Journal Blog
“My fellow Americans, tonight I’m speaking to you because there is a growing humanitarian and security crisis at our southern border.” So began Donald Trump’s televised address to the nation, made in an attempt to bring pressure on Congressional Democrats to fund the border wall he had long promised his supporters. “This is a humanitarian …
Operazione Confini Sovrani Sebbene fosse una fredda notte invernale, la coda arrivava fin oltre l’angolo. Prendendo posto all’interno del magazzino di Melbourne dove si svolgeva la serata informativa per gli aspiranti volontari, il brusio si placò nell’istante in cui il direttore allargò le mani proclamando: “I nostri volontari riempiono questo edificio con uno tsunami di …
Continue reading “Il potenziale politico della responsabilità nell’umanitarismo interno”
Negli ultimi quindici anni, le politiche del lavoro in Bosnia-Erzegovina hanno conosciuto un processo di umanitarizzazione. Con ciò mi riferisco al crescente utilizzo di sentimenti morali nelle rivendicazioni politiche dei lavoratori, in particolare l’uso delle emozioni che dirigono la nostra attenzione alla sofferenza degli altri e ci fanno desiderare di porvi rimedio (Fassin 2012: 1). …
Over the last decade, international humanitarian agencies have endeavoured to develop effective ways to localise their practices of intervention in areas receiving forced migrants or stricken by conflict or disasters. ‘Localisation’ is an umbrella term referring to all approaches to working with local actors, and includes ‘locally-led’ projects which refers specifically to “work that originates …
This post is part of a series linked to the workshop “Assessing the Anthropology of Humanitarianism: Ethnography, Impact, Critique”. ———————————————– Operation Sovereign Borders Even on a frozen winter’s night, the queue snaked around the corner. Taking seats in the Melbourne warehouse for the prospective volunteer information evening, the chatter died down as the charismatic CEO …
Continue reading “The political potential of responsibility in domestic humanitarianism”
This post is part of a series linked to the workshop “Assessing the Anthropology of Humanitarianism: Ethnography, Impact, Critique”. ———————————————– Emergent humanitarian forms of life Sixteen-year old Marija was a money-keeper during one humanitarian action organized in her high school in a small town in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In many former Yugoslav countries, the words …
Continue reading “Anthropology of humanitarianism: between new vocabulary and critique”
This post is part of a series linked to the workshop “Assessing the Anthropology of Humanitarianism: Ethnography, Impact, Critique”. ———————————————– Experts, as paradigmatic figures of modernity (Mitchell 2002), occupy a central place in contemporary policy making. They embody the human drive for governing the world via the use of rational reason. The term finds its …
Continue reading “The circular logic of humanitarian expertise”
This post is part of a series linked to the workshop “Assessing the Anthropology of Humanitarianism: Ethnography, Impact, Critique”. ———————————————– “He [Pero] is a refugee person [izbegličko lice], we have to help him. Pero received a small flat consisting of a room, a kitchen and a small WC. An electric meter was installed in the …
This post is part of a series linked to the workshop “Assessing the Anthropology of Humanitarianism: Ethnography, Impact, Critique”. ———————————————– 2001 is often considered a major historical turning point, marking a shift from a ‘before’ to an ‘after’ in modern history. Following the attacks of 9/11, and the subsequent invasion of Afghanistan through the military …
This post is part of a series linked to the workshop “Assessing the Anthropology of Humanitarianism: Ethnography, Impact, Critique”. ————————————————– Over the last decade and a half, labor politics in Bosnia-Herzegovina has become humanitarianized. By humanitarianize I mean the increasingly common deployment of moral sentiments in worker actions and political campaigns, particularly the “emotions that …
Continue reading “Worker experiments in humanitarian politics”