Humanitarian Practice Research Articles

The Communities of Social Humanitarian Pedagogical Practice (COPPESH): an education designed from the teacher’s viewpoint, towards and with the territories

Este artículo de reflexión, producto de una investigación, muestra los avances teórico metodológicos de las configuraciones pedagógicas denominadas Comunidades de Práctica Pedagógica Social Humanitaria (COPPESH), emergentes del proyecto denominado “Conceptos de pedagogía contemporánea: aportes teórico-metodológicos para la formación de docentes”, del grupo de Investigación GIFSE. El objetivo principal de las COPPESH es promover una educación contextualizada que responda a las necesidades de las comunidades. Esta estrategia busca empoderar a docentes y estudiantes como agentes de cambio, promoviendo la colaboración y el diálogo en el proceso educativo. Este enfoque integra saberes locales y culturales, promoviendo aprendizajes significativos que trascienden el aula. La propuesta metodológica de las COPPESH se basa en fases metodológicas que incluyen comunitarización, sensibilización, deconstrucción, resignificación y reconstrucción. Estas etapas permiten a educadores y estudiantes trabajar juntos para identificar y abordar desafíos educativos y sociales, fomentando la creatividad y la innovación. Las COPPESH representan una estrategia educativa que no solo busca mejorar la calidad de los aprendizajes, sino que también pretende transformar realidades sociales a través de la educación. Al integrar la reflexión crítica y el reconocimiento de la diversidad cultural, este enfoque contribuye a la construcción de una cultura de paz y reconciliación, empoderando a las comunidades para enfrentar los desafíos del presente y el futuro.

Radical care in displacement: Rohingya women’s activism amidst neoliberal humanitarianism and repression

ABSTRACT This paper examines the activism and care work of Rohingya women in displacement settings, focusing on grassroots efforts in Cox’s Bazar refugee camps and transnational advocacy by diaspora activists. Drawing on 43 in-depth interviews and applying a feminist ethics of care framework, we argue that these women's activism constitutes a form of radical care that challenges both neoliberal humanitarian practices and repressive state policies. Rohingya women activists forge networks of solidarity and empowerment that extend beyond conventional humanitarian interventions, providing emotional support and shared experiences that contribute to the social ecology of care for refugee women. Their grassroots work contests the neoliberal emphasis on individual self-reliance, instead highlighting the vital role of relational care in fostering collective resilience. However, these activists face significant risks from multiple sources, including state repression, community backlash, and online harassment. They employ strategies such as ‘strategic invisibility’ and digital activism to navigate these dangers. Despite the transformative potential of their work, it remains systematically undervalued, leaving activists vulnerable to burnout and depletion. By centering the experiences and agency of Rohingya women, this study reveals a complex landscape of resistance, care, and empowerment, offering insights into how refugee women create change amidst intersecting forms of oppression.

Queering Humanitarian Practices through the Inclusion of SOGIESC Concepts

Diverse SOGIESC issues (sexual orientations, gender identities and expressions, and sex characteristics) are seldom discussed in humanitarian work but are emerging as an important gap to fill in both knowledge and practice. This review’s objective is to provide a clearer picture of how SOGIESC issues are included in humanitarian practices. A socio-ecological approach is used to identify the different settings in which these issues are present and should be addressed by the humanitarian sector. The review is based on a search of three databases covering peer-reviewed articles and grey literature that link SOGIESC issues and populations with humanitarian work. The fifty-one documents included in this review provide insights into its three main results. (1) SOGIESC concepts must be clarified in the humanitarian sector, which has been partially aware of these concepts and related issues. Two good governance principles should be prioritised and reviewed. (2) The inclusion of SOGIESC issues lacks clear ‘Direction’ (strategic planning) for the reduction of SOGIESC-based discrimination beyond short-term disaster management. (3) Diverse SOGIESC communities lack ‘legitimacy and voice’ to address their needs and participate in emergency responses. Transformative practices are identified to palliate those gaps but, most importantly, to connect humanitarian work to diverse SOGIESC peoples.

Comparing universal jurisdiction in Europe and in Latin America: a vehicle for international justice or for colonial reckoning?

