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 29 - International humanitarianism in East Asia - contributed by Alistair D.B. Cook, Lina Gong and Oscar A. Gómez. From the introduction  The aim of this chapter is to explore how humanitarianism is manifested in Asia to contribute an alternative approach and challenge the dominant understanding of humanitarianism. In describing this alternative approach, we highlight two principal observations.  First, regional institutions in East Asia play a buffer role in contesting international interventionism while benefiting and, indeed, depending on traditional international humanitarian resources for its functioning. This dependence however constrains how and to what extent East Asian countries can change the inequality in power in the global humanitarian system.  Second, the rise of st...

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 28 – Australia, New Zealand, and Pacific Regions - contributed by Agnieszka Sobocinska. From the introduction  This chapter argues that humanitarianism in Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific has been profoundly imprinted by its roots in settler colonialism. Humanitarianism in Australia and New Zealand grew out of the project of appropriating Indigenous land, and somewhat ironically, facilitated the extension of government control over Indigenous lives. The relationship between humanitarianism, colonialism, and governmentality is by no means unique to Australia or the Pacific; as Didier Fassin notes, the ‘tension between inequality and solidarity, between a relation of domination and a relation of assistance, is constitutive of all humanitarian governance’ ( Fassin, 2012: 3 ). The relat...

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 27 - Humanitarianism and Native America - contributed by Barbara Gurr. From the introduction This chapter offers consideration of assimilationist and genocidal tactics harbored under the guise of ‘humanitarianism’ in two distinct but inter-related areas. I begin with the role of religion, and particularly Christianity, in providing what might be understood as humanitarian aid long before the abolition movements that so commonly mark the origin point of humanitarianism as a distinct field of endeavor. The work of missionaries, predominantly Jesuit and Franciscan, to convert the Indigenous peoples of what is now called North America to Christianity directly served imperialist purposes, but was performed under the guise of ‘saving souls’ and, later, providing education and even healthcare. This ...

As a year of multiple crises is coming to a close, I am a bit surprised that we have not heard more about the crisis of Think Tanks.  The UN system is in crisis, global academia and philanthropy for sure as well and listing my collection of “the end of USAID” articles probably deserves its own blog post…so where does that leave global development Thinks Tanks?  At the very least there are some interesting developments in policy-making, academia, media and communication that will likely have an impact on the traditional set-up of how Think Tanks will (share their) work in the future. Many of these developments are not new or  “Trump”-in fact I found an old post from January 2019 that asked Can you imagine a world without Think Tanks?  (the promised follow-up post never materialized though...). But that was also before culture wars and AI... Culture wars and the end of evidence-based policy-making As mind-bogging as the decline of evidence-based development policy-mak...

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 26 - Trafficking in persons, long-term vulnerabilities, and humanitarianism  - contributed by Farhan Navid Yousaf and Muhammad Makki Kakarby. From the introduction  This chapter begins with an overview of a history of humanitarian efforts related to  trafficking, including its inception in organised efforts to rescue white women who were trafficked to colonial outposts – established through military conquests – to sexually serve white men (see Chapter 17 by Adur on Sexuality and humanitarianism in this volume).  We outline the circumstances, including deep inequalities, dislocations due to wars and structural adjustments, and racist/gendered structures, that foster trafficking.  In Section 2, we focus on a variety of humanitarian efforts to rehabilitate and protect vict...

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 25 - Refugee protection and assistance - contributed by Naoko Hashimoto. From the introduction   The chapter begins with a brief overview of the current international institution of providing and promoting legal protection and humanitarian assistance for refugees. It is followed by an outline of a variety of inequalities embedded and emerging in the institution. It includes: the centrality of the notion of inequality and discrimination in the definition of refugees, which in turn results in an unequal access to asylum; unequal ‘burden-sharing’ in hosting refugees particularly between the Global South and Global North countries and their major reasons; the recent neoliberal trend in choosing and admitting only the best and the brightest refugees; glaring and institutional...

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 24 - Climate change, disaster and humanitarian action - contributed by Ilan Kelman and Eija Meriläinen.  From the introduction  Integrating climate change mitigation and adaptation credibly would require a shift toward development (of which climate change mitigation and adaptation are subsets) – while facing and aiming to resolve the social inequalities embedded in climate change, disasters, and humanitarian action.  This chapter surveys how climate change affects humanitarian action. The next section (1) turns to social inequalities, humanitarianism, and climate change. Then, through illustrations of disasters, conflicts, and forced migration, Section 2 applies this framing to climate change and humanitarianism. Section 3 considers future directions and unanswered questions, foll...

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...