Representations of global poverty : aid, development and international NGOs

Through the efforts of increasingly media-aware NGOs, people in rich nations are bombarded with images of poverty and suffering. Representations of Global Poverty is the first comprehensive study of the communications and imagery used by international NGOs to represent the global South. In this meticulously researched and original book, Nandita Dogra examines a full cycle of representation – integrating analyses of an annual cycle of fundraising and advocacy messages of international development NGOs in the UK with the views of their staff and audiences. Exploring NGO messages across the discourses of charity, justice, humanism, cosmopolitanism, colonialism and Eurocentrism, she argues for a greater acknowledgement of NGOs as significant mediating institutions which can expand understandings of global inequalities. The book is a timely addition to the growing fields of development, media and postcolonial studies and will be a key resource for academics, policymakers and practitioners alike who have an interest in global poverty, aid, NGOs, and the politics of representation.