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- Convenors:
-
Nauja Kleist
(Danish Institute for International Studies)
Tanja Müller (University of Manchester)
Send message to Convenors
- Format:
- Panel
- Location:
- 6 College Park (6CP), 01/037
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 27 July, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
This panel explores translocal and transnational humanitarianism in times of crises, such as the covid-19 pandemic, environmental disasters, and conflict. It focuses on collective practices that take place outside the international humanitarian system, and how they transform over time and space.
Long Abstract:
Focusing on translocal and transnational humanitarian practices, this panel explores the practices, perceptions and transformations of conviviality and solidarity that take place outside the international humanitarian system. We are curious about crisis relief and support practices that may include relatives, neighbours as well as 'strangers' in times of complex and overlapping crises, such as the covid-19 pandemic, environmental disasters, protracted conflict, and economic hardship. Whether termed vernacular, everyday, civic or diaspora humanitarianism, such assistance forms part of often long-established practices where compassion, social obligations, and religion may play central roles.
However, in times of overlapping and colliding crises that simultaneously affect people in different locations, regionally and globally, such humanitarian practices might be challenged and transformed. This raises a number of questions: What shapes the modes of mobilization and provision of support and relief, who are included and excluded, and what are the underpinning social imaginaries of crisis and assistance in such situations? And how does the global nature of Covid-19 - or other global crises - affect and transform translocal and transnational crisis response and practices of conviviality over time and space?
We are looking for contributions that focus on these and related questions around the world. While Covid-19 is an obvious theme, we welcome other case studies, especially regarding overlapping and colliding crises. Likewise, we welcome contributions with emphasis on methodological and conceptual perspectives.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 27 July, 2022, -Paper short abstract:
This contribution focuses on everyday humanitarianism by migrant communities in three cities in the Horn of Africa: Nairobi, Addis Ababa and Khartoum. It is framed around the concept of lived citizenship, defined as a means to secure well-being through everyday acts and practices.
Paper long abstract:
This contribution focuses on everyday humanitarianism by migrant communities in three cities in the Horn of Africa: Nairobi, Addis Ababa and Khartoum. It is framed around the concept of lived citizenship, defined as a means to secure well-being through everyday acts and practices.
Based on an analysis of comparative interview data among Eritrean and Ethiopian migrant communities in each city, I advance the following arguments: COVID-19 has impacted lived citizenship practices to different degrees, linked to previous forms of precarity and the means and networks of coping with those. Disruptions of transnational support networks resulted in a turn towards local networks and everyday practices of solidarity. These forms of everyday humanitarianism range from spontaneous to more organised forms, but what unites them is a perceived lack of involvement by international humanitarian actors (such as UNHCR) and the local state. In addition, concrete forms of everyday humanitarianism often relate back to memories and experiences of times of hardship in migrants’ homelands. The paper thus raises important questions in relation to transnational humanitarian action in a global crisis.
Paper short abstract:
Somalis have a long history of assisting each other during crisis, such as drought, floods, or Covid-19. Examining the transformations and repertoires of mobilization of such assistance, we argue that it is underpinned by social connectedness, embedded in translocal and transnational practices.
Paper long abstract:
Due to the absent or weak role of the state to respond to emergencies, Somalis engage in emergency assistance when crisis strike, such as droughts, floods, and terrorist attacks. In this exploratory article, on we examine the origin, structure, and operation of such emergency assistance as well as the Somali terminology and mobilization repertoires used. We present three related arguments. First, that Somalis have a long history of emergency assistance, underpinned by social connected and embeddedness, revolving around kinship and clan structures. Second, owing to increased translocalism, transnationalism and ‘transnational embeddedness’, such assistance has transformed, in scale, operation and efficiency, in the last three decades. Third, we propose that practices and repertoires of mobilization and assistance have started to shift towards cross-clan and Somalinimo affiliation as well as mediation by social media, as diaspora (and to some degree urban) youth become more engaged as the older generations retire.
Paper short abstract:
I explore how Burgaz islanders from diverse backgrounds live together, and represent their conviviality in their filmic and literary productions, by highlighting their acts of solidarity and conviviality during times of crisis, and by articulating a shared discourse of hope, and collective identity.
