Abstract
In this article, we trace the interconnections between humanitarianism and militarism. We highlight the significance of a geographical perspective in emphasizing the spatial and multiscalar dimensions of this changing relationship, particularly in Western states. In doing so, we reveal the violent geographies produced through militarized humanitarianism and demonstrate the ways political violence can be obscured through invocations of humanitarianism. We look at five overlapping lines of enquiry: the way humanitarianism is used to modulate war; the rationalization of military intervention as humanitarian; military deployment in response to humanitarian crises; the military take-up of humanitarian-style practices; and weapons development and humanitarianism.
Highlights
Militarism is a seemingly ubiquitous feature of contemporary society
Female engagement teams (FETs) did embody a tension between masculine and feminine performances of militarism and care (Dyvik, 2017): being central to the larger counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan, they mobilized moral sentiments and humanitarian activities in the waging of war. They produced new spatial relations for the counterinsurgency war by explicitly seeking to extend the military’s reach and influence to domestic spaces. This again demonstrates the multiscalar character of militarized humanitarianism, with wider geopolitical processes shaped by moral discourses – for instance, the invasion of Iraq was in part justified by calls for a ‘responsibility to act’ against the human rights violations of Saddam Hussein (Foley, 2008: 3) – and with particular geographies of war in turn produced through moral framings
What we have sought to show in this paper, is how Western forms of humanitarianism have always been entangled with militarism, and are inherently about violence (Slim, 2001)
Summary
Military, but the normalization and routinization of conflict and war within society, in ways that encroach upon political systems, get taken up in values and moral attachments and extend into what are otherwise usually considered to be civilian domains. This has coincided with an increased state role, often manifested through the military which provides logistical support and armed protection, and more private sector mobilization and intervention, resulting in more violence (Barnett, 2011: 4; Weizman, 2011) While these scholars have provided a strong critique of the humanitarianism-militarism nexus, their focus is mostly historical (before the 1980s) or conceptual Our focus in on the West, which we argue has seen this entanglement deepen, even as Western states are often (wrongly) characterized as being less militarized, even as the military takes on greater roles internationally and at home To address these issues, we draw upon scholarship from a range of disciplines, but as we will illustrate throughout, the work of geographers has been at the fore of examining precisely these questions It is precisely this aspect of state power that we interrogate in this article as we examine the spatial and multiscalar dimensions of the militarism-humanitarianism nexus
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