this
year, we have about 50% statutory funding so grants from the government and things like
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that, and then the remainder is corporate for £300,000, and then the rest individual giving.
So that is how we are laid out. In the organization, funding is a key priority for any
charity. There is no program without money. The balance is that we cannot become donor
led. We can’t shape the program around what funding is available. So we have to be
attractive to funding opportunities, without losing our integrity and approach and keeping
on track in terms of our perspective. It is really quite good to test ourselves against
professional criteria so we always have robust information and can argue our point and
talk them into how we want to do it. A lot of the reason for doing the big research and
investing in that is about being able to make our case.
In short, London Water Charity was attempting to solve some of its funding problems and what it takes to make “our case.” It was a tangled web: there are directives from funding agencies; individual donors command a lot of attention; and corporations are fiscally strapped. It is no small feat to run a multi-million dollar international water charity. However, these issues are prevalent among all social marketing groups on the international non-profit scene. Mary connected what she saw during her time with London Water Charity to non-profit fundraising more generally:
Looking back, there is a founder that drove the fundraising with contacts he already had
and it drives a new organization. It drives progress hard but the model starts to unravel
because they need a strategy to help implement a structure but often they cannot do that
because the person that originally drove the organization is really not equipped for that.
And, I think to a large degree that has kind of happened here at [London Water Charity].
That is why they have people like me come in and consult. They don’t quite know what
kind of structure that is. They want the money without a clear vision of where they are
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going. They need to say where are we going what is the mindset. Some charities just exist
because they want to. Does [London Water Charity] want to be a service delivery
organization? What are the moral drivers, the US charities have a stronger moral drive. It
is that there is no stance. What is the view of water? Is it a commodity? What are our
thoughts on access? If we don’t take a stand, we are just sort of in a land where we don’t
know where we want to be and will fall behind. I know they will lose some people, but
they need to stand on it. This is our product, this is what we sell, this is what we do. Take
a stance, whatever it is – this is what we think about water. These are the things that are
good or bad. There is finite water, we have to make choices, why do we help who we
help? Be clear about why we work where we do. We just do stuff, we are practical, we
want to be small and effective, action oriented. That is what you are buying not really
what water can be or a philosophical goal. But you have to say that because you are
competing against dynamic charities who offer things about the world and if you’re small
just say that you are wanting to make things happen. And, make that change.
One constant at all weekly meeting’s was detailing sources of funding. Beth explained why this can be difficult to accomplish when dealing with different sources of funding:
A big challenge for us is to increase regular giving. That is such a strong platform to
build an organization. We are young and small and charities go through development
phases where they have one major funder and the company is based on that, but then if
you look at very established charities the strong base is individual giving and events,
collections, community groups. That is the huge core. The people giving big gifts [are]
sitting in the smaller amount of the triangle. So we need to get there with a good base.
We are partly there and have a good portfolio of different funding streams. We want to
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recruit more corporate and individual supporters. There is a lot for development and there
is a lot of support work for the website and database. We have to really set our message
so we can invest in major marketing and advertising campaigns with a good concise
message.
The major hurdle in dealing with donors was figuring out what they wanted. Most donors want to know what their money gets them, so it is a fairly simple connection and software such as
Sales Force helps keep track of what each person wants. Other donors are more demanding, regardless of what amount they give. Occasionally, a donor who gives a one-time donation of
£50 will be very involved and want to know exactly where the money goes – this is where finance, programs, and fundraising working together to have a concise database is important. On the other hand, London Water Charity has had individuals give it thousands of dollars and request that they never be bothered by email or mail updates. It was a difficult balance and one that the fundraising employees attempted to address with the quarterly appeal they sent out to previous donors. This quarterly appeal is simply an update to let people know what the organization is doing and tell them what the organization needs. Yet, as Beth detailed, it was still incredibly difficult:
It’s a variety of things. People are sometimes philanthropic and don’t want recognition
and don’t want even a thank you letter – that is quite rare. Individuals, it’s about their
own sense of worth and to be seen doing that. A lot of people want that engagement and
it becomes a social aspect where they get their friends involved and take it to their own
social group. Corporates are more savvy. They look at brand value and strengthening
CSR, they boost sells, differentiate themselves in the market. Sometimes we get
companies that donate because the companies owners just want to help and don’t want
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recognition. Sometimes we have high giving individuals that want a return on investment
like a grant organization would. If I give you money what can you do with it in terms of
impact.
Keeping track of the interaction with donors and finding new sources of donations was what the organization was trying to do better and what I worked with on a daily basis. The organization believed that databases are the best way to keep track of what people wanted and to track of who to target for donations. Organizing the databases was what I did for the majority of my time there.
10.2 Databases
The London Water Charity had a software program that held the information of all donors and grant institutions that London Water Charity ever dealt with in one location on a drive that was accessible by all organization members. This was an extremely important database that held information for the location, village, district, latitude and longitude coordinates, donor name, date of construction, and source name of all water systems built. The database helped the fundraisers contact people and keep the donors updated. Additionally, the software allows them to know where all of the water systems are located and contact information for individuals near or in the communities where the water systems were built. In a lot of the agreements with trusts or corporations, London Water Charity is required by law – in the form of a contract – to keep proper records regarding where the money went and who was impacted.
The database that stored this information had not been properly kept up and sorted due to a substantial turnover in the organization. The majority of the people I worked with had been with London Water Charity no longer than a year and the previous leaders did not take care of the information properly. All of the information was there either in hard files, on the Internet, or
306 somewhere in the shared drive, but it was not all in one place. Thus, I started out by sorting the information gained from previous donors.
It took me roughly four days to put together a database consisting of the two hundred and nineteen records I could conjure up. There was some information missing in a couple, but for the most part, I was able to find all information for the most recent two hundred and nineteen pumps implemented in the previous two years. The information I gathered included: dates of implementation; the pump reference number; district; village; community name (i.e. community name, school name, etc.); GPS coordinates; donor; contact information for donor; information on how the pump is currently working (i.e. well, badly, not working); the problem if the pump is not working correctly; information as to why certain pumps not working had not been repaired if in fact they had not been repaired; date when the pump stopped working; how often it had stopped working, general problems; who did the pump repairs if the pump has been repaired; how did the repairer acquire the skills to fix the pump; who paid for the repairs; were the repairs easy to fix; does the community have water if the pump breaks down; what is the distance to the alternative source; does the pump always provide enough water for the community; is there a water committee; if there is no committee, why; if there is a committee, what activities do they do; how often do they grease the handles; do they collect money from users; how much do users contribute; how much do they have in their fund, how much does upkeep cost; did they receive training on maintenance; what were they taught in the training; do they feel capable of implementing what systems they want; do they know the area mechanic; does the mechanic know how to make repairs; do they have spare parts, have they bought any; how much did the spare parts cost; do they have local equivalent parts; number of people on the committee; do women hold key positions; number of households who use the pump; has this number recently
307 changed; why has the number changed if it has changed; are there people who cannot use the pump; why are there people who cannot use the pump; what do people use the water for; has water use changed since the pump was installed; how has water usage changed; are they satisfied with the system design; is the water acceptable in taste and color; what are problems with the pump; what improvements can be made; do they have any questions for us; are there areas of contamination around the pump; description of contamination if there is contamination; does the pump drain properly; is the well source maintained, distance to nearest latrine; is the latrine downhill from the well; distance to nearest animal source; any other observations; how long does it take to fill a bucket in seconds; was the pump painted; is there rust around the pump; has the handle been greased; and water quality.
Based on the fact that this database showed most of the pumps were installed with the help of corporate partnerships, grants, and individual donations, the organization felt it necessary to have a database of potential funding sources in each of the three areas individually. First, I built the database for possible corporate sponsorships. This is something that had worked for
London Water Charity in the past and the fundraisers believed would be beneficial. For example,
London Water Charity had a successful relationship with a bottled water company that put the
London Water Charity logo on the side of the bottles and gave a portion of the proceeds to
London Water Charity – a classic example of cause-related marketing. The fundraisers wanted to do more of this and Mary’s sole purpose of being there was to establish relationships with corporations and large trusts. When Mary began to search for these corporations to partner with, she asked for my help – at this point, I wished that I had not been so diligent in making the other database, so I could avoid this particular avenue since corporate funding made me very uncomfortable. But, I did it.
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10.2.1 Corporate Database
I started by gathering names of possible corporate sponsorship opportunities through an organization in London called “Heart of the City.” This lists all corporations that engage in
“socially responsible” business ventures. I looked up information on the different organization’s
CSR initiatives, its contact information, its previous funding practices, and noted if the corporation indicated that it wanted to engage in particular CSR initiatives. Many organizations were deeply entrenched with various causes already. Therefore, I noted if it was open to areas other than the selected area. For example, many organizations had previous relationships with
MacMillan Cancer Research. I would note this and also note how this relationship worked. On several occasions, the organization would have a board that decided what the yearly “cause” would be, while others maintained multi-year relationships, and still others did not mention how the corporation decided what non-profit to partner with.
Unfortunately for the task at hand, I found out that the majority of the over 1,000 organizations I studied regarded social responsibility as something having to do strictly with business practices. For example, one large manufacturing company professed its social responsibility platform was about careful disposal practices that were less harmful to the environment than previous disposal practices. Many banks participated in teaching finance to teenagers as socially responsible practices. One waste company taught proper waste disposal techniques for free as its socially responsible activity. Therefore, I did not see them as socially responsible in a way that would be beneficial to London Water Charity. Still, Mary and I developed a rather impressive list of potential partnerships.
In an attempt to gain a larger database of potential partnerships, Mary and I turned back to the previous cause related marketing success of teaming with water bottling and water cooler
309 systems businesses. However, most of the water cooler and bottling companies did not report on socially responsible practices. Ultimately, I gathered information on 226 local and multinational corporations and water companies I felt might be compatible with London Water Charity.
10.2.2 U.S. Database
London Water Charity wanted to do events in the United States and found that events might be a good opportunity to make connections with organizations that would drive individual donorship. This was my third major database activity and I felt as though I had some ability to suggest what should be done. So, I suggested to Lizzy that, if the fundraising sector wanted to get connected in the United States, universities would be a good place to start. Lizzy, who had a background in non-profit work with local schools, and I both agreed that schools would be a good fit and particularly colleges.
I knew a lot of people who had been involved with fraternities and sororities during their time in college. My sister-in-law had helped her sorority raise thousands of dollars for a charity while in college and I knew that many non-profit organizations had long-standing, profitable partnerships with charities. The friends I talked to and I agreed that this is a great resource where the fraternities and the sororities do much of the work. A couple of my friends who had experience with charities such as Relay for Life, Make a Wish Foundation, and Cancer Society of America, indicated that, once the relationships were formed, the members in the fraternities and sororities did all of the work. So, I started making a list of fraternities and sororities. Over the course of a few weeks, I gathered information for sixteen hundred and sixteen fraternities and sororities. I divided them up by college, national fraternity or sorority, and included university contact information. I provided them with a template email to be used once they began working in the United States.
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However, before London Water Charity started working in the United States, it was necessary that I find Wendy information on becoming a 501 I (3) if she wanted the organization to operate in the United States. Therefore, I contacted some friends of mine who are lawyers in the United States and spoke with Wendy’s friend who was a lawyer that had worked in both the
United Kingdom and the United States. I provided Wendy with a roadmap for becoming a charity in the United States and recommended a domicile state44. I found the information on domicile states on the Internet and found that many multinational corporations use Delaware because the organization does not actually have to have an office in Delaware to consider it a domicile.
Finally, another source that provided a potential for partnership with organizations that would drive individual donations, and the reason I was there in the first place, was developing relationships with sport organizations, beginning with running and other individual participant sports. Thus, I created a database of United Kingdom running, biking, swimming, and extreme events, which will be discussed in depth later in the chapter. All of these databases were designed to increase the organizations ability to get funding. And fundraising had everything to do with how the organization presented the people in need and relayed the organization’s story.
Thus, we participated in “learning labs.”
44 I have purposefully been vague in some of my descriptions in an attempt to protect private information I do not feel comfortable sharing despite not having been given any indication what I could and could not share. However, information that is available to anyone through the Internet and does not directly include names of partners or potential partners is included. I have included the information Wendy and I put together in the appendix because all information gathered was from easily accessible Internet sources gathered with help from our lawyer acquaintances. 311
10.3 The Learning Labs – Telling “Our” Story45
London, England. June, 2013. I’m walking home through Green Park after a frustrating day working at the London Water Charity. I need to decompress after what I had just gone through. I’m confused, perhaps even disappointed in myself. I think, “What am I doing here?” I know quite literally that I am working in the fundraising department of the London Water
Charity, helping them gain access to sporting events as a way to increase their donor base. But really, what am I doing here? Why did I not just stay home with my wife, my dogs?
We had a meeting today. It didn’t go well. In the meeting, we discussed how as an organization, as individuals, we could best tell “our story” to prospective corporate partners. I was disappointed. Not in the meeting itself, necessarily, or even in with my fellow colleagues at the London Water Charity. I was disappointed in me. I had come to study the organization, to make a difference through my praxis-oriented scholarly endeavors. But now… Now, I was one of them. I took part in the drills about becoming a “better storyteller”. And beyond that, I am helping facilitate donor relationships. I am reaching out to the community. The executives at
London Water Charity had welcomed me in, given me access, put me to work, treated me like
‘one of the team’ as I conduct my organizational ethnography – seeking to, as Simon Down and
Michael Hughes (2009) suggested, experience and portray “organizational life as it is lived.”
And now, I think to myself, I really am part of the team. And I shiver at the thought. For I know it is not our story to tell. But, I do. I participated in the so-called “Learning Labs” anyway.
***
While working for the London Water Charity, we spent the majority of our time talking about how to produce the narrative of the water crisis. In fact, we participated in so-called
45 In this section, I italicize the beginning and write in the present tense in order to enhance the reader's awareness of my struggle. 312
“learning labs” designed by outside consultants that the CEO, Wendy, believed would make us better storytellers. The organization was getting a new website and the members of the organization were doing things such as the learning labs in order to learn how to present the organization in such a way as to get as many fundraisers as possible. It was the belief of the chairman of the board that if we could design a good website and tell a flashy, easy to understand narrative about ourselves as a company, then London Water Charity could, in his words,
“explode.”
