Kevin Donovan (Edinburgh): The CEO’s Two Bodies: Corporate Personhood and the Corporate Persona in Kenya
| Dates: | 3 February 2025 |
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| Times: | 15:00 - 17:00 |
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| What is it: | Seminar |
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| Organiser: | School of Social Sciences |
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| Who is it for: | University staff, External researchers, Current University students |
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| Speaker: | Kevin Donovan |
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In July 2019, the CEO of Kenya’s largest company, Safaricom, died. This talk uses the funeral of Robert Collymore as a jumping off point to consider the curious personalisation of the abstraction called a corporation. In his near-decade at the helm, Collymore transformed Safaricom into a behemoth; he also emerged as a charismatic leader with a friendly, responsible public image. “Bob,” as many Kenyans called him, was a familiar, even beloved, figure but also the subject of vituperative resentments. This talk argues that the personalisation of Safaricom in the form of an individual provided a series of valuable affordances for the company but also provoked conflicts and limits. One of the most poignant was mortality, but a reflection on the mass-mediated intimacy surrounding Bob reveals other contradictions, too, including the peculiar forms of racial capitalism, nationalism, and dependency in Kenya.
Speaker
Kevin Donovan
Organisation: University of Edinburgh
Travel and Contact Information
Find event
Room 5.205
University Place
Manchester
