Interdisciplinary Programmes

Academic year 2020-2021 PROFESSOR

Comparative Humanitarianisms: Anthropological Julie Billaud perspectives Office hours Wednesdays 2-4 PM DE149 - Spring - 6 ECTS

Wednesdays 4.15 - 6.00 PM ASSISTANT

Course Description Shirin Barol

This course offers ethnographically grounded Office hours understandings of humanitarianism, including the multifaceted encounters of vulnerable local contexts and international expert cultures and governance regimes. Its Ian Cook, academic podcast main objectives are to provide students with the theoretical production specialist, CEU tools (1) to think critically about humanitarian responses to (Budapest) ‘crises’ and ‘suffering’; (2) to analyse the culture of humanitarianism in ways similar to how one would analyse [email protected] the culture of a specific geographic location. It identifies the historical developments via which humanitarianism came to replace the colonial mission in the second half of the 20th century as a dominant form of international engagement. It unpacks the moral economy that guides humanitarian reason, notably the religious logics of assistance conceived by anthropologists as ‘the humanitarian gift’. It introduces students to key theoretical texts on governmentality. The course further examines the (anti-)politics of intervention and its relation to state sovereignty. It explores how the world has crossed into new humanitarian frontiers of ethical, logistical, legal and cultural problematics by analyzing the overlap between humanitarianism, militarism and abandonment, the techno-legal designs of humanitarian aid, the emergence of cultures of expertise and Muslim humanitarianism as well as the links between neoliberalism, the politics of security and relief.

Chemin Eugène-Rigot 2 | CP 1672 - CH-1211 Genève 1 | +41 22 908 57 00 | graduateinstitute.ch

MAISON DE LA PAIX

Syllabus

Teaching Method

The course is taught using a diversity of teaching methods and resources. In addition to weekly readings, students are encouraged to watch films, reflect on contemporary world affairs by liaising debates discussed in class with current news, and prepare questions/comments prior to seminars. Seminars will be composed of short interactive lectures, followed by classroom discussions, debates, exercises, guest lectures and a guided tour of the Red Cross Museum.

Course content

Session 1 – Genealogies of Humanitarianism Session 2 – Humanity Session 3 – The emergency imaginary and public cultures of fear Session 4 – Humanitarian Spectacles (Guest speaker: Valérie Gorin) Session 5 – Humanitarian Gifts Session 6 – Humanitarian Government Session 7 – Humanitarian Techno-Legal Designs Session 8 – Humanitarian Borders Session 9 – The Anti-Politics Machine Session 10 – The Politics of Vulnerability Session 11 – Humanitarianism, Militarism, Abandonment Session 12 – Vernacular humanitarianism: International/local intersections and encounters Session 13 – The Need to Help Session 14 – Muslim Humanitarianism (Guest speaker: Till Mostowlansky)

Required book

Malkki, Liisa H. 2015 The Need to Help: The Domestic Arts of International Humanitarianism. Durham and London: Duke University Press.

Films

Triage: Dr Orbinski’s Humanitarian Dillemma https://vimeo.com/349653451 Password: DE149

Bienvenue Au Refugistan https://vimeo.com/207249136 Password: DE149

Learning Outcome

By the end of the module, it is intended that students will have the following learning outcomes:

1. Describe major trends in the historiography of humanitarianism. 2. Summarize key debates and concepts in the anthropology of humanitarianism 3. Identify the main actors of humanitarianism (International organizations, state agencies, NGOs, charities, private corporations etc). 4. Understand the moral, philosophical and cultural foundations of humanitarianism 5. Apply humanitarianism to broader concerns (human rights; humanitarian interventions, international governance).

- Page 2 - Transferable, practical and generic skills

1. Refined ability to identify and access appropriate primary and secondary research resources. 2. Ability to collate and critically analyse those resources in relation to complex issues in the field 3. Ability to present concise and cogently structured arguments, both orally and in writing 4. Ability to work together with others as well as independently, including effective time management 5. Ability to deploy a range of communication and information technology skills.

