Humanitarian Ideals Research Articles

Humane Endpoints in Swiss Webster Mice Infected with Toxoplasma gondii RH Strain.

The highly virulent Toxoplasma gondii RH strain is maintained through successive passages in mice, but there is still a lack of studies that refine these procedures from a 3Rs perspective, where humanitarian ideals aim to minimize the stress, pain, or suffering of the animals used in the research without the loss of results. The aim of this study was to establish humane endpoints in Swiss Webster mice inoculated with the T. gondii RH strain. A total of 52 mice were infected with 5 × 106 tachyzoites/mL and monitored for periods of up to 5 days. The parameters body weight; hair condition; higher than normal body temperature; hypothermia; respiratory function; pain; soft stools or diarrhea; bloody diarrhea; tense, nervous, or in distress during handling; and ascites were recorded daily in score tables. The results showed that prominent piloerection, respiratory function, pain parameters, and ascites are important clinical signs to be used as a cut-off point for implementing euthanasia. The application of this refinement method helped to avoid animal suffering and pain without compromising the number of parasites recovered. We therefore suggest adopting these parameters in research protocols that require the maintenance of the T. gondii RH strain in murine models to avoid and reduce animal suffering.

قانون حقوق الإنسان والقانون الإنساني: بين التكاملية والتعارض

International human rights law and international humanitarian law are two specialized areas of public international law. They exist as two distinct branches of law. Each branch has a different legal basis and origin. However, they share humanitarian ideals, and thus some areas of overlap appear in practice. The two systems share the responsibility for protecting the rights of human beings: Humanitarian law in times of armed conflict, and human rights law in times of peace and times of war as well. Because of this, in practice, it happens that the standards of international human rights law and international humanitarian law are applied simultaneously. At the same time, there are differences between these two legal systems that arise from the different circumstances involved in a state of war and a state of peace. Consequently, several questions arise regarding this relationship: Are the two branches mutually exclusive? Under what circumstances is humanitarian law applied, and how does this differ from the application of human rights law? What are the areas of overlap? What are the practical consequences of the legal problems resulting from the parallel application of the two legal frameworks? This paper does not aim to answer all of these questions, but rather its goal is to contribute to the current debate by presenting the similarities between human rights law and humanitarian law, areas of overlap, and situations of common application. We will also focus on the differences in this relationship, especially the differences in the field of protection guaranteed by legal standards, responsibility for violating the standards, as well as the exceptions allowed in implementing the standards. In one part of the paper, the principle of private law is applied in cases where one of the two branches is more specific in a concrete situation.

Humanitarian Perspectives and Materialism in Sudha Murty’s Dollar Bahu and House of Cards

On the contrary to the humanitarian values presented in Sudha Murty's works, novels like "Dollar Bahu" and "House of Cards" emphasize their difference with materialism. Firstly, in "Dollar Bahu", a choice has to be made between her enjoyment in India or seeking wealth in the US and thus portrays Western materialism. Lastly, in "House of Cards", the weak-minded greed and materialism lead to the compromising of morals and relationships and, therefore, call out more for compassion. The present research paper explores the cosmopolitan sensibility and global humanitarian perspectives present in some selected novels by Sudha Murty, such as Dollar Bahu and House of Cards. Using a description, interpretative, and analytic approach with library research, the paper critiques Murty's views concerning materialism, the deterioration of moral values, and regaining human morals. The analytical overview emphasizes important humanitarian themes represented by characters and love stories, selflessness, responsibility, and ethical values. Murty's writings can be viewed in the light of reflection about how materialism clashes with moral values in today's society and the need to return to humanitarian ideals in this globalized world.

Framing the Subaltern: Humanitarian Violence in Liz Mermin’s documentary The Beauty Academy of Kabul

This paper examines how the encounter between the “First World American women” and “Third world Afghan women” is framed to inadvertently enact a form of representational violence in Liz Mermin’s documentary film, The Beauty Academy of Kabul. The paper shows that despite its ostensibly progressive stance of giving space to Afghan women’s voice, the film, serves to validate the new form the colonial self has taken in the globalized world - the humanitarian identity - and reaffirms the American imperial agenda. Employing Judith Butler’s insights in Frames of War, where she points out how the frame delimits the domain of representability and the confines of “reality” itself, the analysis explores how Mermin’s documentary frames the Afghan women as the first world audience is meant to recognize, grieve and intervene for.

