Humanitarianism

The contemporary notion of global citizenship, in its contested and multiple manifestations, has developed out of the idea of cosmopolitanism, which dates back to the Stoics, and more recent formulations of world citizenship and the ideal of world governance. In the past decade, the concept of global citizenship, as a concept which signifies the way in which one’s identity and ethical responsibility is not limited to their “local” community (i.e. family, nation), has increasingly become a conceptual mantra for international development and humanitarian agencies, and a primary mandate of the institution of the North American university. In this article I argue that theories of global ethics, such as that presented by Dower, echo in their rhetoric the imperial project of civilization, and, more importantly, the discourse of global citizenship, while it represents the idea of universal inclusivity, produces insiders and outsiders: not everyone is a global citizen. In contrast, cultural theorists and philosophers such as Butler (2004), Mohanty (2003), and Appiah (2005, 2006) have sought to interrogate the ethical framework for a global community or transnational solidarity. The work of these critics, however, is informed by specifically feminist and/or postcolonial approaches to understanding global relations of power. In this essay I critically examine the discourse of global citizenship specifically as theorized by Dower (2003) and Appiah (2006), and I draw upon the example of the university where I teach, the University of British Columbia (UBC) Okanagan, for which fostering global citizenship has become a primary mandate of the academic plan. While I am sympathetic to the desire for a way of imagining community that transcends the legacy of European colonialism and hence transcends the material and symbolic borders of nation, race, religion, etc., I believe that the unselfconsciously celebratory appeals to global citizenship that currently circulate in OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) states are indebted to earlier European, and specifically Eurocentric, formulations of humanity, civilization, and peace. While global citizenship purports simply to identify an ethical philosophy and a politics of identity, the discourse produces the global citizen as a specifically positioned subject that is constituted by the ability to act, and specifically to “make a better world” for, rather than with, Others.

Sous la direction de Michel Agier, avec la collaboration de Clara Lecadet et les contributions de Hala Caroline Abou Zaki Marc Bernardot Tristan Bruslé Pierre Centlivres Olivier Clochard Alice Corbet Kamel Doraï Jean-Louis Edogué Agnès de Geoffroy François Gemenne Manuel Herz Sandi Hilal Alexander Horstmann Bram Jansen David Lagarde Clara Lecadet Pedro Neto Martin Olivera Alessandro Petti Sara Prestianni Nicolas Puig Stellio Rolland Anooradha Siddiqi Louise Tassin Simon Turner Hélène Thiollet Eyal Weizman.

Les camps se multiplient et se banalisent partout sur la planète. Ils sont aujourd’hui des milliers, dessinant peu à peu un nouveau paysage mondial. Gouvernements nationaux et agences internationales adoptent de plus en plus systématiquement cette solution pour « regrouper » les réfugiés humanitaires, pour « parquer », faire « transiter », « retenir » ou mettre à l’écart les « déplacés » et les migrants, les « clandestins » et autres indésirables. Douze millions de personnes vivent dans ces camps, des millions d’autres dans des campements de fortune, au creux des forêts, dans les interstices des villes, le long des frontières ; d’autres encore sont piégés dans des centres de rétention, des zones d’attente ou de transit. Si ces « hors-lieux » sont des espaces de parias, nombre d’entre eux s’inscrivent dans la durée et se transforment au fil du temps : la vie s’y renouvelle, s’y attache, et l’emporte le plus souvent sur la mort ou le dépérissement.
En vingt-cinq monographies (qui nous font faire un tour du monde des camps, du plus ancien à Chatila au Liban, au plus grand à Dadaab au Kenya, regroupant 450 000 habitants, en passant par le plus informel à Canaan en Haïti ou le plus précaire à Calais), cet ouvrage fait découvrir la vie intime et quotidienne de leurs habitants. Loin d’être l’« exception » que l’on évoque généralement dans un cadre humanitaire ou sécuritaire pour en justifier l’existence, les camps font durablement partie des espaces et des sociétés qui composent le monde aujourd’hui. Dans ces lieux s’inventent de nouveaux modèles sociaux, à côté ou au-delà du périmètre des États-nations, qui préfigurent peut-être de nouvelles formes de citoyenneté mondiale.

