Gifted: the monolingualism of corporate social responsibility

• Autor(a) principal: Moriceau, Jean-Luc
• Data de Publicação: 2012
• Outros Autores: Guerillot, Geraldine
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Revista de Administração de Empresas
• Texto Completo: https://periodicos.fgv.br/rae/article/view/30568
• topic: Corporate social responsibility; digital solidarity; monolingualism; donation; ethnography of CSR; Responsabilidad social corporativa; solidaridad digital; monolingüismo; donación; etnografía de la RSC; Responsabilidade social corporativa; solidariedade digital; monolinguismo; doação; etnografia da RSE

Acts of Corporate Social Responsibility are more often than not portrayed as success-story narratives. A quasi-ethnographic study in Senegal shatters the underlying assumptions of these accounts. First a computer donation from a Northern country is described with all the usual incidents and related vocabulary. Later, during a visit to a Senegalese rubbish dump, the story starts to falter, as countless questions arise about what is actually going on there, and how we can know and represent it (both as a portrayal and as a voice). A tipping point in an interview serves to reveal the ambiguities of the position adopted and the difficulties of expressing oneself in a different language. The CSR language is described as a kind of monolingualism, which employs a particular vocabulary and grammar for what is said or thought. This is the monolingualism of the other. Some of the implications of this monolingualism are examined, and this leads to the conclusion that there is a need to take measures with regard to the CSR language and that more than one language is needed to speak about CSR.