The “rational” fan? Negotiating transnational cosmopolitanism and nationalism among Hong Kong BTS fans

ABSTRACT In recent years, fans of the internationally renowned K-pop group, BTS, (affectionately known as “ARMY”), has achieved global renown with their social political engagement, both online and offline, in different locales, epitomizing the best marriage between globalized popular culture as agent of universal humanitarian ideals, and participatory fandom. On the other hand, the K-pop group has caught backlash from mainland Chinese fen (fans), sparking controversy between transnationalized (pop) fandom (which supposedly could allude to a sense of cosmopolitanism) and (local) nationalism. In this paper, I wish to address, through the case of some Hong Kong BTS fan clubs, the subjectivity of some Asian fans and their complex (layers of) affective and tactical negotiation with competing forces, which are intertwined with (their coping with) the local political juncture. Through in-depth interviews with different fan page organizers of BTS fans/ fan clubs, I will critically discuss how they (resort to) performing “rationality” to balance these forces on the one hand, while inadvertently asserting the boundaries in the seamlessly global flows of popular culture (in the increasingly turbulent Asian context).

Digital citizen humanitarianism: challenging borders and connecting weak ties

ABSTRACT This article explores how informal, citizen-led solidarity with migrants is practised digitally and discusses how we can conceptualise such acts. The study draws on digital observations, semi-structured interviews and one field visit. Citizen humanitarians, who are informants in this study, supported migrants from Afghanistan who had been rejected asylum in Norway. Support included facilitating unauthorised migration, transit, residency within the Schengen area, financial help, and caregiving. By analysing these acts, the article discusses scholarly debates on citizenship regarding who enjoys the right to stay and access social rights in Europe and humanitarian ideals of ‘saving lives’ of migrants threatened by deportation. The article show that citizen humanitarians use digital acts to carry out borderwork that were depended on and enabled by weak social ties. These practices fostered communities between citizen humanitarians and enabled them to claim rights for themselves and others. Based on the analysis, I develop the term ‘digital citizen humanitarianism’, which allows us to be more precise about different forms of citizen humanitarianism facilitated by the digital.

Bread or Iron? Competing Visions of American Aid to Soviet Russia, 1921–1923

Abstract World War I was a watershed moment in the rise of a new network of international humanitarian organizations that sought to develop systematic responses to the unprecedented social and economic crises caused by the war. Many organizational questions about types of relief, distribution networks, and roles of relief workers, among others, became points of discussion and an open confrontation ensued among different organizations. This article analyzes competing visions of US famine relief to Soviet Russia during the devastating Volga famine of 1921–23. Unofficially presided over by Herbert Hoover, the American Relief Administration sent food, clothing, and medicine to the Soviets, while the so-called radical relief groups demanded a more “permanent rehabilitation” of Soviet agriculture and sought to ship technologies and agricultural specialists. These visions were guided by more than humanitarian ideals. Economic rivalry, class solidarity, anti-communism, and a belief in the power of technology shaped the US famine relief to Soviet Russia.

Turkey’s ‘Soft Power Interventionism’ in the Turkish Cypriot Community: Agents, Objectives, and Implications

ABSTRACT This article explores the rationale and modus operandi of Turkey’s soft power projection in north Cyprus [‘TRNC’] with the aim to better understand its effects on the Turkish Cypriot political and social spheres. The study explores the recorded activities carried out by Turkey’s most prominent soft power agencies in north Cyprus and cross-checks findings with field-notes collected from 2018 to 2021. While acknowledging that under AKP’s rule, religion, history, and humanitarian ideals have constituted the backbone of Turkey’s soft power agenda in areas important to its foreign policy interests, the analysis demonstrates that Turkish soft power does not simply rest on the attractiveness and persuasiveness of its ‘message value’ alone. Turkey exercises a centrally coordinated and multi-dimensional soft power that capitalizes heavily on dependencies and local vulnerabilities. With the use of subtle and direct forms of coercion and interference, understood as part of a legitimate exchange of ‘influence for security’, Turkey’s soft power content and methodologies have become particularly problematic, as they do not presume the purely voluntary, independent, and co-opting nature of relations between the powerholder and the receptor community.

