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- Convenors:
-
Pedro Silva Rocha Lima
(University of Manchester)
Ana Elisa Barbar (Insecurity Insight)
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- Formats:
- Roundtable
- Mode:
- Face-to-face
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 24 July, -
Time zone: Europe/Madrid
Short Abstract:
This roundtable debates the tensions and effects of the humanitarian framing of crises underpinned by relations of oppression, using the situation in Gaza as a trigger for discussion. It also explores related questions of doing applied anthropology in such contexts and the importance of critique.
Long Abstract:
Western humanitarianism, a form of practice informed by specific principles and interventionist activities, has historically struggled between a stated anti-politics and moral right to access to populations to deliver relief in different conflict settings around the globe. At the same time, anthropological research has tried to understand and dialogue with these practices, questioning the why and the how, as well as the impact of humanitarianism in the contexts where it unfolds. Using the recent escalation in Gaza as a trigger for discussion, this roundtable debates the tensions and effects of the humanitarian framing of crises underpinned by relations of oppression. Firstly, along the lines of critique, what are the practical and ethical implications of framing such events as ‘humanitarian crises’ that require ‘pauses’ and ‘ceasefires’? In what ways does the humanitarian frame also affect the politics of the context? What kinds of alternatives does that frame preclude and which injustices might it reproduce? Secondly, turning to a more applied anthropology, how may anthropological critique help re-frame humanitarian ethics and practice? Another related question that speakers might choose to address is: to what extend and how should anthropologists critique humanitarian endeavours amidst an ongoing crisis? Speakers are invited to explore topics such as, but not limited to, questions of discourse and power, humanitarian confidentiality, the connections between humanitarianism and politics, and public anthropology.
Accepted contributions:
Session 1 Wednesday 24 July, 2024, -Ruba Salih (University of Bologna)
Contribution short abstract:
Anthropological scholarship has for a long time shed light on the critical and depoliticizing effects of humanitarianism in Palestine and elsewhere. Yet, today keeping the Palestinian body alive becomes a political act, an obstacle to the genocidal logic of elimination unfolding in Gaza.
Contribution long abstract:
Anthropological scholarship has for a long time shed light on the critical and depoliticizing effects of humanitarianism in Palestine and elsewhere. Yet, today keeping the Palestinian body alive becomes a political act, an obstacle to the genocidal logic of elimination unfolding in Gaza.
Ilana Feldman (George Washington University)
Contribution short abstract:
Palestinians in the Gaza Strip face multiple forms of humanitarian danger. The massive humanitarian crisis caused by Israeli bombardment and siege of Gaza is clear. It is only possible to understand this threat by also understanding how humanitarianism is used as a weapon against Palestinians.
Contribution long abstract:
This presentation will explore the multiple forms of humanitarian danger that are confronting Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. The massive humanitarian crisis caused by Israeli bombardment and siege of Gaza is a clear danger. The healthcare system has been decimated by attack, starvation is looming as a product of the restriction on entry of food and fuel, the vast majority of the population has been displaced, and a significant portion of its buildings (both public buildings and homes) are destroyed or damaged. It is only possible to understand, and respond to, this overwhelming threat by also understanding how humanitarianism is, and has been, used as a weapon against Palestinians. This weaponization takes (at least) two forms. One is the effort to transform a fundamentally political situation into a humanitarian one, thereby shifting how both cause and response are conceptualized. Another is the argument that humanitarian concerns necessitate actions that are deleterious to Palestinian political and social aspirations (talk of humanitarian resettlement/ethnic cleansing is a clear example). The talk will situate today’s humanitarian dangers within a longer historical context in which Gazans have repeatedly confronted such dynamics.
Ana Elisa Barbar (Insecurity Insight)
Contribution short abstract:
This intervention suggests that anthropology, science with tradition of accountable roles for both anthropologist and its work, can contribute to the development of similar practices in the humanitarian field, critically approaching applied ethics - using the example of the current Gaza crisis.