Assessment

NB – Depending on the number of students signing up for this course, the mode of assessment may be slightly revised.

Assignments for this course include: - 2 film reviews (500 words each) – for students opting for the essay as a final assignment only - 1 essay outline (1000 words) or a podcast production plan - 1 final essay (3000 words) or a 12-15 mins podcast

This year, students will have the possibility to opt for producing a 15-20 minutes podcast instead of an essay. Allegra Lab’s ‘Master of Podcast’ Ian Cook (based at the Central European University in Budapest) will provide technical support through online workshops organised outside of the class. Students who opt for this option will not have to submit film reviews and essay outlines but will instead submit a podcast project proposal, a draft script of written analysis of their interview (see Moodle for more details) and attend Ian’s workshops. The podcast should be related to the topic: “The Covid-19 pandemic and the humanitarian government of the world’.

Students’ performance will be evaluated on the basis of classroom participation and the quality of the audio or written assignments. Participants have to show familiarity with the assigned readings that will be discussed in class.

More precisely students opting for this essay will be requested to:  Study on a weekly basis the assigned readings and participate actively in classroom discussions.  Discuss some readings at least once during the semester; be capable of situating them in relation to readings for other weeks in order to highlight the general thrust of the course; pose a few questions to initiate the debate.  Write two short film review of 500 words each (1000 words in total) on the two films available in the portfolio (17 or 24 March).  Submit an essay outline (title; personal motivation; questions; relevance of the topic; short bibliography) of no more than 2000 words, due by 21 April to be discussed with the instructor. The topic of the essay should be one related to the course, but it is not restricted to the lectures’ titles and assigned readings.  Write a final paper of no more than 3000 words (excluding bibliography and annexes), due by 9 June, building on the essay outline.

Students opting for the podcast will be requested to:  Study on a weekly basis the assigned readings and participate actively in classroom discussions.  Discuss some readings at least once during the semester; be capable of situating them in relation to readings for other weeks in order to highlight the general thrust of the course; pose a few questions to initiate the debate.  Attend Ian’s online workshops and be regularly in touch with him for guidance in podcast production

- Page 3 -  Submit a podcast project proposal (17 or 24 March)  Submit a draft script of written analysis on their interview (21 April).  Submit their edited podcast on May 12 or 19 (see Moodle) so that they can receive feedbacks during Ian’s final workshop and do the final editing before public release.

Grade will be determined as follows: 10% for general participation in class; 15% for the film reviews or draft podcast project proposal; 15% for the essay outline or the draft script of written analysis on podcast interview; 60% for the final essay or podcast.

The seminar provides 6 ECTS. Attendance is mandatory and represents 1 ECTS, the readings, presentation and discussion 1 ECTS, the 2 film reviews or podcast project proposal 1 ECTS and the final essay/podcast 3 ECTS.

Course Policies

 Papers should be written in English or French, double-spaced, using standard 12-point font, with 1 inch margins. The student’s name, the paper’s title, the date, the course’s title and page numbers must be mentioned.  Quotations and bibliography must follow the Chicago Manual of Style or the Harvard Referencing System.  Students must hand in papers on time electronically as a Word file (no need to provide a hard copy). Papers that are sent late without a valid reason or importantly exceed the word limit will not receive a grade higher than 4.0.  Students who missed more than two classes without being excused by the instructor will not receive a grade higher than 4.0.  Plagiarism constitutes a breach of academic integrity and will not be tolerated. Students who present the work of others as their own will receive a 0.  Assigned readings will be made available as electronic reserve on the class’ website.  Students opting for the podcast will have to attend Ian’s workshops, submit a podcast production plan (via Moodle) and upload their podcast on the designated online space (see instructions on Moodle)

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Course Outline

Session 1 – Genealogies of Humanitarianism (24 Feb)

Barnett, Michael 2011 Empire of Humanity: A History of Humanitarianism. NY: Cornell University Press, pp. 1- 46 (introduction).

