Humanitarian Research Articles

Introducing an antibiotic stewardship program in a humanitarian surgical hospital

Introducing an antibiotic stewardship program in a humanitarian surgical hospital

Does humanitarian aid provided by civil society organizations have an impact on beneficiaries health

Does humanitarian aid provided by civil society organizations have an impact on beneficiaries health

The role of media in crisis management: A case study of Azarbayejan earthquake

Introduction: In the age of information, mass media are considered one of the most important means of communication. This creates an important role for mass media in creating national unity and remodelling of public opinions due to the widespread access to the mass media. Crisis in all its forms are an inseparable part of mankind's life and their diversity is increasing over time. Mass media play a special role in providing information and making people aware of the situation during crisis situations. The media can calm the populace and encourage them to do positive actions, and vice versa, terrorized the populace and create chaos. The aim of this article is to evaluate the role of media in informing people in crisis situation caused by Azerbaijan earthquake based on the opinion of university students. Materials and Methods: This is an applied study using survey method. The statistical population consisted all of the students of Allameh Tabatabai University in Tehran and cluster sampling method was used to select 350 students for additional study. The data collection instrument was a researcher-made questionnaire. Results: The results showed that most respondents have been following the news through national television channels. According to the findings, the mass media plays an important and positive role in covering this incident motivated the populace to send humanitarian helps to disaster areas. Also most respondents tend to follow the news of the incident until the news coming from disaster areas return to normal. Discussion and Conclusion: All types of media play a critical role in disaster management, prior alarm systems and public education regarding disaster management; therefore, playing an important part in reducing the casualties and financial losses caused by such disasters. People expect mass media coverage during and after disasters and crises to be realistic, objective and non-promotional so that the events are reported in a precise and accurate manner.

Just solidarity: The key to fair health care rationing

I agree with Professor ter Meulen that there is no need to make a forced choice between “justice” and “solidarity” when it comes to determining what should count as fair access to needed health care. But he also asserts that solidarity is more fundamental than justice. That claim needs critical assessment. Ter Meulen recognizes that the concept of solidarity has been criticized for being excessively vague. He addresses this criticism by introducing the more precise notion of “humanitarian solidarity.” However, I argue that these notions are still not precise enough and are in need of behavioral translation, especially in relation to the problem of fair health care rationing. More specifically, I argue that translation ought to take the form of a well-ordered process of rational democratic deliberation, which I describe and defend in this essay. Such a process is what is required to construct a working model of just solidarity as opposed to a merely abstract idealization of just solidarity.

Corporate culture of contemporary research university in search of complementarity of humanitarian and commercial principles in education (Russian context)

Corporate culture of contemporary research university in search of complementarity of humanitarian and commercial principles in education (Russian context)

METHODOLOGICAL STRATEGIES OF HUMANITARIAN RESEARCH AND EXPERTISE: ASSESSMENT OF SOCIO-CULTURAL RISKS

METHODOLOGICAL STRATEGIES OF HUMANITARIAN RESEARCH AND EXPERTISE: ASSESSMENT OF SOCIO-CULTURAL RISKS

Protecting the "Most Vulnerable"? The Management of a Disaster and the Making/Unmaking of Victims after the 2008 Xenophobic Violence in South Africa

In 2008, South Africa witnessed a bout of xenophobic violence, requiring the state to declare a disaster to manage a massive displacement of migrants and foreigners. How did the South African state come to care for these populations, whereas it had previously sought to avoid providing protection to foreigners, and was seen as responsible for fostering xenophobia, if not violence? Analyzing the management of the disaster at the local level (in Cape Town), and the various discourses and mobilizations involved in it, this article shows how widespread violence and displacement rendered migrant vulnerabilities visible in the urban space and forced the state to temporarily recognize and protect those who became seen as “victims.” It also questions the idea that xenophobia and failure to comply with international norms were responsible for the lack of protection of migrants and foreigners. Rather, it is the kind of protection displayed, restricted to the “most vulnerable,” that failed to address the root causes of the violence and envision broader social integration issues. The article provides further theorization on what it means to treat violence as disaster and points out to the need to envisage critically humanitarian and social assistance by including them in broader welfare patterns.

