By examining Renée-Marguerite Frick-Cramer’s and Marguerite van Berchem’s work in the tracing age... more By examining Renée-Marguerite Frick-Cramer’s and Marguerite van Berchem’s work in the tracing agencies of the International Committee of the Red Cross, this article seeks to contribute to the development of a history of care involving the production of a form of humanitarian knowledge aimed at caring, at distance, for people who had been separated due to warfare. This feminist perspective, which examines the interactions between gender, class and race, allows us to rectify the masculine vision that has dominated this Geneva-based international agency, as well as to comprehend how Frick-Cramer’s and van Berchem’s service activities led to the standardisation of a sophisticated information management system aimed at promoting the well-being of prisoners of war. An analysis of the rare institutional records which have been preserved about the missions led by these two female representatives enables us to conclude that their moral concern, which led them to aid both military and civilian populations during warfare, was rooted in emotions such as indignation and resentment.
This paper introduces the special issue on "Histories of care: gender, experience and humanitaria... more This paper introduces the special issue on "Histories of care: gender, experience and humanitarian knowledge(s)"
It took a long time for humanitarian action to evolve from an act of activism to a subject of res... more It took a long time for humanitarian action to evolve from an act of activism to a subject of research. Valérie Gorin expertly traces this evolution, while reminding us that "humanitarian studies" are still far from complete. In a subtle way, the author illustrates the role that a review like Humanitarian Alternatives can play in building a bridge between action and reflection.
Introduction to the special issue "Moving away from chidlhood as an icon: an ethical and operatio... more Introduction to the special issue "Moving away from chidlhood as an icon: an ethical and operational requirement"
The following conversation explores the emergence of advocacy within the MSF movement. Maria Guev... more The following conversation explores the emergence of advocacy within the MSF movement. Maria Guevara was Senior Operational Positioning and Advocacy Advisor in the Operational Centre Geneva (OCG) at MSF Switzerland. Marc DuBois was the Head of the Humanitarian Affairs Department in the Operational Centre Amsterdam (OCA) at MSF Holland and the former Director of MSF UK. Together, we discuss the principle of ‘bearing witness’ and the dilemmas it has raised among MSF’s different sections, as well as its link to eyewitness.
Focusing on the pivotal period of 1919–23 and the large-scale humanitarian responses in Central a... more Focusing on the pivotal period of 1919–23 and the large-scale humanitarian responses in Central and Eastern Europe, this paper discusses the development of advocacy in the movies made by organizations like the ICRC, Save the Children Fund or American Relief Administration. While aid agencies observed and competed with each other for visibility, humanitarian cinema shaped visual advocacy, grounded in the idea that ‘seeing is believing’. Exploring the fragmented audiovisual archives, as well as magazines and promotional material, this paper explores the testimonial function of humanitarian films in the 1920s. It first shows that the immediacy of the cinema technology increased the immersive and affective experience of the viewers by using forensic evidence and images of the body in pain. It then analyses how these films compelled audiences to witness suffering and act through persuasion, suggestion, and emotions. Finally, it inquires into the use of eyewitness images and firsthand acc...
This article introduces you to the general themes and questions of this special issue. We argue t... more This article introduces you to the general themes and questions of this special issue. We argue that history and visual media have long been central to humanitarian communication, but that the overlaps between history, visual media, and humanitarian communication have seldom been addressed. A focus on those overlaps, we suggest, not only demonstrates that critical historical inquiry has much to offer for professional communication specialists, it also sheds new light on the workings, changes and persistence of humanitarian narratives over the twentieth century.
Journal of Applied Journalism and Media Studies, 2018
This article retraces a conversation with Nicolae Schiau – a radio journalist at RTS (the French-... more This article retraces a conversation with Nicolae Schiau – a radio journalist at RTS (the French-speaking Swiss national radio and television broadcaster) – and the face behind Exils. This ‘augmented’ reportage followed the journey of six young migrants from the Syrian border to Germany and France. The two editors of this special issue interviewed Schiau to question him about his practice as a paradigmatic example of important shifts in crisis-reporting, in terms of format, relationship with the audience and sources as well as personal experience (as a journalist and human being). By using innovative forms of immersive journalism and storytelling, Exils therefore illustrates how combining mobile journalism and traditional reporting practices can meaningfully increase visibility in the media of people previously voiceless, and can potentially provide alternative perspectives on an event by reaching a wider audience, who might not be initially concerned by the situation.
