Can Postcolonialism and Neoliberalism reveal all? Understanding Celebrity Humanitarianism through a Case Study on Rihanna and Fenty Beauty Nina Huovinen Communica>on for Development One-year master 15 Credits Fall 2020 Supervisor: Tobias Denskus To my biggest fans - my grandparents. Kiitos for the endless support. Abstract Celebrity humanitarianism has become a notable field of research within Communication for Development. Largely built around case studies of individual celebrities engaging in the development and humanitarian fields, mostly postcolonial and neoliberal critique has been put forth regarding the effects of such engagements. These critiques at times go to the extent of suggesting that celebrity humanitarians might be doing more harm than good by for example shifting the focus away from underlying structures. As the field of study often provides more critique than constructive suggestions, this study is built as a deductive case study aiming to test the extent to which current prominent theoretical frameworks are able to understand celebrity humanitarianism when a celebrity humanitarian is studied as a more comprehensive construct. The focus of the case study is the Barbadian singer Rihanna and her cosmetics brand Fenty Beauty. The dominant theories are challenged with including a business aspect of the celebrity’s ‘ecosystem’ and by examining such aspect through a Corporate Social Responsibility lens. Key words: Celebrity humanitarianism, theory testing, case study, Rihanna, Fenty Beauty, Corporate Social Responsibility Table of Contents 1. Introduction 1 1.1 Relevance of the Study 2 1.2 Aim and Research Questions 3 1.3 Outline of the thesis 5 2. Background 7 3. Literature Review 9 3.1 Celebrity Humanitarianism 10 3.1.1 ‘Distant others’, Power, and Postcolonialism 11 3.1.2 Privatization of Development, Agency of Aid Recipients, and Neoliberal Critique 13 3.2 Communication for Development and Corporate Social Responsibility 15 4. Methodology 19 4.1 Case study 19 4.1.1 Textual and Discourse Analysis 20 4.1.2 Qualitative Document Analysis 21 4.2 Data Collection 21 4.3 Validity, reliability, and generalizability 23 4.4 Limitations and delimitations 24 5. Results 25 5.1 Rihanna the Celebrity Humanitarian 25 5.1.1 Award Acceptance Speeches 25 5.1.2 Interviews 26 5.1.3 Impact Videos 26 5.2 CSR in the Fenty Empire 27 5.2.1 Supply Chain Transparency and Global Impact at Fenty Beauty 27 5.2.2 Social Responsibility Reports by LVMH 27 6. Analysis 28 6.1 Rihanna the Celebrity Humanitarian Unveiled 28 6.1.1 Understanding the discourse of Rihanna the Philanthropist 31 6.2 Corporate Social Responsibility at Fenty Beauty 32 6.3 The Clash of Philanthropy and Business? 33 7. Conclusion 36 Bibliography 39 1. Introduction Over the course of my Masters studies in Communication for Development, I have developed a keen interest in celebrity humanitarianism and philanthropy, most recently during the spring of 2020. In particular, I found that the vast majority of research portrayed celebrity philanthropy in an overwhelmingly negative light (i.e. Brockington 2014 a & b, 2016, Kapoor 2013). Despite the varying levels of wealth and power often held by celebrities, very few scholars acknowledged any positive effects or potential in celebrity philanthropy. Therefore, my original motivation can be seen as looking to explore the positive impact celebrity philanthropy can have towards humanitarian activities, and ultimately arguing for a more holistic approach to celebrities. Therefore, this study is built as a deductive case study aiming to test the extent to which current prominent theoretical frameworks are able to understand celebrity humanitarianism when a celebrity philanthropist is analyzed as a more comprehensive construct, in this case including their social and economic impact. Perhaps partially influenced by my exchange studies in Barbados in 2016, I instinctively thought of Rihanna as a prime example of a celebrity who could provide for a more complex case study for this research. Robyn Rihanna Fenty, globally known as Rihanna, was born on the Caribbean island of Barbados on 20 February 1988. She is a world renowned, award-winning singer and Hollywood actress. In addition to her career as a singer and an actress, Rihanna is also a businesswoman and a founder of two charitable foundations. In 2019 she claimed the status of world’s richest female musician, above the likes of Madonna, Céline Dion and Beyoncé (Robehmed 2019, Pagano & Kim 2019). Using her wealth and international fame, Rihanna has also extended her influence into the fields of development and humanitarianism through building partnerships with multiple causes and organizations (i.e. UNICEF, Global Citizen), as well as starting her own non- profit foundations. Additionally, her