The first session I went to was the second one in the series. I was not in London yet when the first session had occurred, so I asked my coworker Julie what Wendy was talking about when she sent out an email reminding everyone to study-up for the meeting. Julie replied, “One way we are trying to raise our donor pool is by making sure we have a concise story and we can tell our story convincingly. We have to do this homework to prepare. Just make sure you read this before the meeting tomorrow.” I took this at face value and moved back to the spreadsheet of
United Kingdom-based running events with which I was doing ‘outreach’.
That night, I heeded the advice of my coworker and read the material. The three lab objectives were to 1) become more emotive in your presentation; 2) know the most essential skills of the successful storyteller; and 3) use those skills in your own presentations. These were the goals because, as the informational material I received indicated: “As leaders in your organization or communities, you are expected to inspire others and to convey how you really feel on a range of issues.” Simply put, the exercise was about being able to utilize one’s emotions and passions as a storyteller so that the story would be inspiring to an audience. We were to think of our own story and be prepared to tell it “emotively” in the meeting the next day.
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The next day at 2pm, Wendy promptly called us into the meeting room, “Alright, let’s go ahead and get going. We will watch this video first, just like we did for the first session.” The video was of an intense woman telling her story about marking seals in Canada so the seals would no longer be valuable to hunters. She was a bit over the top in terms of her presentation of self, but the point was well-taken: make your audience feel your emotion. The key was presenting your story appropriately was to enact the principles of “PRES – Present, Reach out,
Expressiveness, Self-knowledge.”
“Alright, now you guys tell your stories,” the woman on the screen told us.
So, we told our stories.
I told the story about the day that I knew I wanted to be with my wife for the rest of my life. It’s a great story, and one I tell frequently: it sat well with my colleagues, who were predominately female. I told it “emotively”.
After we all took the opportunity to tell our story, we got to the bottom of the exercise:
“How can we tell the London Water Charity story so that we can captivate our audience?”
“We have to talk about our experience with the people in Malawi – when we have worked there,” offered one female colleague to my right.
“We need to come up with one story that we can all personally use that tells about the work we do,” offered another seated to my left.
Then, Julie chimed in. “I have spent a lot of time working in Malawi. We need to tell the story from their perspective – let them talk.”
“We have some videos like that and they just don’t work in terms of getting new fundraisers,” said the head of fundraising.
The chairman of the board took control of the exercise and said:
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“We want to be like Charity: Water. Give a concise statement with pretty little easy to digest numbers that people can understand. Tell them what we do. Focus on why we are so good.
It’s so simple.”
No! I wanted to scream. That is not what you want to do! That doesn’t do anything! That
just makes sure that “they” will always need “us”!
But, I sat quietly and bided my time until I built up enough trust from them to be able to speak.
This way of “producing the story” was all too familiar to me from my time researching water charities and the attendant promotional websites and campaigns and from working with other water charities in Miami and Vancouver. The chairman wanted the story to be about the organization, not the person in need. After reflecting on this experience with the series of storytelling labs, I asked Wendy, “How do you present the people in need to different agencies and what do you consider when telling someone else’s story?” Wendy responded quite candidly:
That is a tricky one. Oxfam did some interesting studies looking at donor fatigue and
looking at the message, like, “Look at the poor people and don’t they need help.” That
creates donor fatigue; they are incapable of looking after themselves and we draw on the
pity. I hate that approach but it works sometimes and it is patronizing for the beneficiaries
and doesn’t tell them what they are investing in but I haven’t eliminated it totally from
London Water Charity yet. But that is not what we do at the core, we don’t go have pity
on poor people, we try to work with them to enable them so they can enable themselves
to get out of poverty. Can we enable anyone? No. But we can work with communities
around issues of water. It is tricky, how we present the issues is tricky all the way down
the line. To manage that line between not portraying them as incapable and needy while
on the other hand point out there is a need and some people are not capable right now of
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taking care of themselves it is a difficult balance. You can make a strong difference.
Really, coldly, sometimes it is appropriate, some would beg us for clean water, it is the
truth, but it isn’t the whole picture. It will get them under the rug of development. For
other donors, they don’t want to subsidize the rest of the world and feel like a deep
pocket. Worldwide there is less of a want to be a welfare society, but some people have a
sense of morality and that can work. For those that believe in the self-made person myth,
enabling people and building entrepreneurs who can make their own businesses is more
attractive to those people. Water is very interesting because it covers so many different
issues. You can look at women, children, whatever, lives saved, people having more
time, economic development. You can tell so many stories. You can portray it so many
ways, impact, outcome, money value, activities, politically, developing the case for
support is an art
But, I thought to myself, what does it mean for Wendy, or anyone else from a water charity, to be the one who gets to represent ‘the Other’ in need? Can the subaltern still not speak?
As brought to the forefront by Wendy’s comments above, at London Water Charity, the entire organization was governed by this idea: they knew, inherently, that they had the answers; telling their story better, they believed, would be the best way to reach the consumer (and his or her purse-strings) so that London Water Charity could continue to “help” the citizens in Malawi.
After processing this for a while, I asked our head of fundraising how she and London
Water Charity reconciled the question of marketing people in need and who gets to speak for whom. She responded:
I think we are lucky because everyone “gets” that you need water. It isn’t a difficult case
to say, “People need water to live.” So the key thing is humanizing the need so people
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think about how difficult it would be. So case studies, quotes, photos, things like that.
Then talk about the solution and why that works. People are skeptical of development
and think that it will fail, [they say] “Who are you to be doing this? How can we trust
you?” So you have to present yourself as serious and with the right accountability and
cause. One of the key things is that London Water Charity is a charity that sits in Malawi
and is grassroots. It’s not a ‘British’ organization that just went over there. Mostly we are
Malawian. So, from that point of view, we already have a strong voice in the
organization. What we are trying to do is take the charity away in your communication so
it connects the donor with the person in need. So they know where the money goes and
from that point of view it is about speaking to the beneficiaries so we can know what they
want and back that up with the information and data we can find. It is easy to make
sweeping claims and [we] don’t want to belittle anyone, [we want to] give them respect.
They aren’t begging for handouts. They are actually doing their best in a very difficult
situation.
I understood the feelings from the executives, but I wanted to know how other organizational members felt about presenting the need. I felt this was important because it was not only the executives that, through their working in the water charity sector, were charged with the difficult negotiation of presenting the problem of water crisis:
Lizzy: Well, people want to know they can receive updates, and know what is happening.
I prefer impacts, our leader doesn’t, but for an individual, a case study is popular where
you say that a woman can get water and grow a garden and not walk miles in a day.
You’re not just providing clean water, but you are changing lives. So, it is worth 3k to
them because it is long term.
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Julie: I think the funders aren’t given enough credit. Everything is dumbed down and they exploit the poor black child and say “Look at this child and help.” They need to know what the actual situation is. We hold up one glass of water that is clean and one that is dirty brown, but that is not true in most instances. People in Africa aren’t drinking dirty water like that if they can drink clean water. But it doesn’t mean the clean water is clean.
You can’t see a lot of contaminates. And, we are fooling funders, not here, but I mean across the whole charity water scheme. It should be more about actual education of funders than just getting money, because we aren’t giving real pictures.
Mary: I think a lot of charities it comes back to this British ethos where you do well and give back. People like to feel like they are doing well. It is still a slightly paternalistic approach where people don’t know what they are doing, but they see a gap and they just try to do something in an amateur type of way. For a short period I helped a small charity that had a helpline for childhood survivors of physical abuse. There was one person who came and checked in on the program, but it was all students getting credit for coursework and the kids did not know what they were doing. A lot of people were in distress and they weren’t getting a professional service, just poor counseling. They felt they had to do this and wanted to help, but they didn’t know what they were doing. They developed connections with people and do what they can, and others aren’t doing it, but over time they have to professionalize because of funding. It can work the other way, with statutory funders. A decade or so ago, I was against that because it undercut their own services, so they contract things out cheaply and they don’t get service, but now they don’t deliver what they say they are because of poor funding so they have to accept something of a reasonable standard.
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Sam: I focus on the need that we address. One thing I found is that most people that grow
up in the West take water for granted – turn on the tap and there is water. When talking
about water poverty, it is a strange language. I spoke with a person last week who
couldn’t imagine people wouldn’t have running water. He had lived in the UK his whole
life, but there are parts of the world that life is very different. Starting with the need we
address, I find people get really interested and actually want to know more. I found this
gentleman last week now wants to support us and we weren’t even trying to get him to
support us necessarily.
Another key phrasing for the organization was to not suggest that its goal is to end water poverty.
It was very clear to all involved that water poverty could not be cured. Instead, those involved with the organization wanted to present the idea that the organizations story was about reducing the problems and helping as many people as possible.
The chairman of the board felt that the best way to reduce the problem was “site clicks.”
He explained “site clicks” as the number of people who visit the London Water Charity website.
The current website was not working the way that they wanted it to and the organization hired
Lizzy six months before to drive website views through social media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter. Thus, they had to decide how to run the website and social media platforms and how they would present the problem of water crisis on those platforms.
10.4 The Website and Social Media
The organization was getting a new website and the executive members were doing things such as the learning lab in order to present the organization in a way that interested as many fundraisers as possible. Mary had strong feelings about the importance of the website as related to the message of the organization:
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It is a beast, you can lose fundraising quickly if you don’t brand and market and keep up
with what is good and if you’re not on top of that game you will lose out to all kinds of
people. No good website or social media access, you need to be on top of that regardless
of size and have a cohesive idea. So, I am here to get new money, but that’s difficult
because the competition is stiff. I don’t even know what we are linking up with, people
need to get one message and even if that isn’t all that they do that is okay as long as the
person thinks they get it. It can’t be everything but it needs to be something. So, I am just
finding new money and prospecting which is difficult to do because we look at all these
companies and try to get them involved, but that’s not the way you want to do it.
All in the organization knew the importance of having a central location that connected individuals to the organization. Although London Water Charity had a website, it was not very well maintained or organized. Additionally, organizational members sought feedback from people who had frequented the website and the feedback was not positive. Therefore, they knew that London Water Charity needed to change the presentation of the website and Wendy hired a volunteer consultant to help organize the website.
The consultant was there to organize the website the way that the chairman of the board and CEO wanted it to be organized. She was also allowed to implement her own strategies based on her personal experience as a longtime web developer, but mostly was there to do whatever the organizational leadership wanted her to do. As noted, it was the belief of the chairman of the board that if we could design a good website and tell a flashy, easy to understand narrative about ourselves as a company, then London Water Charity could, in his words, “explode.” The chairman of the board members of the organization’s board whole-heartedly believed that easy to digest numbers and fancy artistry were the key to grabbing people’s attention. Thus, the
320 chairman of the board did indeed seek to follow the lead of Charity: Water, as had been previously advanced, and make animated clips that easily explained the problem. Wendy shared similar thoughts:
I would like to do animated clips like Charity: Water but it is expensive. I think it can
explain it well, your theory of change. Going out and interviewing people tells a bit, but
for people to contextualize it, the animation is great, I just don’t have the budget.
It did not matter that these animated clips were not necessarily accurate and placed a simple solution for all areas despite their extensive knowledge that these were in fact fabricated numbers and images that they wanted the animated clips to represent. The organization’s leadership wanted an integrated home page that had those numbers prominently displayed, easily accessible blogs so that people could see information from the people working both in London and Malawi in relative real time, and wanted to provide potential corporate sponsors with links to information that they would need (i.e. financial statements) to show the corporations shareholders or board members. They knew where they wanted to go with the website; the next step was figuring out how to drive visits to the website.
The social media connection was important to the organization in driving knew people to the website. As Beth detailed:
A big challenge for us is to increase regular giving. That is such a strong platform to
build an organization. We are young and small and charities go through development
phases where they have one major funder and the company is based on that, but then if
you look at very established charities the strong base is individual giving and events,
collections, community groups. That is the huge core. The people giving big gifts is
sitting in the smaller amount of the triangle. So we need to get there with a good base.
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We are partly there and have a good portfolio of different funding streams. We want to
recruit more corporate and individual supporters. There is a lot for development and there
is a lot of support work for the website and database. We have to really set our message
so we can invest in major marketing and advertising campaigns with a good concise
message.
The first opportunity for them to present a good concise message to a broad audience, at least in the minds of many working at London Water Charity, was through social media outlets.
Lizzy was predominately engaged with the social media messaging of London Water
Charity. Part of her job was to post information daily on Facebook. A couple of times, I was charged with finding information to post. Mostly, they wanted to post about the good things the organization was doing, or provide general information about water crisis. When possible, they would focus the information about water crisis that focused specifically on Malawi’s water crisis.
The one day I was solely in charge of the post, I was fortunate that the United Nations had just released some information on the work of water charities in Africa. Therefore, my post read:
The United Nations released their 2013 Millennium Development Goals Report verifying
the fantastic work London Water Charity has done and is continuing to do with water,
sanitation, and education in Malawi: “Some countries with high under-five death rates,
including Ethiopia, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Niger and Rwanda, reported reductions
of at least 60 per cent.” See more at:
http://allafrica.com/stories/201307012346.html?viewall=1
I was also tasked with writing one blog post and providing a link on Facebook. I was at London
Water Charity during national volunteers week. Thus, they asked me to write a blog detailing who I was, why I was there, and what I thought about the need for volunteerism in the water
322 charity sector. The idea behind having me post was to show what the organization is doing and how volunteers can help the organization. I played along and gave a nice blog detailing how great London Water Charity is for all of the great work that the organization does. While this blog and much of the work being done with social media was directed at individual donors and potential volunteers, there was also a lot of the work done on the website and through social media with the intention of providing information for governments, corporations, trusts, and grant agencies.
10.5 Working with Governments and Other Organizations
I had built the databases and knew the information backwards and forwards, but actually working with organizations was quite complicated. All of the consternation with the representation of the organization and the people in need revolved around London Water
Charity’s ability to obtain funding. Simply, the website and the efforts put towards the website work to tell the people what they want to hear. And, what they want to hear is simple numbers.
