Advocacy, Inc. - by Stephanie A Limoncelli (Paperback)

About the Book

"The contemporary movement to fight "modern slavery" has increasingly turned its attention to issues of forced labor, child labor and labor trafficking in a wide variety of industries and supply chains. At the same time, businesses have become more involved with the movement and their leadership has been touted as a better alternative to the assumed inferiority of civil society responses. How has business influence been playing out in the "anti-slavery" movement and what are the implications for international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) fighting these forms of labor exploitation? Based on interviews, online texts, documents, and media content from a variety of INGOs and other organizations in Europe and the United States fighting these problems, Advocacy, Inc. provides a cautionary case study. "Anti-slavery" advocacy has become a new market in which INGOs are pressed to become increasingly like for-profit businesses and the strategies they pursue do not adequately address the driving forces that have created conditions for continued labor exploitation in the global economy. Moreover, some businesses benefit from this scenario, having to do very little to claim 'hero' status in advocacy efforts, while practices that perpetuate labor exploitation continue unabated"--

Book Synopsis

The contemporary movement to fight "modern slavery" has increasingly turned its attention to issues of forced labor, child labor and labor trafficking in a wide variety of industries and supply chains. At the same time, businesses have become more involved with the movement and their leadership has been touted as a better alternative to the assumed inferiority of civil society responses. How has business influence been playing out in the "anti-slavery" movement and what are the implications for international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) fighting these forms of labor exploitation? Based on interviews, online texts, documents, and media content from a variety of INGOs and other organizations in Europe and the United States fighting these problems, Advocacy, Inc. provides a cautionary case study. "Anti-slavery" advocacy has become a new market in which INGOs are pressed to become increasingly like for-profit businesses and the strategies they pursue do not adequately address the driving forces that have created conditions for continued labor exploitation in the global economy. Moreover, some businesses benefit from this scenario, having to do very little to claim 'hero' status in advocacy efforts, while practices that perpetuate labor exploitation continue unabated.

Review Quotes

"Advocacy, Inc. is an important piece of scholarship that raises essential questions about power, co-optation, and the limits of market-friendly reform. Limoncelli's storytelling and use of testimonials are powerful, and her critique of business-centric advocacy and techno-solutionism is sharp and often illuminating." --Xanthe Scharff, Stanford Social Innovation Review

"An excellent book on the shifting boundaries between INGOs and business influence! Limoncelli illustrates masterfully the hollowing-out of INGOs through business-driven restructuring and mission drift. Advocacy, Inc. is a cautionary tale and call to arms for scholars and advocates alike." --Edward Walker, University of California, Los Angeles

"An excellent piece of scholarship. Limoncelli offers an importantly critical take on those who advocate for more business engagement in anti-trafficking efforts." --Samantha Majic, The City University of New York

"The book makes an important and timely contribution to the critical 'modern slavery' literature by demonstrating that the corporatisation of anti-slavery advocacy is neither accidental nor benign. The empirical richness of the book convinces us that anti-slavery INGOs' association with corporate logics reinforces the very systems they supposedly aim to dismantle." --Ayushman Bhagat, Anti-Trafficking Review

About the Author

Stephanie A. Limoncelli is Professor of Sociology at Loyola Marymount University. She is the author of The Politics of Trafficking (Stanford, 2010).