Barnett, Michael, and Thomas G. Weiss 2008 Humanitarianism: A Brief History of the Present. In Michael Barnett and Thomas G. Weiss (eds.), Humanitarianism in Question: Politics, Power, Ethics. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, pp. 1–48.

Haskell, Thomas 1985 Capitalism and the Origins of the Humanitarian Sensibility. American Historical Review 90(2): 339–361.

Additional readings:

Redfield, Peter 2010 The Impossible Problem of Neutrality. In Erica Bornstein and Peter Redfield (eds.), Forces of Compassion: Humanitarianism between Ethics and Politics. Santa Fe: School for Advanced Research Studies, pp. 53–70.

Abruzzo, M. 2011. Polemical Pain: Slavery, Cruelty, and the Rise of Humanitarianism. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press.

Bass, J. D. 1989 (2009). “An Efficient Humanitarianism: The British Slave Trade Debates, 1791–1792.” Quarterly Journal of Speech 75 (2): 152–65.

Ribi Forclaz, A. 2015. Humanitarian Imperialism: The Politics of Anti-Slavery Activism, 1880–1940. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Stamatov, P. 2013. The Origins of Global Humanitarianism. Religion, Empires, and Advocacy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Rodogno, Davide. 2012. Against Massacre: Humanitarian Interventions in the Ottoman Empire, 1815-1914. Princeton University Press.

Session 2 – Humanity (3 March)

Questions to discuss in your reading group: 1. What are the moral limitations of grounding ‘humanitarianism’ on the principle of humanity? 2. Why, according to Fassin, is the incapacity to overcome the inequality of lives a structural aporia of humanitarianism?

- Page 5 - 3. What can the “2010 Scientific Strategic Plan of the Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise” (SSP) tell us about recent reconfigurations of humanity? What is the latest ‘plan’ for humanity and what are its distinct features?

Compulsory readings:

Feldman, Ilana and Miriam Ticktin 2010 Introduction: Government and Humanity. In I. Feldman and M. Ticktin (eds.), In the Name of Humanity: The Government of Threat and Care. Durham and London: Duke University Press.

Fassin, Didier 2010 Inequality of Lives, Hierarchies of Humanity: Moral Commitments and Ethical Dilemmas of Humanitarianism. In I. Feldman and M. Ticktin (eds.), In the Name of Humanity: The Government of Threat and Care. Durham and London: Duke University Press.

Rees, Tobias 2014 Humanity/Plan; or, on the “Stateless” Today (also being an anthropology of global health). Cultural Anthropology 29(3): 457–478.

Additional readings:

Redfield, Peter 2008. Sacrifice, Triage and Global Humanitarianism In Michael Barnett and Thomas G. Weiss (eds.), Humanitarianism in Question: Politics, Power, Ethics. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, p 196-214.

Session 3 – The emergency imaginary and public cultures of fear (10 March)

Compulsory readings:

Caduff, Carlo 2020. What went wrong: Corona and the world after the full stop. Medical Anthropology Quarterly (Online issue).

Calhoun, Craig 2004. A World of Emergencies. Fear, Intervention, and the Limits of Cosmopolitan Order. The Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology, 41: 373-95.

Roitman, Janet 2013. Anti-Crisis. Durham: Duke University Press (selections).

Additional readings:

Calhoun, Craig 2008 The Imperative to Reduce Suffering: Charity, Progress, and Emergencies in the Field of Humanitarian Action. In Michael Barnett and Thomas G. Weiss (eds.), Humanitarianism in Question: Politics, Power, Ethics. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, pp. 73–97.

Starn, R. 1971. Historians and “Crisis”, Past and Present 52: 3-22.

- Page 6 - Koselleck, R. 2006 Crisis, Journal of the History of Ideas 67/2: 357-400.

Koselleck, R. 2002. The Conceptual History of 'Crisis'. The Practice of Conceptual History. Timing History, Spacing Concepts, 236-47. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Session 4 – Humanitarian Spectacles (17 March)

Submit your film reviews or podcast project proposal

Compulsory readings:

Gorin, Valérie 2012. Looking Back over 150 years of Humanitarian Action: the photographic archives of the ICRC. International Review of the Red Cross, 94(888), pp.1349-1379.

