Humanitarian sentiments have motivated a variety of manifestations of pity, from nineteenth-century movements to end slavery to the creation of modern international humanitarian law. While humanitarianism is clearly political, this text addresses the ways in which it is also an ethos embedded in civil society, one that drives secular and religious social and cultural movements, not just legal and political institutions. As an ethos, humanitarianism has a strong narrative and representational dimension that can generate humanitarian constituencies for particular (...) causes. Essays in the volume analyze the character, form, and voice of private or public narratives themselves and explain how and why some narratives of suffering energize political movements of solidarity, whereas others do not. Humanitarianism and Suffering explores when, how, and why humanitarian movements become widespread popular movements. It shows how popular sentiments move political and social elites to action and, conversely, how national elites appropriate humanitarian ideals for more instrumental ends. (shrink)

The circumstances that create the need for humanitarian action are rarely morally neutral. The extremes of deprivation and want that demand a humanitarian response are often themselves directly caused by acts of war, persecution or misgovernment. And even when the direct causes lie elsewhere—when suffering and loss are caused by natural disaster, endemic disease or poverty of natural resources—the explanations of why some people are afflicted, and not others, are not morally neutral. It is those without economic or political power (...) who starve in famines, those who inhabit the most marginal areas who are killed by floods and landslides, those without access to basic education and health care who die from easily preventable diseases. The societies in which these things can happen are unjust, and the injustice of disempowerment is both itself one of the universal afflictions of poverty and a condition of its many other vulnerabilities. (shrink)

That moral principles underlie and constrain the activity of members of professions such as medicine and law is generally acknowledged. Whether the same can be said of the military profession is a question likely to generate considerable uncertainty. In this paper I shall show that, like other professions, the military profession is informed by a moral teleology. The source of this teleology, for the profession of arms, is manifested in the laws of war. The laws of war, in turn, reflect (...) two humanitarian principles. (shrink)

Bruce Nichols explores the way in which the concept of humanitarian aid has been stretched beyond recognition for political ends.

In recent years, there have been concerted efforts to ensure that the different components of the international response to crisis-affected countries, whether conducted under the banner of the United Nations or not, are integrated in pursuit of a stated goal of comprehensive, durable, and just resolution of conflict. This includes a drive to purposefully make humanitarian assistance to victims, one of the principal forms of outside involvement in crisis situations, supportive of the “international community's” political ambition. The implication of the (...) coherence agenda is that meeting lifesaving needs is too limited in scope, and that the principles of impartiality, neutrality, and independence that have typically characterized humanitarian action should be set aside in order to harness aid to the “higher” goals of peace, security, and development. (shrink)

A convergence of four genealogies reveals drone power. Environmentality describes the contradictory uses of drones in conservation. Humanitarianism articulates how control is enacted and challenged in human crises. Securitization examines drones in surveillance and counter-surveillance. Militarization, the use of drones in war, explains domination from above and resistance from below. While theories of governmentality dominate, an emergent materialism within drone studies emphasizes the diffusion of power and agency. A synthesis of drone governmentality and drone materialism exposes four flightways or (...) elemental trajectories. The drone is an existential technology – a tool for enlivenment and senescence. As such, drone power migrates between biopolitics and resistance. In doing so, drone performativity generates assemblages of human and nonhuman actants entangled at material-discursive and onto-epistemological levels. Entrapment designates the consequences of increasing dependency on technologies in sociotechnical systems of life and death. (shrink)

Destexhe expands upon the discussion begun in " The Politics of Rescue," stating that the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, in choosing a humanitarian route rather than a political one, further enabled ethnic cleansing and prolonged the conflict in the Balkans.