Contribution long abstract:
While the purpose of humanitarian and anthropological practices differ, both are framed by ethical standards that serve at times as red lines or as validation. Applying such ethical norths depends largely on interpretation, being especially relevant when dilemmas arise. This paper proposes that exchanges between humanitarism and anthropology may support a constructive approach to ethical dilemmas face by the former. I suggest that anthropological research, surrounded by stark discussions of method, can positively influence humanitarism, field of praxis with undeniable moral backdrop and often using ethical principles as means for an end. Anthropologists acknowledge their choices to affect or even shape the discussion produced by its practice, which inevitably holds an accountable role for the anthropologist and its work. Conversely, humanitarism has the tradition of responding to ethical challenges by reiterating strict principles and focusing on the deliverables, in such way that there’s little debate on whether such instrumentalization of applied ethics is finally detrimental to the very values humanitarism wishes to uphold. In face of the acute and catastrophic situation lived by the Palestinians in Gaza, I argue that the engaged practice of anthropological research should be learned by humanitarians, favouring honest ethical discussions about how ways of intervening influence the results of the work. Amidst indiscriminate killing, intentional starvation and other violations, I raise the need to critically approach applied ethics in humanitarian practice, not to place blame or to destitute humanitarian practice of its value, but to instigate accountable humanitarism.
Julie Billaud (Geneva Graduate Institute)
Contribution short abstract:
This contribution proposes that an engaged anthropology of humanitarianism in times of genocide should consist in analysing humanitarianism’s unintended effects while continuing to support the moral standards promoted by international humanitarian law.
Contribution long abstract:
Is it morally legitimate to criticize humanitarianism at the very moment when the minimalistic protection it offers is systematically violated? What productive critique of humanitarianism can anthropologists articulate in light of the mass violations of international humanitarian law currently taking place in Gaza? My contribution to this roundtable is based on a two-year embedded ethnographic fieldwork at the International Committee of the Red Cross, both in Geneva and in various ‘missions’, including Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, carried out between 2016 and 2018. I examine how, as a result of the prolonged occupation of Palestine, the institutionalisation of humanitarian programs in the region has created a number of contradictions. Because the long-term experience of life lived in relief has powerfully shaped Palestinians’ subjectivities, humanitarianism has functioned as a “politicizing machine” turning the humanitarian apparatus into a site for the articulation of political claims and their violent repression. Simultaneously, the Israeli state has instrumentalised humanitarian programs and used them as technocratic tools for managing the “undesirables”. Building on my (failed) attempts at triggering internal discussion on the limits of humanitarian action in such a context, I reflect on the conditions of possibility for collectively rethinking solidarity with and justice for Palestine beyond the dominant humanitarian frame. I argue that an engaged anthropology of humanitarianism should consist in ‘provincializing’ humanitarianism, analysing its unintended effects, documenting alternative forms of care from a Global South perspective while supporting the universal moral standards promoted by humanitarian law, especially in times of genocide.
Malay Firoz (Arizona State University)
Contribution short abstract:
This paper addresses the analytical tension between two modes of humanitarian narratology in the context of Gaza: the deployment of humanitarian frames to displace politics, and the unsettlement of political discourse through the act of bearing witness.
Contribution long abstract:
My contribution will address an analytical tension within the purportedly antipolitical meanings and functions of what I call “humanitarian narratology.” On the one hand, international actors regularly deploy humanitarian moralism in order to displace questions of political violence and injustice that require structural redress far beyond the humanitarian mandate. In the context of Israel’s war on Gaza, appeals for a humanitarian ceasefire—while crucial to mitigate immediate suffering—have served to redirect mainstream political debate into terms already aligned with the imperatives of Israeli warcraft, obviating political challenges to the moral legitimacy of military occupation. At the same time, humanitarian narratives have also played, since the inception of the modern humanitarian industry, the contradistinct role of bearing witness to political violence, which bears special relevance to conflict zones otherwise curated for an international audience by state propaganda and (official or unofficial) press censorship. Humanitarian aid workers in Gaza, for instance, have offered timely and efficacious refutations of IDF disinformation, and exercise power to shape public opinion precisely by invoking the antipolitical character of humanitarian testimony. In this mode, I argue that humanitarian narratology articulates the conditions of its own self-critique: unsettling the discursive economy of political violence while reinforcing the broader recognition that there are ultimately no humanitarian solutions to humanitarian problems. This duality, I conclude, offers a productive point of departure for public anthropological engagements with the humanitarian frame.