This is a frustration that London Water Charity was experiencing throughout all of its operations
– not just single donors. London Water Charity receives funding in what the fundraising manager described as a triangle – think of the basic food groups. There are the funding trusts or organizations, the government, corporations, and individuals that make up the majority of their funding in the fundraising triangle at London Water Charity. I will provide information for the types of organizations London Water Charity worked with in this section and discuss individual donor directives more in the following section.
Large grant-providing organizations were extremely thorough in how to decide what non- profit organizations to fund. As previously noted, Mary and I would create and evaluate a database of possible funding institutions in order to find the best possible matches. Then, those
323 working in fundraising and grant writing (which I helped with on occasion) would apply for the grant. In the application for the grant, the grant writers at London Water Charity have to be very specific with the amount of money they are asking for and how the money will be utilized.
Further, they must present this information very eloquently. This is why London Water Charity hired a grant writer and an additional fundraiser with grant writing experience. In the grant applications, the grant writers at London Water Charity provided information regarding the background of the charity, the most recent grants awarded to the charity including amounts received and the donors, description of the projects to be undertaken with the funding, how this work would contribute to the granting institutions aims, breakdown of the budget, other sources of match funding, the amount London Water Charity is seeking, delivery targets, and number of people to be impacted by the funding.
Once the grant was secured, some organizations would make London Water Charity go through an audit. For example, while I was there, London Water Charity received a one million pound grant from the British Government. This resulted in a large-scale audit. The British
Government hired a firm to go in and look at all of London Water Charity’s information for a two-day period. The individuals with the firm representing the British Government went through finances, information on previous donors, impact reports indicating that London Water Charity has accomplished what it told previous funders it was going to accomplish, and, in the end, the outside auditing firm provided a due diligence report to the branch of the British Government that provided the grant. The government then went through the due diligence report to make sure that the money granted should still be provided to London Water Charity based on the recommendation of the auditing service.
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Even if the money is secured, it is still not easy for the organization to spend the money the best way it could be utilized. Lizzy detailed what it is like to work with the different types of organizations and governments as opposed to individual donations:
Organizations are much more formal. They have strict guidelines so you have to pick
specific parts of the project and you have to focus on certain parts. The one we just got,
they would only fund the materials, nothing else like education so you have to find
matching funds. Individuals need to know who they are helping, how they are helping,
and they are more interested in building relationships because they want to be reeled in. It
is easier to maintain when you get them in, and we are working on keeping them.
Me: How does the government work in Malawi with water?
Lizzy: They are helpful. There was a lot of corruption in the past but I think they really
want to work now. We have a strong relationship in Malawi. We work very closely with
them there.
Me: How do you work with the British Government?
Lizzy: Well we just got a £1 million grant over 3 years which means we have to meet
their guidelines and they have an external review making sure we meet their guidelines. It
is good but we are stuck in a box.
Beth described the reason that London Water Charity was put in a box by the larger grant agencies:
One of the main things is in charity accounting if you get money for a certain project you
have to spend it on that project. So that is a challenge. The income coming in has to fund
the whole organization. If the campaign says you want to provide water for a village and
you get a million pounds, you can’t use them for anything else, you have to use it for that
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village. Or, you have to receive written permission to use that money for something else
from each donor. That happened with the tsunami aid. Here we can only go for restricted
funding that goes to a pump that we can spend all the money on that. It can be more
money to manage that donation than the donation is worth because it takes all your time.
We have a system that keeps matching and grant and trust funding separated so we can
keep track of it by creating an account and putting costs associated and against that. In
terms of other funding we try to make sure we have a bit of leeway for some overhead
costs. Most individuals and organizations know that. Things like rent, salaries, and things
are hard to raise money for.
On multiple occasions, London Water Charity has had issues with its funding from large sources such as government, trusts, and corporations wanting to know how many wells are built and how many people are served. The employees of London Water Charity know that the solutions grant providing institutions want are those that provide “evidence” of the largest number of people served. However, this does not necessarily mean that the solutions are good or that the inflated numbers are actually providing water to people in a sustainable way. For example, London Water Charity had information based on its own research of previous wells that indicated good “numbers” of people served, but there were also a lot of issues with the water systems implemented. In Malawi, London Water Charity has to do well pumps for most of the people in need because the majority of the money it has received is earmarked for only those systems and provides the best “scientific data” – meaning the quickest implementation and most impressive numbers. Yet, this does not mean London Water Charity is helping the underlying issue. Simply, providing just the water systems without offering opportunities to grow beyond
“aid” is not developing the local communities. Interestingly enough, the members at London
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Water Charity know this and are trying to fix it with mixed results. What London Water Charity is attempting to do is implement long-term sustainable solutions where it can train individuals to build and implement personal pump systems in homes, rendering the need for London Water
Charity to stay there moot. Instead, it would manufacture the systems, micro-finance the systems out to the people in need who would pay them back as they could.
This! This! I thought! Do This! Help them actually develop!
Unfortunately, this doesn’t sit well with large funding agencies. Those agencies want numbers and numbers only. Thus, London Water Charity could either A) move away from their sustainable solutions that would help the people in need develop independently or B) Give into the wont of the large grant base. I attempted to sway them towards option A as much as possible.
10.6 Implementing Sport Programs
A confession: I was not too keen on even being there in the first place. I wanted to tear it down. From behind my desk it seemed so clear, so easy. But as I sat there working with the organization, day in, day out, I realized the intricacies with which international aid must be cared for. I also realized that it was not enough to say that these charities that had provided water to millions of people in need were inherently evil (or even corrupt). They are not. I needed to come up with a better way. So, I pushed them on how the website should be.
After being there for almost six weeks, I had built up a solid rapport. We had spent more than one night at a pub together, had lunch and dinners together; I had worked at getting them information and access to corporations, running events, trusts, etc. I built database after database, helped them start making the move to becoming a 501 I (3) in the US, and built contacts with universities, sororities, and fraternities that might be interested in putting on an event to raise money for London Water Charity. So, when Wendy and Beth asked me my opinion of how they
327 should proceed with the website I was ready. In a meeting with the Wendy and Beth where they asked for my thoughts, I provided them a six-page document with those thoughts focusing on how to present the people in need. I wanted to keep them on the path to helping developing countries build themselves through their own accord, not on the whims of funding agencies in the Global North. The document read, in part:
I am a huge proponent of and find it most effective to stay true to what you can speak on
and not try to speak for others. Unlike other charities, you grew from the people in need,
you have the statistics to back up your claims, and you are practically oriented to
providing cheap sustainable services that have helped bring the water crisis under much
more control in Malawi and Zimbabwe already. These are particularly important as you
cannot tell the same story as others who had some grand intervention in their lives about
wanting to work with water charity – so don’t focus on that and don’t try to be Charity:
Water founder Scott Harrison. Your story, regardless of how many artificial Learning
Labs you choose to participate in will always inherently remain artificial if you try to tell
your story the same way other water charities do. This is precisely why it is utterly
important that the story becomes solutions and implementations focused upon those in
need, not an artificial personal story of how sad the rich people were to see poor people.
They might be successful and are most likely helping people, but at what cost and to what
end? Everyone gives the same terrible generalized statistics that they know are bald-faced
lies, you don’t have to do that.
I wanted them to implement the sustainable solutions – I wanted to not sit quietly again. So I said, we can build the donor base and I knew I could do it through sport.
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In order to help London Water Charity “tap into that fundraiser market” where the fundraiser was not only a donor, but in fact a reproducer of the London Water Charity story, I had to consider how the group I worked with in Miami was successful in getting people to join their team. Therefore, I attempted to think about what made the people in Miami use sport and what the fundraiser “gets” out of their interaction with Team Water Charity. It was clear that the people in Miami were very dedicated to the cause of helping those in need of water. Those who participated were proud to participate; Team Water Charity connected with the people in need by putting the problems of those in need in their own terms. So I attempted to find information about different sporting events and then use my knowledge gained from Miami and Vancouver to make in-roads with the organizations.
I made a spreadsheet of roughly 500 running, biking, swimming, and extreme events (i.e. mud races, Spartan Races, triathlons) occurring in the United Kingdom between June 2013 and the end of the year. I went through all of the events and looked up the event history, contact information, charity work, and any other relevant notes that could help when I talked to the organizations. I was looking to setup a partnership where London Water Charity received part of the registration fee; acquire an opportunity to set up a booth at large events; secure spots in the races for fundraisers running or participating on behalf of London Water Charity; and/or inquire into the possibility that the race organization would help set up an event just for London Water
Charity to raise money.
I contacted 62 events in the time I was there and was floored by the response that I received – more than one-fourth of the events I contacted were willing to work with London
Water Charity. I set up meetings for our head of fundraising and the head of social media to discuss partnerships with these events. I even sat in on a couple that occurred before I left. On
329 one occasion, we met with an organization that links charities to an obstacle oriented event. This organization made deals with obstacle races where they would reserve discounted rates for charity supporting participants. The organization offered the charities a partnership with two races at the time of the meeting, but it was also working on partnerships with 6 or 7 other running events. Further, the organization was starting a cycling for charity, which would be free for running for charity partners. London Water Charity can be on the website for free but for
£1000, it could get special partnership privileges such as discounts for your runners on entry fees, free spaces for each volunteer you commit, donations from the race itself, information for runners who do not have a particular charity affiliation, and discounts on stuff like hotels and gear.
In addition, through this partnership, London Water Charity would be able to market its brand through the obstacle course race and the associated charity that we were meeting with. As the man with the organization said:
If you partner with us, you get the people to do the work for you. They raise money for
you so you don’t have to do the heavy lifting. For only one thousand pounds a year
[~$1,600], we will help you get people to do your work for you. They can tell the story
for you. It is a win-win.
10.7 Coda – Figuring out Who Gets to Control Water
I attempted to sway the members in the organization toward sport programs because I had figured out that the problem with grant agencies, or governments, or corporations was that they all wanted to control the situation, to control the solutions, to control the water. Individual funders were not as interested in controlling the sources of water. For me, I came into this project with the intention of tearing down how sport was used in this rather perverse way of creating
330 abstract social relationships instead of real solutions. Yet, I realized that regardless of who funds the charity, it will always result in a particular understanding of who gets to control water. So, I asked the members at London Water Charity “who should control water?” The responses varied:
Julie: I get frustrated because in this sector, we act as we know what the people want
instead of asking what the people want. And, that is where we are going with our
research now in getting to go out and talk to people and make them more participatory in
deciding what happens. Who owns the pumps and who are the most vulnerable comes
from them, not us, because that happened in the past. If organizations stuck to the
statistics that would help and when you do case studies, quote people accurately. Even
when they do speak, they are misquoted. Perform the human side that funders like, but
don’t impose your ideas. I can’t walk in a village that doesn’t have a water pump and
assume they want one. And I think that is where development fails because even in
Northern Australia, indigenous people haven’t had a fair go in Australia and the
indigenous people have their backs up but then I asked what they wanted and got them
involved in what was going on, so I identified their priorities and worked with that. So, it
kind of interesting, people with development agencies think funders are stupid and
likewise it works both ways where then funders think people in Africa are stupid. But,
that’s not true. I sound so cynical but that’s all true. I met this guy last time in Malawi
working in water and sanitation for 15 years. He was awesome. 10 years ago he did a
water pump project and asked the local community to pay for it. And, he got killed over
that, but the local community paid for it and he had a 95% success rate. So, it is clear that
charity isn’t the answer, it is development. You have to be so careful about charity. You
go around Africa and kids go up to you and are like give me money give me sweets.
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Because, people come to Africa and just give things away and that creates dependency.
That is not the kind of system you want to create. We have to yell at people all the time to not give out candy. That’s not helping develop anything. People talk about the ideal where the government runs it but in reality that can’t maintain anything. They don’t have the money. It needs to be an integrated approach at the local level where people work for it themselves because if it goes down they have to be able to fix it. But, the organizations who put the pumps in the ground need to retain a relationship to maintain that responsibility. Communities should be in charge but organizations should maintain contact.
Lizzy: I am all for the grassroots, but there is a lot that goes into that and education is a huge part of that. Sometimes they will use their money on mobile phones instead. You guy there and people don’t have water, but they have mobile phones. So we should work with them and push them in the right direction and I think we are kind of doing that. I like to think we are kind of working from a grassroots approach.
Wendy: Does it work when the private sector controls water, it can. It can make business for those sustaining water. But there must be an understanding. In the UK and US, we all pay for the service and I don’t think it is different elsewhere, but in Malawi there is a human right to water everywhere and they can’t spend any money on water. So, there is a need for charity to fill that gap. We must be careful, we can’t subsidize water for everyone, we don’t want to compete with a market that can build sustainability. We want technology to be great. But, it is difficult because the market needs competition and you can only have one tap so that’s difficult. Who subsidizes, it is difficult to say. So, yes people need help. Our Zimbabwe work is for everyone to have a household pump. We
332 are trying to give microloans to people to have it themselves and they can pay back the loan and really own their own growth. Self supply of pumps where we train people to build pumps, then they go out and sell pumps to people so they can have it in their households. We think this is a better way for them to own their own water and build a market around building those themselves, instead of people coming in and subsidizing it.
Beth: I think it is difficult. Ultimately water is a human right, a commodity we should all have. In developed countries people pay for water and there is so much infrastructure and resources to make it clean and safe. If there isn’t a basic payment form it’s not sustainable and not valued by people. In an ideal world it would be a basic payment and solution for developing countries, but that is going to take a long time to get there.
Sam: For water, there has to be clean water available at a reasonable cost. I know it costs, let’s not deceive ourselves. If they can’t afford the water that is available or cannot access it, the intervention of outside organizations is needed and wanted. We go with the views of the recipients not the controllers. The people in the village that benefit I go with their angle not the government official who wants them to pay money. The immediate solution is more important than regulation. There is a battle going on. But the question is this, this need to regulate is it driven by needing to help the people or who does it benefit? The intervention is welcome. I have a lot of confidence to the solution going forward. I want to see London Water Charity expand across Africa and South America because it is a good solution. They need to spread the message more. We aren’t the only people in water poverty and there are bigger players, but it is unique because we have an effective solution and the local people can actually improvise on the pumps and engineers go out to help fix some pumps, but the local people already fixed it. They need easy solutions,
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because they don’t have the resources. When things break down and they will, they need
to fix it themselves. A lot of charities, when stuff breaks, they are back where they started
from. We have the solution that rural Africa needs. I think London Water Charity should
spread that message more.
