Monique J Beerli | University of Geneva, Switzerland (original) (raw)
Papers by Monique J Beerli
International Peacekeeping, 2017
While humanitarian work has always implied a certain level of risk, in the last two decades there... more While humanitarian work has always implied a certain level of risk, in the last two decades there has been a growing concern that humanitarian and peacekeeping agents are exposed to unprecedented levels of insecurity. To determine whether or not such claims and perceptions are substantiated, researchers have developed quantitative datasets aimed at measuring and tracking threats to humanitarians and peacekeepers at the global level. In contrast to humanitarian practitioners which use such quantitative expertise to suggest aid work is becoming increasingly dangerous, the producers of quantitative representations of humanitarian security suggest instead that attack rates have remained for the most part fairly stable despite increases in absolute numbers. In order to make sense of this paradox, this article draws on neo-Bourdieusian approaches, the sociology of professions and organizations, as well as global governance literature on quantification to suggest that such inconsistencies ...
PARISS, 2020
Through a critical engagement with substantive and stylistic guidelines dictated by dominant jour... more Through a critical engagement with substantive and stylistic guidelines dictated by dominant journals in the social sciences, this article enquires on what it means to write like a social scientist in the twenty-first century. Academic production and diffusion now regularly take place beyond and across national borders, with English often standing in as the lingua franca of these global exchanges. Though just one effect of this restructuration, academic journals have become more transnational in scope with regards to the authors whose work they publish and the audiences whose readership they seek to attract. However, while one could expect the “globalization” of the social sciences to lead to the transnational circulation of national disciplinary traditions and perhaps multiple manifestations of cultural hybridization, we are instead witnessing the imposition of a strangely singular and harmonized mode of doing the social sciences. Paradoxically, standards of how long a scientific article should be or how one should fashion an argument are so familiar and intimately known, yet curiously opaque and of unknown origins. In interrogating the historical-contextual origins of conventions that so strongly shape the world of academic publishing and, dare we say, reasoning, we raise questions about the conditions of the present and the naturalization of standards on how to write a scientific article. As a consequence of this exploration, we propose alternative guidelines that a new journal such as ours has to present to its anticipated authors and readers.
Political Anthropological Research on International Social Sciences
Political Anthropological Research on International Social Sciences (PARISS) encourages transvers... more Political Anthropological Research on International Social Sciences (PARISS) encourages transversal social inquiries. The journal seeks to transcend disciplinary, linguistic and cultural fragmentations characteristic of scholarship in the 20th century. It aspires to reinvigorate scholarly engagements untroubled by canonic approaches and to provide a space for outstanding scholarship, marginalized elsewhere due to academic conventions. PARISS seeks to promote a plurality of ways of thinking, researching and writing and to give access to contemporary authors in the social sciences coming from non-English-speaking countries. The editors encourage contributions that write across disciplines, academic cultures and writing styles. Innovative and collective research is particularly welcome.
We welcome all contributions that provide innovative engagements with social inquiries, particularly those that promote collective research and transcend disciplinary, linguistic and cultural boundaries. For the coming three years (2020-2023), we encourage submissions that engage with the following seven running themes: 1) Politics of style; 2) Problematizing transversal lines and their methods; 3) Politics of knowledge and higher education; 4) Social suffering in the academic world;
5) Practices of mobility and lived experiences; 6) Styles of governing and governmentality; and 7) Politics of translation.
International Political Sociology, 2018
Tracing transformations in the way that humanitarian organizations respond to insecurity in the f... more Tracing transformations in the way that humanitarian organizations respond to insecurity in the field, this article examines the bureaucratization and professionalization of security in relation to intraorganizational struggles between humanitarian professionals. Whereas some advocate for the triumph of remoteness and bunkerization as organizing principles of humanitarian action, others challenge the imposition of security as a humanitarian logic of practice through acts of nonconformity. These tensions are illustrative of professional struggles over how to do and think humanitarian action. In articulating a sociological and transversal reading, this article points to the heterogeneity and divisions structuring the humanitarian space. To provide empirical insights into the bureaucratic work practices of headquarters professionals and the everyday practices of frontline humanitarian professionals, this article draws upon an analysis of humanitarian security manuals, interviews with humanitarian professionals, and field observations in Port-au-Prince. The article sheds light on the development of the humanitarian profession and on the novelty of the work practices of humanitarian security professionals, while contributing to debates on bunkerization and the literature on transnational professionals.
