Intimate technologies for affective development: how crowdfunding platforms commodify interpersonal connections

Abstract

Recently emerged as transformative fundraising tools for development causes, crowdfunding platforms leverage the ‘feelingful ties’ that connect individuals in pursuit of non-governmental organisation (NGO) fundraising. Focussing on research conducted in 2018 with Indian platform LetzChange, this article frames crowdfunding platforms as ‘intimate technologies for development’, exploring how they leverage different forms of social and digital capital from their NGO partners to shape power relations within the development sector. By examining how crowdfunding platforms train local NGO staff to market their projects in digitally affective ways on social media, I demonstrate the influence of modern technological tools that recreate affective social bonds and social capital in digital spaces for the purpose of mobilising donors. I show how NGO staff must navigate the complicated landscape of social, digital and financial inequalities created within the crowdfunding process. Through analysis of specific digital fundraising practices, I reveal how LetzChange compels its NGO partners to invest emotional labour into crowdfunding campaigns, inevitably creating apprehension from staff around the depletion of social capital. I argue that affective digital practices like crowdfunding fall short of their inclusive aims and reinforce existing top-down power relations in the development sector by financially instrumentalising the interpersonal connections of NGO staff.