NGO campaigns and banks: constituting risk and uncertainty

Rebecca Lawrence

    Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterpeer-review

    8 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    This chapter analyses the private financial sector's policy responses, lending practices and various forms of engagement with non-governmental organisations (NGOs), communities and institutional clients involved in controversial commodity industries. The chapter demonstrates that secrecy plays a constitutive role in this engagement. For investment banks, client-confidentiality is the ultimate limit to transparency. At the same time, NGOs campaign to make public and reveal links between investment banks and clients in commodity industries. The chapter also explores techniques within the financial sector for the assessment of social and environmental risk. The chapter argues that these techniques combine both practices of uncertainty and practices of risk. For civil society organisations, NGOs and local communities, these techniques remain problematic, and various campaigns question both the robustness of the financial sector's social risk screening methods as well as the sustainability of the investments themselves.

    Original languageEnglish
    Title of host publicationHidden hands in the market
    Subtitle of host publicationethnographies of fair trade, ethical consumption, and corporate social responsibility
    EditorsGeert De Neve, Luetchford Peter, Jeffrey Pratt, Donald C. Wood
    Place of PublicationBradford
    PublisherEmerald Insight
    Pages241-269
    Number of pages29
    Volume28
    ISBN (Electronic)9781848550599 , 1848550596
    ISBN (Print)9781848550582
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2008

    Publication series

    NameResearch in Economic Anthropology
    Volume28
    ISSN (Print)01901281

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