International Peacekeeping, 2017
While humanitarian work has always implied a certain level of risk, in the last two decades there... more While humanitarian work has always implied a certain level of risk, in the last two decades there has been a growing concern that humanitarian and peacekeeping agents are exposed to unprecedented levels of insecurity. To determine whether or not such claims and perceptions are substantiated, researchers have developed quantitative datasets aimed at measuring and tracking threats to humanitarians and peacekeepers at the global level. In contrast to humanitarian practitioners which use such quantitative expertise to suggest aid work is becoming increasingly dangerous, the producers of quantitative representations of humanitarian security suggest instead that attack rates have remained for the most part fairly stable despite increases in absolute numbers. In order to make sense of this paradox, this article draws on neo-Bourdieusian approaches, the sociology of professions and organizations, as well as global governance literature on quantification to suggest that such inconsistencies relate to the use of quantitative data to legitimate organizational change and bureaucratic restructurations in relation to the institutionalization of security expertise. By understanding the dynamics of organizational change, this article sheds light on one of the ways through which international humanitarianism and peacekeeping is shifting from a paradigm of proximity to a paradigm of distance and remoteness.
Global Governance, 2017
The articles in this special section argue that, by looking at quantification as a technical and ... more The articles in this special section argue that, by looking at quantification as a technical and political technique of power, we can effectively engage with newly established types of transnational power and better understand how numbers can enable reconfigurations and hence reorderings of power relations. The section looks at how numbers, in the form of risk assessments, measuring for results, and governance indicators, have a crucial impact in current transnational politics, which in turn influences resource allocation and recognition, discourses on undesirable individuals, possibilities for political leverage, and potential ownership.
Global Governance, 2017
Conflict, crime, development, security, human rights, and democracy, to name a few, are all examp... more Conflict, crime, development, security, human rights, and democracy, to name a few, are all examples of subjects that have been delimited and constructed in the form of databases and sets of quantitative indicators. While the state had traditionally held the exclusive monopoly of quantified production, today many actors participate in its fabrication and circulation, sometimes even working on the same theme. Taking the example of humanitarian security, this article argues for the need to investigate the factors that structure a researcher and a research center's choice to develop new areas of quantitative research. Giving an account of who has the power to count and calling into question the disinterested production of data, this article also points to the wider power effects of transforming insecurity into quantified measures.
Books by Monique J Beerli
Secourir sans périr. La sécurité humanitaire à l'ère de la gestion des risques, 2016
All across the globe, individuals mobilize international support in defense of Palestinian rights... more All across the globe, individuals mobilize international support in defense of Palestinian rights and a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. However, these international activists are neither the beneficiaries of their efforts nor do they closely identify with the Palestinian population. Through an ethnographic analysis of social movement organizations and international activists active in the West Bank, this paper tries to understand the emergence of transnational collective action fighting for Palestinian rights since the second Intifada. To do so, this paper addresses structural as well as personal factors behind activists’ mobilization. Combining elements from social movement theory and Bourdieusian sociology, I conduct a meso-level inquiry of the principal solidarity organizations alongside a micro-level investigation of international volunteers participating in such organizational structures. Highlighting the specificity of transnational activism in the West Bank both in terms of opportunity structures and the lived experiences of international activists, I have tried to provide insight on how and why the Palestinian rights movement is able to gather so much international support.
Book chapters by Monique J Beerli
Les manuels de sécurité et la mise en ordre autoritaire des organisations humanitaires 1. Ibid., ... more Les manuels de sécurité et la mise en ordre autoritaire des organisations humanitaires 1. Ibid., p. 17. 2. adele Harmer et al., op. cit., p. 1.