Journal of Applied Journalism & Media Studies, 2018
Since its surge in 2014, the migrant and refugee crisis has been a major issue for the European c... more Since its surge in 2014, the migrant and refugee crisis has been a major issue for the European community, not only impacting the geopolitical, economic, societal and humanitarian sectors but also challenging media practices, narratives and framings. This special issue investigates journalistic routines, norms and representations of migrants and refugees in western mainstream and digital media by questioning innovations in journalistic practices. Drawing on a wide range of case studies and various methodological approaches, the contributions in this issue, both from scholars and practitioners, analyse different journalistic ecosystems and visual narratives. Have stereotypical portrayals of migrants and refugees from previous episodes of massive displacement been challenged? How were the visual politics of migration shaped by a humanization discourse? To what extent did editorial choices and newswork routines adapt to this type of crisis reporting? How have media narratives shifted through several western contexts to engage audiences into this human tragedy? In the end, this issue aims at exploring a variety of dynamic approaches related to the media perspective on representations of migration and refugee studies, in the light of new potentials offered by storytelling and immersive forms of journalism.
Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication, 2017
The Syrian conflict has challenged both the ways of reporting war and its impact on the public. H... more The Syrian conflict has challenged both the ways of reporting war and its impact on the public. However, only a few empirical studies have tried to assess public reactions to representations of war. In this paper, we use an empirically-based study that combines quantitative and qualitative methods to assess how Swiss audiences react to crisis reporting and visual news framing in French-speaking Swiss media. The study offers a preliminary understanding of how people react to images in the media, especially with respect to military and political contexts, and also builds a visual map of how audiences process information contained in news images of war.
Humanitarianism has been predicated on and constituted by visual images. Operations in the field ... more Humanitarianism has been predicated on and constituted by visual images. Operations in the field have had to be recorded, both as a documentary and an anthropological scene, to support themselves ideologically and financially, and to legitimise an event or action as humanitarian. Originally conveyed through illustrations, paintings and ‘visual’ and ‘floral’ language (Mitchell, 1987), photography quickly became the medium of choice after its emergence in the mid-nineteenth century. Photography helped shape and define international humanitarianism as a system of action and of representation to the point that, today, the humanitarian image is less concerned with the events causing suffering than with the image of the humanitarian organisation, its self-representation and branding.
This paper examines the place of amateur imagery and citizen photojournalism in Time magazine’s p... more This paper examines the place of amateur imagery and citizen photojournalism in Time magazine’s photoblog, Lightbox. If user-generated content has been seen as a threat by professional photojournalists in the last decade, Lightbox offers a paradigmatic example to understand if the visual elite still has a dominant status in the decision-making processes of news production. This paper, therefore, explores how citizen imagery is shaping and challenging a photojournalistic culture still influenced by criteria of excellence, legitimacy, and authority. Managed by professional photo editors, Lightbox has included a variety of sections which emphasize new, original work by professional photographers as well as weekly news reviews that sometimes incorporate amateur photography. Through a visual analysis of amateur imagery in Lightbox’s sections and a textual examination of the editors’ discussions on citizen photojournalism, this paper analyzes how the photoblog is adapting to the shift towards a digital age of innovation and hybridity. The results show that photo editors apply strategies to delimit citizen productions by very rarely selecting them and avoiding specific mention of the amateur nature of such images. Moreover, they underline that hybridity is understood not as multimodal content and co-creative processes between professional and amateur incorporations, but rather as professional and creative practices, for example by highlighting innovative photographers who use cell phone imagery and photo-sharing websites. While this paper interrogates the new careers in photography of amateurs turned professionals, it also shows how digital platforms emphasize the photographers’ personal initiatives over usual gatekeeping processes.