Sontag, Susan 2003 Regarding the Pain of Others. New York: Picador [excerpts].

Boltanski, Luc. 1999. Distant suffering: Morality, media and politics. Cambridge University Press. (Introduction)

Additional readings:

Chouliaraki, Lilie. 2010 Post-Humanitarianism: Humanitarian Communication Beyond a Politics of Pity. International journal of cultural studies 13(2): 107-126.

Fehrenbach, Heide, and Davide Rodogno, eds. 2015. Humanitarian Photography. Cambridge University Press. (Introduction)

Gorin, Valérie. 2015. "L’enfance comme figure compassionnelle: étude transversale de l’iconographie de la famine aux dix-neuvième et vingtième siècles." European Review of History: Revue européenne d'histoire 22(6): 940-962.

Koffman, Ofra, Shani Orgad, and Rosalind Gill. 2015. "Girl power and ‘selfie humanitarianism’." Continuum 29(2): 157-168.

Halttunen, Karen 1995 Humanitarianism and the Pornography of Pain in Anglo-American Culture. The American Historical Review 100(2): 303–334.

Session 5 – Humanitarian Gifts (24 March)

Submit your film reviews or podcast project proposal

Questions to discuss in your reading groups:

- Page 7 - 1. To which extent does dan in India contradict Mauss’ theory of the gift? How have the practice and meaning of dan in India changed under the influence of capitalism, state intervention and increasing concerns over accountability? 2. What constitutes the ‘gift taboo’ in Greece? How has such a taboo collapsed as a result of austerity measures and the ‘refugee crisis’? 3. What kinds of gifts do the ‘Trauma Teddies’ and ‘Aid Bunnies’ knitted by Red Cross volunteers represent?

Compulsory readings:

Bornstein, Erica. 2009. The Impulse of Philanthropy. Cultural Anthropology 24.4 (2009): 622-651.

Malkki, Liisa 2015. The Need to Help. Duke University Press (Introduction + chapter 4 « Bear Humanity »)

Rozakou, Katerina 2016 Socialities of Solidarity: Revisiting the Gift Taboo in Times of Crises. Social Anthropology 24(2): 185–199.

James, Caple Erica. 2011 Governing Gifts: Law, Risk, and the War on Terror. UCLA Journal of Islamic and Near Eastern Law. 10(1): 65-84.

Other relevant readings:

Robbins, Joel. 2013. Beyond the Suffering Subject: Toward an Anthropology of the Good. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 19(3): 447-462.

Harrell-Bond, Barbara, Eftihia Voutira, and Mark Leopold 1992. Counting the Refugees: Gifts, Givers, Patrons and Clients. Journal of Refugee Studies 5(3- 4): 205–225.

Session 6 - Humanitarian Government (31 March)

Questions to discuss in your reading groups: 1. How does ‘biopower’ operate as a new mode of governing from the 19th century onward, according to Michel Foucault? How does it differ from earlier modes of governing? 2. According to Agamben, why does the camp represent the ultimate incarnation of modern political power? 3. In which ways can humanitarianism be conceived as a form of biopower?

Compulsory readings:

Didier Fassin, 2007. Humanitarianism: A Nongovernmental Government, in Feher (ed.), Nongovernmental Politics, pp. 149–59.

2007 Humanitarianism as a Politics of Life. Public Culture 19(3): 499–520.

Foucault, Michel

- Page 8 - 2003 Eleven. 17 March 1976. In Society Must Be Defended: Lectures At The Collège De France, 1975-1976, 1st ed. New York: Picador, pp. 239-264.

Agamben, Giorgio 1998 Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Stanford: University of Stanford Press (Part three: The camp as biopolitical paradigm of the modern).

