Muhammad Yunus. A Bangladeshi Aid Celebrity

This chapter analyzes Muhammad Yunus, Peace Nobel Price Winner and Founder of the Grameen Bank, as an aid celebrity whose work with the Grameen Bank cannot be separated from his persona. I argue that the context of Yunus’ native Bangladesh is crucial to his work, giving him a personal geographical location and political platform for his microcredit revolution. Remaining firmly rooted in the developmental shadow state of Bangladesh and its poor female clients, while at the same time lobbying at the highest international levels as a tireless advocate for the poor allows Yunus to constitute himself as an authentic aid celebrity from the Global South. His recent firing from the Grameen Bank after he attempted to participate in formal Bangladeshi politics also shows the extent to which development work is entwined with situated formal political processes that can help or hinder developmental projects.

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