Kent Academic Repository Full text document (pdf) Citation for published version Friesen, Ina (2016) The Experiential Core of the Humanitarian Vocation: An Analysis of the Autobiographical Narratives of Contemporary Humanitarians. Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) thesis, University of Kent,. DOI Link to record in KAR https://kar.kent.ac.uk/63928/ Document Version UNSPECIFIED Copyright & reuse Content in the Kent Academic Repository is made available for research purposes. Unless otherwise stated all content is protected by copyright and in the absence of an open licence (eg Creative Commons), permissions for further reuse of content should be sought from the publisher, author or other copyright holder. Versions of research The version in the Kent Academic Repository may differ from the final published version. Users are advised to check http://kar.kent.ac.uk for the status of the paper. Users should always cite the published version of record. Enquiries For any further enquiries regarding the licence status of this document, please contact: [email protected] If you believe this document infringes copyright then please contact the KAR admin team with the take-down information provided at http://kar.kent.ac.uk/contact.html The Experiential Core of the Humanitarian Vocation: An Analysis of the Autobiographical Narratives of Contemporary Humanitarians Ina Friesen Thesis submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in International Conflict Analysis from the School of Politics and International Relations, University of Kent, December 2016 Word count: 100,969 words (excluding footnotes, appendix and bibliography) To my grandfather Acknowledgements I owe a debt of gratitude to my supervisor Stefan Rossbach for his faith in this project, his trust in and his patience with me. I would not have done it without your calm and encouragement. I would like to thank the University of Kent for the Graduate Teaching Assistantship scholarship which allowed me to pursue the PhD project. Meeting my husband, Andrew Brogan, during my time at Kent was an unexpected and most precious surprise life has given me. You are and you give more than I could have hoped for. I would like to thank my mother for teaching me how to read. Showing me how to string the different letters together, you have opened the door to countless worlds to me and sparked a lifelong love. I would like to thank my parents-in-law for becoming my family which in practice meant sacrificing their dining table for my chapter surgeries and making me countless cups of tea. Most of all, however, for having raised a kind and compassionate son. I am well aware that I am the main beneficiary of your efforts, so, thank you. Contents List of Abbreviations i Introduction 1 Part I 9 1. The Humanitarian Landscape: Principles, Actors, and Current Framework 10 1.1 The Humanitarian Principles 11 1.2 The Humanitarian Actors 16 1.3 The Current Framework – ‘New Humanitarianism’ 17 2. The Humanitarian Aid Workers 34 2.1 Emerging Research on Humanitarian Aid Workers 34 2.2 The Objectives of the Study 38 2.3 Methodology 56 Part II 71 3. James Orbinski: An Imperfect Offering 72 3.1 Background and Motivation 72 3.2 Humanitarian Aid Work 79 3.3 Epilogue 97 4. Damien Brown: Band-Aid for a Broken Leg 98 4.2 Background and Motivation 98 4.3 Humanitarian Aid Work 101 4.4 Epilogue 117 5 James Maskalyk: Six Months in Sudan 118 5.1 Background and Motivation 118 5.2 Humanitarian Aid Work 123 5.3 Epilogue 137 6. Jessica Alexander: Chasing Chaos 139 6.1 Background and Motivation 139 6.2 Humanitarian Aid Work 141 6.3 Epilogue 160 7. Review of the Common Ethical Experiences: The Need for further Analysis 162 7.1 Significant Experiences for Aid Workers’ Motivation 162 7.2 Significant Experiences during Humanitarian Aid Work 165 Part III 168 8. Martin Buber’s and Emmanuel Levinas’s Ethics 169 8.1 Martin Buber: The Potential of the ‘in-between’ 170 8.2 Emmanuel Levinas: Face-to-Face with Alterity 180 8.3 The Differences between Levinas’s and Buber’s Concepts 191 9. James Orbinski: An Imperfect Offering 196 9.1 The Baidoa Man – Resistance to the Primacy of Calculations 196 9.2 The Girl and her Mother – Responsibility as Resistance 201 9.3 Ummera-sha – Alterity as Relation 204 10. Damien Brown: Band-Aid for a Broken Leg 209 10.1 Motivation – Making Up for Missed Opportunities 209 10.2 The Beer Bottle Girl – The Power of the Powerless 211 10.3 The Woman and her Husband – The Infinite Responsibility 213 11. James Maskalyk: Six Months in Sudan 217 11.1 Motivation – “Here I am!” 217 11.2 Aweil – Maskalyk’s Wound 219 11.3 The Little Girl – The Question of Success 224 12. Jessica Alexander: Chasing Chaos 227 12.1 Motivation – Search for Meaning 227 12.2 Ahmed’s Niece – Becoming For-the-Other 231 12.3 Leaving Darfur – The Cost of Turning Away 235 13. The Face-to-Face – The Experiential Core of the Humanitarian Vocation 238 Appendix 253 Examples of IPA line-by-line analyses 253 References 261 List of Abbreviations ALNAP Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance in Humanitarian Action BA Damien Brown. Band-Aid for a Broken Leg: Being a Doctor with no Borders (and other Ways to Stay Single). London: Allen and Unwin. 