Valérie Gorin | Université de Genève (original) (raw)

Articles by Valérie Gorin

Research paper thumbnail of Caring for prisoners of war: Marguerite Frick-Cramer's and Marguerite van Berchem's service activities in the International Committee of the Red Cross (1914-1969

Dynamis, 2024

By examining Renée-Marguerite Frick-Cramer’s and Marguerite van Berchem’s work in the tracing age... more By examining Renée-Marguerite Frick-Cramer’s and Marguerite van Berchem’s work in the tracing agencies of the International Committee of the Red Cross, this article seeks to contribute to the development of a history of care involving the production of a form of humanitarian knowledge aimed at caring, at distance, for people who had been separated due to warfare. This feminist perspective, which examines the interactions between gender, class and race, allows us to rectify the masculine vision that has dominated this Geneva-based international agency, as well as to comprehend how Frick-Cramer’s and van Berchem’s service activities led to the standardisation of a sophisticated information management system aimed at promoting the well-being of prisoners of war. An analysis of the rare institutional records which have been preserved about the missions led by these two female representatives enables us to conclude that their moral concern, which led them to aid both military and civilian populations during warfare, was rooted in emotions such as indignation and resentment.

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Research paper thumbnail of What is the history of care the history of?

Dynamis, 2024

This paper introduces the special issue on "Histories of care: gender, experience and humanitaria... more This paper introduces the special issue on "Histories of care: gender, experience and humanitarian knowledge(s)"

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Research paper thumbnail of Humanitarian studies: a field still in the making

Humanitarian Alternatives, 2024

It took a long time for humanitarian action to evolve from an act of activism to a subject of res... more It took a long time for humanitarian action to evolve from an act of activism to a subject of research. Valérie Gorin expertly traces this evolution, while reminding us that "humanitarian studies" are still far from complete. In a subtle way, the author illustrates the role that a review like Humanitarian Alternatives can play in building a bridge between action and reflection.

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Research paper thumbnail of The place of the child in humanitarian action and communication: moving away from the cliché of childhood as icon

Humanitarian Alternatives, 2022

Introduction to the special issue "Moving away from chidlhood as an icon: an ethical and operatio... more Introduction to the special issue "Moving away from chidlhood as an icon: an ethical and operational requirement"

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Research paper thumbnail of Witnessing and Témoignage in MSF’s Advocacy

Journal of humanitarian affairs, Nov 11, 2021

The following conversation explores the emergence of advocacy within the MSF movement. Maria Guev... more The following conversation explores the emergence of advocacy within the MSF movement. Maria Guevara was Senior Operational Positioning and Advocacy Advisor in the Operational Centre Geneva (OCG) at MSF Switzerland. Marc DuBois was the Head of the Humanitarian Affairs Department in the Operational Centre Amsterdam (OCA) at MSF Holland and the former Director of MSF UK. Together, we discuss the principle of ‘bearing witness’ and the dilemmas it has raised among MSF’s different sections, as well as its link to eyewitness.

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Research paper thumbnail of When ‘Seeing Was Believing’: Visual Advocacy in the Early Decades of Humanitarian Cinema

Journal of Humanitarian Affairs, 2021

Focusing on the pivotal period of 1919–23 and the large-scale humanitarian responses in Central a... more Focusing on the pivotal period of 1919–23 and the large-scale humanitarian responses in Central and Eastern Europe, this paper discusses the development of advocacy in the movies made by organizations like the ICRC, Save the Children Fund or American Relief Administration. While aid agencies observed and competed with each other for visibility, humanitarian cinema shaped visual advocacy, grounded in the idea that ‘seeing is believing’. Exploring the fragmented audiovisual archives, as well as magazines and promotional material, this paper explores the testimonial function of humanitarian films in the 1920s. It first shows that the immediacy of the cinema technology increased the immersive and affective experience of the viewers by using forensic evidence and images of the body in pain. It then analyses how these films compelled audiences to witness suffering and act through persuasion, suggestion, and emotions. Finally, it inquires into the use of eyewitness images and firsthand acc...

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Research paper thumbnail of Introduction: The past and present of humanitarian communication

Journal of Humanitarian Affairs, 2021

This article introduces you to the general themes and questions of this special issue. We argue t... more This article introduces you to the general themes and questions of this special issue. We argue that history and visual media have long been central to humanitarian communication, but that the overlaps between history, visual media, and humanitarian communication have seldom been addressed. A focus on those overlaps, we suggest, not only demonstrates that critical historical inquiry has much to offer for professional communication specialists, it also sheds new light on the workings, changes and persistence of humanitarian narratives over the twentieth century.

