From Street into the World: Towards a Politicised Reading of Celebrity Humanitarianism

Abstract

Since John Street's article on celebrity politics in 2004, the integral role of celebrities in contemporary humanitarian politics has been increasingly acknowledged in the study of international relations. However, as argued in this article, this research has been limited to analysing appearances rather than examining the aesthetics of celebrity representations and their ‘thought worlds’ that contribute also to the structures, relations and processes of world politics. This article addresses this dearth of critical attention and proposes an approach to engage with celebrity humanitarian imaginaries politically by turning to critical humanitarianism and cultural and post-colonial studies. It concludes that by failing to acknowledge the historicity, conditions and effects of celebrity humanitarian intelligibilities and imaginaries in a globalised world, research in this area is in danger of missing the very location of politics. What is called for is future research that broadens the understanding of this activity in world politics without closing the question of the political.