The article investigates the implications of mediatization for the legitimation strategies of humanitarian organizations. Based on a corpus of ~400 pages of brochure material from 1970 to 2007, the micro-textual processes involved in humanitarian organizations’ efforts to legitimate themselves and their moral claim were examined. A time trend analysis of the prioritization of actors in the material indicates that marked shifts in legitimation loci have taken place during the past 40 years. A discourse analysis unfolds the three dominant discourses behind (...) these shifts, namely legitimation by accountancy, legitimation by institutionalization, and legitimation by compensation. The analysis relates these changes to a problem of trust associated with mediatization through processes of mediation. (shrink)

From church-sponsored AIDS prevention campaigns in Africa to Muslim charity efforts in flood-stricken Pakistan to Hindu charities in India, religious groups have altered the character of the global humanitarian movement. Moreover, even secular groups now gesture toward religious inspiration in their work. Clearly, the broad, inexorable march toward secularism predicted by so many Westerners has halted, which is especially intriguing with regard to humanitarianism. Not only was it a highly secularized movement just forty years ago, but its principles were (...) based on those we associate with " modernity: cosmopolitan one-worldism and material (as opposed to spiritual) progress. How and why did this happen, and what does it mean for humanitarianism writ large? That is the question that the eminent scholars Michael Barnett and Janice Stein pose in Sacred Aid, and for answers they have gathered chapters from leading scholars that focus on the relationship between secularism and religion in contemporary humanitarianism throughout the developing world. Collectively, the chapters in this volume comprise an original and authoritative account of religion has reshaped the global humanitarian movement in recent times. (shrink)

The article discusses the relationship between the concepts of humanitarianism and humanity, which the author dissociates from each other, also separating them from the concept of humanism. The author believes that these concepts are often confused, they form a “semantic cloud,” intuitively comprehended as integrity and referring us to the image of man as the center of the world and the subject matter of discussion in ethics, aesthetics, psychology as well as philosophy and other “free arts.” However, these concepts (...) need to be distinguished. Humanism represents a conceptual theoretical setting for considering a person as a free, independent and active being, while, in the author’s opinion, humanitarianism is a literary form of statements about a person. At the same time, humanity is meant as a characteristic of behavior and attitudes that motivate this behavior, such as the motives of kindness, philanthropy, benevolence. The article reveals the main features of humanitarianism and also shows that humanitarian texts are not always texts originating from attitudes of humanity and pursuing humanity. Literary reflection on the subject of a man does not necessarily need kindness and benevolence. The article provides examples of both the coincidence of humanitarianism and humanity and their divergence. The author draws attention to the existence of humanitarian but not humane texts, some of which cannot be attributed as philanthropic and other ones – as optimistic. The author considers it necessary not to confuse closely related concepts, denoting different aspects of human life and culture. (shrink)

The Trafficking Victims Protection Act legislation has established the US as a global humanitarian leader on the issue of human trafficking. Through the use of formulaic victim narratives, appeals to masculinist protection, and invocations of slave abolitionism, legislators frame the law as a work of compassion and protection of migrant people. On the other hand, legislators often take a suspicious and unsympathetic approach to irregular migrants. This article describes the humanitarian posture adopted by the US in relation to anti-trafficking, contrasting (...) it with an anti-immigration sentiment, evidenced in two attempts to limit or rescind the benefits of anti-trafficking legislation for migrants. When considered together the humanitarian and anti-immigration focus of anti-trafficking law and policy make for an internally inconsistent approach to tackling trafficking. (shrink)

This article examines narratives, images, and stories that give insight to everyday experimentation and ethical self‐formation. I use the case of World Vision and its early leaders to unpack genealogies of American evangelical humanitarianism. Rather than seeking to identify American evangelicalism’s normative ethical stance, I aim to expand the discussion in anthropology of ethics on ethical self‐formation through examining the tensions, reflections, and processes of becoming among evangelical humanitarians. In doing so, I examine two focal areas of ethical self‐formation (...) among early World Vision leaders. The first is oscillation between and mixing of passion and compassion frameworks in the American evangelical imagination. Second, I identify a range of temporal frames that evangelicals draw on to make sense of and formulate ethical responses to human needs encountered abroad. (shrink)

