Aidnography

Every two weeks I am going to feature one of the chapters of our Handbook on Humanitarianism and Inequality which was published in spring 2024. This week we are taking a closer look at Chapter 23 - Linguistic inequality in the humanitarian sector: unravelling English-centric multilingualism - contributed by Maria Rosa Garrido. From the introduction  The humanitarian workers that Footitt et al. (2020) interviewed felt that language was institutionally accorded a low status and that ‘language needs and challenges were not systematically discussed in the context of programme planning, delivery and evaluation’ (p. 97). Limited resources and the imperative to deliver specific project objectives to the donors makes it difficult for Northern humanitarian agencies like Oxfam to adopt multilingual policies.  Thus, many adopt English as a lingua franca internally ( Tesseur, 2021: 262 ) and ad hoc solutions for unplanned linguistic needs in the field (see Section 4.2). Language train...

Every two weeks I am going to feature one of the chapters of our Handbook on Humanitarianism and Inequality which was published in spring 2024. This week we are taking a closer look at Chapter 22 – Humanitarian technologies - contributed by Reem Talhouk. From the introduction  This chapter highlights the inequalities that arise as humanitarian technologies premised on notions of coloniality/modernity act upon indigenous and refugee communities’ ways of being. I refer to ways of being as the practices, values, beliefs, and knowledge that constitute peoples’ ways of existing on and with this Earth. The inequalities that this chapter will focus on are how humanitarian technologies designed for humanitarian utility and efficiency contribute to: (1) the erosion of indigenous ways of being and (2) dis-afford refugees agency to re-appropriate technologies. In Section 1, I present the construct of coloniality/modernity in relation to humanitarianism on which arguments in this chapter a...