Humanitarianism (re)dressed in the fashion dispositive: between appropriation and marketization

Abstract

The twentieth century consolidates changes in the political-economic-social world which reveal an atmosphere taken by neoliberal rationality, where the market dictates the rules. One of the characteristics of this context is the commercialization of diverse instances of life, including human rights. With increased attention to hu­manitarian crises, humanitarianism becomes one of the strengthened variables in the dispositives – social factors that make power diagrams operate in the production of subjectivity. Fashion, the field of this investigation, is considered one of the dispos­itives that outlines the ways of being, thinking and acting of this time, in a specially strengthened way. The general objective of this article is to discuss the capture and use of humanitarian issues by the fashion dispositive. Qualitative in nature, the study is developed through theoretical review, documentary observation with bibliograph­ic and iconographic revision, based on the critical analysis of the discourse. The artic­ulations indicate that humanitarianism is a relevant resource of the fashion disposi­tive in the neoliberal context, which, in times of revision of values, uses humanitarian appeals as a tactic for its own maintenance.