ABSTRACT A particular concern in recent years has been the limited options for prosecutions of persons responsible for atrocities in States not amenable to ICC jurisdiction. The need for accountability for atrocities builds on long histories of human rights and humanitarian law practice, both treaty-based and customary in nature, which has been driven also by the work of the ECtHR and the IACtHR mechanisms. At the domestic level, ever since the Pinochet decision, universal jurisdiction (UJ) has been considered a promising way to fill the lacuna. Indeed, some commentators have observed a resurgence in the use of UJ in recent years based on a number of trials of ex-ISIS and Syrian regime members in European courts. Yet UJ as it has been practised has serious limitations. While there are exceptions, many European states are steadily turning the exercise of UJ into the application of extraterritorial jurisdiction based on active or passive personality, especially in relation to their former colonies. In Latin America too, there have been some recent examples of investigations and prosecutions on the basis of ‘pure’ UJ, but the vast majority of exercises of jurisdiction are in furtherance of extraditions, particularly at the behest of former colonial powers. This article compares the recent uptick in European and Latin American usages of UJ, concluding that to date both regions still exhibit little appetite for pursuing ‘pure’ UJ. It warns that significant colonialist pressures in both regions threaten to limit this crucial mechanism for international justice.

Humanitarianism as a tool of statecraft: contested authority, sovereign violence, and humanity in the Syrian civil war.

This research explores the dynamics of interaction between the sovereign state and international humanitarian organisations in alleviating human suffering in the Syrian civil war. Considering civil wars as a rupture in sovereignty, its focus is on the practices of the sovereign state within its social context and the resulting implications for aid organisations. I argue that the Syrian regime has employed state violence, in tandem with administrative and bureaucratic impediments, to reassert its sovereign authority in humanitarian decision-making processes. This exercise of sovereign power is intertwined with the actions of aid organisations, thereby reshaping power dynamics among the state, aid organisations, and vulnerable populations. Through a qualitative method, I show that the deployment of state violence concomitantly pushes aid organisations, specifically the United Nations, towards enforcing the state sovereignty defined by the regime. As an effect of assertive sovereignty, interpretations of humanitarian principles and practices are continuously negotiated and constructed differently by aid organisations, even though they share a common overarching goal.

Humanitarian capitalism: The labour regime of aid and the surrogate welfare state in times of global displacement

Recent literature on the geography and political economy of humanitarian migration governance has highlighted the diverse circuits of economic value being forged through ‘refugee crises’ across the world. However, there is a noticeable gap in the examination of what kind of labour relations sustain these new economic circuits. Additionally, there is limited analysis of how humanitarian labour practices intersect with existing geographies of labour precarity in regions where refugee aid operations are conducted. This article aims to address these gaps by exploring the dominant labour relations within the changing landscape of private and public service providers in Greece following the 2015–16 European ‘refugee crisis.’ The article argues that the growth of the refugee aid sector in Greece both capitalised on and exacerbated ongoing processes of labour market deregulation and public sector contraction. The burgeoning aid sector operated as a surrogate welfare state, relying on devalued local labour to address the basic social reproduction needs of global ‘surplus populations’. Extending discussions on the political economy of migration industries beyond profit-making to account for their role in transforming the welfare state and labour relations in spaces of accentuated capitalist crisis, the article demonstrates how the emergency temporalities of aid funding, the rise of public sector managerialism, and employment protection liberalisation impact migrant-facing services, effectively serving as both anti-labour and anti-immigration policy. Furthermore, it illustrates how politically induced migrant ruination is used as a lever to intensify and moralise humanitarian labour in a feedback loop detrimental to both working-class locals and migrants.