Despite the growing interest in the use of child images in humanitarian contexts in the last few ... more Despite the growing interest in the use of child images in humanitarian contexts in the last few years, there has been no transverse study of the iconography of famines in contemporary times. On the contrary, this iconography has been analysed in a scattered way, in disciplinary boundaries that prevent a more global understanding of the birth and use of these images. By comparing the approaches of the history of humanitarianism and childhood, as well as of social photography and media analysis, the purpose of this article is to show that visuals of starving children eventually find their roots at the end of the nineteenth century, at a time when charitable organisations are using photography as a tool to mobilise civil society and governments as well as to internationalise the humanitarian response. This analysis of Western visual strategies and media mobilisations throughout the twentieth century helps to put into perspective the so-called rupture between a first and a second age of humanitarianism. It shows first how young generations have become a privileged form of representation since the nineteenth century, using an aesthetic universe that is morally compelling; then, later, how the depoliticisation of the victim’s figure engages a political message.
The purpose of this article is to suggest some historical milestones for a retrospective reflecti... more The purpose of this article is to suggest some historical milestones for a retrospective reflection on the photographic archives of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). This collection is little used by researchers, although the 120,000 photographs which it contains have helped to forge the symbolism and identity of the institution and to document its operations in accordance with a memory preservation policy which gradually emerged in the course of the 20th century. The photographs shown in this article are divided into three main themes (the ICRC delegate, the context of action, suffering and the victims), in order to make it easier to discuss the key aspects of this tremendous visual heritage which looks at humanitarian action, its protagonists and its beneficiaries from an anthropological and ethnological point of view.
By examining Renée-Marguerite Frick-Cramer’s and Marguerite van Berchem’s work in the tracing age... more By examining Renée-Marguerite Frick-Cramer’s and Marguerite van Berchem’s work in the tracing agencies of the International Committee of the Red Cross, this article seeks to contribute to the development of a history of care involving the production of a form of humanitarian knowledge aimed at caring, at distance, for people who had been separated due to warfare. This feminist perspective, which examines the interactions between gender, class and race, allows us to rectify the masculine vision that has dominated this Geneva-based international agency, as well as to comprehend how Frick-Cramer’s and van Berchem’s service activities led to the standardisation of a sophisticated information management system aimed at promoting the well-being of prisoners of war. An analysis of the rare institutional records which have been preserved about the missions led by these two female representatives enables us to conclude that their moral concern, which led them to aid both military and civilian populations during warfare, was rooted in emotions such as indignation and resentment.
This paper introduces the special issue on "Histories of care: gender, experience and humanitaria... more This paper introduces the special issue on "Histories of care: gender, experience and humanitarian knowledge(s)"
It took a long time for humanitarian action to evolve from an act of activism to a subject of res... more It took a long time for humanitarian action to evolve from an act of activism to a subject of research. Valérie Gorin expertly traces this evolution, while reminding us that "humanitarian studies" are still far from complete. In a subtle way, the author illustrates the role that a review like Humanitarian Alternatives can play in building a bridge between action and reflection.
Introduction to the special issue "Moving away from chidlhood as an icon: an ethical and operatio... more Introduction to the special issue "Moving away from chidlhood as an icon: an ethical and operational requirement"
The following conversation explores the emergence of advocacy within the MSF movement. Maria Guev... more The following conversation explores the emergence of advocacy within the MSF movement. Maria Guevara was Senior Operational Positioning and Advocacy Advisor in the Operational Centre Geneva (OCG) at MSF Switzerland. Marc DuBois was the Head of the Humanitarian Affairs Department in the Operational Centre Amsterdam (OCA) at MSF Holland and the former Director of MSF UK. Together, we discuss the principle of ‘bearing witness’ and the dilemmas it has raised among MSF’s different sections, as well as its link to eyewitness.