In this paper I develop a deconstructive analysis of the relationship between humanitarian aid and state sovereignty. First, I sketch Derrida's analysis of the Christian roots of contemporary concepts of tolerance, forgiveness, and hospitality. Second, I trace the history and etymology of the word ‘humanitarian’ to reveal its Christian heritage; and argue that ‘humanitarian’ is bound to the violence of Christ's crucifixion, on the one hand, and to the sovereignty of God, on the other. Third, I set out three phases (...) in the politics of contemporary humanitarian aid in relation to an increasing concern for humanitarian warfare. I conclude that international humanitarian aid and humanitarian warfare are bound together through an autoimmune logic that simultaneously challenges and shores up state sovereignty. State sovereignty creates ‘refugees’, which necessitates humanitarian aid organizations to step in and literally fill the space between state borders, a space that has become a kind of ‘no-man's land’ beyond citizenship. Police and military respond to refugee camps by patrolling them to shore up national borders and state sovereignty. Non-governmental humanitarian aid organizations, supposedly operating outside of nation states, become a necessary supplement to state sovereignty. (shrink)

The response of the international community to humanitarian crises is not based on humanitarian needs aloneHumanitarian crises carry massive human costs. Media exposure may lead to increased advocacy and awareness and strengthen the response of the international community. However, when this does not occur, indifference or neglect may result. Our perceptions of and reactions to large scale human suffering are complex and biased. A deeper analysis of them may allow us to correct flaws in political processes, achieve greater compassion and (...) equity in our global relationships, and ultimately improve the health and wellbeing of those affected by natural disasters and civil strife.Most of us have sat in our living rooms and watched dramatic television images of large scale human suffering. The emotional response they generate fulfils an important role. It raises collective awareness of the situation and the demand for a tangible political and logistical response from governments and aid agencies.1,2 However, as this process occurs we unconsciously become part of a wider set of injustices. Across the globe many other crises are occurring, of similar or greater magnitude, but they go largely ignored simply because they do not make it to our television screens. We must …. (shrink)

In this provocative and timely book, David Kennedy explores what can go awry when we put our humanitarian yearnings into action on a global scale--and what we can do in response. Rooted in Kennedy's own experience in numerous humanitarian efforts, the book examines campaigns for human rights, refugee protection, economic development, and for humanitarian limits to the conduct of war. It takes us from the jails of Uruguay to the corridors of the United Nations, from the founding of a non-governmental (...) organization dedicated to the liberation of East Timor to work aboard an aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf. Kennedy shares the satisfactions of international humanitarian engagement--but also the disappointments of a faith betrayed. With humanitarianism's new power comes knowledge that even the most well-intentioned projects can create as many problems as they solve. Kennedy develops a checklist of the unforeseen consequences, blind spots, and biases of humanitarian work--from focusing too much on rules and too little on results to the ambiguities of waging war in the name of human rights. He explores the mix of altruism, self-doubt, self-congratulation, and simple disorientation that accompany efforts to bring humanitarian commitments to foreign settings. Writing for all those who wish that "globalization" could be more humane, Kennedy urges us to think and work more pragmatically. A work of unusual verve, honesty, and insight, this insider's account urges us to embrace the freedom and the responsibility that come with a deeper awareness of the dark sides of humanitarian governance. (shrink)

This paper examines how Western humanitarianism has attempted to work through its simultaneous commitment to individualized moral universalism and ambivalence about substantive global egalitarianism via what is identified as humanitarian sentimentalism, namely an ensemble of narrative and visual mechanisms designed to cultivate charitable moral sentiments among Euro-American publics toward victims of humanitarian crises in the global South. After briefly discussing how the aforementioned ambivalence is rooted in the founding philosophical principles of humanitarianism, the paper examines the visual economy (...) of humanitarian sentimentalism, constituted through four iconographic tropes found in the history of Western representation of humanitarian emergencies and injustices (personification, massification, rescue, and care), each of which aims to trigger sentimentalizing responses on the part of viewers. Hence, it is argued that if the Western humanitarian movement's dependence on visually based sentimentalism has been effective in generating a sense of concern for distant others, such concern has not been converted into a more radical and egalitarian set of political practices of global solidarity, which would aim structurally to transform the current world order in an egalitarian manner to tackle the systemic sources of humanitarian crises. (shrink)