Other by Monique J Beerli
PARISS
Political Anthropological Research on International Social Sciences (PARISS) encourages transvers... more Political Anthropological Research on International Social Sciences (PARISS) encourages transversal social inquiries. The journal seeks to transcend disciplinary, linguistic and cultural fragmentations characteristic of scholarship in the 20th century. It aspires to reinvigorate scholarly engagements untroubled by canonic approaches and to provide a space for outstanding scholarship, marginalized elsewhere due to academic conventions. PARISS seeks to promote a plurality of ways of thinking, researching and writing and to give access to contemporary authors in the social sciences coming from non-English-speaking countries. The editors encourage contributions that write across disciplines, academic cultures and writing styles. Innovative and collective research is particularly welcome.
We welcome all contributions that provide innovative engagements with social inquiries, particularly those that promote collective research and transcend disciplinary, linguistic and cultural boundaries. For the coming three years (2020-2023), we encourage submissions that engage with the following seven running themes: 1) Politics of style; 2) Problematizing transversal lines and their methods; 3) Politics of knowledge and higher education; 4) Social suffering in the academic world; 5) Practices of Mobility and Lived Experiences; 6) Styles of governing and governmentality; and 7) Politics of translation.
Call for Papers: Panel Proposal for ISA 2017 Baltimore, Maryland – 22nd-25th of February Power a... more Call for Papers: Panel Proposal for ISA 2017
Baltimore, Maryland – 22nd-25th of February
Power and Change in the Humanitarian Space
While an increasing body of scholarship has addressed the numerous ways in which international humanitarianism has transformed since its birth in the late 19th century—putting notable emphasis on the politicization and bureaucratization of humanitarian action—scholars of international relations have largely ignored the dynamics between and transformations among agents of humanitarianism underlying these shifts. In the extension of critical accounts of humanitarianism which have gone beyond policy-oriented and norms-based approaches, this panel seeks contributions which give greater attention to power dynamics between humanitarian actors themselves as opposed to merely demonstrations of power on subjects of humanitarianism. Namely, how can transformations in humanitarian practices be understood through the analysis of power struggles and conflicts between different categories of humanitarian actors (i.e. HQ vs. field; old vs. new generation; managerial vs. operational; medical vs. non-medical, etc.)? Moreover, far from being neutral organizational adjustments, what are the effects and consequences of internal battles over the legitimate meaning of humanitarianism? This panel strongly welcomes interdisciplinary approaches which highlight the interest of bringing anthropological, historical, and sociological approaches into the study of the international.
General themes of interest include:
- How can we understand transformations like the professionalization, bureaucratization, and rationalization of humanitarian aid through the lens of power?
- To what extent are the emergence of new forms of expertise and professional knowledge within the humanitarian space related to social reconfigurations and redistributions of power among professional groups?
- To what extent do the actions of humanitarian actors participate in boundary-making or boundary-crossing, leading to the conservation or the subversion of dominant practices of humanitarianism?
Please submit your abstracts (200 words maximum) to monique.beerli@unige.ch by the 23rd of May. Please feel free to contact me for any further questions.
Thesis Chapters by Monique J Beerli
Abstract: In recent years, a dominant discourse has emerged asserting that humanitarian work has... more Abstract:
In recent years, a dominant discourse has emerged asserting that humanitarian work has become a dangerous profession. In response to growing insecurity in the field, humanitarian organizations have come to develop new security policies to better protect humanitarian staff and infrastructures. Drawing from Andrew Abbott’s historical sociology of professions and Pierre Bourdieu’s social theory of power, this thesis proposes an international political sociology of the professionalization of humanitarian security. To address the shortcomings of normative-functionalist explanations and poststructuralist critiques of humanitarian security, this thesis examines the conditions of possibility fostering the emergence of a microcosm of humanitarian security professionals. As a consequence of this seemingly insignificant transformation in the division of humanitarian labor, humanitarian organizations now classify some of world’s neediest populations as beyond the limits of reasonable sacrifice. In the production of this exclusion, humanitarian actors reconstruct “populations in need” as “dangerous populations.” By weighing the cost of the loss of a “humanitarian life” against the potential value of saving the lives of needy others, humanitarian actors contribute to the intensification of global divides in their quest for a common humanity. In sum, the imposition of security as a humanitarian logic of practice is analyzed as a driving force of the inversion of the humanitarian imperative to save lives and act in defense of a shared humanity. While contributing to debates on humanitarian security, this thesis also contributes to the study of international organizations, security, and transnational power elites.