Focusing on the pivotal period of 1919–23 and the large-scale humanitarian responses in Central a... more Focusing on the pivotal period of 1919–23 and the large-scale humanitarian responses in Central and Eastern Europe, this paper discusses the development of advocacy in the movies made by organizations like the ICRC, Save the Children Fund or American Relief Administration. While aid agencies observed and competed with each other for visibility, humanitarian cinema shaped visual advocacy, grounded in the idea that ‘seeing is believing’. Exploring the fragmented audiovisual archives, as well as magazines and promotional material, this paper explores the testimonial function of humanitarian films in the 1920s. It first shows that the immediacy of the cinema technology increased the immersive and affective experience of the viewers by using forensic evidence and images of the body in pain. It then analyses how these films compelled audiences to witness suffering and act through persuasion, suggestion, and emotions. Finally, it inquires into the use of eyewitness images and firsthand acc...
This article introduces you to the general themes and questions of this special issue. We argue t... more This article introduces you to the general themes and questions of this special issue. We argue that history and visual media have long been central to humanitarian communication, but that the overlaps between history, visual media, and humanitarian communication have seldom been addressed. A focus on those overlaps, we suggest, not only demonstrates that critical historical inquiry has much to offer for professional communication specialists, it also sheds new light on the workings, changes and persistence of humanitarian narratives over the twentieth century.
Journal of Applied Journalism and Media Studies, 2018
This article retraces a conversation with Nicolae Schiau – a radio journalist at RTS (the French-... more This article retraces a conversation with Nicolae Schiau – a radio journalist at RTS (the French-speaking Swiss national radio and television broadcaster) – and the face behind Exils. This ‘augmented’ reportage followed the journey of six young migrants from the Syrian border to Germany and France. The two editors of this special issue interviewed Schiau to question him about his practice as a paradigmatic example of important shifts in crisis-reporting, in terms of format, relationship with the audience and sources as well as personal experience (as a journalist and human being). By using innovative forms of immersive journalism and storytelling, Exils therefore illustrates how combining mobile journalism and traditional reporting practices can meaningfully increase visibility in the media of people previously voiceless, and can potentially provide alternative perspectives on an event by reaching a wider audience, who might not be initially concerned by the situation.
Journal of Applied Journalism & Media Studies, 2018
Since its surge in 2014, the migrant and refugee crisis has been a major issue for the European c... more Since its surge in 2014, the migrant and refugee crisis has been a major issue for the European community, not only impacting the geopolitical, economic, societal and humanitarian sectors but also challenging media practices, narratives and framings. This special issue investigates journalistic routines, norms and representations of migrants and refugees in western mainstream and digital media by questioning innovations in journalistic practices. Drawing on a wide range of case studies and various methodological approaches, the contributions in this issue, both from scholars and practitioners, analyse different journalistic ecosystems and visual narratives. Have stereotypical portrayals of migrants and refugees from previous episodes of massive displacement been challenged? How were the visual politics of migration shaped by a humanization discourse? To what extent did editorial choices and newswork routines adapt to this type of crisis reporting? How have media narratives shifted through several western contexts to engage audiences into this human tragedy? In the end, this issue aims at exploring a variety of dynamic approaches related to the media perspective on representations of migration and refugee studies, in the light of new potentials offered by storytelling and immersive forms of journalism.
Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication, 2017
The Syrian conflict has challenged both the ways of reporting war and its impact on the public. H... more The Syrian conflict has challenged both the ways of reporting war and its impact on the public. However, only a few empirical studies have tried to assess public reactions to representations of war. In this paper, we use an empirically-based study that combines quantitative and qualitative methods to assess how Swiss audiences react to crisis reporting and visual news framing in French-speaking Swiss media. The study offers a preliminary understanding of how people react to images in the media, especially with respect to military and political contexts, and also builds a visual map of how audiences process information contained in news images of war.