***
The organization made in-roads with sporting events and gathered a tremendous amount of information about growing the organization. I made the relationships with sporting programs possible. Yet I struggled with my role in the organization. I did not want to be a part of the reproduction process any more than I had already been implicated in the raising of funds. But, I know now that they have made agreements and in fact have made a major agreement with a
Rugby club. I feel as though sport can be good, but I also fear that it will never lead to actually building communities and individual solvency. I want people to flourish on their own without the
“West” being the omnipresent guiding hand. Must everything involve a “market solution” as I heard often throughout my study?
It is not that the people I worked with are bad people. The people at London Water
Charity are good people, and they genuinely wanted to “help.” But, it is the way that this help occurs that leaves me uncomfortable. It is a tense relationship that I struggled through. Water charity is a big business and it is one that prioritizes monetary gain, the voice of the organization, and the body in the Global North over the body in the Global South. That is what I learned while working with these organizations – that, when push comes to shove, the viability of our answers and raising money for our solutions to others problems is the prerogative. And, prioritizing the sporting body in the Global North over the body in need in the Global South through the way
334 that we circulate the stories is problematic. Yet, that is exactly what I did. I just tried to make the least worst idea possible – something I could not have done in Tallahassee.
When producing the narrative, it is the story of the water charity that becomes emphasized, and it creates, somewhat contradictorily jobs in the water charity market – people in the Global North form a market and obtain jobs that sustain Western lifestyles on the foundation of charity work. Sam even acknowledged this in his interview with me. He stated that he realized he could work in charity as a livelihood. This is not inherently a bad thing, but it certainly impacts the dynamics of what one is willing to do when it is absolutely crucial to their livelihood and the welfare of their family to push the limits of what one might find to moral comprise.
Because one must maintain a livelihood and protect his or her family, it is important to continue to produce and reproduce the narrative of the “good work” the organization has conducted, for job security, if nothing else.
And here is where it gets really messy. In that moment in London sitting there at my final meeting critiquing the organization openly to the fundraising leader and the CEO, I realized that this is also my job security. I am trying to build a life on helping people, just like the people I am trying to critique. But, what have I really done here? I have attempted to be an agent of change, but what am I doing? It was recently submitted to me by a colleague that it would be better to just try to tear down the walls from the outside, because if I do not agree with the ideology it would be better to stand my ground. After working in three countries with four organizations, I can say unequivocally that I do not agree. I may not have made a tremendous amount of change in London, and I might not even make a dent in academia. I feel as King-White (2013) who recently asserted “sometimes I get the uneasy feeling that in both sport studies and qualitative research we are a marginalized club that researches interesting topics, presents at conferences
335 that only we attend, and publish in things that only we read” (p. 312). I fear, as Giroux has often discussed, that we are experiencing the widespread disappearance of public intellectualism.
However, I realize that I must endeavor to live in the tension and realize this is not a didactic world. We cannot do that by sitting and judging. We do that by going and doing and realizing the difficulties of research and implementing ideas. And it is frustrating, and like King-White, I feel like I habitually fail, but I realized after reflecting on London that I will continue to try to be an agent of change, and I am glad I realized I could not do that from behind my desk.
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CHAPTER ELEVEN
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
So if I asked you about art you’d probably give me the skinny on every art book ever written. Michelangelo? You know a lot about him. Life’s work, political aspirations, him and the pope, sexual orientation, the whole works, right? But I bet you can’t tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You’ve never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling. Seen that. If I asked you about women you’d probably give me a syllabus of your personal favorites. You may have even been laid a few times. But you can’t tell me what it feels like to wake up next to a woman and feel truly happy. You’re a tough kid. I ask you about war, and you’d probably, uh, throw Shakespeare at me, right? “Once more into the breach, dear friends.” But you’ve never been near one. You’ve never held your best friend’s head in your lap and watched him gasp his last breath, looking to you for help. And if I asked you about love you probably quote me a sonnet. But you’ve never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable. Known someone could level you with her eyes. Feeling like God put an angel on earth just for you…who could rescue you from the depths of hell. And you wouldn’t know what it’s like to be her angel and to have that love for her to be there forever. – Robin Williams as Sean Maguire in Good Will Hunting
The overarching goal of this project was to understand the communicative processes within international water charities and development through sport initiatives instituted by water charities. These communicative processes included the video, text, and other material documents
(i.e. portable document files, handouts, posters, replicate water jugs, etc.) associated with presenting the individual in need; the video, text and other material documents associated with presenting the role of the volunteer – particularly the sporting volunteer; the educational initiatives instituted by water charities to educate the volunteer; the sporting and volunteering body as communicative; the communication of water charities both internally and externally;
And, the communication of water crisis more generally. To understand these communicative processes as they exist, during this interpretive (auto)ethnography, I attempted to respond to several research questions. In the final chapter of the dissertation, I respond to each of the research questions posed at the beginning of this document by integrating what I learned during my multi-sited ethnography.
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In this dissertation, I wanted to utilize research as a way to begin a line of work that I hope will one day enact social change. To do this, I firmly believed that theoretical understanding for the structural mechanisms that engage with individual agency must be studied in great depth. Thus, I carefully examined the role of political economy in the historical present and showed how the current political economic system of free-market superiority relates to water crisis and the water charities that act on behalf of those in crisis, particularly through the utilization of the sporting body as a source for variable capital accumulation. I determined that the best way for me to carefully analyze and later propose tangible solutions to water crisis – and the role of sport within such solutions – was to go experience water charity – to be that which I critique. Therefore, over the course of one calendar year, I carefully studied water charity and the accompanying communicative processes involved with fundraising for international water charities.
This research project took place in three countries that are indicative of one side of the social and economic divides between what I have herein classed as the Global North and Global
South. Painstakingly seeking partner organizations to research with and through led me to work with a Christian sport based water charity in Miami, a sport based water charity in a Vancouver suburb and its partner organization, and a water charity in London. Through these interactions, I developed an understanding of the communicative processes of international aid, the solutions proposed, the difficulty in trying to solve these very real problems through the solutions proposed, the role of sport in this crisis, the role of the sporting body in the Global North as both tangibly and abstractly (re)productive, the prioritization of the “voice” in the Global North, and, like others who have researched sport for development, I learned the good and bad of sport as a tool for assuaging worldwide issues. And, I learned, as I had previously believed that, like
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Sirolli (2012) suggested in his TED talk on international development, “Want to help someone?
Shut up and listen.”
In an effort to appropriately attend to the purpose of the study and the research questions provided in the opening chapter of the document and explain my findings, in the remainder of this concluding chapter, I respond to the research questions. I respond to the questions thematically based upon my original development of the purposes for this research and the categories that provided the overarching guide to each of the research questions. Thus, I categorize my responses under the headings: 1. Production of water crisis; 2. Development through sport; 3. Controlling water; 4. Organization of Water Charity. I follow this thematic breakdown by proposing the major takeaways from this project as it relates to both practical and theoretical contributions. I conclude by reflecting upon this research endeavor.
11.1 Responding to the Research Questions
11.1.1 Production of water crisis
As expected, I found that communicating the need of water and appropriately presenting the people in need is a difficult process. Initially, in an effort to respond to research questions one and two and better understand communicative tactics related to the production of the water crisis as presented in videos, written texts, and PDFs, I viewed the websites of forty-five water charities, eventually choosing to focus on Charity: Water. I focused on Charity: Water because it was representative of the group as a whole and many of the water charities partner with Charity:
Water. The way the relationships work is that Charity: Water provides the videos and text to raise the money. Charity: Water then chooses which charities to partner with and gives the money to those select charities. Further, preliminary conversations with the individuals working for the water charities I worked with revealed that all of the key organizational participants not
339 only knew of Charity: Water, but wanted to model their videos and educational materials off of
Charity: Water’s website. Therefore, Charity: Water seemed to be a good representation of the production of water crisis in the Global North.
When analyzing the videos, written texts, and PDFs, I sought specifically to understand how the body in need was depicted and how the idea of volunteerism was represented given the structures that shape the historical present. This relates specifically to research questions one, two, and three:
RQ1. In the videos, written texts, and portable document files (PDFs) released on water
charity websites, in what ways is the body in need depicted to the viewer?
RQ2. In the videos, written texts, and portable document files (PDFs) released on water
charity websites, how is the idea of volunteering presented to viewers?
RQ3. In the opinion of the Team Water Charity organizers, the Sport for Water Society
board members, and employees of the London Water Charity, what is taken into
consideration when spreading the message of those in need?
First, related predominately to question one, examining the (re)presentation of the body in need through the production of videos on Charity: Water’s website and YouTube channel, specifically, the first important finding revealed that the voice of the body in need becomes underrepresented to the point that the individuals in need are depicted as helpless and, frankly, worthless, “until they get a little help.” At this point, the second important finding is revealed in that the voice of the people in the Global North is privileged. This represents a larger shift towards what Soss, Fording, and Schram (2009) referred to as neoliberal paternalism. In this instance, the voice of the individuals with the autonomy and power to make decisions is prioritized over the voice of those who are unable to (re)present themselves given the access of
340 global technologies being limited to those who can afford such luxuries. Through this paternalism enabled by the political economic structure prioritizing the influence of the corporate/private over the collective, the social division between those in the Global North with the ability to shape policy and practice continue to have their opinions prioritized. That is, through a critical analysis of the videos and texts of water charity, I began to see that answers driven by the interest of the largest contributors (i.e. large corporations, wealthy individuals, equity trusts) was being served.
Actualizing these findings that occurred through examining the circuit of culture as it pertains to the messages produced related to the body in need occurred predominately while in
London. In Miami and Vancouver, I did not focus upon the mediated aspects because Team
Water Charity did not produce videos and written text received by mass audiences – other than those that pay to eat the team dinner the night before and were already involved with the charity.
Instead, the organizations worked specifically on a small group basis and were not interested in talking about the text materials that they created. Its style was one of oral communication and experiential learning through solely running based programs. Sport for Water Society did produce some texts, but were again focused on experiential education initiatives.
Related predominately to research question three, while in London, I was able to be a part of the production of the people in need. While a very difficult process filled with continual internal debate between my ethos and my desire to be a part of the organization, the learning labs greatly informed this project. In the learning labs, we discussed how to best tell “our story.” It was an interesting exercise, which, rather unfortunately, largely confirmed my suspicion that the story of water charity is more about the philanthropy in the Global North than the actual need of those in the Global South. We learned to tell “our story” emotively and with the direct purpose of
341 connecting individuals to the organization, not necessarily the people in need. The idea was that people would connect to the organization and choose to donate to London Water Charity instead of, for instance, Water for People.
On the one hand, those working with London Water Charity believed that they did have the correct answers to helping people, so it made sense that to them that they would try to market their solutions to people. On the other hand, this type of marketing practice unnecessarily turned the attention away from the problem and toward the individuals working with London Water
Charity. I noticed when this occurred that the conversations in these instances switched to focus on organizational issues and assuring that the people in the office – in the meetings – were able to keep their jobs. For example, on one occasion while discussing how to present the need for water in Malawi, the conversation switched to the health of the organization and the story associated with the founding of the organization. Within that conversation was a focus upon the organization of water charity and the contracts of the individual workers. Most of the people that worked for London Water Charity were on short-term contracts that lasted roughly six months.
Their contention was that they needed job security – as most would argue, my point is not that it was an aberration for anything resembling normal office banter. Importantly, however, these conversations superseded the point of the meetings. Instead of focusing on need, the purpose of the meetings turned inward. This turning inward and focusing on the people in the developed nations was also evident in the production of the volunteer.
Related to research question two, perhaps the most important part of the organizational focus of Charity: Water and the organizations in Miami, Vancouver, and London was all about the volunteer in the developed world. For example, as elucidated in the fifth chapter, Charity:
Water focused heavily on the solutions that “you” could help implement. In this discourse, the
342 volunteer was prioritized as the driving force for solutions and it was presented as something in which everyone can participate. In multiple Charity: Water videos, the focus is on the work of individuals that gave up something of their own in order to provide clean drinking water to those in need. In some instances, the individual donor/volunteer gave up his or her birthday while others biked, ran, swam, or even kayaked for money. They volunteered their time and body and gave of their money, and friend’s money, for building the water systems that Charity: Water is associated with – the focus of the videos always being upon the good work that the volunteer/fundraiser was able to do – a very philanthropic associative feeling that Charity: Water continually tries to (re)produce.
In practice, I found that those with the organization in London were concerned with the social marketing ethos of behavioral change (Kotler & Lee, 2009). This mandate of behavioral change not only focused on the individuals in Malawi who the organization sought to train about proper hygiene and water usage, it meant that they wanted current and potential fundraisers and volunteers to change their behaviors – to become donors or donate more and more often. In an effort to obtain these changes, London Water Charity implemented quarterly reports to update the current donors, continually emailed updates to donors, and invited them to important events that the organization would put on for special occasions (i.e. balls, concerts, etc.). In this, organizational actors told the current donors that they were the lifeblood of the organization and that London Water Charity would not be able to function without them. It was important to the organization to keep these volunteers and the production of them as vital to the operation of
London Water Charity is what those in the organization believed would keep the fundraisers connected to the organization. The transformational change in behavior that the water charities sought to produce was brought upon by technologies of the self (Foucault, 1988) and did result
343 in an exchange, as I expected to find. However, the exchange was not between communities or individuals engaged in fair trade. Rather, the exchange was exchange from one behavior to another. People in the Global North exchange their own behaviors for new ones and the individuals in Malawi, for example, exchange their behavior of unsanitary conditions for sanitary ones.