Résumé :
Ces dernières années, un discours dominant a émergé affirmant que le travail humanitaire est devenu une profession dangereuse. Face à l’insécurité croissante sur les terrains d’opérations, les organisations humanitaires ont développé de nouvelles politiques de sécurité afin de mieux protéger le personnel humanitaire et les infrastructures. En se fondant sur la sociologie historique des professions d’Abbott, ainsi que sur la théorie sociale du pouvoir de Bourdieu, cette thèse propose une sociologie politique internationale de la professionnalisation de la sécurité humanitaire. Afin de combler les lacunes des explications fonctionnalistes-normatives et des critiques poststructuralistes de la sécurité humanitaire, ce travail examine les conditions de possibilités à l’émergence d’un microcosme de professionnels de la sécurité humanitaire. Du fait de cette transformation, insignifiante au premier abord, de la division du travail humanitaire, les organisations humanitaires considèrent désormais que certaines des populations mondiales les plus nécessiteuses se trouvent au-delà des limites raisonnables du sacrifice. En comparant le coût de la perte d’une « vie d’humanitaire » à la valeur potentielle du sauvetage des vies de nécessiteux, les acteurs humanitaires, dans leur quête d’une humanité commune, participent de ce fait à l’intensification des inégalités mondiales. Les humanitaires ne contentent plus seulement d’assister et d’atténuer la souffrance de lointains étrangers, mais ils contribuent aussi à redéfinir la notion de « populations dans le besoin », en les étiquetant comme « populations dangereuses ». Ainsi, la mise en place imposée de la sécurité comme sens pratique de l’humanitaire inverse les impératifs humanitaires fondés sur le sauvetage des vies et sur la défense d’une humanité partagée. Tout en contribuant aux débats sur la sécurité humanitaire, cette thèse participe également à faire avancer les études sur les élites de pouvoir transnationales, sur la sécurité et sur les organisations internationales.
Calls by Monique J Beerli
PARISS
PARISS is presently looking to appoint a Managing Editor. Interested candidates should send a bri... more PARISS is presently looking to appoint a Managing Editor.
Interested candidates should send a brief email by the 21st of December explaining their interest in the role and a CV to the following email address: parisseditorial@gmail.com.
JE - Colloques - Séminaires by Monique J Beerli
Charting multiple articulations between archive and power, this section problematizes the archive... more Charting multiple articulations between archive and power, this section problematizes the archive as an object of study and interrogates archival practices in postcolonial, supranational, and transnational contexts, thus far largely overlooked. Despite a gradual return of historically oriented IR, notably culminating in the articulation of Historical International Relations (HIR) and Global Historical Sociology (GHS) approaches, IR scholars concede little importance to the power and politics of archiving-as-practice. Long theorized as spaces of power by historians and anthropologists who have diligently traced the state-making power and category-producing effects of archives, notably in colonial contexts, archives represent more than just sources from which stories and facts can be extracted. Collections of texts, photographs, films, and audio recordings in tangible or digital forms, archives are constituted through a process whereby “ordinary” documents and artefacts are deemed “archivable,” that is worth keeping and conserving. With the emergence of new technologies facilitating archival production, from camera telephones to digital image scanners and open-access archiving softwares, the power to make and keep archives now extends well beyond the most resourceful and organized bureaucracies, with issues of categorization and access remaining central—thereby opening up new sites of inquiry. If archives can be apprehended as participating in the construction of the “modern” states and bureaucracies, counter-archiving invites investigations into modes of contesting hegemonic (state) narratives. Documenting the (re)making of archives in various contexts, this section welcomes submissions that rethink the archive by attending to its institutional, organizational, material, and affective dimensions.
