New Donors

This article examines the link between public support for and
public knowledge about development cooperation in South
Korea. Challenging previous research on established donor
countries, we find that in Korea, there is a high level of public
support for development cooperation but very little knowledge
about it. We argue that this can be explained by three main
factors. First, Korea recently transitioned from being a recipient
of development aid to being a donor. Second, Korean development
cooperation is conducted as a government-centred process with limited influence from civil society. Third, the dissemination of information on development cooperation is dominated by what we call “aid propaganda”, where aid is advertised primarily as a means of improving Korea’s national prestige, while the situation in the recipient countries of the Global South is largely ignored.

By exploring faith-based humanitarianism through the lens of emerging debates surrounding South-South humanitarianism, we affirm the value of what we refer to as ‘writing the “Other” into humanitarian discourse’, and to redress the biases inherent to much Humanitarian Studies theory. Although Southern-led development initiatives have enjoyed increasing attention by academics in recent years, and many academics now recognize the existence of a multitude of humanitarianisms, humanitarian action –including South-South humanitarian responses to forced displacement – not borne of the Northern-dominated and highly institutionalized international humanitarian regime has remained largely neglected in academia.

Drawing on examples of Southern  faith-based actors’ responses to recent and ongoing processes of displacement, including case-studies of Myanmar and Syria, we address these gaps in knowledge and re-engage with popular debates around religion/secularism, politics and humanitarianism. In doing so, we argue that ideology and politics pervade not just humanitarian practice, but the ‘humanitarian’ epithet itself, and it is this politics that has for so long footnoted the Other in the study of humanitarianism. Through these contemporary case-studies, we demonstrate the significance of faith-based responses to complex emergencies in the twenty-first century, arguing that ignoring or a priori demonizing these as a result of the abovementioned bias undermines the ability for policy makers or academics to develop rigorous understandings of, and appropriate responses to, displacement.
Further, we engage with the notions of solidarity that resonate throughout the case studies presented, including those expressed between co-religionists and members of different faiths (or none), to argue for an expansion of the field of Humanitarian Studies to incorporate these multiple and overlapping solidarities. This expansion does not reject the existence or legitimacy of notions of global citizenship that inform some humanitarian action. However, by considering how global society is only one of a myriad of potential spheres of solidarity held by individuals and communities, it rejects the contention that this is the only legitimate form of humanitarianism, advocating for more academic inquiry into the humanitarianisms of the global South, including South-South faith-based humanitarianisms.