Disability studies scholars and activists have long criticized and critiqued so-termed ‘charitable’ approaches to disability where the capitalization of individual disabled bodies to invoke pity are historically, socially, and politically circumscribed by paternalism. Disabled individuals have long advocated for civil and human rights in various locations throughout the globe, yet contemporary human rights discourses problematically co-opt disabled bodies as ‘evidence’ of harms done under capitalism, war, and other forms of conflict, while humanitarian non-governmental organizations often use disabled bodies to generate resources for their humanitarian projects.

It is the connection between civil rights and human rights, and this concomitant relationship between national and global, which foregrounds this groundbreaking book’s contention that disability studies productively challenge such human rights paradigms, which troublingly eschew disability rights in favor of exclusionary humanitarianism. It relocates disability from the margins to the center of academic and activist debates over the vexed relationship between human rights and humanitarianism. These considerations thus productively destabilize able-bodied assumptions that undergird definitions of personhood in civil rights and human rights by highlighting intersections between disability, race, gender ethnicity, and sexuality as a way to interrogate the possibilities (and limitations) of human rights as a politicized regime.
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The story of the modern feminist and humanitarian is a relatively short one, at least according to popular knowledge. The timeline tends to begin in 1948, with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Then come moments in the 1960s and 1970s, like the adoption of CEDAW in 1979. From more recent years, we cite the UN Sustainable Development Goals of 2015, or #MeToo’s viral moment in 2017.

My research expands this narrative by tracing the history of the “modern feminist humanitarian” to the late nineteenth century. I question the idea that feminism and humanitarianism were modern inventions of the post-World War Two era by turning to an exceptional historical case study: policy, research, and advocacy on female prostitution in Cambodia during the period of the French protectorate (1863-1954). I pose the following questions about past history and present practice: first, how do ideas about oppressed/emancipated female gender and sexuality shape the humanitarian mandates of states and institutions? And second, how can women’s, gender, and sexuality studies, framed by histories of imperial and colonial processes, move scholarship and activism to think about the ethics of being a feminist humanitarian?

As historians of gender and empire have demonstrated, the lives of women can often be traced by following what were the protectionist enterprises of imperial and colonial processes, and such projects often had nebulous or dangerous consequences for women. My research on projects that the French implemented in Cambodia corroborates this. This notion echoes scholarship pointing out that humanitarianism and human rights are not mutually dependent, leaving us with an unsettling thought: humanitarian interventions, even those designed to be gender-responsive, can be disempowering in its attempt to empower. Awareness of a historical tradition of gender-based interventions should alert development scholars and practitioners to critical examination of their own feminist research and gender mainstreaming programs. By interrogating the modern feminist and humanitarian claims made in the context of protecting women in colonial Cambodia, I challenge present policymakers and activists who claim to practice gender-sensitive and human-centered approaches in humanitarian and development programs across the Global South.

Today, Africa is in the grip of an unprecedented crisis, heightened by the inability of homegrown African organisations to engage readily in the search for solutions to the continent's problems. Across the continent, people are forcibly displaced from their homes and countries for several reasons, the most common being conflict and/or natural disaster related. Neither international aid nor international interventions on their own have significantly reduced vulnerability nor brought enduring solutions. An enhanced involvement of well-resourced and well-equipped African actors could improve both the effectiveness of interventions and the sustainability of subsequent recovery programmes On a positive note, millions of displaced persons have been able to experience a voluntary, safe and dignified return home. However, with an estimated 22 million people remaining forcibly displaced across the continent, significant challenges remain. African in spirit, concept and composition, AHA is a pan-African non-governmental organisation providing effective humanitarian assistance to alleviate human suffering building on the strength of African people to solve African problems. Hence, the paper outlines a transformational change in indigenous humanitarian capacity development directions towards addressing the root causes of forced displacement and human migration. The directional change entails addressing issues of human security that seeks to protect people against a broad range of threats to individuals and communities and, further, to empower them to act on their own behalf and to forge a global alliance against forced displacement.
Key words: transformational change, indigenous humanitarian capacity development

This guidance is intended for Volunteer and Technical Communities (V&TCs) and tech groups that have a desire to collaborate with Formal Humanitarian Organizations. We hope that it best fits the needs of V&TCs and tech groups that currently seek practical advice on how  to develop projects with formal humanitarian organizations or how to further strengthen pre-existing collaborative relationships. We hope that this Guidance helps V&TCs better understand the modus operandi of humanitarian organizations so that they may better formulate requests for partnerships and maximize the benefits of collaborative relationships.