business brands, carrying different variations of her last name ‘Fenty’, have been widely praised for their inclusiveness and diversity (i.e. Rueckert 2017, Meeda 2020, TFL 2019, BBC 2018, Ritschel 2020). An important note on what sets her apart from most so-called A-list celebrities and global superstars, and what supports this thesis’ case selection, is her distinctive background. While other stars that are the focus of ComDev and celebrity humanitarian studies may have had challenging backgrounds (in their respective frameworks), most of them still originate from what is often referred to as the Global North, whereas Rihanna was born and raised in Barbados, which is generally considered to be part of the Global South (World Population Review 1 2020). While further remarks on Global North-South relations are reserved for later sections of this thesis, the above mentioned factors are presented here in order to demonstrate the rationale behind building this case study around not only Rihanna as a celebrity but around the wider Fenty ‘ecosystem’ that is linked to her. Given these factors and careful considerations, I believe that Rihanna provides an ideal subject for a study on celebrity humanitarianism and philanthropy, and that this study will provide unique insight into an increasingly researched topic in the world of Communication for Development. 1.1 Relevance of the Study One of the central questions in the field of ComDev is whether someone or something is actually ‘doing good’ or rather just ‘looking good’ (i.e. Wilkins and Enghel 2013, Jones B. 2017, Enghel and Noske-Turner 2018). This central question and its answers frequently lead scholarly discussions towards an overwhelmingly critical perception of celebrity humanitarians, and often initiate a ‘hunt’ for their mistakes. This phenomenon especially appears to be most prominent when it comes to celebrities and their endeavours in ‘doing good’. Studies supporting a positive view on celebrity humanitarianism have long been overshadowed by the immense volume of highly critical accounts (i.e. Littler 2008, Kapoor 2013, Brockington 2014a). This criticism of celebrity humanitarianism has shown to display postcolonial, post-democratic and neoliberal biases, as the common portrayal of a celebrity philanthropist in the current body of literature is a wealthy, American, white superstar who has been lifted in their position of power through discriminatory structures (i.e. Clarke 2009, Sèbe 2009, Mubanda Rasmussen 2016, Biccum 2007, Chouliaraki 2013, Brockington 2014a, Cosima Budabin 2016, Budabin 2020). Additionally, current research on celebrity humanitarianism is often conducted as either ethnographic case studies or discourse analyses, focusing on a single celebrity at a time and limiting the scope to aspects such as their political effects on a particular cause or location (i.e. Mubanda Rasmussen 2016, Mostafanezhad 2016, Cosima Budabin 2016). Some scholars have extended their focus to address business aspects of celebrity humanitarianism and included analyses of consumerism (Daley 2013) or Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) (Richey and Ponte 2011), while others have investigated the dissemination of private-sector logic and rationalities through humanitarianism in the form of ‘philanthro-capitalism’ (Burns 2019) as well as the ‘financialization’ of development aid (Järvelä and Solitander 2019). While different approaches and foci have been applied to 2 both; studies of celebrities and the interlinkages of development, humanitarianism and business have only been explored to a limited extent. My interpretation of this particular field of study is that discussions regarding world- renowned superstars that do not come from white, privileged America or Europe are heavily underrepresented. Similarly, more diverse, nuanced stories that extend beyond narratives of ‘white savior’ virtue signalling are rarely represented. On the other hand, studies that explore a celebrity as a broader ecosystem, rather than only as a one- dimensional agent, are also frequently underrepresented. Lisa Richey and Stefano Ponte’s (2011) work on Brand Aid and Product RED provides an enlightening in-depth case study and opens the door for ‘hard commerce’ and CSR within development studies. However, while RED was established by a celebrity humanitarian, Bono (Richey and Ponte 2011, p. 1), and provides for an extremely interesting case in the effective humanitarian action, it is still a business-model solely focused on the aid sector and therefore does not fill the gap in analyzing and understanding the ecosystems of individual celebrity humanitarians more holistically. 1.2 Aim and Research Questions Departing from the gap in ComDev literature that was discussed above