The market for social harms: A case study of Genevan philanthropy
| Published date | 01 September 2022 |
| Author | Sophie Serrano |
| Date | 01 September 2022 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/hojo.12477 |
Received: 11 April 2020 Accepted: 24 November 2021
DOI: 10.1111/ho jo.12477
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
The market for social harms: A case study of
Genevan philanthropy
Sophie Serrano
PhD Candidate, Doc.CH, Centre Romand
de Recherche en Criminologie, University
of Neuchâtel, Switzerland
Correspondence
Sophie Serrano, PhD Candidate, Doc.CH,
Centre Romand de Recherche en
Criminologie, University of Neuchâtel,
Switzerland.
Email: sophie.serrano@unine.ch
[Correction added on 3 June 2022,
after first online publication:
acknowledgement section added.]
Abstract
This article explores a remaining black box in the crim-
inological literature on public problems: the prioritisa-
tion of the problem in the public arena. The research
uses the case study of Genevan philanthropy to address
the prioritisation of harms by moral entrepreneurs.
Employing a qualitative methodology, it describes the
prioritisation process by using the ‘market for social
harms’ metaphor. It argues that philanthropists select
their harms according to a risk/benefit assessment,
which stems from the business world. This valuation
of harms is collective and dependent on the competi-
tion and co-operation between philanthropists. Finally,
by detailing this metaphor, the study provides the keyto
obtaining a more general understanding of the prioriti-
sation process.
KEYWORDS
market, moral entrepreneur, philanthropy, social harms
1 INTRODUCTION
In his seminal work, Outsiders, Becker (1963) conceptualised the moral entrepreneur as a social
actor who has the potential to take charge of – or entreprendre – social situations. Becker added
the notion of ‘morality’ to the entrepreneur, which implies that action taken emanates from an
often altruistic impulse that is aimed at improving society by imposing a value the entrepreneur
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits
use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or
adaptations are made.
© 2022 The Authors. The HowardJournal of Crime and Justice published by Howard League and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Howard J. Crim. Justice. 2022;61:347–366. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/hojo 347
348 THE HOWARDJOURNAL OF CRIME AND JUSTICE
considers to be beneficial to all its constituents. In line with Becker’s work, criminology schol-
ars have examined the construction, promotion and instrumentalisation of problems by moral
entrepreneurs. From mugging (Hall et al., 1978) to public health issues (Bell, 2014), this vast body
of literature explains how certain social situations are turned into public problems, promoted as
such and dealt with publicly.1
In parallel, the social harms perspective in criminology – or zemiology – involves the study of
social situations that cause harm to a given population through a systemic point of view (Hillyard
et al., 2004). Zemiologists emphasise that most of the harms they study are not publicly consid-
ered a public priority. They understand that harmful social situations often remain outside the
mainstream public arena primarily due to state-corporation discrimination.
Both strands of literature inform us that problems are constructed and must be promoted if
they are to exist publicly; they will not appear naturally.More importantly, both shed light on the
existence of an order in priority among public problems. However,there remains a lack of work on
how this ‘priority order’ arises; it seems to be locked in what could be described as an analytical
black box, within which the internal complexities of problem selection and hierarchisation are
obscured from scrutiny.
The aim of this article is to provide a first attempt at opening this black box. It does so through
an empirical study of the action taken by one particular type of moral entrepreneur: the philan-
thropist. Philanthropists are moral entrepreneurs in that they claim to seek an improvement to
society by supporting various responses to social problems, often following what they consider to
be their own values. By selecting unrecognised social harms or established public problems, they
participate, as this article posits, in a process of prioritising social harms. Unfortunately, the lit-
erature on philanthropy seldom addresses the ways philanthropists select the harms with which
they deal (Krause, 2014). Conversely, these studies often take for granted the so-called preference
of a philanthropist for specific causes (Reich, 2018).
To understand the mechanisms behind philanthropists’ prioritisation of harms, this article
studies the case of Geneva, Switzerland. The birthplace of the Red Cross still remains very
active in a charitable sense, as can be seen by the high density of philanthropic foundations and
the recent opening of a centre for philanthropy at the University of Geneva. Through a qualitative
methodology (i.e., observations, interviews and documentary analyses), this investigationengages
with various actors, including philanthropists, consultants and beneficiaries, to combine differ-
ent understandings of the prioritisation processes. Drawing on a substantial and original corpus
of data, I show that the prioritisation of harms results from a dynamic and collective process. To
explain this process, I use the metaphor of the ‘market for social harms’. This market is a place
within which philanthropists prioritise public problems according to a risk/benefit assessment,
which stems from the financial world. This market, createdby and for philanthropists, is useful for
accumulating symbolic, social and economic capital. It is shaped by multiple social interactions,
such as concurrence and co-operation.
The article is structured as follows. The first part situates the study in the criminological liter-
ature on social problems and the philanthropy literature. The research field – Geneva – is then
briefly presented followed by the research strategy used to investigate this ‘prioritisation black
box’. The following section then outlines the main results emanating from the data analysis and
uses the ‘market for social harms’ metaphor to describe the prioritisation process.The f inal section
highlights the contribution of such a metaphor to both literature on problemsand on philanthropy
before opening questions regarding the legitimation vocation of such a market-like process.
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