AAC pour le congrès de l'AFSP 2022 - envoi des propositions avant le 2 novembre 2021 CFP for the ... more AAC pour le congrès de l'AFSP 2022 - envoi des propositions avant le 2 novembre 2021
CFP for the 2022 Congress of the French association of political science - deadline for proposals: 2 Nov 2021
International Peacekeeping, 2017
While humanitarian work has always implied a certain level of risk, in the last two decades there... more While humanitarian work has always implied a certain level of risk, in the last two decades there has been a growing concern that humanitarian and peacekeeping agents are exposed to unprecedented levels of insecurity. To determine whether or not such claims and perceptions are substantiated, researchers have developed quantitative datasets aimed at measuring and tracking threats to humanitarians and peacekeepers at the global level. In contrast to humanitarian practitioners which use such quantitative expertise to suggest aid work is becoming increasingly dangerous, the producers of quantitative representations of humanitarian security suggest instead that attack rates have remained for the most part fairly stable despite increases in absolute numbers. In order to make sense of this paradox, this article draws on neo-Bourdieusian approaches, the sociology of professions and organizations, as well as global governance literature on quantification to suggest that such inconsistencies ...
PARISS, 2020
Through a critical engagement with substantive and stylistic guidelines dictated by dominant jour... more Through a critical engagement with substantive and stylistic guidelines dictated by dominant journals in the social sciences, this article enquires on what it means to write like a social scientist in the twenty-first century. Academic production and diffusion now regularly take place beyond and across national borders, with English often standing in as the lingua franca of these global exchanges. Though just one effect of this restructuration, academic journals have become more transnational in scope with regards to the authors whose work they publish and the audiences whose readership they seek to attract. However, while one could expect the “globalization” of the social sciences to lead to the transnational circulation of national disciplinary traditions and perhaps multiple manifestations of cultural hybridization, we are instead witnessing the imposition of a strangely singular and harmonized mode of doing the social sciences. Paradoxically, standards of how long a scientific article should be or how one should fashion an argument are so familiar and intimately known, yet curiously opaque and of unknown origins. In interrogating the historical-contextual origins of conventions that so strongly shape the world of academic publishing and, dare we say, reasoning, we raise questions about the conditions of the present and the naturalization of standards on how to write a scientific article. As a consequence of this exploration, we propose alternative guidelines that a new journal such as ours has to present to its anticipated authors and readers.
Political Anthropological Research on International Social Sciences
Political Anthropological Research on International Social Sciences (PARISS) encourages transvers... more Political Anthropological Research on International Social Sciences (PARISS) encourages transversal social inquiries. The journal seeks to transcend disciplinary, linguistic and cultural fragmentations characteristic of scholarship in the 20th century. It aspires to reinvigorate scholarly engagements untroubled by canonic approaches and to provide a space for outstanding scholarship, marginalized elsewhere due to academic conventions. PARISS seeks to promote a plurality of ways of thinking, researching and writing and to give access to contemporary authors in the social sciences coming from non-English-speaking countries. The editors encourage contributions that write across disciplines, academic cultures and writing styles. Innovative and collective research is particularly welcome.
We welcome all contributions that provide innovative engagements with social inquiries, particularly those that promote collective research and transcend disciplinary, linguistic and cultural boundaries. For the coming three years (2020-2023), we encourage submissions that engage with the following seven running themes: 1) Politics of style; 2) Problematizing transversal lines and their methods; 3) Politics of knowledge and higher education; 4) Social suffering in the academic world;
5) Practices of mobility and lived experiences; 6) Styles of governing and governmentality; and 7) Politics of translation.