This article uses the example of the Mogadishu International Airport zone and takes a spatio-temporal lens to explore how (sovereign) power unfolds in international interventions that aim at building a sovereign state. I show that the Mogadishu International Airport zone emerges as an elastic frontier zone that contradicts the sovereign imaginary intervenors aim to project and undermines many of the taken-for-granted boundaries that states tend to produce. The Mogadishu International Airport and similar zones emphasize the centrality of logistics and circulation in interventions, but also point towards their temporal and liminal character. Modularity became the material answer to the demand to secure circulation while adapting to the rapid rhythm and short timeframes of statebuilding. Modular designs enable the constant adaptation of the intervention terrain, allow intervenors to deny their power and imprint and facilitate the commercialization of supply chains and intervention materials. Sovereign power that operates through such zones becomes modular itself. It is exercised as an adaptable, in parts exchangeable, and highly mobile form of power that operates through crises and emergencies. The spaces and materials created by modular forms of sovereign power remain elusive, but nonetheless stratify experiences of power and security.

This baseline builds on the previous localisation baselining work in Vanuatu. The international humanitarian sector is currently developing ways to measure progress on localisation following the commitments made at the World Humanitarian Summit in 2016. This has also been a key issue for humanitarian actors in the Pacific region. Generating an evidence base on localisation is important in order to demonstrate what change is happening and the impact it is having. This report provides a baseline snapshot of localisation in Tonga.

This is a paper about the role of religion in the practice of humanitarian/devel- opment work, and the role of humanitarian/development work in the practice of religion. It contends that these are overlapping and indeed mutually constitutive categories. Two arguments are developed in support of that proposition.

The first main argument concerns twentieth century shifts in the Christian con- cept of mission, in particular its transformation from the salvation of souls (conver- sion) to the betterment of people’s temporal lives (social service and humanitarian action). This includes the cessation of proselytization in favour of corporeal works of mercy, as well as the secularization of missionary societies and movements into development agencies and NGO’s, many of which downplay their religious origins. Sœur Emmanuelle (the paper’s case-study) is an exemplary figure in this evolution : she both propelled and was propelled by mission’s evolution toward the secular materialist priorities around which religion, humanitarianism, and development have converged.

The second main argument concerns the blurring of lines, the overlapping of identities between institutionally separate actors, and the dissolving of distinctions between the categories of religious and non-religious. That boundary is prob- lematized as Christian faith reveals itself to have been an important catalytic and federative force in development projects with Cairo’s garbage collectors, including at the level of « non-religious » actors like the World Bank and its consultant engineers. In fact, Christian connections could be most effectual when least conspicuous – and become on the contrary a barrier to cooperation when too explicit. For instance, some overtly secular but sociologically Christian associations supporting sœur Emmanuelle play their religiosity up (in private) or down (in public) depending on the audience (of donors). An overtly « religious » group (Catholic Relief Services) refused to fund Zabbaleen development projects because supporting projects spearheaded by a nun and targeting a primarily Christian group would lend itself to accusations of sectarian favouritism.

A Reader in Medical Anthropology: Theoretical Trajectories, Emergent Realities brings together articles from the key theoretical approaches in the field of medical anthropology as well as related science and technology studies. The editors' comprehensive introductions evaluate the historical lineages of these approaches and their value in addressing critical problems associated with contemporary forms of illness experience and health care. Presents a key selection of both classic and new agenda-setting articles in medical ...

The informal refugee camp in Calais, dubbed the ‘new Jungle’, reached an approximate population of ten thousand people in 2016. The settlement, despite these high numbers, did not receive aid from the French government or international aid agencies. As a response to the lack of institutional support, and given the squalid conditions of the camp, hundreds of volunteers and grassroots organisations took on the burden of delivering humanitarian aid and basic services in the Jungle. This grassroots humanitarian aid, which I call ‘volunteer humanitarianism’, has particular characteristics that will be explored. The article argues that volunteer humanitarianism can be interpreted as a symbol against the violent border practices across Europe and, because of its informality, provides an alternative to formal humanitarian aid. The article also shows that volunteer humanitarianism formed a connection between humanitarianism and activism that stands in tension with neoliberal governmentality. As the Jungle was demolished in October 2016, this article is a contribution to the history of the camp as well as a testimony of the volunteers’ work there.