Humanitarianism has been predicated on and constituted by visual images. Operations in the field ... more Humanitarianism has been predicated on and constituted by visual images. Operations in the field have had to be recorded, both as a documentary and an anthropological scene, to support themselves ideologically and financially, and to legitimise an event or action as humanitarian. Originally conveyed through illustrations, paintings and ‘visual’ and ‘floral’ language (Mitchell, 1987), photography quickly became the medium of choice after its emergence in the mid-nineteenth century. Photography helped shape and define international humanitarianism as a system of action and of representation to the point that, today, the humanitarian image is less concerned with the events causing suffering than with the image of the humanitarian organisation, its self-representation and branding.
This paper examines the place of amateur imagery and citizen photojournalism in Time magazine’s p... more This paper examines the place of amateur imagery and citizen photojournalism in Time magazine’s photoblog, Lightbox. If user-generated content has been seen as a threat by professional photojournalists in the last decade, Lightbox offers a paradigmatic example to understand if the visual elite still has a dominant status in the decision-making processes of news production. This paper, therefore, explores how citizen imagery is shaping and challenging a photojournalistic culture still influenced by criteria of excellence, legitimacy, and authority. Managed by professional photo editors, Lightbox has included a variety of sections which emphasize new, original work by professional photographers as well as weekly news reviews that sometimes incorporate amateur photography. Through a visual analysis of amateur imagery in Lightbox’s sections and a textual examination of the editors’ discussions on citizen photojournalism, this paper analyzes how the photoblog is adapting to the shift towards a digital age of innovation and hybridity. The results show that photo editors apply strategies to delimit citizen productions by very rarely selecting them and avoiding specific mention of the amateur nature of such images. Moreover, they underline that hybridity is understood not as multimodal content and co-creative processes between professional and amateur incorporations, but rather as professional and creative practices, for example by highlighting innovative photographers who use cell phone imagery and photo-sharing websites. While this paper interrogates the new careers in photography of amateurs turned professionals, it also shows how digital platforms emphasize the photographers’ personal initiatives over usual gatekeeping processes.
Despite the growing interest in the use of child images in humanitarian contexts in the last few ... more Despite the growing interest in the use of child images in humanitarian contexts in the last few years, there has been no transverse study of the iconography of famines in contemporary times. On the contrary, this iconography has been analysed in a scattered way, in disciplinary boundaries that prevent a more global understanding of the birth and use of these images. By comparing the approaches of the history of humanitarianism and childhood, as well as of social photography and media analysis, the purpose of this article is to show that visuals of starving children eventually find their roots at the end of the nineteenth century, at a time when charitable organisations are using photography as a tool to mobilise civil society and governments as well as to internationalise the humanitarian response. This analysis of Western visual strategies and media mobilisations throughout the twentieth century helps to put into perspective the so-called rupture between a first and a second age of humanitarianism. It shows first how young generations have become a privileged form of representation since the nineteenth century, using an aesthetic universe that is morally compelling; then, later, how the depoliticisation of the victim’s figure engages a political message.
The purpose of this article is to suggest some historical milestones for a retrospective reflecti... more The purpose of this article is to suggest some historical milestones for a retrospective reflection on the photographic archives of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). This collection is little used by researchers, although the 120,000 photographs which it contains have helped to forge the symbolism and identity of the institution and to document its operations in accordance with a memory preservation policy which gradually emerged in the course of the 20th century. The photographs shown in this article are divided into three main themes (the ICRC delegate, the context of action, suffering and the victims), in order to make it easier to discuss the key aspects of this tremendous visual heritage which looks at humanitarian action, its protagonists and its beneficiaries from an anthropological and ethnological point of view.