International Political Sociology, 2018
Tracing transformations in the way that humanitarian organizations respond to insecurity in the f... more Tracing transformations in the way that humanitarian organizations respond to insecurity in the field, this article examines the bureaucratization and professionalization of security in relation to intraorganizational struggles between humanitarian professionals. Whereas some advocate for the triumph of remoteness and bunkerization as organizing principles of humanitarian action, others challenge the imposition of security as a humanitarian logic of practice through acts of nonconformity. These tensions are illustrative of professional struggles over how to do and think humanitarian action. In articulating a sociological and transversal reading, this article points to the heterogeneity and divisions structuring the humanitarian space. To provide empirical insights into the bureaucratic work practices of headquarters professionals and the everyday practices of frontline humanitarian professionals, this article draws upon an analysis of humanitarian security manuals, interviews with humanitarian professionals, and field observations in Port-au-Prince. The article sheds light on the development of the humanitarian profession and on the novelty of the work practices of humanitarian security professionals, while contributing to debates on bunkerization and the literature on transnational professionals.
International Peacekeeping, 2017
While humanitarian work has always implied a certain level of risk, in the last two decades there... more While humanitarian work has always implied a certain level of risk, in the last two decades there has been a growing concern that humanitarian and peacekeeping agents are exposed to unprecedented levels of insecurity. To determine whether or not such claims and perceptions are substantiated, researchers have developed quantitative datasets aimed at measuring and tracking threats to humanitarians and peacekeepers at the global level. In contrast to humanitarian practitioners which use such quantitative expertise to suggest aid work is becoming increasingly dangerous, the producers of quantitative representations of humanitarian security suggest instead that attack rates have remained for the most part fairly stable despite increases in absolute numbers. In order to make sense of this paradox, this article draws on neo-Bourdieusian approaches, the sociology of professions and organizations, as well as global governance literature on quantification to suggest that such inconsistencies relate to the use of quantitative data to legitimate organizational change and bureaucratic restructurations in relation to the institutionalization of security expertise. By understanding the dynamics of organizational change, this article sheds light on one of the ways through which international humanitarianism and peacekeeping is shifting from a paradigm of proximity to a paradigm of distance and remoteness.
Global Governance, 2017
The articles in this special section argue that, by looking at quantification as a technical and ... more The articles in this special section argue that, by looking at quantification as a technical and political technique of power, we can effectively engage with newly established types of transnational power and better understand how numbers can enable reconfigurations and hence reorderings of power relations. The section looks at how numbers, in the form of risk assessments, measuring for results, and governance indicators, have a crucial impact in current transnational politics, which in turn influences resource allocation and recognition, discourses on undesirable individuals, possibilities for political leverage, and potential ownership.
Global Governance, 2017
Conflict, crime, development, security, human rights, and democracy, to name a few, are all examp... more Conflict, crime, development, security, human rights, and democracy, to name a few, are all examples of subjects that have been delimited and constructed in the form of databases and sets of quantitative indicators. While the state had traditionally held the exclusive monopoly of quantified production, today many actors participate in its fabrication and circulation, sometimes even working on the same theme. Taking the example of humanitarian security, this article argues for the need to investigate the factors that structure a researcher and a research center's choice to develop new areas of quantitative research. Giving an account of who has the power to count and calling into question the disinterested production of data, this article also points to the wider power effects of transforming insecurity into quantified measures.
Secourir sans périr. La sécurité humanitaire à l'ère de la gestion des risques, 2016
All across the globe, individuals mobilize international support in defense of Palestinian rights... more All across the globe, individuals mobilize international support in defense of Palestinian rights and a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. However, these international activists are neither the beneficiaries of their efforts nor do they closely identify with the Palestinian population. Through an ethnographic analysis of social movement organizations and international activists active in the West Bank, this paper tries to understand the emergence of transnational collective action fighting for Palestinian rights since the second Intifada. To do so, this paper addresses structural as well as personal factors behind activists’ mobilization. Combining elements from social movement theory and Bourdieusian sociology, I conduct a meso-level inquiry of the principal solidarity organizations alongside a micro-level investigation of international volunteers participating in such organizational structures. Highlighting the specificity of transnational activism in the West Bank both in terms of opportunity structures and the lived experiences of international activists, I have tried to provide insight on how and why the Palestinian rights movement is able to gather so much international support.