In terms of new volunteers, the workers at London Water Charity were concerned with the social media marketing aspect of the organization. They knew that a new website was crucial to driving new support and they wanted to implement new programs that would bring new volunteers and fundraisers to the organization. Thus, they wanted to be more active on Twitter and Facebook and launch a new, more interactive website that would be more accessible to a large number of potential donors. In the production of the people in need, the organization utilized the rhetoric of crisis. This purposeful utilization of buzzwords that tied the volunteer/ donator to a people in crisis was felt by the organizational members to be a contributing factor to the involvement of the fundraiser. That is, volunteers/donators wanted to know that they were
“fixing” something.
Additionally, those in the organization saw the potential that sport-based programs held.
Therefore, I built a database of potential partner organizations and helped them get in contact with those I felt had potential. The idea for London Water Charity was that these sport-based programs would be self-operating in a sense. Some in the organization had noticed that runners were pretty self-sufficient and once they were on board with London Water Charity, the organization did not have to do much, the runners would keep running and raising money. The organization was under the impression that everyone could participate in sporting events and the
344 larger the audience, the better. However, through my research in Miami and Vancouver, I found mixed results as to who can participate.
11.1.2 Development through Sport
Related to research questions four to seven, I wanted to research the connection between those who raise money and their perceptions of a connection to those in need through their participation in sport. Specifically, research questions four through seven read:
RQ4. According to water charity organizers with Team Water Charity and Sport for Water
Society, why do water charities utilize sport for development of water systems in
underdeveloped nations?
RQ5. According to individuals participating in water charity sport events with Team Water
Charity and Sport for Water Society, why does he or she choose to participate in a
sporting event specifically oriented toward water?
RQ6. Do individuals raising money for Team Water Charity and Sport for Water Society
through their own physical activities believe that utilizing their body makes them feel
more connected to the individuals in need than just donating money?
RQ7. Considering the work of scholars such as Marx, who considers the productive and
(re)productive capacities of the human body in commodity development and exchange,
and scholars such as Markula, who understand the body as productive and (re)productive
in social capacities, through my own training and interviews with participants of the races
in Miami and Vancouver, in what way can I theoretically understand the volunteer body
as (re)productive?
Through my desire to understand why organizations utilize sport as a way to raise money for building water systems, I was able to find multiple reasons why sport was a good way to
345 obtain fundraisers. Team Water Charity chose to utilize sport because “anyone can do it.” In the effort to reach the most number of people possible, the organizers indicated that sport was the best outlet as they perceived it. The organization they work with chooses to not utilize corporate donations and relies predominately on individual donations. In the opinion of the organizers, the running events offer them the best opportunity to reach a mass audience. It also allows the organization to talk personally with many individuals who are running in the marathons that
Team Water Charity works with. For example, in Miami, the organization had a booth set up where people that were running the race on the next day could come and ask questions. Team
Water Charity had water jugs for people to walk with and informational pamphlets to handout.
The organization also had four workers there to speak with people who were interested in hearing more about the work that it does.
Christy also noted that sport offered the opportunity to connect people to something tangible. The organizers were able to “sell” potential fundraisers on the fact that water was necessary for their training and running. This made them, at least in theory, realize that water was necessary for them to continue functioning. Thus, according to the organizers with Team
Water Charity and Sport for Water Society, running events, unlike other community events, work well for water charities because of the very clear direct link between running and needing water. In Vancouver, similarly to Kaufman and Wolff (2010), Brian explained that sport can offer a transcendent experience and does not need to be stratified by economics or beliefs.
Simply, for Brian and those invested in the Sport for Water Society, sport offered an exciting opportunity to build community through sport and education while also helping people in need.
Participants also reported that they chose to run because it did in fact make them feel closer to a community of people half a world away and those in the places they live. This feeling
346 of community involvement and running making people feel closer to the people in need was elucidated by the participants I spoke with. For example, as explained in chapter six, some of the participants reported that they were athletes and understood that water was necessary for the human body to function, not only in sport, but in life. Sarah explained that she used to be a
Division-I athlete who was able to make the connection between her sporting body and the bodies in need. To reiterate what was expressed in chapter six, Sarah stated:
If I am doing something physically that is strenuous for me, I do feel more connected to
the cause and the people that are having issues with the clean water for example. But, I
don’t know if I would do it if I didn’t do sports. If I didn’t do sports beforehand and
understand the need for water, I don’t think it would be as big of a passion as it is. I mean
through sport, I see the impact of just needing some water during playing or during a
timeout how that gets you refueled and rehydrated and ready to go so you can go perform
at your best level. And, that’s sports. I mean these kids can’t perform at their best level in
school because they are dealing with disease and sickness with this water so making the
correlation between sports and the daily connection between sport and everyday life,
when I made that connection, it made a lot more sense to me, hence the passion.
Sarah’s feelings of sport indeed having a unique ability to connect her to the cause were backed by Mark and Amy who noted:
Amy: Well, I can tell you that while I am running, I am envisioning those kids carrying
those buckets of water.
Mark: Yeah that’s no doubt a motivation when you’re dying.
Amy: Oh yeah when you’re dying and you can’t run anymore, you envision them
carrying those buckets of dirty water, ya know it’s dirty water, it’s not clean water.
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Mark: Or, when you’re in pain you think of their pain.
These acknowledgements made me understand how individuals decided that running was appropriate – because it made them understand the need for water, feel a sense of community, and feel more connected to those in need. Additionally, the participants introspectively understood the message of water poverty as related to their own lives. This caused them to tell friends, possible donors, and even strangers about their experiences – in a sense, (re)producing the message of need and (re)producing their social status as philanthropist. This idea of feeling a connection raised the question of who gets to participate and how the people (re)produced the narrative of need, money for water systems, and social stratification.
This led to perhaps the most exciting aspect of this research endeavor for me: interrogating the sporting body as (re)productive. The sporting body as (re)productive related to my findings on why individuals choose to participate in running events and provided insight into the social stratifications that can be (re)produced, but I also found possible answers for social stratification. The ability to participate in sport appeared to be socially divided for Team Water
Charity. In Miami, as extracted in chapter six and contrary to the organizers stating that anyone can participate, I found that the majority of the participants were those that could find time to participate and were part of a church community that aided them in finding people to donate to their fundraising efforts. This followed the logic of the volunteer market put forth by King (2000,
2008) as well as the larger societal stratification between those who are communis (Esposito,
2011). Despite the fact that Christy told me “anyone can do it,” she quickly contradicted that statement by explaining that they go to churches to find participants and teach them about the proper training and fundraising techniques. These training techniques require that the participant buy shoes, pay for registration, have friends that can donate, can donate themselves, and, perhaps
348 most importantly, have time to train. While a good gesture by those who do participate, it is certainly not a situation where anyone can do it.
Rather, this participation is reminiscent of the socially (re)productive body. Those in communis with the appropriate ideology are able to use their existent relationships and social status through their sporting bodies as tools for philanthropy. Additionally, their bodies are used for the purpose of producing tangible water systems implemented by those in the developing nations of focus. Yet, these acts are never wholly valorized. Instead of the capitalist valorizing his or her investment into tangible products by re-entering his or her money into the productive process, or the individual utilizing his or her social class to (re)produce his or her social class, through this philanthropy, tangible products are produced while socially abstract ideas of philanthropy and social relationships are (re)produced – there is a disjuncture never valorized because economic capital is used to (re)produce social relationships. And this disjuncture leads to a continuance of social stratifications where one is always prioritized over the other – one communis, one immunis (Esposito, 2011).
The goals of each participant/volunteer/organizer for each water charity and the organizational structures were wildly different and offer insight into what it means to be part of a community. Specifically, taking Team Water Charity as an example, it was clear that the runners had the desire to stay/get healthy brought on by a fear or experience with their own “unhealthy” bodies – the obesity clinic. In Vancouver, the Sport for Water Society board members introduced initiatives to schools and the community about healthy bodies through sport based programs and
“mini-runs.” However, perhaps more interesting was the idea of asceticism that seemed very present in purpose in Miami and Vancouver, but so very different and absent upon first glance in
London. Every single person I talked with in Miami mentioned God at least once in our
349 conversation despite the fact that I never asked. Some were very open about their beliefs that the goal of the organization should be to bring God to the people in need. The organizers utilized these close ties to God to appeal to the donor base.
In Vancouver, the participants and organizers did not necessarily overtly talk about a
Christian ethos. Rather, their statements were based on using their bodies as a way to increase global citizenry. Thus, their higher purpose was about disciplining their bodies and using sport as a way to reach to a higher purpose of humanity. Their higher purpose was to serve an ideal of global community. Therefore, those in Miami disciplined their bodies for the higher purpose of helping people because that might bring those people closer to God – (re)producing religiously motivated ideologies while producing tangible water systems. In Vancouver, the participants and organizers disciplined their bodies, some for God, but, mostly for a higher ideology of helping people and global philanthropy – (re)producing philanthropically motivated ideologies while producing tangible water systems.
London was quite different. Nobody was participating in sporting events to be sure and the disciplining was not there, thus, it is difficult to attribute their practices to asceticism. Yet, in some ways, there is a higher ideology being served – the ideology of the contemporary neoliberal business solution. Consider the words of Beth who importantly stated that the ultimate goal of the organization was to, “Create a market solution, that is pure development.” Further, the continued push for corporate entities to be part of the solution, for making it possible that people in Malawi and Zimbabwe have the opportunity to work in the market, and the pure business approach to developing a solution to water crisis indicates a different yet similar relationship as the organizations in Miami and Vancouver. That is, London Water Charity seeks to (re)produce abstract ideologies of a free market while producing tangible water systems.
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Interestingly, I found myself always in communis regardless of what country I was in or what organization I was speaking with. I have practiced religion from birth, so I could respond to and have conversations about comments made in Miami. While I do not philosophically agree with them on the uses of religion – I am more of a Pope Francis than Pope Benedict supporter – I was able to have those conversations. Vancouver was easy for me because I do believe in helping people while actually taking the time to really educate people about the problems of the world. Further, I had trained to run, I looked like them, I was middle-class and White like them, I shared the same interests as the people with Sport for Water Society, and I had the means to be there and fundraise. Thus, my conversations in Vancouver were probably the most natural. And, in London, I had been around corporate society. I knew how business people worked and, while I felt bad about it, it was natural for me to look like and be a person interested in business imperatives. Therefore, because I have the “wealth” to do this research study, the “right” upbringing, the “right” capacities, and the “right” look, I was uniquely qualified to undertake this project – I was in communis.
Finally, as elucidated in chapter eight, in Vancouver, the Sport for Water Society utilized sport-based programs as a way to breakdown social disjunctures in their community. Although the sporting body still (re)produces in the same way as discussed above, it is also used to bring community members together in a way that breaks down the barriers of social-economic disparity. For example, through sport based education initiatives, all students are educated in the same programs and all are a part of the sport activities. Rather than being dependent on free-time and friends wealthy enough to donate, all are welcome to join, in fact are required to join n school, and one of the supporters of the program (who does not want to be revealed) even pays for those kids that want to participate in the actual race, but do not have the money.
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While this does not fully solve problems of social stratification between those in the
Global North and those in the Global South, it begins to work towards that end. Specifically, people are actually being educated on water in British Columbia and water in developing nations. Further, those students are (re)producing narratives of water crisis and issues with water, not an internalization of how they as individuals are benefitting through “feeling good.” Again, while not completely flawless, rather than focusing on behavioral change as explained by Kotler and Lee (2009) where those individuals targeted by social marketing groups have no voice and are not truly educated due to a lack of involvement in the process, these sport based education initiatives seek to involve everyone in the process and help people recognize the real issues. This is a step in the right direction and shows how sport can be a great mobilizer, albeit not totally sufficient.
11.1.3 Controlling Water
I understood that those who participated in sporting events to raise money for water charities clearly felt a connection to either those in need more generally or those in need of water, specifically. Further, as noted by Bakker (2010) water has been divided throughout history and particularly in developing countries where it has often been controlled by inept governments and profit focused corporations. These problems of controlling water have led to a confluence of problems for those in need and those who are trying to help with the need. As expressed by Hope for Water International, it is often difficult to work with the governments in the countries and the outside influences from other governments, such as the Chinese, and corporations who are attempting to buy up all of the land in Ethiopia from the local farmers. Additionally, as those at
London Water Charity expressed, the governments do not care about the people in Malawi until they can function at a basic level. Therefore, as Brian reported, many government officials refuse
352 to help those in need until the Hope for Water International gets them to a certain level of subsistence living. In Haiti, those at Team Water Charity told similar stories of government abuse and mismanagement – the same in London. Yet, these stories did not allow me to understand exactly how those participants and organizational members believed water should be controlled. Therefore, I asked:
RQ8. In the opinion of the sport participants I interview, who should control water in
developing countries?
RQ9. In the opinion of the organizers of the water charities I work with, who should
control water in developing countries?
As expected, the responses from participants were mixed. Some, for example, Dan in
Miami, had been to Haiti and witnessed the incompetency of the Haitian government. Therefore, he believed that what Team Water Charity should be doing is helping to privatize water. Mark and Amy were prone to believing that the government should ideally run the water and allocate it appropriately based on the needs of the community members. Others in Miami believed that water should be community run similar to Bakker’s (2010) desired operation where the community owns the water systems and takes care of them on their own. This was also the opinion of the organizers of Team Water Charity. For example, Christy has lived abroad and says that she does not believe the government can operate the water systems in rural areas – they are simply not equipped. She also is anti-privatization more generally and does not believe that privatizing water in the developing world would be a desirable situation. Rather, she and her colleagues point towards the idea of developing individual initiative among community members and making the water sources community owned and operated.
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In Vancouver, across the board, rather participant or organizer, the people overwhelming believed that water charities should help community members in need figure out what is the best way for them to control their water resources. Participants and organizers of Sport for Water
Society both indicated the problems of the government not paying attention to the people in rural
Ethiopia and the issues of private companies attempting to buy the land in Ethiopia. It was evident that the sport based programs utilized to educate the community in British Columbia were effective in educating participants and organizers of some logistical and philosophical issues with water in the developing world. Each person had a slightly different understanding for what community owned water would look like, but each agreed that rural communities should control the water and each individual I talked to was highly educated about the different possibilities and problems.
