Project Summary

This project is an edited volume, that seeks to analyze the core dynamics and challenges faced by humanitarians. The first section looks at key trends in the contexts that humanitarians work. These include the locus of humanitarian work, and the increasing urbanization of humanitarian crises. Further, trends in violence are analyzed, including the securitization of humanitarian work and the retrenchment of humanitarian organizations from zones of conflict (such as Syria). The second section will look at representation and diversity within the humanitarian community. The chapter on representation will share the experience of the intended “beneficiaries”, and the lack of accountability that humanitarians have to populations in which they work. Further chapters will discuss the representation of local staff (also known as “national staff”), and the disparity of power between “expats” and locals. Also to be discussed are diversity within humanitarian organizations, including representation and/or exclusion of ethnicity, gender and the LGBTQ+ community. The third section will look at new spaces and new actors, questioning the role played by states, international organizations, and state-sponsored humanitarian organizations.

The book includes chapters contributed by a range of scholars and humanitarian practitioners, as well as vignettes by people with lived experience of the topics under discussion.

Book Plan

• Part #1: Representation

  • “Beneficiaries”

  • The power dynamic of “National Staff” and “Expats”

  • Non-Western Approaches

  • Vignette #1: From “beneficiary”, to national staff, to expat - the lived experience of one person

• Part #2: Diversity

  • Gender

  • Race and Ethnicity

  • LGBTQ+

  • Vignette #2: Experiencing intersectionality and humanitarianism

• Part #3: Existential Crises

  • Security & Securitization

  • Environmental Crisis

  • Accountability

  • Vignette #3: Experiencing insecurity

• Part #4: Space and Place

  • New actors and new spaces

  • Migrations, borders and borderlands

  • Urbanization

  • Vignette #4: Experiencing humanitarianism and migration