Film: Triage: Dr. James Orbinski's Humanitarian Dilemma (2008) Film can be accessed via this URL: https://vimeo.com/349653451 Password: DE149

Additional readings:

Brković, Čarna 2016. Scaling Humanitarianism: Humanitarian Actions in a Bosnian town. Ethnos, 81(1): 99- 124.

Rozakou, Katerina 2012 The Biopolitics of Hospitality in Greece: Humanitarianism and the Management of Refugees. American Ethnologist 39(3): 562-577.

Barnett, Michael 2013 Humanitarian Governance. Annual Review of Political Science 16: 379–398.

Pandolfi, Mariella. 2003. Contract of Mutual (in)-Difference: Governance and the Humanitarian Apparatus in Contemporary Albania and Kosovo. Global Legal Studies 10(1): 369-381.

Robins, Steven. 2009. Humanitarian Aid Beyond “Bare Survival”: Social Movement Responses to Xenophobic Violence in South Africa." American Ethnologist 36(4): 637-650.

Session 7 – Humanitarian techno-legal designs (14 April)

Questions to discuss in your reading groups: 1. What are the implications of using quantification and other techniques for humanitarian action? 2. How do techno-legal designs transform the nature of humanitarian work?

Compulsory readings:

Scott-Smith, Tom 2019. Beyond the Boxes: Refugee Shelter and the Humanitarian Politics of Life. American Ethnologist, 46(4), pp.509-521.

Ballestero, Andrea. 2015 The Ethics of a Formula: Calculating a Financial–Humanitarian price for water. American Ethnologist 42(2): 262-278.

Billaud, Julie 2020. Masters of Disorder: Rituals of Communication and Monitoring at the International Committee of the Red Cross. Anthropologie Sociale/Social Anthropology. Special issue on ‘The Bureaucratization of Utopia’.

- Page 9 - Additional readings:

Redfield, Peter 2016 Fluid Technologies: The Bush Pump, the LifeStraw® and Microworlds of Humanitarian Design. Social Studies of Science, 46(2): 159–183.

Scott-Smith, Tom 2016. Humanitarian Neophilia: the ‘Innovation Turn’ and its Implications. Third World Quarterly, 37(12): 2229-2251.

2013. The Fetishism of Humanitarian Objects and the Management of Malnutrition in Emergencies. Third World Quarterly, 34(5): 913-928.

Nguyen, Vinh-Kim. 2009 Government-by-Exception: Enrolment and Experimentality in Mass HIV Treatment Programmes in Africa. Social Theory & Health 7(3): 196-217.

Escobar, Arturo. 2018. Designs for the Pluriverse: Radical Interdependence, Autonomy, and the Making of Worlds. Duke University Press.

Feldman, Ilana 2007 Difficult Distinctions: Refugee Law, Humanitarian Practice, and Political Identification in Gaza Cultural Anthropology 22(1): 129-169.

Storeng, Katerini T., and Dominique P. Béhague. 2014 “Playing the Numbers Game”: Evidence‐Based Advocacy and the Technocratic Narrowing of the Safe Motherhood Initiative. Medical Anthropology Quarterly 28.2 (2014): 260- 279.

Cabot, Heath 2013 The Social Aesthetics of Eligibility: NGO Aid and Indeterminacy in the Greek Asylum Process. American Ethnologist 40(3): 452–466.

Session 8 – Humanitarian Borders (21 April)

Submit your essay outline or draft script of written analysis on podcast interview.

Questions to discuss in your reading groups: 1. What are the implications of conceptualizing borders as spaces of 'crisis'? 2. In which ways does the humanitarian management of borders operate as a substitute for justice?

Compulsory readings: De Lauri, Antonio 2019. A Critique of the Humanitarian (B)order of Things. Journal of Identity and Migration Studies. Vol 13(2)

Cabot, Heath 2019. The European Refugee Crisis and Humanitarian Citizenship in Greece. Ethnos. 84(5): 747-771.