London provided an interesting case because all of the organizers believed that the role of the water charity was to help develop independence and sustainability among community members in Malawi – but with a privatized twist. They all believed privatized water was the way to go in developed countries. This should not be much of a surprise given that London’s water is operated by a private company, but they also believed this could eventually be the solution in
Malawi. For me, their responses raised bigger issues of how we can come to understand how water could be controlled by a private company when it inherently flows through private lands.
When pressed about this understanding, the individuals quickly noted that they meant water should be privatized insofar as there is a market around implementing toilets and water systems which could propel individual entrepreneurship. Thus, what they were really talking about is privatizing the systems of water, not water itself. They are talking about bringing people in
Africa into the international free market. Yet, the individuals working at London Water Charity
354 knew that this would be difficult to implement in developing nations due to the fact that starting this requires a lot of startup funding, and grants, trusts, and corporations to this point are not willing to “gamble” on a system not driven by numbers that are easily relatable to a board of trustees or shareholders.
Interpreting the narratives of those in Miami, Vancouver, and London, as related to the political economic, social marketing, and development theories discussed in chapter three, I came to understand that the participants in Miami did not sufficiently understand the role of water charities or privatization. In short, the organization had not done a good job of educating people. This is particularly concerning given that Team Water Charity and its parent company are the largest of the groups I spoke with – raising multiple millions of dollars through involvement in races alone. While they have the most to invest in education, they opt out.
Conversely, in Vancouver, the individuals I spoke with understood the complexities of water charity and realized the role of water charities is and should be limited to helping individual communities run water sources themselves. The organization had done a great job of teaching individuals about water resource allocation in British Columbia and Ethiopia. This education allowed the focus to remain on the need in Ethiopia while connecting the communities in a way that taught those in Vancouver about their own role with water in multiple locations.
London Water Charity organizers likewise understood the complexities, but were more business- like in their approach to solving the problems. They were willing to do whatever was best for their own sustainability as an organization. When push came to shove, the employees of London
Water Charity knew that listening to the individuals in Malawi and implementing sustainable solutions would work best, yet, the best way to sustain the organization was to obtain large grants and funding from corporations that was earmarked for projects the organization itself did
355 not believe in, but would allow them all to keep their jobs. This was a struggle I saw daily and something I contemplated as I constantly wondered what was in it for me.
11.1.4 Organization of Water Charities
To fully understand the water charities and the charities responses to crises, I wanted to engage with the management of the water charities. Further, I wanted to know how the interaction worked between the organizations and individuals involved in what Kotler and Lee
(2009) called the multi-layered approach to social marketing. Therefore, I sought answers for the following questions:
RQ10. To what extent do organizers of the water charities I work with interact with other
non-profits, event organizers, volunteers, governments, and corporations?
RQ11. What type of corporation donates to water charities?
RQ12. How do the Sport for Water Society and London Water Charity decide what
corporations to work with?
RQ13. In the opinion of the organizers with the Sport for Water Society, what are the
benefits of this race and the education material provided before and during the
race to the community of the suburban town, outside of economic gain?
Acknowledging each site of inquiry in turn, first, I will respond to the organization of Team
Water Charity. Starting in Miami, the focus of Team Water Charity was to interact specifically with event organizers of major running events (i.e. Miami Marathon, Chicago Marathon, New
York City Marathon) and individual donors. Regarding interaction with the Miami Marathon, the organization became a sponsor by buying up a certain number of entries and then getting individuals to run for Team Water Charity. As explained by one organizer, Team Water Charity bought up the spots at a certain rate and was able to advertise because of its large bulk purchase
356 of entries. Then, individuals would buy those spots from Team Water Charity at the regular rate and the difference between the discount rate and regular rate would go to Team Water Charity.
Therefore, the organizers interacted with local community members in Miami.
Predominately, Christy interacted with individual church groups and small, local businesses. She would go to the church groups of local churches or to small business owners and teach them about running and fundraising. The fundraisers may have the opportunity to interact with those in Haiti, but most did not. Team Water Charity members themselves do not interact with those in
Haiti often. The interaction occurs between Team Water Charity and its parent organization that is in charge of implementing the water solutions in Haiti. Thus, in the case of Team Water
Charity, the interaction predominately occurs between the organization, events, and fundraisers.
The organization did not philosophically agree with donations from corporations. The parent organization had done this in the past and Team Water Charity wanted to avoid any and all conflicts of interest between corporations that wanted a say in how the money was spent.
In Vancouver, all four of these research questions can be organized into one response.
To begin, Sport for Water Society interacted with a partner non-profit organization (Hope for
Water International), corporations, local government, individuals, and schools. As explained in chapter eight, Sport for Water Society developed a relationship with Hope for Water
International that was directly working in Ethiopia. Although members from Sport for Water
Society do visit for two weeks every spring, the organization does not implement any solutions themselves. This part of the interaction is left to Hope for Water International. They chose to work with Hope for Water International because the ideologies of both organizations meshed.
Specifically, Sport for Water Society wanted to be about sustainable solutions and helping individuals develop, not giving charity – hence the utilization of society rather than charity.
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Likewise, Hope for Water International was interested in developing relationships that resulted in properly trained individuals being able to control their own water resources. Thus, Hope for
Water International enters into villages that ask for the help of the organization and work there for as long as it takes to properly train the villagers and implement solutions that the villagers can maintain. The individuals I spoke with at Hope for Water Society stated that this usually takes about 5 to 7 years to establish enough trust and implement the solutions.
Sport for Water Society maintained a relationship with corporations interested in sponsoring the running event. This was a major part of the organizations ability to reach elite athletes who were interested in the “swag” that Brian consistently referred to as a selling point.
However, the corporate sponsors were not allowed to put the brand on any of their own clothing in order to make a profit, like a cause-related marketing scheme would operate. Rather, the corporate sponsors were allowed to come and offer their own premium “swag” and helped Sport for Water develop its own brand on clothing that was sold to directly help cover the costs of overhead. Further, Sport for Water Society engaged only with those corporations interested in providing something to the event and the organizations goals of educating the people of British
Columbia. For example, Sport for Water Society worked with Envision Financial who sponsored the event, and helped pay for the educational initiatives. Sport for Water Society utilizes the
Envision brand to denote its involvement with Sport for Water, but Envision does not profit off of any advertisements not associated with the actual event.
Finally, through working with Sport for Water Society, I found that sport could be vital due to the fact that sport based programs raise a tremendous amount of money for charity and allow for unmarked money to be spent in the best way possible. The people with Water for Hope
International explained this to me in part during my time in Vancouver, but I really understood
358 this idea while in London. Sport also allowed them to educate the youth on health and implement fun programs that got people involved with learning about water issues who would have otherwise not learned. During the sport based programs at local schools, Sport for Water Society interacted with local community members and educated them on the worldwide water crisis.
Further, the organization implemented education initiatives in subjects such as Social Studies that the teachers would communicate to students, who would in turn communicate this to their parents. At the running event, Sport for Water Society offered information to adults and the adults in the community took an active role in learning about water poverty. Throughout, it was evident that the entire community was invested in learning about and helping water poverty.
Sport made a lot of this possible.
London Water Charity was much more open to working with corporations than the other two organizations I worked alongside. In London, one of my main jobs was making databases of information for different types of corporations. As the CEO told me, they do not discriminate against any corporations unless that corporation directly has polluted water somewhere. The
Chairman added that he does not care about the morals of the corporation; he just wants the corporation’s money. And, those in London Water Charity reported that they were interested in working with all types of organizations that were interested in working with London Water
Charity.
Additionally, London Water Charity worked very closely with grants and trusts that often dictated how the money donated can be utilized. The corporations, grants, and trusts all worked similarly to keep London Water Charity afloat, but did so in a very controlling way that hindered
London Water Charity’s ability to implement the sustainable solutions. It became a problem of resource allocation when the organization was successful in obtaining some large grants, so the
359 fundraising sector invested more time and hired more individuals to work with corporate trusts and grants. In turn the focus of the organization became the implementation of “their” solutions, not necessarily what the individuals with London Water Charity believed to be the right solutions. In this way, the business approach of London Water Charity worked against the best interest of those in need. And, somewhat to their credit, the individuals at London Water Charity were fully aware of this problematic relationship.
Again, this is where sport offered an interesting opportunity because of the large amounts of money that individuals give to sport based programs and the fact that this money from individuals is not earmarked. In this way, the London Water Charity has an opportunity to tell potential donors how they would like to use the money and invest in the sustainable solutions that the organizational members believe in wholeheartedly. This solution puts the impetus on solutions for those in need, rather than organizational sustainability. I worked to voice my opinion about these opportunities and the organization seems to be making strides through their new involvement with the Rugby Union and the connections with running events.
11.2 Summarization of Findings – Constraints and Solutions
In responding to these research questions, I found many constraints to water system implementation and some possible moves towards sustainable solutions built on an understanding of helping developing nations grow independently. I will focus on summarizing the constraints first, and then move onto the possible solutions from the perspective of organizations working in the Global North.
I found that the prioritization of the voice in the Global North leads to solutions that are not sustainable. For instance, at London Water Charity, they know that quickly building pump systems is not a sustainable answer, and it is not the best answer. Yet, the corporations, grants,
360 and trusts dictate what solutions are implemented. In this way, the voice of the individual in need is obfuscated by the interest of numbers that look good to shareholders and board members, not answers. Because of the desire to implement changes and water systems that are based on the desires of key stakeholders in the Global North, the good work of the organization and the act of philanthropy becomes the focal point.
Similarly, in Miami and Vancouver, I witnessed the sporting body utilized to build water systems and an abstract valorization of philanthropy caused by an implementation of tangible
“solutions.” The individual living in the Global North feels good about his or her involvement with the water charity and this is what the focus becomes, not the body in need. With the organization and fundraiser as focal point, there is a maintained social division between the developed and the developing. Further, this working relationship does not necessarily benefit those in need long term. Yet, it does lead to job creation and job security for those working with water charities in the Global North. If the water charity can obtain large numbers of fundraisers, large grants, or corporate donations, then the individuals working for the water charity are able to keep their jobs. Keeping their jobs becomes the focal point and main area of intrigue.
However, and through this endeavor, I found that good solutions are available, if there is reprioritization of the voice in need. As I found in London, organizations are interested in producing the story of the organization and the good work performed therein. Also, the organizations focus on the fundraiser. This maintains that social division with a backwards priority of showing the fundraisers how good the organizations and fundraisers are doing.
However, if the water charities are able to move towards focusing on the people in need and what they want, the communities might have the opportunity to become more self-sufficient.
This was evident from my work in Vancouver where Hope for Water International was able to
361 show that the solutions they implement, driven by funding directives aimed at sustainable solutions, are helping develop sustainable communities in developing nations. Instead of talking about the good work of Hope for Water International, Hope for Water International and Sport for
Water Society choose to focus on the people in need and implement the solutions that the people in need want and can manage.
Additionally, Sport for Water Society properly utilized sport for implementing global education of water poverty and solutions. In this way, individuals are actually educated on the need and begin to understand the necessity of implementing sustainable solutions, not just solutions that work for the people in the Global North to feel better about themselves as philanthropist. Through this work, I found that sport can be a catalyst for positive social change if implemented correctly.
11.3 Theoretical and Practical Contributions
A variety of methods are employed by water charities to raise funds for water projects in developing nations, and sports, in particular, are fast becoming one of the most popular options
(Hamilton, 2013). Community-based running events, for example, have become progressively more prevalent in North America. Indeed, Hamilton (2013), writing for the magazine Runner’s
World, reported, “U.S. road races pulled in $1.2 billion for nonprofit organizations in 2012, more than double the amount from a decade ago.” In addition to raising financial resources, a benefit of water charities fundraising through sport events is that these events can be borderless.
Sport events offer water charities the opportunity to be borderless by connecting individuals in one community with individuals in another regardless of the socioeconomic gaps or the geographic proximity between the communities (Kellett, Hede, & Chalip, 2008). Water charities in particular attempt to connect individuals in the Global North with individuals in the
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Global South. The North – South divide is generally thought to fall along socio-economic and political divides, with the North mostly covering the West and the First World (e.g., United
States, Canada, Europe, Israel) and the South consisting of Africa, Latin America, and developing Asia (Mimiko, 2012). In the South, roughly five percent of the population is believed to have sufficient food, water, and shelter whereas 95 percent of the population in countries categorized as part of “The North” have sufficient food, water, and housing. What is more, the North is thought to control 80 percent of the world’s income (Mimiko, 2012).
However, despite the salience of socially conscious communities in the Global North to the success of charitable endeavors directed toward developing countries, few studies have focused on understanding how exactly water charity events develop communities in the Global North and connect them to impoverished communities in developing countries who are in need of their aid.
Sport for Development and Peace has become a widely emphasized area of international practice with the advent of professional organizations such as the International Sport for
Development and Peace Association. There also are several initiatives by the United Nations to include sport as a part of the Millennium Development Goals of creating a better world. Sport for development programs can be governmentally run or managed by non-governmental agencies, also referred to as NGO’s (Schulenkorf, 2011). Over the course of the 21st century, sport for development has been included as a way to move humanitarian aid while making social relationships between various cultures possible, and has been praised as a platform for helping the UN reach objectives for AIDS, food shortage, and water crisis awareness (sportanddev.org,
2012a). In line with the work of Kidd, Wilson, Kauffman, Wolff, Hayhurst, Donnelly, and the myriad scholars the work through sport for development initiatives, this project contributes to
363 this literature by expanding the understanding of sport for development programs to include those programs that work in the Global North to provide for those in the Global South.
Further, and extending the work of King (2000/2008), this dissertation has focused on expanding the understanding of philanthropy through sport-based programs. King focused upon a charity event that directly impacted those that were involved in the race or those closely connected with the event and breast cancer itself. The Susan G. Komen Foundation’s Race for the Cure is a running event that is hosted in cities throughout the U.S. with the hope of raising financial resources, awareness, and support for breast cancer research (King, 2000). Whereas
Race for the Cure connects individuals who may not be neighbors but who tend to have a direct connection to someone afflicted presently with breast cancer, know someone who survived or did not survive breast cancer, or are aware that breast cancer may one day impact their own lives
(King, 2008), the participants of water charity running events are not the beneficiaries of the event nor are they even likely to know personally people in developing nations who are impacted by the outcome of the event. Thus, the individuals within the Susan G. Komen race are interested in helping those close to them, they are philanthropic in their own community. In the case of sport based water charities, sporting bodies in the Global North are helping those in need in the
Global South for the purpose of feeling philanthropic.
