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Humanitarianism from Below: Alter-Politics and Struggles for the Universal
January 25 @ 09:00 - January 26 @ 17:00 CET
| This workshop explores the ongoing emergence of humanitarianism from below as central to the transformation of humanitarian landscapes around the world. It aims to research the space between international Western-led humanitarianism and the diverse practices of welfare, support and solidarity that make up humanitarianism from below. The workshop thereby analyses a politically salient and increasingly visible scale of humanitarianism that both mirrors and challenges the logics of international humanitarianism. Actors involved in such humanitarianism from below often reside in ambivalent settings that are subject to multiple constellations of power and they evade pre-defined containers such as “Western” and “Global South/North.” The workshop establishes an analytical optic onto such movements, institutions and ad-hoc initiatives as part of comparable forms of “alter-politics” (Hage 2015) that are not simply defined by opposition against dominant forms (“anti”), but rather offer different notions and critiques of humanity (“alter”) in a time of global transformation. Critically interrogating the notion of humanitarianism as “an ethos, a cluster of sentiments, a set of laws, a moral imperative to intervene, and a form of government” (Ticktin 2014: 274) the workshop addresses the urgent need to better understand actors that are outside but not necessarily disconnected from the established spectrum of international humanitarianism. To this end, this workshop brings into conversation anthropological approaches to humanitarianism with concepts from political anthropology exploring solidarity, alter-politics and universalism. Download the workshop program here: Humanitarianism from Below
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