Conversation about “Doing” and Being “Done To” in Humanitarian Storytelling

Abstract

This co-authored article is the result of a series of conversations between Arash Bordbar and Jess Crombie, who met in 2021 while working together to develop UNHCR’s internal ethical communications policy. Jess had been brought in as a communications and ethics consultant, and Arash as one of the members of the UNHCR evaluation team, also contributing as a person with lived experience of being a refugee. During the process of developing the communications policy, their conversations revealed a shared interest in the power of stories, but also a recognition of the inequalities in the humanitarian sector in terms of who has the power to shape and share narratives about affected populations and individuals. The title of this essay is borrowed from Jessica Benjamin who, in her text exploring intersubjective psychoanalysis, describes the basic building blocks of connection as understanding “whether doing is with or to” (Benjamin 2018, 5). A theme running through this conversation is how to complicate who falls into the roles of “doer” and “done to”, so that “doing with” becomes the norm.