The Impact of Religious Influence on Humanitarianism: Evidence from Local Communities Affected by Floods in Kilosa, Tanzania

This article aims to elucidate the impact of religion on humanitarian practices within local communities affected by floods and the resulting contributions to community survival. Empirical data derived from interviews and focus group discussions conducted with community members in Msowero and Mbigiri wards, Kilosa District, in Morogoro Region, forms the basis of the study findings. Both Muslims and Christians perceive assisting the needy as a divine directive and command, with Holy Scriptures such as the Bible and Quran affirming that those helping their fellow humans will receive divine reward. The act of helping the needy is identified as a means of validating one’s faith, expiating sin, demonstrating respect for others, engaging in worship, and fulfilling a duty to God. The study reveals that individuals in flood-affected local communities actively engage in humanitarianism by helping victims. These acts encompass providing basic necessities such as food, clothing, and shelter, facilitating education services by covering school fees and acquiring uniforms for students, and offering health-related services. Such humanitarian practices significantly contribute to community survival by ensuring the availability of essential resources for victims, promoting good health and well-being, and facilitating access to social services, particularly education for children. This article not only highlights how religiously influenced humanitarianism is pivotal for community survival but also underscores the essential role played by individual local community members as crucial contributors to government and development partners’ endeavours in safeguarding people’s well-being during and after natural disasters like floods.

Climate-health risk (In)visibility in the context of everyday humanitarian practice

Nongovernmental migrant shelters in Mexico play a key role in documenting the factors that shape forced migration from Central America. Existing intake protocols in shelters are largely oriented to humanitarian legal frameworks that determine eligibility for international protection based on interpersonal violence and political persecution. This qualitative study calls attention to how existing humanitarian logics may obscure climate- and health-related disruptions as drivers of forced migration from Central America in the context of everyday humanitarian practice. In May 2022 we compared migrant's responses (n = 40) to a standardized intake protocol at a nongovernmental humanitarian migrant shelter in Mexico with responses to semi-structured interviews that focused on migrants' perceptions of climate change and health as drivers of forced displacement. We found that slow- and rapid-onset climatic disruptions; illness and disease; and various forms of violence and repression are often interrelated drivers of forced displacement. Comparing intake protocols and in-depth interview responses, we found that climate- and health-related drivers of forced displacement are rarely documented. These findings speak to the importance of critically examining everyday humanitarian practices in the context of ongoing advocacy that calls for climate-related disruptions to be integrated into existing humanitarian protection frameworks.

Mathematical understanding (hermeneutic aspects of educational activities)

The article discusses the issues of mathematical understanding as an educational practice of identifying the algorithmic meanings of mathematical (mathematized) educational texts. The hermeneutic orientation towards following the “guiding thread of language” (G.-G. Gadamer), as it is shown, cannot be narrowed to the attitude towards natural languages inherent in humanitarian educational practices. The “common place” of mathematical understanding in educational practices is: some of created languages (of scientific communication) being consolidated around the mathematical installation are not reducible to its sign universality or educational generalizations. But it often turns out to be outside the field of view of practicing teachers, in a didactically abstract position. The article substantiates the possibility of rehabilitating the hermeneutic attitude in mathematical education in connection with its development and strengthening in understanding the prerequisites for the algorithmic solution of mathematical problems (the need for additional information, non-standard solution techniques, transfer of educational goal setting to the area of interdisciplinary relationships or life experience, etc.). The author shows and comments on the effectiveness of the hermeneutic approach in mathematics education using examples of solving problems in algebra, geometry and in constructing mathematical models of various physical processes.

Introduction: Development practice, power and public authority

AbstractDrawing upon research across multiple countries, the papers in this special issue explore how public authority dynamics affect development and humanitarian practices and processes. Some focus on places commonly labelled as in crisis or understood to be subject to multiple overlapping crises, where responses to epidemics, persistent conflict and migrations are in progress. Others examine how public authority dynamics affect the everyday governance of development in outwardly more stable contexts. The seven empirical papers are complimented by a conceptual framework for analysing how power permeates the foundations of public authority dynamics. Viewed together, they illuminate why exclusions, coercion and violence are often used by those claiming the legitimacy to govern, and how grasping what this may mean for well‐intended interventions or reform efforts remains a challenge for practitioners. However, they also point towards a pressing need for outsiders to recognise their own roles in constructing and legitimising, sometimes harmful, forms of public authority in the places they work. And they suggest the first step is to confront a reluctance to acknowledge public authority dynamics in their official depictions of programmes' progress, learnings and impacts.