Selling War. The role of the mass media in hostile conflicts from World War I to the 'War on Terror', 2013
This chapter explores the rhetoric of compassion in media framings of humanitarian crises in a hi... more This chapter explores the rhetoric of compassion in media framings of humanitarian crises in a historical and cultural perspective across space and time. It shows the first results of an exploratory analysis of media narratives and images of war between the 1960s and the 1990s. Benefiting from the cover of the mass media, modern humanitarianism has played a controversial role in raising public opinion and influencing politics and has contributed to the appearance of the 'victim' concept and its representation in the media throughout the twentieth century, along with images of pain and death. 'Victimization', or the tendency to induce a hiearchy among victims, offers an immediate reading of such humanitarian crises according to a simplified and Manichean scheme. But since media representations insist on producing figures of innocent suffering such as women and children, their narratives and images often fall back on older collective references and memories. Using 'framing mechanisms' as methodological tools, these results provide representations that favor Christian iconography and historical parallels such as World War II. These representations act as means of qualifying the crises and result ultimately in the moral condemnation of them. While there are clear distinctions in how conflicts are treated when they emerge in western as opposed to Third World countries, on how the ethnic victims' background is presented, and on how the paradigm of distance and proximity is dealth with, these media framings are all aimed at relieving suffering, are based on universally shared values, but are at the same time at risk of resorting to reductive schemes.
23 - 24 May 2016
Photography exhibition at the World Humanitarian Summit
Description
Looking at ... more 23 - 24 May 2016 Photography exhibition at the World Humanitarian Summit
Description Looking at photographs of humanitarian crises, we often get a sense of déjà vu. This familiarity stems from the repeated use of stereotypical depictions of people-in-crisis over the course of 150 years of humanitarian imagery. This photo exhibit features a range of 'icons', or visual tropes, such as 'The mother and child' and 'The boat people'. Featuring both historical and contemporary photographs, this exhibit invites critical reflection on how people in emergency settings — from refugees to aid workers to famine victims — are typically portrayed. It also explores the purposes, aims and power dynamics underpinning humanitarian images. This exhibit is one in a series organised by the World Humanitarian Summit, on the theme of 'reflections'. It forms part of ODI-HPG ‘Global history of modern humanitarian action’ project and was curated by Valérie Gorin (University of Geneva) and Sonya de Laat (Western University).
Les pratiques commémoratives soviétiques, dont le traditionnel défilé sur la place Rouge, sont à ... more Les pratiques commémoratives soviétiques, dont le traditionnel défilé sur la place Rouge, sont à l'origine d'une immense production d'images filmées, de photographies, de cartes postales, d'affiches, de tableaux, de vaisselle de porcelaine, de timbres, de médailles et de films de fictions. Offrant une perspective tant historique que sociologique, ce livre s'intéresse aussi bien à l'iconographie qu'aux imaginaires, souvent allégoriques, suscités par cette culture visuelle. Réunissant plus d'une centaine d'illustrations couleur accompagnant une quinzaine d'articles et autant d'encadrés proposant un éclairage particulier, ce “beau livre” permet d'appréhender la réception des mises en scène des commémorations de la Révolution d'Octobre à travers le monde, touchant ainsi un large public, composé aussi bien d'historiens, que de personnes intéressées par la culture visuelle du XXe siècle.
This volume brings together a range of international authors exploring commemorations of the Bols... more This volume brings together a range of international authors exploring commemorations of the Bolshevik Revolution from the perspective of the 2017 centenary. Contributors address the international echoes of the celebrations by sketching out a map of the diverse territories commemorating October, including the state spaces of the USSR and other socialist regimes; the associational spaces of the communist Western micro-societies; and the symbolic spaces of newspapers, colors, songs and the communists’ revolutionary calendar.
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Articles by Valérie Gorin
Photography exhibition at the World Humanitarian Summit
Description
Looking at photographs of humanitarian crises, we often get a sense of déjà vu. This familiarity stems from the repeated use of stereotypical depictions of people-in-crisis over the course of 150 years of humanitarian imagery. This photo exhibit features a range of 'icons', or visual tropes, such as 'The mother and child' and 'The boat people'.
Featuring both historical and contemporary photographs, this exhibit invites critical reflection on how people in emergency settings — from refugees to aid workers to famine victims — are typically portrayed. It also explores the purposes, aims and power dynamics underpinning humanitarian images.
This exhibit is one in a series organised by the World Humanitarian Summit, on the theme of 'reflections'. It forms part of ODI-HPG ‘Global history of modern humanitarian action’ project and was curated by Valérie Gorin (University of Geneva) and Sonya de Laat (Western University).