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- Convenors:
-
Kate Pincock
(ODI)
Evan Easton-Calabria (University of Oxford)
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- Format:
- Paper panel
- Stream:
- Humanitarism and migration
- Location:
- C429
- Sessions:
- Friday 28 June, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
This panel invites papers that reflect upon displaced populations’ strategies for survival and care, and how centring these may assist us in reconceptualising humanitarian protection beyond the colonial imaginary.
Long Abstract:
Humanitarianism is often taken for granted as the practice of protecting and assisting populations during crises, and is often invoked in the context of displacement and forced migration. However, rather than a neutral and normative principle, protection is subjective and contested, borne out of historical and cultural contingencies and serving to legitimate particular actors and types of interventions. Though operationalised in reaction to immediate so-called crises, humanitarian responses to refugee situations emerge in the context of historical legacies of ‘helping’ that maintain global structural inequalities. Attending to the colonality inherent in humanitarian action and the ways that this objectifies and erodes the agency of ‘subjects’ of humanitarian action, a growing body of work has drawn attention to refugees’ own protective everyday practices and strategies, grounded in solidarity, mutual assistance and community care. Most recently, Fassin and Honneth’s (2022) ‘Crisis Under Critique’ propose an analysis of the social productivity of crisis that explores how local actors involved in responding to humanitarian situations.
Drawing on this lens, this panel invites papers that reflect upon displaced populations’ strategies for survival and care, and how centring these may assist us in reconceptualising humanitarian protection beyond the colonial imaginary. Papers may explore themes that include but are not limited to the tensions between institutional and refugee notions of time, space, crisis and protection itself. We are particularly interested in contributions which reflect upon the implications for transformative and socially just humanitarian praxis with a lens towards understanding not only current but future humanitarian protection.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Friday 28 June, 2024, -Caitlin Sturridge (ODI)
Paper short abstract:
This paper draws on research exploring IDP adaptive strategies. By mapping these strategies, and analysing the obstacles and opportunities for their wellbeing, the paper challenges humanitarian actors to support communities in ways that reflect their own experiences, preferences and aspirations.
Paper long abstract:
While humanitarian assistance provides a critical lifeline in crisis, the strategies that people are themselves able to deploy can be a critical determinant of their survival and recovery. People under pressure seek out options and opportunities wherever they may be, including activities labelled by aid actors as risky, illicit or dishonest (Mosberg & Eriksen, 2015).
Maximising humanitarian assistance was an important strategy practised to differing extents by many Afghans and Mozambicans in our research. Some split their household into smaller units or across multiple places to increase opportunities for registering for aid. Others trade the assistance they receive for more essential or desirable items, or sell it altogether to repay debts or generate small returns to invest in other ventures.
Such examples of agency and entrepreneurship (which are applauded in everyday society) are often interpreted by aid actors and local authorities as subversive, manipulative or ungrateful in displacement contexts. This reaction not only ignores the structural factors that compel displaced people to act in this way in the first place, but it also contributes to a hostile environment that exacerbates their trauma and suffering (Iazzolino, 2021).
Instead of penalising people for being strategic and resourceful, aid actors must consider how to adapt assistance so that it meets their needs. When aid does not include the goods and items that people need, it is not surprising that exchanges and trades are made. For example, under the right conditions, cash transfers offer greater flexibility and autonomy than in-kind assistance or vouchers.
Karen Schouw Iversen (Queen Mary University of London)
Paper short abstract:
This paper develops the concept of ‘humanitarian activist citizenship’ to analyse the work of grassroots organisations representing IDPs in Colombia. It contributes to the literature on humanitarianism by arguing that Colombian IDPs use humanitarian discourses to challenge their marginalisation.