To this end, this research adds to the literature on (re)production. As explained in chapter seven, I worked to extend the knowledge base on the body as productive force. Instead of considering the body as productive in the sense of the laboring body (as explained through the work of Marx) or the social body (as explained through the work of Foucault and Markula), we must begin to consider the body as philanthropic. In this way, something tangible is produced, but the money raised through social abstract relationships is never valorized, never reinvested
364 into rebuilding capital except through the socially abstract relationships. This is an important difference from how the body as productive has been considered in previous iterations. As the key to political economic relationships in the worldwide turn toward capitalism, valorization acts as a process of monetary capital reinvestment (see Marx, 1976; Harvey, 2006). Yet, through philanthropy it is an abstract feeling of goodness that occurs and through the act of investing money, one can feel social valorization. This is a key turn in the understanding of philanthropic bodies.
Finally, this research adds to the work on social marketing as understood by Kotler and
Lee (2009) most directly. I investigated the multilayered approach to behavioral change and added to the literature by noting that the behavioral change is focused widely on the behavioral changes of the donor, as much as it is about the behavioral changes of those in need. The main impetus is on getting those who previously did not donate to donate – to change their behaviors to behaviors of philanthropy. Additionally, as noted in the literature review, I found that the social marketing directives of the water charities are developed by those in the Global North with consideration first and foremost being founded upon helping the water charity sustain itself, not sustain the people in need. This is in-line with Kotler and Lee’s directives of social marketing solutions which curiously does not include a consideration of asking those in need of their ideas and thoughts related to the social marketing directives. It is my hope that social marketing groups will use this research to understand that it is important to consider those in need as the number one priority when attempting to implement changes.
11.4 Research Going Forward
The project at hand provided many opportunities for me to consider what is next – what is the natural endpoint? I do not believe that my project ends here in Chapter eleven. Rather, I
365 intend to continue this research agenda by maintaining my relationship with Sport for Water
Society. Specifically, in spring 2015, I will be working again in Vancouver with Sport for Water
Society and Hope for Water International on its education- and sport-based initiatives. I will be evaluating the programs for the organizations and examining the social network of the community (Saunders, 2007). Following my time in Vancouver, I will be accompanying some of the people from Sport for Water Society on a trip to Ethiopia. There, I will interact with local communities working with Hope for Water International and take part in evaluating the health and training initiatives.
As previously noted, I am conflicted because I, like those I critique, have intimately tied my career with helping the issues of water crisis. Thus, I must constantly be self-reflexive and realize those dynamics which implicate me and maintain the viewpoint that helping people is the most important thing. It is my hope that other researchers continue to heed the call of Giardina and Newman (2011) and go out and do research. This research project shows the importance of going and doing research. Without going and doing this research, I would have never fully understood the difficulties of conducting international development initiatives and I would have been incorrect in my interpretation of water charities and sport as inherently evil. Going and doing helped me better understand Polanyi’s (2001) assertion that there are two types of freedom; the freedom to do good and the freedom to do bad. Neither sport nor water charities are inherently one way or the other, but the execution of water charities and the misuse of sport in philanthropy offer multiple opportunities for better solutions to be implemented. Indeed, each of these charities had different main objectives and different processes. In Miami, the individuals in the organization wanted to bring God to people along with the water. The Sport for Water
Society wanted to create informed global citizens and help those in Ethiopia become self-
366 sufficient. In London, the focus was always on the sustainability of the organization. These differences led to my finding that only in Vancouver were those in need truly the focus.
Further, I found that new opportunities for changing the social and power dynamics of water are possible to implement. For example, in London, I found that London Water Charity was working on a new program in Zimbabwe to empower individuals through micro-financing of individual water systems in the home. This is an idea that Water.org implemented very successfully – at least those representing the organization claim it has been successful.
Specifically, talking to USA Today journalist, Kim Hjelmgaard, Matt Damon provided the statistics gathered by Water.org: “250,000 people have gone through Water.org's credit program, in most cases borrowing around $150, and that 97% of those loans have been repaid. Water.org recently launched an investment fund that will seek to raise capital that can then be used for micro-loans.” This seems like a successful program that gives power to the individual. However, this idea of micro-financing, which has been successfully and unsuccessfully implemented in terms of liberating people and populations in other circumstances, should be carefully monitored.
It is my goal to work with water charities going forward to understand the good and bad of implementing these micro-financing policies which appear to be gaining a stronghold among the board rooms at large water charities worldwide.
11.5 Conclusion
In conclusion, I learned that international development is a messy field. There have been many solutions proposed and to date, those have largely prioritized the voice of the individuals and organizations in the Global North. While water poverty may not be wholly solvable, as
Sirolli (2012) suggested, this is a fixable problem for many people worldwide. Organizations and academicians must continually strive to find better solutions. The only way to find and
367 implement better solutions is to go out do research, learn from people, and focus on sustainable solutions, not “development of market ideals.” Following Sharma (2014), I ask, “Why do we continue to talk merely of community “participation” in development? Why not community- driven development, or community-driven adaptation, where communities don’t just participate in activities meant to benefit them, but actually lead them?” (p. 3). Indeed, this reprioritization on the people in need and focusing on community empowerment is not just Sharma’s dream, it can be implemented. And, this project ends when that happens.
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APPENDIX A
RANK ORDER OF MY METHODOLOGY
Because I have chosen a multiple methods qualitative analysis, it is important to note what is meant by multiple methods. In order to engage with this purpose, I must rank-order my methodology as an explanation for why mixed methods and why qualitative analysis. I think the easiest way to explain the rank-order of my methodology in a coherent fashion is to begin by a discussion of the differences in the various research paradigms. For simplicity, I place the five paradigms provided by Lincoln, Lynham, and Guba (2011) – positivist, post-positivist, critical theorist, constructivist, and participatory – under Amis and Silk’s (2008) headings of foundationalist, quasi-foundationalist, and anti-foundationalist. In turn, I will discuss each paradigms epistemology and ontology. First, I will start with the positivist paradigm wherein I will discuss the ideas of validity, reliability, and generalizability under a fairly straightforward foundationalist understanding of research. Next, I will interrogate the post-positivist understanding of validity, reliability, generalizability from a foundationalist perspective but also inquire into the observation that many post-positivists are comfortable utilizing a quasi- foundationalist perspective in regards to qualitative research. Third, I will evaluate the shift toward the critical theorist point of view and their alignment with quasi-foundationalism. Fourth,
I will turn to the constructivist researcher’s perspective of evaluative criteria and the alignment with anti-foundationalism. Fifth, I will turn to the participatory paradigm evaluating the criteria utilized by those researchers and their viewpoint as anti-foundationalists. I will demonstrate a knowledge and understanding for each of the paradigms before explaining which paradigm fits me and my research. Upon parceling out the differences between the various paradigms and
369 situating myself there-in, I will turn to the tensions between them and how that impacts the idea of utilizing a mixed-methods approach.
First, positivists believe in an objective reality. This objective reality can be understood by a researcher who seeks one universal truth (Lincoln et. al, 2011). For a positivist and a foundationalist, validity, reliability, and generalizability are imperative for the quality of the research to be upheld. Typically, validity is correlated with construct validity which is concerned with how well the construct has been operationalized (Trochim, 2006). Reliability for a positivist has to do with the consistency of scores obtained from the research subjects (Johnson &
Christianson, 2010). A measure could be reliable, but not valid. For example, the researcher could receive consistent scores from the research subjects, but that does not mean that the construct has been operationalized properly (Johnson & Christianson, 2010). The measure must also maintain external validity and be generalizable. That is, the construct must be able to be measured and repeat findings must be consistent across groups and settings (Johnson &
Christianson, 2010). For the positivist, the methodology should be strict rigorous, number driven, empirical testing. Ethics within the positivist paradigm are confirmed by internal research boards and typically concerned with the outcomes of the research (Amis & Silk, 2008). Therefore, there is little utilization for qualitative methods for a positivist (Lincoln et. al, 2011).
A post-positivist is very similar to a positivist, except the post-positivist generally accepts that, while there is one truth and number driven analysis can help the researcher approach the truth, man can never actually obtain the one truth (Lincoln et. al, 2011). Like positivists, post- positivists are concerned with the validity, reliability, and generalizability of their research findings. Akin to positivists, they are interested in ensuring the objectivity of the researcher
(Lincoln et. al, 2011). Where I find that they differ slightly from positivists is their general
370 acceptance of what they understand to be qualitative methods. Assuredly, how they come to utilize qualitative methods is quite different than how a constructivist, for example, would use qualitative methods. However, there is an acknowledgment that qualitative inquiry could be utilized. The way that qualitative methods are utilized is certainly from a foundationalist perspective (Amis & Silk, 2008). For example, a case study should be utilized for hypothesis development in the eyes of a post-positivist (Flyvberg, 2006). Likewise, objectivity should be upheld when conducting the qualitative research that will be used to either substantiate quantitative findings by way of triangulation (Amis & Silk, 2008) or by creating hypotheses for testing empirically/numerically (Flyvberg, 2006). Almost paradoxically, post-positivists will use quasi-foundational terms to substantiate their qualitative findings. This is something I have found is quite often done in sport management when the individual does not understand qualitative methods (or particular paradigmatic groundings) but is attempting to use them.
In a marked shift, critical theorists believe in the subjective-objective co-creation of reality (Lincoln et. al, 2011). Critical theorists typically work within the assumption that we are determined by our class, race, or gender (Lincoln et al, 2011). They are very structurally dependent, tending to believe that we are products of the structure we were born into and this is clear in the work of many political economy scholars (e.g., Marx). Critical theorists do not believe that the researcher should maintain an objective stance or that there is one universal truth.
Yet, they seem to ere on the side of class, culture, economic, or race determinism insofar as the individual’s fate is semi-created for him or her. Utilizing qualitative methods, the critical theorist is typically a quasi-foundationalist (Amis & Silk, 2008). That is, instead of validity, reliability, and generalizability, they are concerned with dependability, credibility, transferability, and confirmability of the research findings. The research should be dependable or trustworthy, it
371 must be credible so as to give an appearance of approaching a truth, it must be transferable to other settings and groups, and it must be confirmable through self-reflexivity or, quite often, triangulation (Amis & Silk, 2008). The quality of the research is determined during the research as opposed to positivists and post-positivists who determine quality through the outcome (Amis
& Silk, 2008).
Lincoln and her colleagues (2011) considered themselves to be constructivists. They believe in the power of interpretation and have a strong adherence to subjectivity. They reject generally the idea of validity, reliability, and generalizability as well as turning away from the quasi-foundationalist stance (Amis & Silk, 2008). For them, the very act of research is about ethics. Constructivists as anti-foundationalists believe that the quality of research is enveloped in the research act itself (Amis & Silk, 2008) and the ethics of research should focus on the moral- sacred episteme (Denzin, 2001). Instead of focusing on control, and confirmability, the constructivist as anti-foundationalist desires a strong adherence creativity, and artistic endeavors that are concerned with the question of research (Kvale, 1995).
Finally, the participatory or postmodern researcher is very similar to the constructivist
(Lincoln et. al, 2011). In fact, when describing the participatory paradigm, Lincoln and her colleagues (2011) use exactly the same quotes for the most part. One thing that is different is the participatory researchers understanding that there is an objective reality in the cosmos that is unobtainable by humans (Lincoln et. al, 2011). But, because the objective reality cannot be completely understood, personal realities are subjective-objectively co-created and the focus of research should be on understanding the multiple realities of the world. Further, as anti- foundationalists, participatory researchers are not concerned with foundationalist or quasi- foundationalist terms regarding the quality of research and are more concerned with the
372 performative, aesthetic, and ethical issues surrounding research (Hamera, 2011). The researchers should be self-reflexive (Madison, 2011) and let his or her politics be known (Giroux, 2001). The point of the researcher and the research activity should be a continual process of attempting to enact change on society.
My Paradigm and Mixing Methods
It is important to understand where the researcher situates himself or herself before embarking on the tangled web of mixed methods. Denzin and Lincoln (2011) were concerned that, much like the incompatibility thesis driven during the mid-1980s and the so-called
‘paradigm wars’, we are once again approaching a battle between research philosophies. For
Denzin and Lincoln, this all has to do with the politics of evidence. For me, while the politics of evidence does have a large bit to do with the issue, I also believe it comes down to the simple fact that researchers of various paradigms are not even having the same conversation. With that said, I should briefly outline my own epistemology and ontology before moving on to a discussion of mixed methods and this projects focus of multiple methods.
I consistently find myself struggling with the idea that I should categorize myself as being one thing or the other. I certainly am not a positivist or post-positivist, and I find myself and my research to be incompatible with those paradigms. I believe that knowledge is subjective and that the researcher cannot - or, at least, should not - attempt to separate from the creation of knowledge and the research participants he or she is working with. At times, I find the critical theorist perspective to be useful, but not definitive. That is, I believe in trying to be a scholar who deals with the messy texts of the individual; who understands the structures that help to create situations that may oppress some while privileging others; and who intertwines the participant with the texts and the structures (Giardina & Newman, 2011). In this regard, I find
373 myself to be concerned with the moral-sacred episteme, the researcher as participant, the participant as co-creator, and that subjective experience of culture, race, class, etc. should be carefully examined and understood. Therefore, instead of attempting to classify myself as critical theorist, constructivist, or participatory, I would like to say that I am an anti-foundationalist who is concerned with the aesthetics, art, performance, and ethics of research as enveloped within the research act itself. With that said, it is now imperative that I try to discuss mixed methods and the incompatibility thesis from my perspective as an aspiring researcher.
The incompatibility thesis as Lincoln and Guba (1985) describe it suggests that they are not compatible. I think about the work of Trochim (2006), who says that the issue is complicated and young scholars should not be concerned with answering that question or the questions of research philosophy, after all “we have our own research to do.” This unfortunate statement really gets to the heart of the problem. For qualitative researchers the research act is intimately tied to philosophy. As one who does not try to separate himself from the researched and the research project and one who attempts to act as a political activist-advocate, the very nature of my research is philosophical (Giroux, 2001).