Paper long abstract:
This paper explores the ways in which Burgaz islanders from diverse ethnic, religious and socio-economic backgrounds live together, and represent their conviviality in their filmic and literary productions. Building on fieldwork in 2009-2010, followed by production interviews in 2021-2022, I analyse the novels the islanders wrote, the documentaries they filmed, interviewing the authors and documentaries’ producers, and the islanders’ reception of these productions. The islanders refer to the acts of solidarity and conviviality during times of crisis (such as the 1955 pogrom), by articulating a shared discourse of hope that emphasises their shared Burgaz identity and communal strength. The islanders described their diversity as ‘marbling’ (ebru in Turkish) in opposition to ‘mosaic’ where the patterns have distinct borders and are hence more vulnerable to destruction. In ebru, even though patterns still keep their distinctiveness, their boundaries fuse into each other and form a more solid picture as a whole. By paying attention to the everyday living and the words and metaphors/allegories the islanders use, I redevelop the concept of ‘conviviality’ to stress shared living, sense of belonging in a place, collective identity formation and acts of solidarity at times of crisis that bonds the population from different backgrounds, by criticising the emphasis on identity politics and politics of difference within multiculturalism theories. The paper argues that the islanders’ conceptualisation of their conviviality challenges liberal multiculturalism approach to difference as a basis to secure equality and rights, and Joppke and Luke’s (1999) description of society in the form of mosaic.
Paper short abstract:
This paper engages the Covid-19 pandemic as a turning point in solidarity practices among Syrians in Paris. It explores how, as support networks became virtual and more diffuse, they also expanded to embrace a broader imagining of solidarity, with implications for established translocal practices.
Paper long abstract:
Syrians living in Paris, France marked the ten-year anniversary of the civil uprisings in Syria in March 2021 not with the usual solidarity march through the streets of the French capital but at a distance due to a national Covid-19 lockdown that prohibited gatherings in public places. In previous years, such large gatherings in solidarity with the Syrian Revolution and the victims of the subsequent protracted armed conflict in Syria had served as zones of encounter where Syrian refugees, exiles, and other participants engaged in convivial practices across difference, navigating tensions and establishing support networks. Drawing on embedded research with the Syrian diaspora in Paris from 2019 to 2021, this paper builds on models of solidarity founded on conviviality – encountering and negotiating difference – to explore the effects of overlapping crises on such processes. Already navigating the lingering consequences of the so-called European migrant crisis with its spectacular imagery and humanitarian regimes of care, before the Covid-19 pandemic Syrians of diverse backgrounds in Paris had begun to establish translocal networks of solidarity that emerged from convivial encounters in spaces throughout the city. This paper engages the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic as a turning point in these solidarity practices among Syrian exiles and refugees in Paris. It explores how, as these networks moved online and became more diffuse, they also expanded to encompass a broader imagining of solidarity through volunteering and other local initiatives, with implications for translocal practices of solidarity and support.
Paper short abstract:
It will explore social imaginaries around healthcare system insufficiency, humanitarian crisis at Polish-Byelorussian border and war-caused displacement of Ukraine’s population as well as mobilization of healthcare professionals to provide the assistance to the most vulnerable in the crises times.
Paper long abstract:
The presentation will discuss the overlapping and colliding crises resulting from healthcare system insufficiency, humanitarian crisis at Polish-Byelorussian border and unfolding displacement of Ukraine’s population across Poland, resulting from the aggression of the Russian Federation in Ukraine. I will explore social imaginaries around these crises as well as individual and group mobilization to provide the assistance to the most vulnerable. In particular I am interested in the role of healthcare professionals in response to these crises. The analysis is based on ongoing fieldwork about migrants’ access to healthcare in Poland, and involvement of medical personnel in grass root assistance and support. Since healthcare provision - both to Polish citizens and migrant workers - has been increasingly insufficient in recent years, new forms and practices are developed in response to humanitarian crises in Poland. I will also reflect on methodological challenges when researching such phenomena, especially when a researcher plays many roles.