The ‘crooked timber’ of humanitarianism

Cross-cultural metacognition as a prior for humanitarian knowledge: when cultures collide in global health emergencies

“…In the twentieth century, especially after World War II, the nucleus content and implications of humanism have extended far beyond the religious realm, evolving into a more secular, anthropocentric philosophy with a focus on human rights and corresponding civil rights movements. Following this human-centred orientation, humanism now is conceptualised as a system of values rendered by the development of humankind and its morals (Peters, 2019), while humanistic knowledge can be defined as nothing other than wisdom (Janik, 2010), a typical form of tacit knowing stemming from human practices in specific contexts (Wang and Chin, 2020). Viewed from this angle, humanistic knowledge that reflects the personal insights gained from experience and situations contains profound ethical connotations and moral cognition and, thus, must be culturally grounded (Meng, 2012).…”

“…The philosophical assumptions and associated moral connotations between humanistic and humanitarian knowledge have converged and somewhat overlapped in global civil society since then. A few scholars have claimed that the philosophy of cosmopolitan humanitarianism might be seen as a core part of the modern, human-centred Western ideology of humanism (Peters, 2019;Meng, 2017), even though the deep meanings of humanism and humanitarianism have subtle differences. More specifically, both of them are significantly associated with human knowledge; nevertheless, the former involves a system of strong values that embody the collective experience and reflection of a group of people and the history making of human civilization, while the latter emphasises that salvaging a threatened human species adheres to a culturally neutral doctrine of human rights, thus not referring to a values system but to universal morality (Baudrillard, 1995).…”

OUP accepted manuscript

“…The business model of humanitarianism has also paved the way for different kinds of interventions, new NGO’s mandates and emerging definitions of what constitutes a humanitarian crisis ( Gordon and Donini, 2015 ; Peters, 2019 ). This is evident in the current wave of information and communication technologies (ICTs), which are prolifically active in fragile humanitarian contexts ( Sandvik et al , 2017 ; Vannini et al , 2020 ) As much as technology holds implicit promise and enables successes that were considered impossible in the past, ICTs are usually implemented by private companies who use the opportunity for public relations and profit-making opportunities.…”

“…Support for regime changes ( Spiegel, 2017 ), lack of accountability ( Ramachandran and Walz, 2015 ) and ongoing racism in the humanitarian system ( Balaji, 2011 ) are indicators of the continuing dominant model of colonialism. Colonialism politically positions affected populations as vulnerable and need assistance ( Gordon and Donini, 2015 ; Hilton et al , 2018 ; Peters, 2019 ). From Mishel’s practice experience, working as an Aboriginal Family Services practitioner in regional Victoria, Australia hegemony of Western European thought crept into every assessment and intervention applied to Aboriginal children ( McMahon, 2012 ).…”

“…We demonstrate how these overlapping drivers disrupt daily lives with reverberations felt for a long time. The second defining factor of complex humanitarian contexts is the colonial history of humanitarianism, which re-positions particular population groups as marginalised, fuel conflict in localised areas and create economic disparities ( Gordon and Donini, 2015 ; Hilton et al , 2018 ; Peters, 2019 ). COVID-19 and the BLM movements have exposed the deeply ingrained historical and colonial responses to complex humanitarian contexts.…”