Ticktin, Mariam

- Page 10 - 2016. Thinking Beyond Humanitarian Borders. Social Research: An International Quarterly. 83(2)

Additional readings Fassin, Didier. 2011. Policing Borders, Producing Boundaries. Annual Review of Anthropology 40: 213–26.

Dunn, Elizabeth Cullen and Cons, Jason 2014. Aleatory Sovereignty and the Rule of Sensitive Spaces. Antipode, 46(1): 92-109.

Holmes, S., and H. Castañeda. 2016. Representing the ‘European Refugee Crisis’ in Germany and Beyond: Deservingness and Difference, Life and Death. American Ethnologist 43 (1): 12–24.

Agier, Michel 2011 Managing the Undesirables: Refugee Camps and Humanitarian Government. New York: Polity Press (excerpts).

De Genova, Nicholas. 2018. The “migrant crisis” as racial crisis: Do Black Lives Matter in Europe? Ethnic and Racial Studies 41(10): 1765-1782.

Agier, Michel 2010 Humanity as an Identity and Its Political Effects (A Note on Camps and Humanitarian Government) Humanity: An International Journal of Human Rights, Humanitarianism, and Development. 1(1): 29-45.

Rozakou, Katerina. 2017. Nonrecording the “European refugee crisis” in Greece: Navigating through irregular bureaucracy. Focaal 77: 36-49.

Campesi, G. 2015. Humanitarian Confinement: An Ethnography of Reception Centres for Asylum Seekers at Europe’s Southern Border. International Journal of Migration and Border Studies 1(4): 398– 418.

Duffield, Mark 2001. Governing the Borderlands: Decoding the Power of Aid. Disasters 25 (4): 308–20.

Feldman, Ilana 2015 What is a Camp? Legitimate Lives in Spaces of Long-term Displacement. Geoforum 66(1): 244–252.

Williams, J. M. 2015. From Humanitarian Exceptionalism to Contingent Care: Care and Enforcement at the Humanitarian Border. Political Geography 47: 11–20.

Walters, W. 2010 Foucault and Frontiers. Notes on the Birth of the Humanitarian Border. In Governmentality: Current Issues and Future Challenges, edited by Ulrich Bröckling, Susanne Krasmann, and Thomas Lemke. Routledge, 138—164.

Also watch the documentary film:

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Poirret, Anne 2017 Bienvenue au Refugistan. France. Quark Production. Film can be accessed via this URL : https://vimeo.com/207249136 Password : DE149

Session 9 – The Anti-Politics Machine (28 April)

Questions to discuss in your reading groups: 1. Why is 'neutrality' an impossible form of politics? (Redfield) 2. How do 'operational neutrality' and 'affective neutrality' function to 'maintain humanity' in difficult circumstances? (Malkki) 3. How has humanitarianism shaped Palestinian identity politics? (Feldman)

Compulsory readings:

Redfield, Peter 2010. The Impossible Problem of Neutrality. In Bornstein and Redfield (eds) Forces of Compassion. SAR Press.

Malkki, Liisa 2015. The Need to Help. Duke University Press (Chapter 6 « A Zealous Humanism and Its Limits: Sacrifice and the Hazard of Neutrality »)

Feldman, Ilana 2012. The humanitarian condition: Palestinian refugees and the politics of living. Humanity: an international journal of human rights, humanitarianism, and development, 3(2), pp.155-172.

Additional readings:

Ticktin, Miriam. 2011. The Gendered Human of humanitarianism: Medicalising and Politicising Sexual Violence." Gender & History 23(2): 250-265

Cohen, G. Daniel. 2014. Elusive Neutrality: Christian Humanitarianism and the Question of Palestine, 1948– 1967. Humanity: An International Journal of Human Rights, Humanitarianism, and Development 5(2): 183-210.

Ferguson, James, 2017. The Anti-politics Machine: Development, Depoliticization, and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho. Routledge.

Mariella Pandolfi, 2008 ‘Laboratory of Intervention: The Humanitarian Governance of the Postcommunist Balkan Territories’, in Mary-Jo DelVecchio Good, Sandra Teresa Hyde, Sandra Pinto and Byron J. Good (eds), Postcolonial Disorders Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 157–86.