This workshop has two aims: first, to bring considerations of gender into international history; second, to reconceptualise international Jewish history as having a gendered dimension. This focus on the experience of a particular group of actors will allow for a more systematic engagement with the conceptual issues involved in gendering internationalism.

The important questions in politics are of probability, not possibility. What would the plausible and probable consequences of a particular intervention have been? What would have had to differ in order for successful intervention to result? Only an anti-political ethical framework – a kind of crude deontology – could find overriding significance in the mere possibility that lives could have been saved.

Nonstate transnational actors have long played a central role in Sahelian economic structures and
geopolitical arrangements because of their capacity to constitute sources of authority and sustenance
outside and across state structures. Recently, subversive battalions (qatiba) have resorted to
kidnapping, raiding, and ransoming as a means to social justice with a redistributive dimension.
Parallels can be drawn with authority structures associated with nineteenth-century privateers and
buccaneers, and more recently with pirates operating in the Indian Ocean. The parallel economy of
ransoming emerges in a context of critical disruptions of traditional economic and mobility frameworks
in the Sahel, the aggressive scramble for resources, and the displacement of the global war
on terror in the Sahel. This article examines the legitimation processes used by subversive groups,
both ideological and religious; the ethics of ransoming as a form of prosperity endeavor without
morality; and an oscillation between cooperation and subversion in the parallel economy of
smuggling understood as two aspects of the same strategy of engagement between formal
authorities and insubordinate groups in a context of scarcity. It argues that nonconventional forms of
ransoming and criminal predation in the Sahel have similarities with practices of states and multinational
corporations insofar as these divest ordinary citizens of their ability to become subjects
outside the colluding forces of capital, state power, and external interventions.

This issue of Limn examines the recent profusion of micro-technologies in the worlds of humanitarianism and development, some focused on fostering forms of social improvement, others claiming to alleviate suffering, and many seeking to accomplish both. From water meters, micro-insurance and cash transfers, to solar lanterns, water filtration systems, and sanitation devices, examples proliferate across the early 21st century landscapes of international aid. Although small-scale endeavors are far from novel, today these devices are animated by different intellectual and moral energy, drawing on novel financial and organizational resources. Many blur distinctions between public and private interests, along with divisions between obligations, gifts and commodities. At the same time, they entail novel configurations of expertise, political obligation and forms of care. The articles in this issue explore these new convergences of developmental and humanitarian projects, alongside reworked relationships between experts, governments, and purported beneficiaries, focused on fostering “participation” and “partnerships” rather than nation-building.