Гуманитарное знание в современном мире

Determining the boundaries and degree of influence of the results of scholarly knowledge on a person is becoming even more relevant at the current stage of the development of scholarship. Humanitarian knowledge is ambivalent, which is manifested in the fact that the search for and improvement of ways to achieve humanistic ideals can form the basis for the formation of resources allowing us to produce or construct a certain type of personality. Particular attention is paid to situations in which the scientifically based striving for humanitarian ideals – preservation and improvement of the quality of human life – leads to the fact that even life and death of an individual can be the result of an agreement between scientists and politicians. This paper aimed to substantiate the need to identify boundaries in achieving humanitarian ideals. The research method applied here is the analysis of philosophical doctrines, which allow to explicate new approaches to determining the ways of finding meaning. In the context of a plural, multidirectional and risk-inducing development of the world, the traditional features of the humanities – desire for understanding, search for meaning, and contextuality – are undergoing essential changes. The unprecedented fragmentation of today’s world and the sporadic nature of people’s lives actualizes the search for resources to achieve understanding in the absence of integrity. Further, the paper shows the fundamental importance of human efforts aimed to find and be able to stay in such modes of consciousness as “participatory thinking” (M.M. Bakhtin), “thought-action” (M.K. Mamardashvili) and “consciousness not based on cognitive meanings” (Pope John Paul II). It is substantiated here that the idea of establishing meaning as a result of the efforts/perseverance of an individual has ontological and epistemological value. The search for and establishment of meaning is an accomplished event (G. Deleuze), which reflects the uniqueness of a person’s existence.

Zoning Control: Revisiting the Brussels Conference Act of 1890 and Its Legacy into the Twentieth Century

One hundred and thirty years ago, governments convened in Brussels to discuss a new treaty that would address the trades in slaves, firearms and liquors in Africa. This treaty - the Brussels Conference Act (BCA) - came just five years after the Berlin Conference and Act and has largely been overshadowed by its predecessor. In many ways, though, for colonial governments the BCA was both the necessary counterpart and the logical, as well as legal, successor to the Berlin Conference and Act. If Berlin politically carved up the continent of Africa, Brussels provided the legal justification for doing so. The BCA did this through creating a series of zones, within which European states empowered themselves to act in ways that would facilitate, and at times mandate, colonialism in the guise of humanitarian ideals. These zones covered much of sub-Saharan Africa and the waters off its eastern coast. While the BCA itself lasted until the end of the First World War, the idea of these zones had greater longevity, with special zones proposed in discussions on slavery and the arms trade both during the League of Nations era and into the early years of the United Nations. This article explores the ways in which the idea of this zone within the BCA enabled colonialism and how this idea persisted into the middle of the twentieth century. In doing so, it seeks to consider zones of control not only a matter of legal history, but also as a way to better understand and make more visible the structures upon which international law is built today.

Values and Organizing Principles in the Swedish Resettlement System: Exploring the Benefits of an Ethnographic Regime Approach

Resettlement has received increased political and mediatic attention in recent years as a safe pathway for refugees. It is also seen as a way for receiving states to manage migration while abiding by the UNHCR’s humanitarian ideals. This parallel track of keeping migration at bay and aiming to help the most vulnerable demands further exploration. Here I examine values and principles found in the Swedish resettlement process through an ethnographic regime approach. In previous scholarship such aspects of resettlement have received little attention, and, if considered, been approached with a focus limited to one or two actors of the resettlement system. Discussing the resettlement system as a regime helps explore how values and principles are shaped by a plurality of actors, and – in turn – shape the structures that make up resettlement as a durable solution for refugee emplacement.

The ‘Native Question’ in Australia Exploring the Anglo-Australian Humanitarian Response, 1904–1939

ABSTRACT In the first thirty years of the twentieth century the ‘native question’ loomed large in the heart of the British Empire in the context of heightened imperialism in Africa. This reverberated in Australia in the context of the Commonwealth government gaining Dominionhood, making contributions to the League of Nations as an independent mandatory power, and becoming responsible for the administration of the tropical North. A local humanitarian network developed encouraged by what they saw as more humane ideas around ‘Native’ administration emanating from the League and promoted by the Anti-Slavery and Aborigines’ Protection Society. This alignment provides an opportunity to explore relations between empire and nation in connection to this question at a formative moment for both. In particular, it points to the tension created by the vernacularisation of British humanitarian ideals into an advanced settler colonial society and the reach and limits of a humanitarian settlement in the local context.

Humanitarian Shapeshifting: Navigation, Brokerage and Access in Eastern DR Congo

ABSTRACT This article examines the experience of Congolese humanitarians negotiating access with armed groups in eastern DRC. It describes how humanitarians become shapeshifters: they play different roles for different audiences as a tactic of social navigation in a context of uncertainty. Because humanitarians encounter risks related to their perceived identity, they play upon identity categories and personal histories, situating themselves tactically during encounters with different armed actors through creative modes of self-fashioning. Whilst there remains a focus on performing a distinct humanitarian identity, NGOs in practice draw upon the embedded local knowledge and skills of employees to work in conflict areas.

