This book provides a succinct but sophisticated understanding of humanitarianism and insight into the on-going dilemmas and tensions that have accompanied it since its origins in the early nineteenth century. Combining theoretical and historical exposition with a broad range of contemporary case studies, the book: provides a brief survey of the history of humanitarianism, beginning with the anti-slavery movement in the early nineteenth century and continuing to today’s challenge of post-conflict reconstruction and saving failed states explains the evolution of humanitarianism. Not only has it evolved over the decades, but since the end of the Cold War, humanitarianism has exploded in scope, scale, and significance presents an overview of the contemporary humanitarian sector, including briefly who the key actors are, how they are funded and what they do with their money analyses the ethical dilemmas confronted by humanitarian organization, not only in the abstract but also, and most importantly, in real situations and when lives are at stake examines how humanitarianism poses fundamental ethical questions regarding the kind of world we want to live in, what kind of world is possible, and how we might get there. An accessible and engaging work by two of the leading scholars in the field, Humanitarianism Contested is essential reading for all those concerned with the future of human rights and international relations.

This book provides a succinct but sophisticated understanding of humanitarianism and on-going dilemmas and tensions that have accompanied it since its origins in the early 19th century until the 21st century.

This book provides a succinct but sophisticated understanding of humanitarianism and insight into the on-going dilemmas and tensions that have accompanied it since its origins in the early nineteenth century. Combining theoretical and historical exposition with a broad range of contemporary case studies, the book: provides a brief survey of the history of humanitarianism, beginning with the anti-slavery movement in the early nineteenth century and continuing to today’s challenge of post-conflict reconstruction and saving failed states explains the evolution of humanitarianism. Not only has it evolved over the decades, but since the end of the Cold War, humanitarianism has exploded in scope, scale, and significance presents an overview of the contemporary humanitarian sector, including briefly who the key actors are, how they are funded and what they do with their money analyses the ethical dilemmas confronted by humanitarian organization, not only in the abstract but also, and most importantly, in real situations and when lives are at stake examines how humanitarianism poses fundamental ethical questions regarding the kind of world we want to live in, what kind of world is possible, and how we might get there. An accessible and engaging work by two of the leading scholars in the field, Humanitarianism Contested is essential reading for all those concerned with the future of human rights and international relations.

As humanitarian needs continue to grow rapidly, humanitarian action has become more contested, with new actors entering the field to address unmet needs, but also challenging long-held principles and precepts. This volume provides detailed empirical comparisons between emerging and traditional humanitarian actors. It sheds light on why and how the emerging actors engage in humanitarian crises and how their activities are carried out and perceived in their transnational organizational environment. It develops and applies a conceptual framework that fosters research on humanitarian actors and the humanitarian principles. In particular, it simultaneously refers to theories of organizational sociology and international relations to identify both the structural and the situational factors that influence the motivations, aims and activities of these actors, and their different levels of commitment to the traditional humanitarian principles. It thus elucidates the role of the humanitarian principles in promoting coherence and coordination in the crowded and diverse world of humanitarian action, and discusses whether alternative principles and parallel humanitarian systems are in the making. This volume will be of great interest to postgraduate students and scholars in humanitarian studies, globalization and transnationalism research, organizational sociology, international relations, development studies, and migration and diaspora studies, as well as policy makers and practitioners engaged in humanitarian action, development cooperation and migration issues.

Humanitarianism: Keywords is a comprehensive dictionary designed as a compass for navigating the conceptual universe of humanitarianism. It is an intuitive toolkit to map contemporary humanitarianism and to explore its current and future articulations. The dictionary serves a broad readership of practitioners, students, and researchers by providing informed access to the extensive humanitarian vocabulary.

Humanitarians are required to be impartial, independent, professionally competent and focused only on preventing and alleviating human suffering. It can be hard living up to these principles when others do not share them, while persuading political and military authorities and non-state actors to let an agency assist on the ground requires savvy ethical skills. Getting first to a conflict or natural catastrophe is only the beginning, as aid workers are usually and immediately presented with practical and moral questions about what to do next. For example, when does working closely with a warring party or an immoral regime move from practical cooperation to complicity in human rights violations? Should one operate in camps for displaced people and refugees if they are effectively places of internment? Do humanitarian agencies inadvertently encourage ethnic cleansing by always being ready to 'mop-up' the consequences of scorched earth warfare? This book has been written to help humanitarians assess and respond to these and other ethical dilemmas.

In the summer of 2015, an extraordinary number of German residents felt an urge to provide help to refugees. Doing good, however, is not as simple and straightforward as it might appear. Practices of solidarity are intertwined with questions of power. They are situated, relative and contested, unfolding in an ambivalent space between humanitarianism and political activism. This ethnographic account of the German »welcome culture« provides insights into the contested practices, imaginaries, interests and politics of refugee solidarity. Drawing on works from critical migration studies to social anthropology, Larissa Fleischmann develops an empirically grounded understanding of solidarity in migration societies.