PENULIS: LINDA CHRISTANTY

Film " Playing Between Elephants " Seekor Pelanduk di antara Gajah Di aula itu berkumpul banyak orang. Geuchik atau kepala desa menyampaikan laporan penggunaan uang. Dari penjelasan geuchik, semua orang jadi tahu bahwa terjadi pembengkakan biaya pembangunan rumah, lebih dari taksiran semula. Uang yang diperkirakan sisa, malah kurang. seorang warga langsung protes. Geuchik berusaha menjelaskan lagi hitung-hitungannya. Orang-orang dari lembaga bantuan ikut membantu geuchik menjelaskan duduk perkara. Tetapi lelaki yang emosi itu tak terima. Ia merobek-robek buku anggaran, mengumpat-umpat, lalu meninggalkan aula. Tingkah lakunya menular pada sebagian besar yang hadir. Ada yang menggerutu, ada yang mengajak yang lain pergi ke kantor lembaga bantuan untuk mengadu. Suasana hiruk-pikuk. Geuchik tak bisa mencegah mereka. Namun, ia tetap tegar dan bahkan, masih bisa tertawa. Inilah konflik yang paling menegangkan dalam film dokumenter garapan Aryo Danusiri, Playing Between Elephants. Sang geuchik menjadi karakter utama cerita ini. Ia hadir dalam setiap sekuel, menjadi sorotan sekaligus perekat tiap bagian. Sosoknya sangat hidup. Ia kesal, sabar, bertanggung jawab, dan kadang terlihat ingin menguntungkan dirinya sendiri. Ia sosok yang kompleks, tidak hitam-putih dan sederhana. Ia pahlawan, tetapi juga bukan tanpa cacat. Aryo begitu jeli memperlihatkan perkembangan watak dan tingkah-polah geuchik dengan kameranya, merekam bagaimana si tokoh bertarung dengan dirinya sendiri dalam menjalankan perannya sebagai geuchik yang harus memperhatikan kepentingan warga serta kepentingan pribadinya, atau bermain-main di antara kedua hal tersebut. Pertarungan internal dalam diri geuchik bisa kita anggap sebagai pertarungan dua " gajah " dan pelanduknya tak lain dari metafor tentang kemampuannya mengelola kedua kepentingan tersebut dengan cerdik. Warga akhirnya memperoleh tambahan uang pembangunan sejumlah Rp 2,1 juta, sedang geuchik punya rumah besar berdapur luas berkat hubungan baiknya dengan penyalur bahan bangunan. Film berdurasi 89 menit ini sama sekali tidak terjerembab sebagai film propaganda program perumahan, meski ia merekam kegiatan lembaga bantuan tertentu dalam melibatkan masyarakat mendirikan rumah mereka, tahap demi tahap. Kadangkala ia begitu puitis, juga dramatis. Selain adegan-adegan yang menampilkan dinamika di lapangan, Aryo juga menghadirkan gambar-gambar secara semiotik yang berfungsi sebagai jeda sekaligus membubuhkan estetika pada filmnya. Beberapa kali muncul pemandangan pantai dan perahu di sela-sela adegan lain. Semula tak ada gerak, tak ada aktivitas apa pun, kecuali lanskap. Namun, perlahan-lahan Aryo menampilkan kehidupan di sana. Anak-anak memancing ikan dekat pantai, lalu suatu ketika orang-orang mendorong perahu ke laut dengan disemangati seruan, " Dalam hati sama rasa, hayooo.. ! " Proses interaksi Film Aryo dengan cerdas mengajak penonton menyaksikan dua proses interaksi. Pertama adalah hubungan manusia dengan alam yang terus-menerus (dalam hal ini manusia dengan laut), rutin, dan bermanfaat (dalam hubungan nelayan dan ikan-ikan), yang kemudian dirusak kekuatan alam lainnya (bencana atau tsunami) dan bagaimana manusia bertahan hidup dengan memulihkan lagi kepercayaan mereka terhadap alam sekaligus memulihkan kembali mata pencaharian atau kehidupan mereka.

Women are under-represented in leadership globally and across sectors. In 2016 in Australia one quarter of organisations reported that they still have no women (none!) in key management positions. Analysis of gender equality in the humanitarian world tells a similar story. As of January 2016, there are 29 UN Humanitarian Coordinators globally and only 9 of these are women. As the professional humanitarian workforce worldwide consists largely of women – up to 75% – this disparity is absurdly at odds with the rhetoric about empowerment and equality within the sector. Why is it important? Why hasn’t it been done already? What can and must be done?

U.S. humanitarian activity in Jerusalem, and Palestine as a whole, from the early nineteenth century onward challenges the traditional view that the United States played a relatively marginal role in the region until the end of World War II. This article argues that American aid, initially understood as a religious duty of individuals, was transformed into an organized form of aid that served as a form of soft power in the region. The agency of U.S. consul Otis Glazebrook is under scrutiny in this article and its analysis shows the fundamental role he played in this shift. Individual aid was superseded by institutional help and the shift was embodied in the aid and relief sent to the Jews. Eventually U.S. institutional aid during the war paved the way for formal support for Zionism and the notion that only Jews (and especially American Jews, who thought of themselves as agents of innovation) could lead Palestine into modernity. While Glazebrook was arguably not a supporter of political Zionism, his agency led America and Zionism to meet each other and initiate a lasting relationship.