Reflections on Violence, Law, and Humanitarianism

Reflections on Violence, Law, and Humanitarianism

The World's hungry. American NGOs and new private-public partnerships after WWII

Food aid for hungry people is not a modern phenomenon. The transport of supplemental food to areas affected by temporary or chronic food scarcity has been a part of state-level diplomacy since antiquity. The second half of the Twentieth century has seen the rise of a new and broader food aid regime, however: Marked by growing Cold War tensions, global economic disparities, and the rise of development thinking, food aid (often from unsellable food surplus) emerged as a new international transfer regime between the US and the «developing nations». The actual programs were often carried out by private players. As early as during WWI private voluntary agencies started to cooperate with the US government in humanitarian food distribution programs to hungry people abroad. This article takes a closer look at these programs tracing their development from the war and inter-war period to the aid endeavor during WWII and into the Fifties and Sixties when food aid schemes were significantly professionalized. It is argued here that the relationship between the US government, recipients and private voluntary agencies entered into a new phase after the end of WWI as public private partnerships in food aid distribution turned from a temporary tool for ad-hoc relief and surplus reduction into more permanent and highly subsidized institutions within the official framework of US foreign and agricultural policy.

Media Selectivity and U.S. Humanitarian Intervention: Reflection on the 1991 Crises in Iraq

Media Selectivity and U.S. Humanitarian Intervention: Reflection on the 1991 Crises in Iraq

A trapezoidal type-2 fuzzy MCDM method to identify and evaluate critical success factors for humanitarian relief logistics management

Disaster and humanitarian logistics are one of the most important subjects for a country to take care about. It is possible to increase the performance of humanitarian relief logistics management p...

Being a Refugee: Humanitarianism and the Palestinian Experience

Being a Refugee: Humanitarianism and the Palestinian Experience

A Harvest Ritual of the Gojoseon period with special reference with the Hongsan culture

When the geographical location and historic period of the Hongsan culture is interpreted ecologically in the mutual relation and when its cultural relic and remains are interpreted in terms of ritual, Sinsigoguk (神市古國) harvest ritual culture tradition of Gojoseon is found. Hwanwoongcheonwang, the leader of Sinsigoguk was the son of the heaven having the harvest ritual right(天祭權) and worshipped the sun as the heavenly god according to the concept of humanitarianism . The harvest ritual relics include Stone Mound Tomb, Harvest Ritual Altar and Jade Bowl relics in Uharyang area among Hongsan cultural heritage in the 35th century BC.<BR> The top of Stone Mound Tomb consists of the altar. It is the tobm of the military leader having the harvest ritual right where his descendants had a harvest ritual at the altar. The round altar with triple concentric circles is the harvest ritual altar symbolizing the sun, where the comm unity had a ritual. A huge circle shape ritual altar also has the shape of sun which is located at the peak of the hill of the southern part of Uharayng. That is the highest place to serve the heaven. It is the place where people could see the altar from any side and is a huge space for large convention for the people. Thus, the national assembly was made possible. Therefore, different from Stone Mound Tomb ritual altar which mainly had the function of tomb, the circle shape altar had satisfied a geographical condition for large size national assembly for the harvest ritual.<BR> The jade bowl relics of the Hongsan culture are various with diverse kinds of animal shapes. They have two symbolic meanings. One is that all humanbeing was equal in the organic relation according to the concept of hum anitarianism. Secondly, jade bowls was a ritual bowl that linked between the heaven and the earth as godly objects. Accordingly, various kinds of jade bowls were excavated from the stone mount tomb, the tomb of the military leader. Therefore, if the relics and remains of the Hongsan culture are interpreted from the ritual point of view, it demonstrates the harvest ritual culture of the godly city in Gojoseon.