Defining, operationalising and translating ‘vulnerability’ in humanitarian work in Jordan

ABSTRACT ‘Vulnerability’ saturates contemporary humanitarian discourse and practice in English. But how is ‘vulnerability’ operationalised and translated – both literally and figuratively – and what can these dynamics tell us about the humanitarian system? Drawing on an extensive engagement with humanitarianism in Jordan, this article explores how ‘vulnerability’ is turned from a ubiquitous designator of need to an operationalizable indicator in humanitarian assessments, how ‘vulnerability’ overlaps and collides with national systems for determining need and targeting, and how the idea of ‘vulnerability’ is communicated in Arabic. I argue that, despite ‘vulnerability’s’ unquestioned centrality in humanitarianism, there is a pervasive unclarity about how it should be understood, with parallel and largely disconnected debates, using strikingly different frameworks and terminology, happening in English and Arabic. This Anglo-centric system both expresses and reinforces the humanitarian sector’s intersecting hierarchies of race and labour, as ‘local’ humanitarian workers take on the work of translating ‘vulnerability,’ while ‘international’ colleagues centre their work on concepts that have very little meaning to those they are ostensibly for and about. If localisation is to involve a meaningful transfer of power to local and national actors, humanitarianism’s Anglo-centrism must be dismantled.

Laughing from the Outside‐In: Considering ‘What's Up Africa’ as an(other) humorous humanitarian digilantism

AbstractThis article examines the intersection of humour and humanitarianism in engaging Northern audiences with global Southern poverty issues. It analyses witty social media campaigns that critique humanitarian practices and Africa’s representation, notably What’s Up Africa (WUA) on YouTube, Radi‐Aid on YouTube, Humanitarians of Tinder on Tumblr and Barbie Savior on Instagram. Using ‘contraflow’, it shows how humour and positionality shape reception. WUA’s Black African‐centric comedy, particualrly, highlights the often‐underexplored role of race in development discourse, challenging the White institutional core of humanitarianism. These insights reveal power dynamics and invite further academic inquiry into the transformative potential of comedic humanitarian critique.

State's Presence in Fulfilling Human Rights for Illegal Immigrants of Rohingya in Aceh

The study delves into the phenomenon of Rohingya illegal boat migration to Indonesia's Aceh Province during the period of 2020–2023, amid allegations of human rights violations by the Myanmar government. It aims to elucidate the factors driving this migration while examining the Indonesian government's response in meeting the basic needs of Rohingya arrivals from a human rights perspective. Employing a qualitative research methodology with a descriptive analysis approach, this study utilizes a framework encompassing national policy, migration, and human rights principles. Findings reveal that most Rohingyas view Aceh as a temporary transit point en route to Malaysia, often resorting to various means, including escape from Indonesian detention facilities. Their undocumented status impedes legal entry into Malaysia, leaving many stranded in Aceh and other parts of Indonesia. International law mandates that the Indonesian government afford protection to these individuals. The study underscores the Indonesian government's adherence to international legal obligations in safeguarding the human rights and welfare of Rohingya immigrants, thereby highlighting implications for policy and humanitarian practice.

The Hero, the White Savior, and the Smuggler: Criminalized Figures in the Landscape of Solidarity Toward Migrants

One recent shift in the ever-expanding crackdown on migration and implementation of a hostile environment for migrants in the EU has been the criminalization of migrant solidarity. Using various legal tools, EU governments have been trying to hinder solidarity actions from civil society. In particular, a narrative depicting civilians helping migrants as criminals has been elaborated by European organizations and strengthened by far-right groups and dominant press outlets. In reaction, a counter-narrative has been constructed and spread by pro-migrant groups and liberal media, which presents criminalized activists as criminalized heroes and their actions as humanitarian. Based on a critical discourse analysis of academic texts, press articles, and empirical research with pro-migrant activists, this article examines two criminal figures from the civilian search and rescue field: the “activist associated with smugglers” and its counterpart, the “criminalized hero.” Through the lens of figuration of crime and social justice, the article brings a new understanding of the de- and repoliticization processes that occur in the field of humanitarian help and migration. By analyzing these two figures, the paper also contributes to a better understanding of the competing moral orders underpinning criminal and social justice claims in the field of solidarity toward migrants. On the one hand, the figure of the activist associated with smuggler is part of a criminal justice narrative depicting migration as a threat to political, social, and economic stability. On the other hand, the criminalized hero figure includes a counter-narrative to this moral order based on the defense of a social justice frame of solidarity and the protection of human rights. Within the pro-migrant activist’s scene, the criminalized hero and its social justice frame are criticized for reproducing racist and post-colonial practices of humanitarianism.