Women on all sides of the US war in Vietnam pushed for an end to the conflict. At a time of renewed feminist fervor, women stepped outside conventional gender roles by publicly speaking out, traveling to a war zone, and entering the male-dominated realm of foreign affairs. Even so, some claimed to stand squarely within the boundaries of womanhood as they undertook such unusual activities. Some American women argued that, as mothers or sisters of soldiers and draft-age men, they held special insight into the war. They spoke of their duty to their families, communities, and nation to act in untraditional, but never­ theless feminine, ways. But women did not act uniformly. Some joined the military as nurses or service personnel to help in the war effort, while others protested the war and served as draft counselors. By the end of the war, some anti-war protestors developed feminist critiques of US involvement in Vietnam that pointed to the war as a symptom of an unjust society that prioritized military dominance over social welfare. As in wars past, the US war in Vietnam created upheavals in gender roles, and as nurses, mothers, lovers, officers, entertainers, and activists, women created new spaces in a changing society.

East Africa and Pakistan are currently suffering from the worst invasion of desert locusts in decades. Threatening agricultural production in East Africa, the assault increases the danger of famine in a region where 19 million people already face food insecurity. When locust invasions such as the current ones occur, journalists like to refer to them as "biblical" implying that these disasters are analogous to the ones described in the Bible or by classical writers. However, as this article will illustrate, locust invasions are neither acts of providence nor ancient disasters. In fact, they result from the interplay between natural and human factors and they have been of great concern to western governments in the 19th and 20th centuries, first within the scope of colonial empires, then as a consideration of international development policies.

This guide  concentrates on Sphere’s four technical
chapters covering water supply, sanitation
and hygiene promotion (WASH); Food security
and nutrition; Shelter and settlement; and
Health. Additional tools and approaches for
urban response are included: Context analysis,
Assessments, Profiling and Targeting; Area-based
approaches and Cash and markets.

Grassroots refugee hospitality is an innovative, if still little investigated field of practices, which illuminates and reshapes the native/immigrant divide. It also sheds light on ‘domestic humanitarianism’, as a range of everyday modes of helping that take place even in the domestic space. Drawing on a case study in Northern Italy, this article develops a framework on the societal implications of refugee hospitality, based on a multi-scalar view of home . From the inside, the lived experience of hospitality involves profound re-definitions of domesticity and meaningful personal changes for hosts and guests alike. From the outside, the connective function of local actors is crucial in shaping the lived experience of domestic reception. From the bottom up, hosting refugees is tantamount to opening, hence questioning, the most intimate threshold of the ‘national we’. Overall, and despite its limitations, domestic hospitality enables refugees to enter ‘home’ on different scales, from the micro-literal to the macro-metaphorical, thereby providing a potential counter-narrative to anti-immigrant discourses, emotions and politics.

Literature classrooms hold great potential to educate students for critical global citizenship through serious engagement with marginalized stories that test or subvert mainstream knowledges and structures, including the familiar humanitarian framework that dominates Western thinking about the Global South. Unfortunately, much existing literary curriculum in the Global North often does just the opposite. Instead, Western-oriented texts and safe, traditional reading practices contribute to a form of global citizenship that perpetuates Western hegemony and limits expressions of citizenship to benevolent actions. This is especially the case where global citizenship curriculum is developed by NGOs and humanitarian organizations, such as Me to We, a popular social enterprise with increasing influence over education in Canada, the U.S. and the U.K.

Using the frameworks of critical global citizenship education, Slaughter’s (2006) theory of humanitarian reading, and Stone-Mediatore’s (2003) notion of reading for enlarged thought, this paper will undertake a close reading of the unit materials for Free the Children, a unit developed by Me to We, which aspires to educate for global citizenship. Unit activities problematically appropriate the voices and viewpoints of child laborers in South Asia by establishing dichotomies between readers and the populations that Me to We aspires to help. This unit provides a means by which to examine the effectiveness of reading a memoir by an exemplary humanitarian, particularly when unit activities are framed by an organization with a particular humanitarian agenda.

Karsgaard, Carrie (2019). Reading Humanitarian Heroes for Global Citizenship Education?: Curriculum Critique of a Novel Study on Craig Kielburger’s Free the Children. Global Education Review, 6 (2). 55-73.