Category Archives: Blog
Ståle Wig, Sian Lazar and Eva van Roekel: The social life of inflation: introduction
After a period of relatively low inflation in many economies in the Global North, inflation has once again become a major world concern. The COVID-19 pandemic, which disrupted supply chains and labor markets, combined with increased government spending and rising energy prices due to the war in Ukraine, has contributed to a global surge in […]
Adia Benton: Humanitarian vernaculars (and the racial vernaculars of humanitarianism)
While explaining the origins of Gramsci’s definition of hegemony to an interviewer, the labour historian Michael Denning (2023) suggested taking a Jeopardy! approach to social theory, which is to say: “rather than try to define a term, give a term, and the question to which that term is the answer.” For the purposes of this […]
Ezgi Güner: Islamic Humanitarianism and Renegotiating the Boundaries of Turkish Whiteness in Africa South of the Sahara
The silence around the salience of race in development and humanitarianism (see White 2002, Kothari 2006) has lately been interrupted by an increased attention to white saviourism, especially in social media and celebrity humanitarianism (Benton 2016, Toomey 2017, Pallister-Wilkins 2021, Budabin and Richey 2021). This body of literature provides crucial insight into the deep entanglements […]
Oane Visser and Nina Swen: COP29, Climate Politics and Caspian Fisheries
By hosting the UN’s global Climate Change conference COP29 in Baku (11-22 November 2024), Azerbaijan presents itself as a climate-responsible oil state and new political ally and donor for Small Island Developing States (SIDS) struggling with the impacts of climate change. Yet the fate of fisheries off the coast of Baku, navigating between the oil […]
Patricia Ward: Power, Pace, and Place: Local Consultants and Racialized Expertise
Critical scholars recognize humanitarianism as a racializing project rooted in colonial and imperial relations, in which classifications of aid workers as ‘international’, ‘expat’, ‘national’ and ‘local’ reflect the latter (Benton, 2016; Bian, 2022; Pallister-Wilkins, 2021; Warne-Peters, 2020). In this short reflection, I focus on local aid consultants to think about these classifications as ‘on-the-ground race-making’ […]
Allison Stuewe: Humanitarian Erasure: Marriage Practices of Iraqi Yezidi Refugees and Germany’s Integration Courses
The German governing coalition explicitly considers refugee integration to be a humanitarian project based on an obligation to care for others because of their shared humanity. Notably, however, the country’s strategies for integrating refugees are based on the notion that refugees coming to Germany lack not only the practical skills (like linguistic skills) to help […]
David Kwok Kwan Tsoi: ‘Lifeboat’ Campaign for Hong Kongers: Why is Capitalistic Agenda a Mandate for Democratic Intervention?
Since 2021, along with the British and Australian governments, the Canadian government has relaxed immigration policy for Hong Kong immigrants. This policy offers an unconventional path with lowered barriers for Hong Kongers to apply for permanent residency in Canada. Popularly framed as ‘lifeboat’ campaigns, these immigration policies directly respond to the post-2019 political situation in […]
Walden Bello: The October Surprise
Foreign policy played a minor role in the presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump in September. The vice presidential exchange between J.D. Vance and Tim Walz on October 2 barely touched on it. Yet less than a month before the US elections on November 5, it is foreign policy that may upend the […]
Marc Edelman: Make America Think Again
MAKE AMERICA THINK AGAIN. That’s the bumper sticker on my friend’s pickup and that’s what I hope for. I like evidence and data, and I detest TV talking heads, “alternative facts,” and political zealots of all stripes. I want people to think about policies and how these will affect them. Many of my rural upstate […]
Anne-Meike Fechter and Eileen May: Taxonomies of Difference and Inclusion: Notes From ‘Other’ Humanitarianisms
The call for looking at taxonomies of difference in global humanitarianism is a powerful reminder to consider how differences—as well as, we argue, affinities—shape humanitarian practices. Prompted by research with people displaced by violent conflict in the Myanmar borderlands near Thailand, we propose alternative perspectives. First, we suggest that the lens of ‘taxonomies of difference’ […]