Portable ultrasound is an effective tool in humanitarian medicine

Portable ultrasound is an effective tool in humanitarian medicine

Shaping the Legend: The Role of the Australian Red Cross and Anzac

Established to assist the sick and wounded in war in August 1914, the Australian Red Cross became one of Australia's largest and most important voluntary organisations of the twentieth century. Both creations of World War I, the Anzac Legend and the Australian Red Cross appear at first glance to be the antithesis of each other. Yet the humanitarianism of the Australian Red Cross and the militarism of the Anzac Legend are inextricably linked and provide us with a unique perspective with which to evaluate the contested terrain of Anzac. Taking as its starting point the small booklet, Australia at the Dardanelles, 25 April 1915, sold as a fundraiser for the Australian Red Cross during Australia Day, 30 July 1915, this article examines the Australian Red Cross and its connections with the origins of the Anzac Legend during World War I.

Anthropology and humanitarianisms across borders: a growing field of study

Anthropology and humanitarianisms across borders: a growing field of study

Coordination humanitaire en Haïti : le rôle des clusters dans l'externalisation de l'aide

Le séisme du 12 janvier 2010 en Haïti a mis en évidence les défis d’une réponse humanitaire de cette envergure dans un pays fragilisé par des crises consécutives. Cet article analyse le mécanisme de coordination mis en place par le Bureau de coordination des affaires humanitaires (OCHA) de l’ONU, afin de soutenir les autorités haïtiennes. L’étude des dynamiques d’inclusion et d’exclusion démontrera les obstacles à l’intégration des acteurs locaux dans la coordination, et ainsi la planification, de l’aide humanitaire.

La photographie, prisme de lecture et enjeu révélateur du système de l'aide internationale

Cet article vise à montrer la pertinence d’une perspective visuelle pour le décryptage du fonctionnement du système d’aide internationale et la nécessité de l’intégration des médias visuels dans les réflexions sur la transition humanitaire en œuvre. À travers les usages de la photographie par les acteurs de l’aide, il propose une périodisation de la relation entre les organisations et la photographie divisée en quatre périodes. Chaque période éclaire sur les choix faits quant au rôle de l’image dans les pratiques et les politiques d’aide et sur ses effets. Ainsi l’image est à la fois représentation, vecteur et moteur d’un système qu’elle objective, transforme, voire camoufle.

The Geopolitics of Humanitarian Intervention: The Responsibility to Protect in Libya

This article analyzes the geopolitical narratives produced by France, the United Kingdom, and the United States from 15 February through 18 March 2011 as a humanitarian intervention in Libya was debated. We analyzed 146 statements and press releases, as well as official documents including the United Nations Charter, the Genocide Convention, and the doctrine of Responsibility to Protect (R2P), to gauge how the intervention was justified and how it was situated within the broader framework of humanitarianism. We argue that the thresholds for intervention are not well articulated and that the differences between the situation in Libya, which required an intervention, and others such as Bahrain, Darfur, or Syria that did not are unclear. The lack of thresholds and consistency creates a situation in which particular countries can use the cover of humanitarianism to legitimate an effort to remove a troublesome regime.

Didier Fassin, Mariella Pandolfi (dir.), Contemporary States of Emergency. The Politics of Military and Humanitarian Interventions.

Les interventions militaires et humanitaires s’imposent progressivement comme la reponse classique a un etat d’exception permanent. C’est du moins l’idee developpee par Didier Fassin et Mariella Pandolfi dans Contemporary States of Emergency. Pour les deux auteurs, il s’agit de la manifestation d’un nouveau paradigme : « la generalisation, au niveau international mais aussi national, d’etats d’urgence et l’institution d’un gouvernement militaire et humanitaire comme mode de reponse aux situat...