Humanitarian Practices of Regional Organizations in the Russia-Ukraine War: Taking the European Union as an Example

The Russia-Ukraine war has resulted in a humanitarian crisis, with countless individuals affected by the conflict. In response, regional organizations have played a crucial role in providing humanitarian assistance and promoting peace in the region. This paper focuses on the European Union (EU) as an exemplary regional organization and examines its humanitarian practices during the Russia-Ukraine war. By analysing the EU’s policies, initiatives, and interventions, this study aims to shed light on the effectiveness of regional organizations in addressing humanitarian challenges in conflict zones. The research draws on a combination of primary and secondary sources, including official EU documents, reports, and scholarly articles. The findings highlight the EU’s multifaceted approach, encompassing humanitarian aid, diplomatic efforts, and conflict resolution mechanisms. Furthermore, the paper explores the strengths and limitations of the EU’s humanitarian practices, providing insights into potential areas for improvement. Ultimately, this research contributes to the understanding of regional organizations’ role in mitigating the humanitarian consequences of conflicts and offers valuable lessons for future humanitarian interventions in similar contexts.

Anticipatory action for drought in the Sahel: an innovation for drought risk management or a buzzword?

Anticipatory action is an approach that combines early warning information with flexible, pre-positioned funds to trigger actions that mitigate the impact of predictable shocks on the most vulnerable people. Historically, drought is the climatic hazard that led to the highest and most severe humanitarian impacts in the Sahel. This region, according to climate projections, will be one of the most deeply affected by climate change in future years, leading to considerable changes to societies, economies, as well as impacting rural communities. While this negative projection may lead to further increases in humanitarian consequences, recent experiences from integrating anticipatory action for drought into humanitarian practice hold positive prospects. This article will review current experiences on anticipatory action for drought in the Sahel and shed light on whether this approach has brought innovation in local disaster risk management. Through the review of recent initiatives in Burkina Faso, Chad and Niger, this paper highlights key advancements as well as gaps and challenges pertaining to key components of anticipatory action and disaster risk management, namely: (1) data, risk analysis and early warning; (2) funding; (3) preparedness and community engagement; (4) learning, coordination and partnership; (5) policies and institutional frameworks. Even in challenging environments like in the Sahel, anticipatory action for drought can become an integral component of standard disaster risk management and financing strategies. However, this process will require more robust evidence about which ingredients of anticipatory action approaches lead to the desired result.

Spaces of in/formality in the Turkish humanitarian field: Spatial and discursive practices impacting refugee women

Drawing upon critical feminist theorising, this article intervenes in the debates about humanitarian aid organisations in the case of urban refugees to highlight the ubiquity of in/formal practices in their interlinkedness that increasingly shape aid distribution. By examining humanitarian enactments at three levels –the national, the district and the neighbourhood– in the case of Ankara, Turkey, the article advances theoretical discussions about how formality and informality are intertwined as spatial techniques and discursive practices are deployed justifying in/formality in practice. We argue that such spatial and discursive interventions have become normalised as local aid distributors seek legitimacy in a contested process to counteract their image as unregulated. By centring the experiences of urban refugee women and their engagement with in/formal humanitarian practices, we expose the gendered connotations underpinning these interventions at the three levels of humanitarian enactments as (1) detached paternalism at the national level creating refugee women’s alienation, (2) a culture of Islamic charity at the district level prompting gendered performances of victimhood and (3) patriarchal ideology of male saviours linked to Islam at the neighbourhood level disciplining refugee women and leading to their (sexual) exploitation. In doing so, we problematise spatial and discursive modalities of in/formality, which produce profoundly gendered precarities, causing refugee women’s subordination in multiple ways. Bringing attention to how in/formality− as a part of contemporary conditions of refugeehood− interacts with gender, and how legitimacy is attained through on-the-ground spatial techniques coupled with discourses, we contribute to a more sophisticated understanding of the humanitarian field.