2013. BMM Martin Buber. Between Man and Man. Translated by Ronald Gregor Smith. London: Kegan Paul, 1947. BPW Emmanuel Levinas. Basic Philosophical Writings. Edited by Adriaan T. Peperzak, Simon Critchley, and Robert Bernasconi. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 1996. CC Jessica Alexander. Chasing Chaos: My Decade In and Out of Humanitarian Aid. New York: Broadway Books. 2013. ECHO European Community Humanitarian Office EI Emmanuel Levinas. Ethics and Infinity: Conversations with Philippe Nemo. Translated by Richard A. Cohen. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press. 1985. EN Emmanuel Levinas. Entre Nous: On Thinking-of-the-Other. Translated by Michael Bradley Smith and Barbara Harshav. London: Continuum. 2006. GDT Emmanuel Levinas. God, Death, and Time. Translated by Bettina Bergo. Stanford: Stanford University Press. 2000. HCP Health Care Practitioner ICRC International Committee of the Red Cross IDP Internally Displaced Person IFRC International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies IO James Orbinski. An Imperfect Offering: Humanitarian Action for the Twenty-First Century. 2nd ed. London: Rider. 2009. IT Martin Buber. I and Thou. Translated by Walter Kaufman. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark. 1970. KM Buber, Martin. The Knowledge of Man. Edited by Maurice Friedman. Translated by Maurice Friedman and Ronald Gregor Smith. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1965. LR Emmanuel Levinas. The Levinas Reader. Edited by Sén Hand. Oxford: Blackwell. 1989. MSF Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors without borders) NGO Non-Governmental Organisation NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organisation i OB Emmanuel Levinas. Otherwise Than Being or Beyond Essence. Translated by Alphonso Lingis. London: Martinius Nijhoff Publishers. 1981. PI Martin Buber. Philosophical Interrogations. Edited by Sydney Rome and Beatrice Rome. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. 1964. PM Emmanuel Levinas. “The Paradox of Morality: An Interview with Emmanuel Levinas.” Translated by Andrew Benjamin and Tamra Wright. In The Provocation of Levinas: Rethinking the Other, edited by Robert Bernasconi and David Wood, 168-180. London: Routledge. 1988. PMB Paul A. Schilpp and Maurice Friedman, eds. The Philosophy of Martin Buber. La Salle, Ill.: Open Court. 167. PRT Provincial Reconstruction Team PTSD Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder PW Martin Buber. Pointing the Way: Collected Essays. Translated and edited by Maurice Friedman. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. 1957. RGF Rwandan Patriotic Front RPF Rwandan Government Forces RTLM Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines SAF Sudan Alliance Forces SM James Maskalyk. Six Months in Sudan. A Young Doctor in a War- torn Village. Edinburgh: Canongate. 2009. SPLA Sudan People’s Liberation Army TI Emmanuel Levinas. Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority. Translated by Alphonso Lingis. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press. 1969. UN United Nations UNAMIR United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda WM Martin Buber. The Way of Man: According to the Teachings of Hasidism. London: Routledge. 2002. ii Introduction Set up more than 150 years ago to save lives, alleviate suffering, and protect human dignity during and in the aftermath of crises, the international humanitarian system has undergone an extraordinary transformation over the last two decades. In 2014, the international humanitarian system comprised of 4,480 aid organisations, with combined humanitarian expenditures of over $25 billion and an estimated total of 450,000 humanitarian aid workers worldwide (ALNAP 2015). The remarkable significance that humanitarian issues hold in the 21st century was illustrated in the first-ever World Humanitarian Summit on the 23rd and 24th of May 2016 in Istanbul. Launched by United Nations (UN) Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, the summit gathered approximately 9,000 participants from 173 states, 700 national and local non-governmental organisations (NGOs), 250 international NGOs, 130 representatives of the United Nation, and many other actors. The different stakeholders came together to commit to Ban Ki-moon’s Agenda for Humanity - a plan that outlines the necessary changes to alleviate the suffering, reduce risk and lessen vulnerability on a global scale. Considering the importance of humanitarian matters in global politics, and the size of the international humanitarian enterprise, we know very little about the 450,000 humanitarian aid workers who make humanitarian ideals a reality. Their absence in academic analyses of the international humanitarian aid system in the field of political science is a reflection of international relations’ focus on theoretical abstractions and its disregard of ordinary people. Academic investigations of the humanitarian aid system assess humanitarianism as a formal set of ideals and ethical norms which exist independently from the individuals enacting them.