Paper long abstract:
The critical literature on humanitarianism has long emphasised the disempowering and depoliticising effects such aid has on displaced populations and other recipients of assistance (Malkki 1996; Harrell-Bond 2002; Fassin 2009; Agier 2011; Ticktin 2016; Cabot 2019). Yet, a growing body of work has begun to highlight the agency that refugees, internally displaced persons (IDPs), and people on the move display when faced with humanitarian action (Feldman 2007; 2012; Holzer 2015; Olivius 2019; Jumbert and Pascucci 2021; Vandevoordt 2019). This paper builds on this literature by theorising the important role of humanitarian discourses and policies in facilitating collective action and resistance by humanitarian ‘subjects.’ It does so by developing the concept of ‘humanitarian activist citizenship, ’applying this to analyse the political work of grassroots organisations representing groups and individuals displaced within the context of Colombia’s civil conflict. In Colombia, the armed conflict has led to the forced migration of around 8 million IDPs. In response, self-identified IDPs and other victims of violence have formed organisations and staged protests to claim collective rights. Drawing on a narrative analysis of interviews conducted with members of IDP grassroots organisations in Bogotá between 2017 and 2018, and building on insights from the ‘acts of citizenship’ literature (Isin 2008), this paper argues that the political work of these organisations must be understood as a form of ‘humanitarian activist citizenship,’ through which groups and individuals victimised by violence in Colombia mobilise humanitarian policies and discourses to redefine the relations that exist between them and the state.
Ayo Degett (University of Copenhagen and Danish Refugee Council) Martin Lokolo (DRC) Kathrine Starup (DRC Danish Refugee Council) Susan Whyte (University of Copenhagen)
Paper short abstract:
As acting subjects, who are subject to the conditions of humanitarian regimes, South Sudanese refugees in Uganda engage in endeavours to improve their situations. A long-term ethnographic study with peer researchers reveals how these, often unrecognized, endeavours unfold.
Paper long abstract:
For generations South Sudanese have been living in and out of displacement. During these periods, they have been subject to violent conflicts in their locations of origin and often in their location of displacement. At the same time, they have been subject to many trainings and interventions on peacebuilding, income generation, protection and other such topics. These experiences of past and present conflicts and humanitarian interventions have provided extensive knowledge on what to expect from their surroundings, in terms of conflict, peace and aid. They manage these surroundings to best suit their needs for self-protection, peace, influence on humanitarian decisions and better futures in general. We define these efforts as ‘endeavours’.
This paper examines cross-cutting issues of humanitarian protection, participation and peace based on ethnographic data from a refugee settlement in Uganda, between 2018 and 2024. On the one hand, our findings feed into the growing body of literature on the effect of the colonality inherent in humanitarian action. On the other hand, they suggest a way forward by re-directing attention to what refugees are doing – their actions towards self-protection, peace and influence: their ‘endeavours’.
By following and documenting a large number of endeavours in this specific humanitarian context, we suggest a way of rethinking agency and participation in humanitarian action, which could contribute to reconceptualising humanitarian protection beyond the colonial imaginary.
This paper builds upon an ethnographic research project (ASPIRE) conducted by DRC and University of Copenhagen (2023-2038), in partnership with UNHCR and implemented through refugee peer researchers.
Naomi Pendle (University of Bath) Sylvia Antonia Nakimera Nannyonga-Tamusuza (Makerere University)
Paper short abstract:
Humanitarians increasingly pay attention to civilian self-protection strategies. However, crucial to these self-protection strategies is people’s own conception of safety and insecurity, and music during conflict can help us understand these. We draw on findings from Warrap State (South Sudan).
Paper long abstract:
We advocate for ethnomusicology - the critical study of the dialogical relationship between music and the contexts that define it - as a research approach to better understanding experiences of humanitarian protection and the way that people stay safe during conflict. As humanitarian protection strategies have not kept all civilians safe, there is growing scholarly and policy attention to self-protection strategies. We argue that paying attention to music can help humanitarians to build upon, and not undermine, local safety strategies and understand their potentially alternative epistemologies and priorities. As humanitarians pay more attention to self-protection strategies, the danger is that they instrumentalise these strategies without understanding their nuances and moral justifications. Paying attention to songs and music has the potential to help humanitarians understand better. For example, music offers an alternative lens to better understand people’s protection priorities in contexts where lived experiences can be too emotive or political to be verbalised in other ways.
The paper is based on empirical research in Warrap State, South Sudan. Warrap State was a key battle ground for the wars of the 1980s – 2000s and has remained a sight of deadly armed conflict in subsequent decades, and even during periods of ‘peace’. We carried out qualitative research in 2022 and 2023, and were supported by local researchers Regina Nyankiir Arop, Benjamin Dut Dut and Bol Mawien. We find that people use songs aesthetically and symbolically to communicate understandings of protection and safety that can vary from those of humanitarian protection actors.