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- Convenor:
-
Jeremy Rich
(Marywood University)
Send message to Convenor
- Format:
- Panels
- Location:
- KH212
- Start time:
- 29 June, 2017 at
Time zone: Europe/Zurich
- Session slots:
- 1
Short Abstract:
This panel will explore the political, social, and cultural dimensions of transnational humanitarian aid. How humanitarian organizations framed and engaged in political questions related to colonialism and its varied legacies is a theme that ties our different contributions together.
Long Abstract:
With a few notable exceptions (the Biafra secession come to mind), scholars have only begun to explore humanitarian aid in the colonial era and the first decades of independence in Africa. These presentations will explore the political, social, and cultural dimensions of transnational humanitarian aid. How humanitarian organizations framed and engaged in political questions related to colonialism and its varied legacies is a theme that ties our different contributions together. How humanitarian organizations grappled with question of first trying to set parameters on colonial policies is one topic of interest to us. Another theme is how did humanitarian and development programs conceive of the legacies of colonialism. David Gordon (Bowdoin College, USA) analyzes the failures of the famed Congo Reform Association's attacks on Leopold II's rule in Congo, particularly in building a durable movement. Lyn Schler (Ben-Gurion University, Israel) will examine Israeli aid projects in Zambia designed on the kibbutz model in the 1960s and 1970s. Israeli conceptions of socialism, decolonization, and development remain little-known in the larger literature on development and humanitarianism in Africa. Jeremy Rich (Marywood University, USA)'s presentation explores the political dynamics of how North American Protestant aid workers supported Angolan refugees in the DR Congo from 1960 to 1967. Despite aid workers' claims of neutrality, their anti-colonialism led them to back Angolan rebels and they sometimes became embroiled in divisions between rebel leaders. We are open to other presenters as well.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Paper short abstract:
The paper focuses on the humanitarian work of Southern Baptist missionaries in Biafra duri9ng the 1967-70 Nigerian Civil War.
Paper long abstract:
Missionaries of the Southern Baptist Convention (USA)were committed to providing humanitarian aid and comfort on both sides of the civil war in Nigeria. My father, who was trained as a medic in WWII, was one of three missionaries who stayed in Biafra working closely with a medical doctor, Dr. Bill Norman, to provide medical care and food to civilians displaced by the fighting from August, 1967- August, 1968. They left Biafra on a relief flight flown by Count Von Rosen and were relieved by Dr. Bryant Durham, who worked primarily at Annabelle airstrip coordinating WCC efforts on the ground. Based on oral interviews with these men and on several hundred letters reporting their decisions, moral dilemmas, and personal hardships, this paper analyzes the rationale, personnel, and structure of Southern Baptist relief efforts in Biafra at the height of the civil war. These sources provide views from the "frontline" that allow Southern Baptist efforts to be placed within the larger context of the history and politics of humanitarian aid in African conflicts.
Paper short abstract:
This paper will examine the evolution of ties between Israel and Zambia through the history of Israeli aid schemes in Zambia. We will examine the political and ideological currents that gave rise to the cooperation between the two countries, and circumstances that lead to its demise.
Paper long abstract:
In 1966, President Kenneth Kaunda invited Israeli planners to establish a series of cooperative settlements in the Copperbelt Region of Zambia. These cooperatives were to be patterned along the lines of the Israeli moshav, and include clusters of cooperative settlements outside the mining towns of the Copperbelt. Israeli agricultural experts arrived to the Kafuba and Kafulafuta settlements, where they divided settlers into clearly demarcated plots. Farmers built their houses and planted vegetable gardens, and Israeli experts taught new techniques in poultry farming and dairy production. Within three years, these cooperative farms became the main suppliers of eggs and dairy to the expanding urban populations of the Copperbelt. President Kaunda was immensely pleased with the success of the initiative, as previous efforts to establish cooperatives in Zambia had failed. The moshav model was declared the key to his vision for democratic socialism known as "humanism," and plans were made for expansion. But before this could be realised, Kaunda abruptly severed ties with Israel in the wake of the October 1973 War. The Israelis were expelled from Zambia, and the moshav program came to an abrupt end. This paper will examine the evolution of ties between Israel and Zambia through the history of Israeli aid schemes in Zambia. We will examine the political and ideological currents that gave rise to the cooperation between the two countries, as well as the complex and varied circumstances that lead to its demise.
Paper short abstract:
This presentation explores how North American and British Protestant aid workers assisted and documented Angolan refugees who fled Portuguese rule to Congo in the 1960s, as well as how also aid workers became embroiled in political disputes among Angolan exiles.
Paper long abstract:
The role of humanitarian aid workers in Angolan decolonization has not drawn much attention. A transnational network of North American and Canadian Protestant missionaries sent doctors and aid workers to assist the thousands of Angolans who fled from Portuguese control at the advent of the war for independence in 1961. Aid workers viewed themselves as morally obligated to help Angolans victimized by colonialism, even as they claimed to be apolitical humanitarians. Although Angolan refugees sometimes tried to break rules for assistance set by aid workers, the biggest difficulty for aid workers came from political divisions among exiled political leaders. This essay examines how the ostensibly apolitical role of missionaries allowed them to solicit aid from various Protestant and secular donors, as well as how aid workers found themselves caught in struggles between Angolan resistance Holden Roberto and his critics. Aid workers also tried to mediate between Angolan refugees with Congolese employers and the Congolese government.
Paper short abstract:
This paper will explore the ways local concepts of responsibility and assistance in Maputo disrupt one directional narratives of development and care in the Global South.
Paper long abstract:
Development researchers have long believed that developed states use their power to provide Aid or other forms of external assistance such as private philanthropy, assistance of Non-Governmental Organisations, and other financing to developing nations to achieve global economic and political stability. Development scholars (including geographers) have largely attributed this to a sense of responsibility. Many have assumed this assistance to travel in one direction, i.e. from Global North to Global South, thus overlooking modalities of care and hospitality among individuals within countries of the Global South. In this paper, I posit that looking at everyday modes of assistance at the urban community level would challenge scholars to re-think ways in which place matters in development. Analysing qualitative data gathered in two neighbourhoods in Maputo, Mozambique, this study is an investigation of proximity. I argue that closeness of people in community relationships matters in three ways: (i) the everyday practices of assistance in these communities are modes of resistance to an oppressive state; (ii) forms of assistance serve as expressions of local (as opposed to national) identity; and (iii) religious institutions play a significant role in fostering public discourse, rather than motivating assistance. In speaking more specifically about how proximity matters, this study contributes to the growing realisation that development must come from within.