Teacher	Bart Klem
Room	407
Time	11:15 - 13:00 zoomlink
Slides	Click here
Preparation	Please read: Mauss, Marcel (2002 [1925]) The Gift: The form and reason for exchange in archaic societies. London: Routledge Note: I realise the above book (108 pages) is a longer-than-usual text. It is a seminal book in anthropology and while the link to human rights may not be immediately apparent, I think it will be a worthwhile read. However, if you are pressed for time, please make-do with reading the foreword (by Mary Douglas, pp ix-xxiii). Pia Hollenbach (2013): Dynamics of multi-local gifts: practices of humanitarian giving in post-tsunami Sri Lanka, Development in Practice, 23:3, 319-331.

The provision of humanitarian aid is a central plank of the humanitarian framework. Such emergency relief and rehabilitation in circumstances of war (or disaster) is supposed to a neutral form of aid that subscribes to humanitarian principles - a matter of legally inscribed entitlements. At the same time, the provision of material or monetary goods between humans is always embedded power relations, economic force field and social norms of reciprocity. Such gift dynamics were the subject of Marcel Mauss' seminal work a century ago, but arguably his thoughts offer insight into contemporary dynamics around humanitarian aid.

Additional reading/resources (not mandatory)

Duffield, Mark (2012) “Challenging environments: Danger, resilience and the aid industry”, Security Dialogue, 43(5): 475-492.

Duffield, Mark (2013) “Risk management and the bunkering of the aid industry,” Development Dialogue, 58: 21-36.

Fernando, Udan, and Dorothea Hilhorst. 2006. “Everyday practices of humanitarian aid: Tsunami response in Sri Lanka,” Development in Practice, 16 (3&4): 292– 302. 

Hollenbach, Pia (2013) “Dynamics of multi-local gifts: practices of humanitarian giving in posttsunami Sri Lanka”, Development in Practice, 23(3): 319- 331.

Slim, Hugo (2002) “Not philanthropy but rights: The proper politicisation of humanitarian philosophy”, The International Journal of Human Rights, 6(2), 1–22.

Stirrat, Jock (2006) “Competitive humanitarianism: Relief and the tsunami in Sri Lanka,” Anthropology Today, 22 (5): 11-16.

Hilhorst, Dorothea and Bram Jansen (2010) “Humanitarian space as arena: A perspective on the everyday politics of aid”, Development and Change 41(6): 1117-1139.