Narrative Structure and Emotional Mobilization in Humanitarian Representations: The Case of the Congo Reform Movement, 1903–1912

Abstract

The concept of empathy has played an important role in theorizing how humanitarian representations influence people. This article suggests that this focus on empathy in human rights theory is too limited and proposes “emotional mobilization” as a more flexible and satisfactory alternative to the empathy thesis. An analysis of the Congo reform movement in Britain at the beginning of the twentieth century showcases the utility of this more inclusive concept. The Congo reform movement developed a narrative structure for representing the situation in the Congo, its history, and the possibilities for improvement that appealed to various emotions including empathy, guilt, and fear of pollution. It linked these emotionally-laden interpretations to a call for action through a clear definition of options and the manipulation of genres. The narrative structure of the Congo reform movement significantly exceeds the analytical limits of the empathy thesis, further demonstrated in the article through an analysis of a 60 Minutes segment on the Congo from 2009 that appeals only to empathy, closing off other emotional registers through limiting narrative techniques. The article concludes by proposing that the combination of the concepts of emotional mobilization and narrative structure provide a powerful and flexible theoretical framework for the analysis of humanitarian representations of various kinds and their impacts.