Dunn, Elizabeth Cullen, and Jason Cons. 2014 Aleatory Sovereignty and the Rule of Sensitive Spaces. Antipode 46(1): 92-109.

Gilbert, Andrew

- Page 12 - 2016 From Humanitarianism to Humanitarianization: Intimacy, Estrangement, and International Aid in Postwar Bosnia and Herzegovina. American Ethnologist, 43(4), 717-729.

Session 10 – The Politics of Vulnerability – Childhood (5 May)

Questions to discuss in your reading groups: 1. How does innocence operate to define vulnerability? 2. Why are children considered paradigmatic embodiments of humanity? 3. What are the paradoxical effects of aid programs targeting orphans in Botswana? (Dahl)

Compulsory readings:

Ticktin, Miriam 2017. A world Without Innocence. American Ethnologist, 44(4), pp.577-590.

Malkki, Liisa 2015. The Need to Help. Duke University Press (Chapter 3 « Figurations of the Human: Children, Humanity and the Infantalization of Peace »)

Dahl, Bianca. 2014 “Too Fat to Be an Orphan”: The Moral Semiotics of Food Aid in Botswana." Cultural Anthropology 29(4): 626-647.

Additional readings

Bornstein, Erica 2010 The Value of Orphans. In Erica Bornstein and Peter Redfield (eds.), Forces of Compassion: Humanitarianism between Ethics and Politics. Santa Fe: School for Advanced Research Studies, pp. 123-148.

Manzo, Kate. 2008 Imaging Humanitarianism: NGO Identity and the Iconography of Childhood. Antipode 40(4): 632-657.

Session 11 – Humanitarianism, Militarism, Abandonment (12 May)

Submit your edited podcast (which will be discussed during Ian’s final workshop)

Questions to discuss in your reading groups: 1. To which extent is the concept of 'biopower' ineffective to capture forms of sovereignty that manifest themselves in wars and the fight against terrorism? 2. What conception of humanity is produced through humanitarian militarism? 3. To which extent is Vita a manifestation of necropower?

Compulsory readings:

Mbembe, Achille 2003 Necropolitics Public Culture 15(1): 11-40

Biehl, João. 2001 Vita: Life in a Zone of Social Abandonment. Social Text 19(3): 131-149.

- Page 13 - Beckett, Greg 2013. The politics of emergency. Reviews in anthropology, 42(2), pp.85-101.

Additional readings:

Asad, Talal 2015 Reflections on Violence, Law, and Humanitarianism. Critical Inquiry. 41(2): 390-427.

De Lauri, Antonio 2019 Humanitarian Militarism and the Production of Humanity. Social Anthropology 27(1): 84- 99.

Dewachi, Omar 2017 Ungovernable Life: Mandatory Medicine and Statecraft in Iraq. Stanford University Press, 2017.

Dunn, Elizabeth Cullen 2014. Humanitarianism, Displacement, and the Politics of Nothing in Postwar Georgia. Slavic Review, 73(2): 287-306.

2012. The Chaos of Humanitarian Aid: Adhocracy in the Republic of Georgia. Humanity: An International Journal of Human Rights, Humanitarianism, and Development, 3(1): 1-23.

Fassin, Didier and Pandolfi, Mariella, 2010. Contemporary States of Emergency: The Politics of Military and Humanitarian Interventions. Zone Books.

Pandolfi, M., Rousseau, P. 2016 Governing the Crisis: A Critical Genealogy of Humanitarian Intervention in De Lauri, A. ed. The Politics of Humanitarianism. Power, Ideology and Aid. I.B. Tauris.

Session 12 – Vernacular humanitarianism (19 May)

Submit your edited podcast (which will be discussed during Ian’s final workshop)

Compulsory readings:

Brkovic, C. 2017 Introduction: Vernacular Humanitarianisms. Allegra Laboratory: http://allegralaboratory.net/vernacular-humanitarianisms/

Gilbert, Andrew 2016. “From humanitarianism to humanitarianization: Intimacy, estrangement and international aid in postwar Bosnia and Herzegovina” American Ethnologist. 43(4): 717-729.