PARISS
Political Anthropological Research on International Social Sciences (PARISS) encourages transvers... more Political Anthropological Research on International Social Sciences (PARISS) encourages transversal social inquiries. The journal seeks to transcend disciplinary, linguistic and cultural fragmentations characteristic of scholarship in the 20th century. It aspires to reinvigorate scholarly engagements untroubled by canonic approaches and to provide a space for outstanding scholarship, marginalized elsewhere due to academic conventions. PARISS seeks to promote a plurality of ways of thinking, researching and writing and to give access to contemporary authors in the social sciences coming from non-English-speaking countries. The editors encourage contributions that write across disciplines, academic cultures and writing styles. Innovative and collective research is particularly welcome.
We welcome all contributions that provide innovative engagements with social inquiries, particularly those that promote collective research and transcend disciplinary, linguistic and cultural boundaries. For the coming three years (2020-2023), we encourage submissions that engage with the following seven running themes: 1) Politics of style; 2) Problematizing transversal lines and their methods; 3) Politics of knowledge and higher education; 4) Social suffering in the academic world; 5) Practices of Mobility and Lived Experiences; 6) Styles of governing and governmentality; and 7) Politics of translation.
Call for Papers: Panel Proposal for ISA 2017 Baltimore, Maryland – 22nd-25th of February Power a... more Call for Papers: Panel Proposal for ISA 2017
Baltimore, Maryland – 22nd-25th of February
Power and Change in the Humanitarian Space
While an increasing body of scholarship has addressed the numerous ways in which international humanitarianism has transformed since its birth in the late 19th century—putting notable emphasis on the politicization and bureaucratization of humanitarian action—scholars of international relations have largely ignored the dynamics between and transformations among agents of humanitarianism underlying these shifts. In the extension of critical accounts of humanitarianism which have gone beyond policy-oriented and norms-based approaches, this panel seeks contributions which give greater attention to power dynamics between humanitarian actors themselves as opposed to merely demonstrations of power on subjects of humanitarianism. Namely, how can transformations in humanitarian practices be understood through the analysis of power struggles and conflicts between different categories of humanitarian actors (i.e. HQ vs. field; old vs. new generation; managerial vs. operational; medical vs. non-medical, etc.)? Moreover, far from being neutral organizational adjustments, what are the effects and consequences of internal battles over the legitimate meaning of humanitarianism? This panel strongly welcomes interdisciplinary approaches which highlight the interest of bringing anthropological, historical, and sociological approaches into the study of the international.
General themes of interest include:
- How can we understand transformations like the professionalization, bureaucratization, and rationalization of humanitarian aid through the lens of power?
- To what extent are the emergence of new forms of expertise and professional knowledge within the humanitarian space related to social reconfigurations and redistributions of power among professional groups?
- To what extent do the actions of humanitarian actors participate in boundary-making or boundary-crossing, leading to the conservation or the subversion of dominant practices of humanitarianism?
Please submit your abstracts (200 words maximum) to monique.beerli@unige.ch by the 23rd of May. Please feel free to contact me for any further questions.
Abstract: In recent years, a dominant discourse has emerged asserting that humanitarian work has... more Abstract:
In recent years, a dominant discourse has emerged asserting that humanitarian work has become a dangerous profession. In response to growing insecurity in the field, humanitarian organizations have come to develop new security policies to better protect humanitarian staff and infrastructures. Drawing from Andrew Abbott’s historical sociology of professions and Pierre Bourdieu’s social theory of power, this thesis proposes an international political sociology of the professionalization of humanitarian security. To address the shortcomings of normative-functionalist explanations and poststructuralist critiques of humanitarian security, this thesis examines the conditions of possibility fostering the emergence of a microcosm of humanitarian security professionals. As a consequence of this seemingly insignificant transformation in the division of humanitarian labor, humanitarian organizations now classify some of world’s neediest populations as beyond the limits of reasonable sacrifice. In the production of this exclusion, humanitarian actors reconstruct “populations in need” as “dangerous populations.” By weighing the cost of the loss of a “humanitarian life” against the potential value of saving the lives of needy others, humanitarian actors contribute to the intensification of global divides in their quest for a common humanity. In sum, the imposition of security as a humanitarian logic of practice is analyzed as a driving force of the inversion of the humanitarian imperative to save lives and act in defense of a shared humanity. While contributing to debates on humanitarian security, this thesis also contributes to the study of international organizations, security, and transnational power elites.
