Charities from Below?: The cases of the emergence, evolution and resourcing strategies of Philanthropic Actions in the Creative and Cultural Industries in Jamaica

Abstract
The thesis addresses the lack of research and understanding of indigenous philanthropic practices emerging in the Global South. It challenges mainstream assumptions of a hierarchical philanthropic relationship between (a) corporate foundations and high net worth individuals and (b) their beneficiaries. It deploys a novel combination of Resource Based Theory, through the social bricolage framework, and perspectives on the Social and Solidarity Economy as a lens to analyse the emergence, evolution, and resourcing strategies of philanthropic activities within the Creative and Cultural Industries in Jamaica. The emergence and evolution of these activities were found to be a nuanced response to a mixture of internal personal, familial and organisational factors, and changes in the local and international landscape. They were a series of networked, reciprocal interactions that transcended sector and national boundaries, similar to the little-studied ‘grassroots philanthropy’. The research examined 27 cases of philanthropic organisations, charitable individuals and one event. The findings have implications for the sustainability of philanthropic activities in a resource-constrained, developing country setting. It also challenges the Patrician approach to addressing social problems in the global South and argues that those problems can be tackled by a creative and nuanced use of resources. The thesis introduces the concept of the Cultural Solidarity Economy to fill the conceptual void in our understanding of indigenous philanthropic practices in the global South; this has elements that can ‘re-embed’ the human element into market relationships. The thesis does this by analysing the role of culture in development and viewing the relationship between the giver and receiver as part of a broader eco-system. The concept of Cultural Solidarity Economy is applicable in resource-constrained contexts where there is a close relationship between the state, market and third sector in achieving social development outcomes, and where there is informality within the third sector.