Stopping the Virus; Study on Participatory Journalism and Digital Humanitarian during a Non-Natural Disaster in Indonesia

Philanthropic initiatives during disaster events have become embedded in Indonesian society. It also manifests in a digital humanitarian practice during the COVID-19 pandemic, categorized by the government as a non-natural disaster from 2020 to 2023. The spreading of misinformation and inaccurate data on cases of COVID-19 patients, have become an obstacle in the early stages of efforts to stop fatalities. As the government imposes lockdown and restrictions access to information, the news media as one of the key sources of information is under attack. Thus, citizen initiatives in stopping the pandemic are worth documented as a lesson learned when managing disasters in the future. By conducting qualitative method, this research describes the implementation of participatory journalism in practice related to the data gathering and reporting on COVID-19 cases in Indonesia by "LaporCovid-19" and "KawalCOVID19". This research finds both platforms carry out digital humanitarian practices while organizing citizens and producing, curating, and disseminating information. As the government imposes lockdown and restricted access toward media and journalists, the digital humanitarian practice involves citizens through decentralization, self-organization, volunteerism, and the optimization of digital platforms. The collaboration is a multidisciplinary subject that combines crises management, communications, network collaborative organizational structures, social computing and technology. In conclusion, their efforts offer a model to develop citizen participation in the non-natural disaster using digital apps and citizen resources. The model intertwines participatory journalism and digital humanitarian practices that engage citizens during the pandemic on both digital platforms contribute to other citizens' efforts to prevent and overcome health crises.

Visual bordering: How refugee-serving organizations represent refugees on Instagram

Theories of symbolic bordering highlight how xenophobic media coverage and humanitarian messaging create boundaries between migrants and receiving communities partly based on deservingness. Contrasting with studies of mainly text-based representations of refugees, we examine refugee-serving organizations’ visual communications work on Instagram. Using a discourse-centered online ethnographic approach, we collected 191 posts made in early 2021 by five UK-based organizations. Then, we applied quantitative content and qualitative semiotic analysis to these posts, complemented by two semi-structured interviews with communications staff members. We show how visual choices invoke divisions between posts’ refugee subjects and their intended audiences, while rendering some refugees legible and particularly worthy of protection or empathy. These choices include using stereotypical elements, obscuring identifiable people, and explicitly attributing quotations to refugees. We also identify “takeover” posts where refugees had controlled organizations’ social media accounts. Our study contributes understanding of how symbolic bordering occurs visually online and has implications for humanitarian communications practice.

The unaccounted effects of digital transformation: participatory accountability in a humanitarian organisation

PurposeThis study explores the evolving dynamics of participatory accountability within humanitarian contexts, where digitally connected crisis-affected populations demand better accountability from aid organisations, and as a result, shift traditional hierarchies and relationships between humanitarian agencies and beneficiaries.Design/methodology/approachThis study employs a case study approach, focussing on the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), to investigate how participatory accountability manifests outside formal practices and re-emerges in social media spaces. The study analyses internal organisational challenges and explores the implications of digital platforms on humanitarian practices. The authors employ Chouliaraki and Georgiou's (2015, 2019, 2022) networks of mediation, particularly intermediation and transmediation, to understand how digital expressions translate to offline contexts and reshape meanings and actions.FindingsThe study reveals that social media platforms enable beneficiaries to demand participatory accountability beyond traditional practices, democratising humanitarian response and challenging power structures. These effects are multifaceted, introducing enhanced democratic and inclusive humanitarian aid as well as new vulnerabilities. Digital intermediaries and gatekeepers play pivotal roles in curating and disseminating crisis-affected voices, which, when transmediated, result in nuanced meanings and understandings. Positive effects include capturing the potential of digital networks for democratic aid, while negative effects give rise to moral responsibilities, necessitating proactive measures from the ICRC.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the literature by highlighting the impact of digital technology, particularly social media, on participatory accountability. It expands the understanding of the evolving landscape of accountability within the humanitarian sector and offers critical insights into the complexities and dual purposes of participatory accountability in contexts of resistance. Employing Chouliaraki and Georgiou's networks of mediation adds depth to the understanding of digital technology's role in shaping participatory practices and introduces the concept of transmediation as a bridge between digital expressions and tangible actions.