Beckett, Greg 2017. “A Dog’s Life: Suffering Humanitarianism in Port-au-Prince Haiti” American Anthropologist. 119(1): 35-45

Caple James, Erica

- Page 14 - 2012. Witchcraft, bureaucraft, and the social life of (US) aid in Haiti. Cultural Anthropology, 27(1), pp.50-75.

Additional readings

Craig, S., Gerke, B., Sheldon, V. 2019 Sowa Rigpa Humanitarianism: Local Logics of Care within a Global Politics of Compassion Medical Anthropology Quarterly.

Brkovic, C. 2014 Surviving in a Moveopticon: Humanitarian Actions in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Contemporary Southeastern Europe. 1(2): 42-60.

Brkovic, C. 2017 Humanitarianism Tomorrow? Humanitarian Actions in Former Yugoslavia. Allegra Laboratory: http://allegralaboratory.net/humanitarianism-tomorrow- humanitarian-actions- former-yugoslavia/

Session 13 – The Need to Help (26 May)

Questions to discuss in your reading groups: 1. What are the main motivations of Red Cross' aid workers for undertaking their humanitarian mission? Where does their 'need to help' come from? 2. What are the main affects Red Cross workers experience while on mission? How to they handle such powerful and contradictory emotions? 3. What is the relationship between the domestic and the international in humanitarianism? What do Red Cross volunteers' knitting practices reveal about Finnish society?

Compulsory readings:

Malkki, Liisa 2015. The Need to Help. Duke University Press (Chapter 1 « Professionals Abroad », chapter 2 « Impossible Situations », chapter 5 « Homemade Humanitarianism: Knitting and Loneliness»)

Other relevant readings:

Redfield, Peter 2012 The Unbearable Lightness of Ex-pats: Double Binds of Humanitarian Mobility. Cultural Anthropology 27(2): 358–382.

De Lauri, Antonio. 2014. Boredom and Crisis in the Humanitarian Realm. Anthropology Today. 30(6): 23-25.

Fechter, Anne-Meike. 2012. Living Well ’while ‘Doing Good’? (Missing) Debates on Altruism and Professionalism in Aid Work." Third World Quarterly 33(8): 1475-1491.

Beerli, Monique J. 2018 Saving the Saviors: Security Practices and Professional Struggles in the Humanitarian Space. International Political Sociology 12(1): 70-87.

- Page 15 - Session 14 – Muslim humanitarianism (2 June)

Public release of podcasts and submission of final essays (June 9)

Guest speaker: Till Mostowlansky, Graduate Institute in Geneva (skype - TBC)

Compulsory readings:

Mostowlansky, Till 2019. Humanitarian affect: Islam, Aid and Emotional Impulse in Northern Pakistan. History and Anthropology, 1-21.

Mostowlansky, Till With Amelia Fauzia, Nurfadzilah Yahaya (eds.) 2018. “Muslim Endowments in Asia: Waqf, Charity and Circulations. The Muslim World 108(4).

Taylor, Christopher B. 2018. Receipts and Other Forms of Islamic Charity: Accounting for piety in modern North India. Modern Asian Studies 52(1): 266-296.

Additional readings:

Thematic thread on Muslim Humanitarianism edited by Till Mostowlansky and published on Allegra Lab. http://allegralaboratory.net/category/thematic-threads/muslim-humanitarianism/

Benthall, Jonathan. 2016. Islamic Charities and Islamic Humanism in Troubled Times. Manchester University Press. 2016

Acknowledgements: This syllabus draws inspiration from discussions with and syllabi developed by Katerina Rozakou, Andrew Gilbert, Carlo Caduff, Antonio de Lauri, Alessandro Monsutti, Till Mostowlanski and Davide Rodogno, to whom I am deeply grateful for their suggestions, ideas and constructive comments.

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