Change a Life, Change Your Own

Child Sponsorship, the Discourse of Development, and the Production of Ethical Subjects

Peter Ove argues in Change a Life, Change Your Own, child sponsorship is successful not because it addresses the needs of poor children, but because it helps position what it means to live ethically in an unequal and unjust world. In this way, child sponsorship is seen as more than an effective marketing tool; it is a powerful mechanism for spreading particular ideas about the global South, the global North and the relationship between the two. Through sponsorship, the desire to raise money, secure “appropriate” childhoods, and become better people ends up taking priority over the goal of living together well on a global scale.

Drawing on in-depth interviews with child sponsors and sponsorship staff, Change a Life, Change Your Own explores the contexts in which sponsorship promotional material is produced, interpreted and acted upon. This is not an exposé on the use of sponsorship dollars or high administrative costs; it is a clearly written and compelling account of how the problem of development is constructed such that child sponsorship is seen to be a rational and ethical solution.

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