Online Philanthropy in the Global North and South: Connecting, Microfinancing, and Gaming for Change offers a critical examination how online philanthropy operates through digital connectivity, affective networks of well-meaning digital givers, and the commodification of poverty through what is conceptualized as the “digital subaltern.” Chapters examine a range of online philanthropy settings such as online microfinance platforms and games for change, with case studies revealing unseen problems in how digital inclusion and financialization are attempted through the joint forces of NGOization and ITization.

Applying lessons from the success of community banks, Kirk S. Bowman and Jon R. Wilcox develop and implement a new model that significantly raises philanthropic efficacy. Their straightforward and rigorously tested approach calls for community members to take the lead while outside partners play a supporting role.

This book offers an interdisciplinary analysis of current formations of publics that is informed by in-depth knowledge of affect and emotion theory. Using empirical case studies from contexts as diverse as India, Pakistan, Tanzania, and the Americas as well as Europe, the book challenges dichotomous distinctions between private and public. Instead, publics are understood as a relational structure that encompasses both people and their physical and mediatized environment. While each kind of public is affectively constituted, the intensity of its affective attunement varies considerably. The volume is aimed at academic readers interested in understanding the dynamic and fluid forms of contemporary formation of publics—be it digital or face-to-face encounters as well as in the intersection of both forms. This includes researchers from media and communication studies, social anthropology, theatre or literary studies. It is aimed at advanced students of these disciplines who are interested in the unfolding of contemporary publics.

When we work or play through digital technologies – we also live in them. Communities form, conversations and social movements emerge spontaneously and through careful offline planning. While we have used disembodied communication and transportation technologies in the past – and still do – we have never before actually synchronously inhabited these communicative spaces, routes and networks in quite the way we do now. Digital Diasporas engages conversations across a selection of contemporary (gendered) Indian identified networks online: “Desis” creating place through labour and affective network formation in secondlife, Indian (diasporic) women engaged in digital domesticity, to Indian digital feminists engaged in debate and dialogue through Twitter. Through particular conversations and ethnographic journeys and linking back to personal and South Asian histories of Internet mediation, Gajjala and her co-authors reveal how affect and gendered digital labour combine in the formation of global socio-economic environment.

Philanthropy’s role in advancing sustainable development attracts a lot of attention. This report calls into question long-held assumptions about the volume, nature and potential of foundations’ engagement in developing countries, and the role they can play to support the SDGs. It presents ground-breaking data and analysis that capture previously non-existent global and comparable quantitative and qualitative data on how foundations support development. The report examines philanthropic resource flows for development purposes, as well as foundations’ priorities, practices and partnering behaviours. It presents fresh perspectives and action-oriented recommendations to optimise philanthropy’s role in support of sustainable development. This report offers practical insights for government policy makers and decision makers in civil society organisations, social enterprises and foundations. It results from close co-operation between the OECD Development Centre’s Network of Foundations Working for Development (netFWD) and the OECD Development Co-operation Directorate.

This volume examines Western India’s contributions to the spread of ideas, beliefs and other intangible ties across the Indian Ocean world. The region, particularly Gujarat and Bombay, is well-established in the Indian imaginary and in scholarship as a mercantile hub. These essays move beyond this identity to examine the region as a dynamic place of learning and a host of knowledge, tracing the flow of knowledge, aesthetic sensibilities, values, memories and genetic programs. Contributors traverse the fields of history, anthropology, agriculture, botany, medicine, sociology and more to offer path-breaking perspectives on Western India’s deep socio-cultural impact across the centuries. Western India emerges as a pivotal region in the maritime world as a transmitter of knowledge.

Challenging commonly held perceptions of philanthropic organisations, this book brings together a range of interdisciplinary contributors from across the globe to explore the most pressing issues facing those working in and with philanthropy and education. It focuses on the increasing influence of new philanthropic actors on the global education sector, offering a thorough insight into the topic.