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Research paper thumbnail of Immersive journalisme and the migrant crisis: The case of Exils as mobile radio reportage

Journal of Applied Journalism and Media Studies, 2018

This article retraces a conversation with Nicolae Schiau – a radio journalist at RTS (the French-... more This article retraces a conversation with Nicolae Schiau – a radio journalist at RTS (the French-speaking Swiss national radio and television broadcaster) – and the face behind Exils. This ‘augmented’ reportage followed the journey of six young migrants from the Syrian border to Germany and France. The two editors of this special issue interviewed Schiau to question him about his practice as a paradigmatic example of important shifts in crisis-reporting, in terms of format, relationship with the audience and sources as well as personal experience (as a journalist and human being). By using innovative forms of immersive journalism and storytelling, Exils therefore illustrates how combining mobile journalism and traditional reporting practices can meaningfully increase visibility in the media of people previously voiceless, and can potentially provide alternative perspectives on an event by reaching a wider audience, who might not be initially concerned by the situation.

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Research paper thumbnail of Journalistic practices in the representation of Europe’s 2014–2016 migrant and refugee crisis

Journal of Applied Journalism & Media Studies, 2018

Since its surge in 2014, the migrant and refugee crisis has been a major issue for the European c... more Since its surge in 2014, the migrant and refugee crisis has been a major issue for the European community, not only impacting the geopolitical, economic, societal and humanitarian sectors but also challenging media practices, narratives and framings. This special issue investigates journalistic routines, norms and representations of migrants and refugees in western mainstream and digital media by questioning innovations in journalistic practices. Drawing on a wide range of case studies and various methodological approaches, the contributions in this issue, both from scholars and practitioners, analyse different journalistic ecosystems and visual narratives. Have stereotypical portrayals of migrants and refugees from previous episodes of massive displacement been challenged? How were the visual politics of migration shaped by a humanization discourse? To what extent did editorial choices and newswork routines adapt to this type of crisis reporting? How have media narratives shifted through several western contexts to engage audiences into this human tragedy? In the end, this issue aims at exploring a variety of dynamic approaches related to the media perspective on representations of migration and refugee studies, in the light of new potentials offered by storytelling and immersive forms of journalism.

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Research paper thumbnail of Mediatized Conflict and Visual News Framing. How Swiss Audiences React to News Images from the Syrian War

Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication, 2017

The Syrian conflict has challenged both the ways of reporting war and its impact on the public. H... more The Syrian conflict has challenged both the ways of reporting war and its impact on the public. However, only a few empirical studies have tried to assess public reactions to representations of war. In this paper, we use an empirically-based study that combines quantitative and qualitative methods to assess how Swiss audiences react to crisis reporting and visual news framing in French-speaking Swiss media. The study offers a preliminary understanding of how people react to images in the media, especially with respect to military and political contexts, and also builds a visual map of how audiences process information contained in news images of war.

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Research paper thumbnail of The journalist as a foreign expert: American television correspondents reporting on the November parades (1960s-1980s)

Twentieth Century Communism. A journal of international history, 2017

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Research paper thumbnail of Les commémorations de la révolution russe d'Octobre 1917 dans la presse filmée occidentale (1947-1967)

Traverse. Revue d'histoire, 2016

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Research paper thumbnail of Iconographies of humanitarian aid in Africa

Humanitarianism has been predicated on and constituted by visual images. Operations in the field ... more Humanitarianism has been predicated on and constituted by visual images. Operations in the field have had to be recorded, both as a documentary and an anthropological scene, to support themselves ideologically and financially, and to legitimise an event or action as humanitarian. Originally conveyed through illustrations, paintings and ‘visual’ and ‘floral’ language (Mitchell, 1987), photography quickly became the medium of choice after its emergence in the mid-nineteenth century. Photography helped shape and define international humanitarianism as a system of action and of representation to the point that, today, the humanitarian image is less concerned with the events causing suffering than with the image of the humanitarian organisation, its self-representation and branding.

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Research paper thumbnail of Innovation(s) in Photojournalism: Assessing visual content and the place of citizen photojournalism in Time ’s Lightbox photoblog

Digital Journalism, 2015

This paper examines the place of amateur imagery and citizen photojournalism in Time magazine’s p... more This paper examines the place of amateur imagery and citizen photojournalism in Time magazine’s photoblog, Lightbox. If user-generated content has been seen as a threat by professional photojournalists in the last decade, Lightbox offers a paradigmatic example to understand if the visual elite still has a dominant status in the decision-making processes of news production. This paper, therefore, explores how citizen imagery is shaping and challenging a photojournalistic culture still influenced by criteria of excellence, legitimacy, and authority. Managed by professional photo editors, Lightbox has included a variety of sections which emphasize new, original work by professional photographers as well as weekly news reviews that sometimes incorporate amateur photography. Through a visual analysis of amateur imagery in Lightbox’s sections and a textual examination of the editors’ discussions on citizen photojournalism, this paper analyzes how the photoblog is adapting to the shift towards a digital age of innovation and hybridity. The results show that photo editors apply strategies to delimit citizen productions by very rarely selecting them and avoiding specific mention of the amateur nature of such images. Moreover, they underline that hybridity is understood not as multimodal content and co-creative processes between professional and amateur incorporations, but rather as professional and creative practices, for example by highlighting innovative photographers who use cell phone imagery and photo-sharing websites. While this paper interrogates the new careers in photography of amateurs turned professionals, it also shows how digital platforms emphasize the photographers’ personal initiatives over usual gatekeeping processes.