Résumé :
Ces dernières années, un discours dominant a émergé affirmant que le travail humanitaire est devenu une profession dangereuse. Face à l’insécurité croissante sur les terrains d’opérations, les organisations humanitaires ont développé de nouvelles politiques de sécurité afin de mieux protéger le personnel humanitaire et les infrastructures. En se fondant sur la sociologie historique des professions d’Abbott, ainsi que sur la théorie sociale du pouvoir de Bourdieu, cette thèse propose une sociologie politique internationale de la professionnalisation de la sécurité humanitaire. Afin de combler les lacunes des explications fonctionnalistes-normatives et des critiques poststructuralistes de la sécurité humanitaire, ce travail examine les conditions de possibilités à l’émergence d’un microcosme de professionnels de la sécurité humanitaire. Du fait de cette transformation, insignifiante au premier abord, de la division du travail humanitaire, les organisations humanitaires considèrent désormais que certaines des populations mondiales les plus nécessiteuses se trouvent au-delà des limites raisonnables du sacrifice. En comparant le coût de la perte d’une « vie d’humanitaire » à la valeur potentielle du sauvetage des vies de nécessiteux, les acteurs humanitaires, dans leur quête d’une humanité commune, participent de ce fait à l’intensification des inégalités mondiales. Les humanitaires ne contentent plus seulement d’assister et d’atténuer la souffrance de lointains étrangers, mais ils contribuent aussi à redéfinir la notion de « populations dans le besoin », en les étiquetant comme « populations dangereuses ». Ainsi, la mise en place imposée de la sécurité comme sens pratique de l’humanitaire inverse les impératifs humanitaires fondés sur le sauvetage des vies et sur la défense d’une humanité partagée. Tout en contribuant aux débats sur la sécurité humanitaire, cette thèse participe également à faire avancer les études sur les élites de pouvoir transnationales, sur la sécurité et sur les organisations internationales.
Charting multiple articulations between archive and power, this section problematizes the archive... more Charting multiple articulations between archive and power, this section problematizes the archive as an object of study and interrogates archival practices in postcolonial, supranational, and transnational contexts, thus far largely overlooked. Despite a gradual return of historically oriented IR, notably culminating in the articulation of Historical International Relations (HIR) and Global Historical Sociology (GHS) approaches, IR scholars concede little importance to the power and politics of archiving-as-practice. Long theorized as spaces of power by historians and anthropologists who have diligently traced the state-making power and category-producing effects of archives, notably in colonial contexts, archives represent more than just sources from which stories and facts can be extracted. Collections of texts, photographs, films, and audio recordings in tangible or digital forms, archives are constituted through a process whereby “ordinary” documents and artefacts are deemed “archivable,” that is worth keeping and conserving. With the emergence of new technologies facilitating archival production, from camera telephones to digital image scanners and open-access archiving softwares, the power to make and keep archives now extends well beyond the most resourceful and organized bureaucracies, with issues of categorization and access remaining central—thereby opening up new sites of inquiry. If archives can be apprehended as participating in the construction of the “modern” states and bureaucracies, counter-archiving invites investigations into modes of contesting hegemonic (state) narratives. Documenting the (re)making of archives in various contexts, this section welcomes submissions that rethink the archive by attending to its institutional, organizational, material, and affective dimensions.
AAC pour le congrès de l'AFSP 2022 - envoi des propositions avant le 2 novembre 2021 CFP for the ... more AAC pour le congrès de l'AFSP 2022 - envoi des propositions avant le 2 novembre 2021
CFP for the 2022 Congress of the French association of political science - deadline for proposals: 2 Nov 2021