For a post-positivist, the conversation about mixed-methods is rather straightforward; use whatever “tool” allows you to come closer to the one objective truth. Well, (most) qualitative researchers do not believe in one objective truth, so what is the point of mixed methods research for that individual? The big question that must be asked is why should we use mixed methods research? Almost universally, it is used as a way to substantiate an argument. Quantitative researchers use the tool of qualitative methods to triangulate around or strive towards finding one objective reality. Thus, focus groups are utilized to help create scales (see, e.g., Ross, James, &
Vargas, 2006), interviews are utilized to provide further validity to empirical data driven findings
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(i.e. Walker & Kent, 2009), case studies are utilized to help researchers hypothesize what the truth might be (Flyvberg, 2006), and participant observation is utilized to help create a better understanding of a group of people so that they can be more accurately empirically examined
(see, e.g., Woolf, Heere, & Walker, 2011). What they are really doing is utilizing multiple methods to come to a conclusion about an objective reality. And, in fact, are couching qualitative methods as tools within a post-positivist paradigm.
Mixing methods when looking for one objective reality does not make sense if the researcher truly knows what is at stake here when we discuss utilizing different methodologies.
From a qualitative perspective, many qualitative researchers believe that quantitative research can be utilized to help inform the research (e.g. Creswell, 2007, 2011; Dimitriadis, 2008;
Flyvberg, 2006). However, these arguments usually end up sounding elementary and uninformed when really dissected. Philosophically it makes no sense to mix methods. Creswell (2011), long considered a leading figure in qualitative research, is one of the most baffling examples of this.
His book chapter on the controversies of mixed methods research in Denzin and Lincoln’s
(2011) book, The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research, discusses how qualitative research should be done and how it is more of an activist viewpoint, but then he says that the best tool should be utilized and he is a pragmatist. It is hard for me to reconcile this point of view.
The mixed methods debate, for me, really comes down to the fact that those who do quantitative and those who conduct qualitative research have different priorities in conducting their research. They have a different rank-order of their methodology. As mentioned in the previous subsection, the quantitative researcher would prioritize generalizability, validity, and reliability as the most important aspect of his or her research (Lincoln et al., 2011). This does not mean that the human condition, the participants, or the social change that can occur as a result of
375 the research is unimportant. Rather, this means that the priorities are arranged differently and the focus will be on collecting data that can be found to be generalizable, valid, and reliable.
Conversely, the qualitative scholar might prioritize the human condition or social activism first.
If the research is found to be valid, generalizable, or reliable that is great, but not the purpose of the methodologist. Therefore, the two are really not compatible and those who conduct mixed methods research are not truly mixing methods, because philosophically that is not possible.
Rather, they are utilizing multiple methods that help move them towards the goals of their individual research agenda.
In discussing the incompatibility thesis and the utilization of mixed methods research, I would suggest that mixed methods research is not philosophically possible. However, in looking at my own research, if I were able to assure millions of people that water would remain a public good by providing a research agency with interview transcripts mixed with a structural equation model (SEM) I would not hesitate to do whatever they asked of me. Here, I do not believe I would be abandoning my philosophical imperative of being an ethical political activist, because the activism would take precedence over the philosophical divide. Thus, for me as a qualitative researcher, I prioritize the individuals I seek to help with my research over everything. Some might prioritize methodology, but that is a secondary concern in my rank-order of methodology.
If my research is found to be generalizable, that is great, but that is not the goal of my research.
However, as I do believe that qualitative inquiry best responds to the human experience, I implemented multiple methods aimed at the imperative of social activism.
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APPENDIX B
FSU BEHAVIORAL CONSENT FORM
Water for Sport: The Utilization of Sport in the (Re)Production of Global Crisis You are invited to be in a research study of water charities and the active body. You were selected as a possible participant because you are actively involved with water charity. We ask that you read this form and ask any questions you may have before agreeing to be in the study. This study is being conducted by Kyle Bunds, Department of Sport Management, Florida State University
Background Information: The purpose of this study is to understand each aspect in the raising of funds for water charities from the active sporting body in the Global North, to the businesses offices where decisions are made, to the implementation on the ground in places of need.
Procedures: If you agree to be in this study, we would ask you to do the following things: Participate in an interview lasting no longer than 30 minutes. It will be recorded and transcribed but no indefinable information will be collected. Pseudonyms will be used.
Risks and benefits of being in the Study: The study has no risks. But at any time, you may terminate your participation in the study. The benefits to participation may not be direct, but discussing your involvement in the water charity may benefit those in need of water.
Compensation: You will receive no compensation for participation in this study.
Confidentiality: The records of this study will be kept private and confidential to the extent permitted by law. In any sort of report we might publish, we will not include any information that will make it 377 possible to identify a subject. Research records will be stored securely and only researchers will have access to the records. The principal investigator is the only individual that will have access to the recordings and transcriptions. The recordings will be stored on a password protected personal computer for one year and then destroyed. The transcriptions will be stored on a password protected computer for one year and then erased.
Voluntary Nature of the Study: Participation in this study is voluntary. Your decision whether or not to participate will not affect your current or future relations with the water charity. If you decide to participate, you are free to not answer any question or withdraw at any time without affecting those relationships.
Contacts and Questions: The researcher conducting this study is Kyle Bunds. You may ask any question you have now. If you have a question later, you are encouraged to contact Mr. Bunds [Information Redacted]
If you have any questions or concerns regarding this study and would like to talk to someone other than the researcher(s), you are encouraged to contact the FSU IRB at 2010 Levy Street, Research Building B, Suite 276, Tallahassee, FL 32306-2742, or 850-644-8633, or by email at [email protected]. You will be given a copy of this information to keep for your records.
Statement of Consent: I have read the above information. I have asked questions and have received answers. I consent to participate in the study.
______Signature Date
______Signature of Investigator Date
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APPENDIX C
IRB APPROVAL MEMO
Office of the Vice President for Research
Human Subjects Committee
Tallahassee, Florida 32306-2742
(850) 644-8673 · FAX (850) 644-4392
APPROVAL MEMORANDUM
Date: 1/16/2013
To: Kyle Bunds
Address: [Information Redacted]
Dept.: SPORT MANAGEMENT
From: Thomas L. Jacobson, Chair
Re: Use of Human Subjects in Research
WATER FOR SPORT: THE UTILIZATION OF SPORT IN THE (RE)PRODUCTION OF
GLOBAL CRISIS
The application that you submitted to this office in regard to the use of human subjects in the proposal referenced above have been reviewed by the Secretary, the Chair, and one member of the Human Subjects Committee. Your project is determined to be Expedited per per 45 CFR §
46.110(7) and has been approved by an expedited review process.
379
The Human Subjects Committee has not evaluated your proposal for scientific merit, except to weigh the risk to the human participants and the aspects of the proposal related to potential risk and benefit. This approval does not replace any departmental or other approvals, which may be required.
If you submitted a proposed consent form with your application, the approved stamped consent form is attached to this approval notice. Only the stamped version of the consent form may be used in recruiting research subjects.
If the project has not been completed by 1/14/2014 you must request a renewal of approval for continuation of the project. As a courtesy, a renewal notice will be sent to you prior to your expiration date; however, it is your responsibility as the Principal Investigator to timely request renewal of your approval from the Committee.
You are advised that any change in protocol for this project must be reviewed and approved by the Committee prior to implementation of the proposed change in the protocol. A protocol change/amendment form is required to be submitted for approval by the Committee. In addition, federal regulations require that the Principal Investigator promptly report, in writing any unanticipated problems or adverse events involving risks to research subjects or others.
By copy of this memorandum, the Chair of your department and/or your major professor is reminded that he/she is responsible for being informed concerning research projects involving human subjects in the department, and should review protocols as often as needed to insure that
380 the project is being conducted in compliance with our institution and with DHHS regulations.
This institution has an Assurance on file with the Office for Human Research Protection. The
Assurance Number is FWA00000168/IRB number IRB00000446.
Cc: Michael Giardina, Advisor
HSC No. 2012.9572
381
APPENDIX D
REGISTERING AS A 501(c)(3)
Brief Introduction: London Water Charity must be incorporated in the US before
501(c)(3) status will be granted. London Water Charity need not be incorporated in every state, but you have to register with each state in which you do business. You should only have to file articles of incorporation once (selecting a domicile state and office), since that is the document that establishes the formation of the business and creates the corporate structure (i.e. only have to be born once). BUT, you have to "register" with each state's Department of State as an entity doing business in that state, since the state will be interested in whether the organization should pay taxes in that state. Some of these registrations carry a small fee.
Process:
1. Pick what type of entity you are. I would talk to your lawyer acquaintance to make sure
what you should file as. I think you might be able to just be a Foundation making
charitable contributions to London Water Charity UK, but I am not sure and neither is my
friend. (Here is a helpful article about charities operating in Delaware:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/03/10/charities-find-delaware-good-
company/1973817/).
2. Pick a state to name as domicile. You must have a registered agent inside of the state that
holds a permanent address there. The information provided here will be for Delaware
because it seems to be the most charity friendly according to their laws for registering a
foreign based charity (Main page with all links here: http://corp.delaware.gov/). There are
ways you can get around actually putting a person there. For example, Delaware provides
382
a list of registered agents that you can use (http://corp.delaware.gov/agents/agts.shtml).
Their disclaimer reads: The State of Delaware makes no representations or warrantees
regarding the agents on this list. Registered Agents are not regulated by the State of
Delaware. The legal requirements to be a Registered Agent in Delaware are to maintain a
street address and office located in Delaware and be open during normal business hours
for the purpose of accepting service of process according to 8 DEL.C. § 132.
3. Pick and secure a name. Here is how you do an entity search in the state of Delaware
(https://delecorp.delaware.gov/tin/EntitySearch.jsp)
4. Fill out one page cover sheet as file for incorporation (Delaware found here:
http://corp.delaware.gov/cvrmemo.shtml). The entity forms are PDF fillable and can be
mailed or faxed to their office. A cover sheet with your name or entity name, return
address and phone number is required. Note: “You may also contact our office at 302-
739-3073 with any questions or help needed in order to complete your forms.”
5. Actually filing: The mailing address is Division of Corporations -John G. Townsend
Building - 401 Federal Street - Suite 4 - Dover, DE 19901. All filing fees must be paid
upon submission of your request. All requests are returned regular First Class mail unless
a Federal Express or UPS account number is provided to our office.
6. Some Financial Institutions will require a good standing certificate or a certified copy of
your new entity filing. The fee is $50.00 per certificate for a Short Form Certificate of
Status (states name and status of entity) or $175.00 for a Long Form Certificate of Status
(states status and all documents ever filed on entity). If you are requesting Expedited
Services for your new entity filing then there will be an additional Expedited Fee for your
Status requests.
383
7. All corporations incorporated in the State of Delaware are required to file an Annual
Report and to pay a franchise tax. Exempt domestic corporations do not pay a tax but
must file an Annual Report.
8. File for “registration” in the states you would like to operate in. Here is a checklist of
needs for registration per state (http://www.multistatefiling.org/p_checklist.htm). Also,
you can file a multistate Unified Registration Statement (URS). A PDF attachment of the
URS form will be included in my email. This form includes the instructions for filing as
well as providing all the information detailing what must be filed. 14 states require a
supplementary form which is detailed in the PDF. Those states are: Arkansas, California,
District of Columbia, Georgia, Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi, North Carolina, North
Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Washington, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. Here is the
registration information for each of the states:
(http://www.multistatefiling.org/n_appendix.htm#yes_urs). First, is a list of the
participating states who accept the URS. Next, is a list of states that do not accept the
URS but DO REQUIRE REGISTRATION. Last, is information on annual tax filing for
each state.
9. Once this is sorted out, or at least after you are incorporated in your domicile state, you
can apply to be a 501(c)(3). This is actually most likely the easiest part. Here is the
application process for becoming a registered 501(c)(3): http://www.irs.gov/Charities-&-
Non-Profits/Application-Process
384
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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
Kyle Stephen Bunds was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma and grew up in Owasso, Oklahoma. The son of a sportscaster, Kyle was quickly inundated with sport from a young age. He quickly began playing sports in his room pretending to be a mix of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Larry Bird, and Michael Jordan. Kyle grew up a fan of Oklahoma and Notre Dame football and dreamed of playing for both teams. After playing baseball, basketball, soccer, hockey, and track and field, Kyle focused on football throughout high school. Although he never fulfilled his dreams of playing for Notre Dame or Oklahoma, Kyle did have the opportunity to work with the University of Oklahoma’s football team as a student manager while earning his Bachelors of Arts in History. After completing his undergraduate degree, Kyle decided that he wanted to become an athletic director and stayed in Norman, Oklahoma to obtain his Master’s in Education while working in the Athletic Academics Department. It was there that Kyle first began to realize his love for inquiry with the help of mentors, David Tan, Vicki Williams, and Irene Karpiak. After deciding to enter academia, Kyle was directed to Florida State University where he quickly formed a strong bond with Michael Giardina. Michael helped Kyle realize his true passion for combining his two true loves, people and sport. It was during his second year at Florida State University that Kyle found out what he was truly passionate for – the combination of aid and sport. Looking back upon his work as a child and young man as a volunteer for Special Olympics, United Way, Catholic Charities, and Owasso Topps Soccer, among others, Kyle began working on understanding how sport and aid fit together in the form of social marketing through sport. Specializing in sport, culture, and politics with a particular knowledge in political economy, Kyle realized his strong desire to help assure people in need of water always have their voices heard that would become the impetus for this dissertation. In addition to his focus in social marketing through sport, Kyle is interested in sport and the media, sport communication, sport and politics, and qualitative inquiry. Kyle is a member of the North American Society for the Sociology of Sport, International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry, North American Society for Sport Management, and International Sport for Development and Peace Association. Beginning in August, 2014 Kyle will be an Assistant
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Professor in the Department of Sport, Recreation, and Tourism Management at North Carolina State University.
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