ABSTRACT

Since 2010, social impact bonds (SIBs) have invited investors to ‘do well by doing good’: injecting capital into social welfare projects, and gaining returns based on successful attainment of impacts. A foregrounded interest in behavioral change typifies much of this market (with SIBs aiming to reduce recidivism, truancy, and addiction, for example). Commentators have situated these behavioral concerns within debates on nudging, ‘caring capitalism’, and the financialization of social welfare. Lesser attention has been paid to how SIB promotional materials transpose behavioral interests into narrative and representational terms. Given their role in fabricating consent for social impact investing, this article questions how promoters narrate SIBs’ construction of behavioral changes as objects of investment, both drawing from and reshaping conventions for representing character in the process. Analyzing three examples, I argue that behavior-focused SIB promotional videos depict societal improvement as ‘improved character’ at scale. By depicting beneficiaries as better able to morally direct their lives, they represent SIBs as path-changing devices, threading more fulfilling life paths through society. They encourage derivative character investments in bundles of bettered behavior, narratively linked to changed life paths at scale.

摘要

自 2010 年以来，社会影响债券（SIBs）邀请投资者“做好事做好”：向社会福利项目注入资金，并在成功实现影响的基础上获得回报。对行为改变的前景兴趣是这个市场的典型代表（例如，SIB 旨在减少累犯、逃学和成瘾）。评论员将这些行为问题置于关于轻推、“关怀资本主义”和社会福利金融化的辩论中。较少关注 SIB 宣传材料如何将行为兴趣转化为叙述性和代表性的术语。鉴于他们在为社会影响力投资制造同意方面的作用，本文质疑发起人如何将 SIB 将行为改变构建为投资对象，过程中的性格。分析三个例子，我认为以行为为中心的 SIB 宣传视频将社会改善描述为大规模的“改善的性格”。通过将受益人描述为能够更好地在道德上指导他们的生活，他们将 SIB 视为改变道路的装置，在社会中开辟更充实的生活道路。他们鼓励衍生角色投资于一系列更好的行为，在叙事上与大规模改变的生活道路相关联。