From Rebel to Humanitarian: Military Savoir Faire and Humanitarian Practice in Eastern DR Congo

ABSTRACTThis article explores the experience of ex‐rebels who have become humanitarians in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. It describes how rebel‐cum‐humanitarians navigate a turbulent political environment, integrating the knowledge they acquired through military experience into a career in the humanitarian sector. ‘Distinction’ between combatants and humanitarians remains central to the humanitarian imaginary. However, rebel and humanitarian spheres are interlinked by individuals who do not just broker relationships between the two, but also move between them. They walk a tightrope: their rebel past is seen as a threat to performing a ‘neutral’ humanitarian identity, but at the same time, it constitutes a resource in brokering access with armed groups. Despite a focus on performing principles, humanitarian agencies in practice draw on their employees’ savoir faire which is sometimes gained through rebel experience — the very identity deemed antithetical to a humanitarian status.

Vasudeva as the Charioteer Krishna in Siddhartha: A Comparative Analysis

Siddhartha (1922), a novel by Hermann Hesse, a German-Swiss writer and poet who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature (1946) “inspired writings which, while growing in boldness and penetration, exemplify the classical humanitarian ideals and high qualities of style” (wiki), presents a spiritual journey of self-discovery and enlightenment undertaken by its eponymous protagonist. Throughout his quest, Siddhartha encounters various individuals who play significant roles in his transformation. One such character is Vasudeva, a ferryman, who shares several parallels with the mythical figure of Krishna, the charioteer from the Bhagavad Gita. This research paper aims to explore and analyse the similarities between Vasudeva and Krishna, examining their roles as charioteers, mentors, and spiritual guides, and how their teachings influence Siddhartha’s path towards enlightenment. It investigates how the author’s exposure to Hindu and Buddhist thought might have contributed to the development of Vasudeva’s character as an embodiment of Krishna’s wisdom and compassion and offers a fresh perspective on Hermann Hesse’s masterpiece, revealing how the integration of Eastern religious concepts enriches the story and reinforces its timeless message of self-discovery and transcendence.

Diverging interpretations of humanitarian exceptions: assisting rejected asylum seekers in Norway

ABSTRACT This study explores the tension between regulations aimed at hindering the mobility of irregular migrants in Europe and the individuals who identify with humanitarian ideals and assist rejected asylum seekers. Drawing on legal document analysis and qualitative interviews with individuals who have supported rejected asylum seekers from Afghanistan, this study analyses how the term ‘humanitarian assistance’ is interpreted both legally and socially in the Norwegian context. Although Norway has implemented a humanitarian exception from criminal liability for humanitarian assistance to irregular migrants, the concept of humanitarian assistance is narrowly interpreted as life-saving assistance provided by publicly known formal organisations. This is in contrast with the broader understanding of humanitarian assistance maintained by the respondents, who understand the term as support beyond mere physical survival and which includes upholding human rights. It is shown that even though respondents align themselves with international human rights and humanitarian motives, they might still be prosecuted by the EU and national legislation. It is argued that the criminalisation of acts that are commonly deemed as morally right and humanitarian challenges fundamental principles of the use of punishment as a tool to prohibit harm in society.

The politics of remembering and forgetting: Vietnamese refugees at Singapore’s Hawkins Road Transit Camp

This paper examines the genealogy of Vietnamese refugees based at a transit camp in Singapore between 1975 and 1996. Created by UNHCR with permission of the Singapore government, Hawkins Road Camp hosted Vietnamese refugees with confirmed destinations in their transit. The transit camp was found to be heterotopian, oscillating between the state’s economic pragmatism and humanitarianism. Its heterotopian traits can be traced to its varying (in)visibility throughout its operation from physical demolition to eventual cyber-presence. The heterotopian space of the camp is found to be constructed by two epistemes or politics of truth – the first functioning when the transit camp was in operation and the second operating when the camp was decommissioned and demolished. The first episteme created discursive practices which directed measures at reluctant acceptance and discreet (unpublicised) care of refugees. This is evident from the low media presence, obscure camp location and invisibility not being marked on key landuse maps at the time. The second episteme enacts discursive practices which shape the textual and tangible marginalisations and erasures of refugee presence and history. It is matched and resisted by online commemoration of the transit camp by a stakeholder community concerned with the histories of the transit camp. In doing so, we illuminate the omission of humanitarian ideals for discourses focused on extreme resource vulnerability and economic pragmatism by the Singapore state and provide a geographical critique of such refugee governance. We add to the current literature on the politics and landscapes of remembering and forgetting by examining the subject positions of peoples entwined in these power-relations and highlight the need to attend to the shifts in these subject positions. The shift from a transient unwanted population to one that has never existed has propelled physical and textual erasures of refugee presence.

