Philanthropy for queer rights: Western funding into the Global South through a decolonial lens

In the last few decades institutional philanthropy for queer rights has been on the rise, especially Western grantmaking in the Global South. While this can be a positive development, Western philanthropic foundations have been guilty of subconsciously perpetuating colonial power dynamics due to the manner in which coloniality, queerness and philanthrocapitalism are represented in their missions and methods. This thesis therefore conducted a case study on the Arcus Foundation, a U.S. based philanthropic foundation that frequently donates to the Global South. Using critical discourse analysis, 56 blog posts and 9 annual reports were analyzed with decolonial theory as the overarching framework. Findings showed that coloniality is presented in the discourse through concepts such as Western knowledge, Western exceptionalism and Othering. Decolonial theory revealed that queerness in Arcus’ discourse is characterized by religion, hetero/homonormativity and homonationalism. Finally, the analysis on philanthrocapitalism exposed White saviorism as a pitfall for Western philanthropic foundations and the debate on using neoliberal methods in philanthropic giving.