This article aims to demonstrate how the impact of humanitarian crises on health outcomes is related to social justice issues, even when these crises are brought upon by natural disasters. Pre-existing inequalities between individuals and social groups within a community affect in important and complex ways the health disparities which result from natural disasters. Drawing on the thought-provoking work of Paul Farmer, my main hypothesis is that socio-political factors prior to natural disasters determine ‘structured health risks’ that humanitarian crises will (...) necessarily exacerbate. To adequately respond to these structured health risks, medical humanitarianism cannot abide by an apolitical approach which mainly focuses on emergency relief. A more comprehensive analysis of the socio-political aspects of the health impact of humanitarian crises indicates that a more comprehensive approach to medical humanitarianism is necessary. This has three implications. First, a coherent account of medical humanitarianism needs to assess the international dimension of structural injustice that leads to structured health disparities. Second, this comprehensive approach to medical humanitarianism supports the ‘denaturalization of natural disasters’ argument. Third, medical humanitarianism should be organized around a broader and more complex approach of overlapping sequences which bridge emergency relief, reconstruction and development through a better aligned, orchestrated and coherent international effort. (shrink)

The current proliferation of restitutive claims in response to expropriation in armed conflicts occurs at the interstices of humanitarianism and transitional justice. Restitution indicates the expansion of the humanitarian mandate from providing immediate relief to those who have suffered loss, to engaging in remedial, redressive and restorative practices. That intersection between the humanitarian goals and post-conflict justice is one of the signs of ‘new’ forms and ethos of humanitarianism. This article offers a critical reading of the ‘restitutive desire’ (...) underpinning the humanitarian restitutive politics, which it relates to political fantasies of reversibility and undoing. It locates the genealogy of restitution in Émile Durkheim’s work on the division of labour, individualization and the distinction between repressive and restitutive law. It argues that in the Durkheimian socio-legal tradition restitution figures as a return of ‘matters to their former status’ and of ‘disturbed relationships to their normal form’. It then turns to Sigmund Freud’s essay on Daniel Schreber, which defines restitution not as procedure of undoing, but as a reparative practice that nevertheless affirms the subject’s ‘catastrophic loss of the world’. The Freudian perspective uncouples restitution and undoing and asks about the possibility of restitutive politics haunted by unrectifiable loss. (shrink)

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) offers a dilemma for international political theory. ICRC's success as a humanitarian actor in international conflict is credited to its neutral stance. However, ICRC neutrality is vulnerable to serious challenges regarding its supposed avoidance of the political. ICRC neutrality is commonly dismissed as either illusory or impossible. The problem is not grounded in the principle of neutrality itself, though, but rather in the lack of critical engagement with what it means to be (...) neutral on a humanitarian register. ICRC misreads the demands of neutrality in such ways as to permit both partiality and irresponsibility to its mission. Drawing from Roland Barthes' address of the neutral, I argue that international humanitarianism is possible as a neutral movement but that this neutrality can only be such through vigorous and fundamentally political movement responsible to the goals of human well-being and dignity as questions. (shrink)

Carl Schmitt spent much of his life arguing against human rights. While this may not come as a surprise, a closer examination of The Concept of the Political reveals that Schmitt’s critique of Liberal humanitarianism is itself rooted in a concept of the humanum as a sphere of substantive moral and political conflict. As an analysis of Schmitt’s concept of the enemy shows, this humanum serves as an argument for the necessity of a juristic distinction between enemy and foe. (...) For, only by distinguishing between the relativized enemy and the absolute foe, Schmitt argues, will we be able to distinguish create a space for particularly political action. Having revealed the framework of mediated moral conflict, in which Schmitt conceives of political action, I then turn to consider Schmitt’s minimalist proposal for a positive definition of a “universal jus commune” and assess its significance for a discussion of human rights. (shrink)