Connectivity at Work: Looking at a Spiritual Model to Improve Relationships at Work and Integrate Spiritual Tenants into Business Processes

With the COVID pandemic impacting our current business networks, discussing spirituality in the workplace has become the forefront of how we do business. The need for human connectivity in current times plays an even more significant role in the makeup of how people work. Workplace spirituality is a reasonably new paradigm that has gained an amplified interest in the past two decades with academics and the corporate world [1]. Blau [2] has advocated that even before COVID, social exchanges could create an enhanced work dynamic by suggesting that companies are concerned with material gain and nonmaterial social experiences such as humanitarian ideals and spiritual values. Burack [3] suggested that there has been a rapid growth of spirituality in the workplace and organization in recent times as we have increased social chaos. This growth is mainly because of the changing nature of work and the realization that employees' spiritual level has been neglected for many years [4]. The current challenges have only accelerated the interest in spirituality as a workplace practice. This article will explore recent definitions of spirituality as they relate to religion and counseling in the workplace. Since spirituality is an abstract expression of self, it is not easy to define in its entirety. The paper's focus will converge on a review of the point of view of spirit that gives way to spirituality as defined through the lens of individuals and organizations' relationship to self and others and the world. With the current struggles related to the pandemic and changing times, the integration of spirituality at work can enhance people's connectivity within a business. According to Chopra [5], both leadership and spirituality have a powerful influence on an organization's overall performance. As we continue to move forward into the post-pandemic, the need to have a strong sense of spirit will continue to grow. The article will then introduce three identified behaviors that create a robust spiritual interconnectedness model that can play a role in a business's effectiveness. This spiritual model is introduced to improve relationships at work and integrate spiritual tenants into business processes.

Philosophical And Methodological Aspects Of The Scientific Picture Of The World And The Humanization Of Science

In the modern intellectual question analysis of the humanitarian fields of scientific knowledge is indicated as an important philosophical problem. The fundamental intentions of the cultural development of the 21st century intersect at this point: on the one hand, there is an awareness of the loss of spirituality, and on the other, the indication of science as the highest human value. Science, entering into the mysteries of space, living matter and the human body, creates rise to acute social, ideological, methodological and humanistic problems concerning the individual and social aspects of man. The large amounts of scientific knowledge development should be combined with humanistic ideals, otherwise it is sure to give rise to further discord to the human condition and the world of culture. Next natural question arises in the problem of humanizing science context: "What should be the peak of scientific knowledge in order to avoid further mismatch between man and nature, society, science and humanitarian ideals?" As a result, the task arose to supplement the analysis of scientific aspects of cognition with an analysis of its synergetic, existential, axiological components. It is necessary to consider cognition not only as discovering the objective truth apart from man or from mankind, and also as part of the human-species, containing valuables that act to determine the human genuineness. With this in view, we will consider how the ideal of science is changing, leading from principle ontology when the most significant value for the cognizing subject is the world in itself, to taking into account the subjective conditions under which principles of new knowledge are gained. The evolution of the paradigm of science and the scientific picture of the world is shown. This evolution goes through three stages: classical, non-classical and post-non-classical.

Identity in transition: an interpretative phenomenological analysis of international humanitarian workers\u2019 experiences of returning home

This interpretative phenomenological analysis explores aid workers’ understanding of identity and belonging through the transition from working in humanitarian aid to returning home. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 participants who had returned to the UK after working in recently founded non-governmental organisations in Northern France between 2016 and 2019. Analysis of interview data identified four superordinate themes: (1) shared humanitarian identity, (2) limits and borders, (3) holding on to humanitarian identity and (4) redefining belonging and identity. Aid workers’ belonging in humanitarian work settings is rooted in shared moral values and being able to fulfil a clearly defined role. Upon returning, aid workers struggled to reintegrate, manifesting as denial of having left humanitarian work, re-creation of the social setting and moral demarcation. Participants formed a new sense of belonging through redefining their social in-group. The study sheds light on a previously unexplored area of research, specifically characterised through the closeness of the international humanitarian setting and participants’ homes. Findings suggest organisations can assist aid workers’ re-entry by supporting professional distance in the field, and through opportunities that allow to sustain moral values post-mission. Future research should focus on the role of peer support in the re-entry process and the re-entry experiences of aid workers returning from comparable settings further afield (e.g. Greece).