Paper short abstract:

Based on ethnographic fieldwork, the paper explores transformations and practices of the local refugee aid workscape since the 2015/2016 refugee corridor onwards. Special attention is placed on affective labor performed by local employees and volunteers working in humanitarian NGOs in Croatia.

Paper long abstract:

Amid the complex dynamics of late capitalism´s work transformations characterized by the expansion of precarious, flexible and immaterial labor, a significant increase of the NGO sector, together with various humanitarian initiatives, has been recorded, featuring both, the professional and the vernacular formulations of aid. Having in mind the transformations of (humanitarian) work, this paper is specifically interested in the local aid workscape enhanced by the recent refugee movements within Croatia´s coercive border regime. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in two local NGOs, and the interviews conducted with humanitarians working in various aid organizations from the 2015 and 2016 refugee corridor onwards, the goal of the paper is to explore features and particularities of such a workscape with an emphasis on the labor invested by local humanitarians. Emotional engagement that I encountered among my interlocutors will be explored by using the concept of affective labor which will provide an insight into dialectics between the emotional and rational apprehensions of aid. With regard to the emotionally taxing and precarious working environment, experiences of local employees and volunteers will offer an insight into the ways humanitarianism enacts on a local scale. More specifically, the focus lies in the analysis of the ways the local refugee aid workscape adopts, reflects and/or challenges the dominant trends of the international aid industry.