CSR AND NORTH-SOUTH RELATIONS: A NEO-COLONIAL NARRATIVE?

Abstract

In North-South relations, CSR forms a narrative that imposes a framing from which it is difficult to escape. Certain concepts of post- and decolonial criticism, by interrogating the background, language, legitimate speakers, and the crowding out of other narratives, led us to ask whether CSR should not then be seen as a neo-colonial narrative. This criticism led us to re-analyze an award-winning case of CSR by a French multinational for Senegal. What the investigation highlighted, in the light of concepts from post- and decolonial criticism, is that, paradoxically, the CSR narrative precludes a certain form of social and environmental responsibility. The article calls for the deconstruction, creolization, and decolonization of CSR in order to make room for other, plural narratives, carried by other voices, in order to rethink an idea of responsibility in North-South relations.