Send message to Contributor

Contribution short abstract:

Focusing on the disappointment that was generated in the course of a humanitarian project in Montenegro, I will discuss what humanitarianism looks like as a political formation from the perspective of a Southeast European semiperiphery and what lessons this bears for thinking about Europe.

Contribution long abstract:

Approaching humanitarianism from the perspective of Southeast Europe illuminates that ‘ugly feelings’ (Sianne Ngai) present a constitutive element of the affective-emotional constellation of humanitarianism. Focusing on disappointment that was generated in the course of a humanitarian project in Montenegro, I will discuss what humanitarianism looks like as a political formation from the perspective of a Southeast European semiperiphery.

Placing an ethnographic focus on ‘ugly emotions’ sheds light on the largely invisible and awkward position of the so-called Global Easts within what Ticktin (2014) calls ‘transnational humanitarianism’ as a political and moral formation. Humanitarianism has been one of the defining features of the European political project, reiterating the colonially inflected distinctions between the Global North and the Global South. Yet, the positions of the various Global Easts in this constellation remain odd – which means that they deserve analytical attention. I will illustrate how actors from one of these diverse Global Easts were included as potential providers of aid in the racialized and class-based discourses about humanitarianism, while being simultaneously excluded from actual participation in various humanitarian projects due to structural constraints. This simultaneous inclusion into the racialized and class-based discourses and exclusion from actual participation in humanitarian projects generated disappointment.

Considering what humanitarianism means and how it is practiced in 'Global Easts' is important for understanding the European project better. It sheds light on multiple, unequally positioned Europes that have taken shape after the end of the Cold War as well as on the discursive practices that stitch them together.