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Research paper thumbnail of L’enfance comme figure compassionnelle: étude transversale de l’iconographie de la famine aux dix-neuvième et vingtième siècles

European Review of History, 2015

Despite the growing interest in the use of child images in humanitarian contexts in the last few ... more Despite the growing interest in the use of child images in humanitarian contexts in the last few years, there has been no transverse study of the iconography of famines in contemporary times. On the contrary, this iconography has been analysed in a scattered way, in disciplinary boundaries that prevent a more global understanding of the birth and use of these images. By comparing the approaches of the history of humanitarianism and childhood, as well as of social photography and media analysis, the purpose of this article is to show that visuals of starving children eventually find their roots at the end of the nineteenth century, at a time when charitable organisations are using photography as a tool to mobilise civil society and governments as well as to internationalise the humanitarian response. This analysis of Western visual strategies and media mobilisations throughout the twentieth century helps to put into perspective the so-called rupture between a first and a second age of humanitarianism. It shows first how young generations have become a privileged form of representation since the nineteenth century, using an aesthetic universe that is morally compelling; then, later, how the depoliticisation of the victim’s figure engages a political message.

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Research paper thumbnail of Face à la famine: mobilisations, opérations et pratiques humanitaires: Introduction

European Review of History: Revue européenne d'histoire, 2015

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Research paper thumbnail of Millions of children in deadly peril': utilisation des d'enfants affamés par Save the Children pendant l'entre-deux guerres

Revue Suisse d'Histoire , 2014

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Research paper thumbnail of Couverture du Time magazine, « The Angelina Effect » (27 mai 2013)

Socio-anthropologie, Jun 15, 2014

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Research paper thumbnail of La couverture médiatique de la guerre civile du Biafra au regard des enjeux humanitaires dans les médias français, suisses et américains (1967-1970)

Le Temps des médias, 2013

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Research paper thumbnail of Looking back over 150 years of humanitarian action: the photographic archives of the ICRC

International Review of the Red Cross, 2012

The purpose of this article is to suggest some historical milestones for a retrospective reflecti... more The purpose of this article is to suggest some historical milestones for a retrospective reflection on the photographic archives of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). This collection is little used by researchers, although the 120,000 photographs which it contains have helped to forge the symbolism and identity of the institution and to document its operations in accordance with a memory preservation policy which gradually emerged in the course of the 20th century. The photographs shown in this article are divided into three main themes (the ICRC delegate, the context of action, suffering and the victims), in order to make it easier to discuss the key aspects of this tremendous visual heritage which looks at humanitarian action, its protagonists and its beneficiaries from an anthropological and ethnological point of view.

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Research paper thumbnail of Caring for prisoners of war: Marguerite Frick-Cramer's and Marguerite van Berchem's service activities in the International Committee of the Red Cross (1914-1969

Dynamis, 2024

By examining Renée-Marguerite Frick-Cramer’s and Marguerite van Berchem’s work in the tracing age... more By examining Renée-Marguerite Frick-Cramer’s and Marguerite van Berchem’s work in the tracing agencies of the International Committee of the Red Cross, this article seeks to contribute to the development of a history of care involving the production of a form of humanitarian knowledge aimed at caring, at distance, for people who had been separated due to warfare. This feminist perspective, which examines the interactions between gender, class and race, allows us to rectify the masculine vision that has dominated this Geneva-based international agency, as well as to comprehend how Frick-Cramer’s and van Berchem’s service activities led to the standardisation of a sophisticated information management system aimed at promoting the well-being of prisoners of war. An analysis of the rare institutional records which have been preserved about the missions led by these two female representatives enables us to conclude that their moral concern, which led them to aid both military and civilian populations during warfare, was rooted in emotions such as indignation and resentment.

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Research paper thumbnail of What is the history of care the history of?

Dynamis, 2024

This paper introduces the special issue on "Histories of care: gender, experience and humanitaria... more This paper introduces the special issue on "Histories of care: gender, experience and humanitarian knowledge(s)"

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Research paper thumbnail of Humanitarian studies: a field still in the making

Humanitarian Alternatives, 2024

It took a long time for humanitarian action to evolve from an act of activism to a subject of res... more It took a long time for humanitarian action to evolve from an act of activism to a subject of research. Valérie Gorin expertly traces this evolution, while reminding us that "humanitarian studies" are still far from complete. In a subtle way, the author illustrates the role that a review like Humanitarian Alternatives can play in building a bridge between action and reflection.

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Research paper thumbnail of The place of the child in humanitarian action and communication: moving away from the cliché of childhood as icon

Humanitarian Alternatives, 2022

Introduction to the special issue "Moving away from chidlhood as an icon: an ethical and operatio... more Introduction to the special issue "Moving away from chidlhood as an icon: an ethical and operational requirement"

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Research paper thumbnail of Witnessing and Témoignage in MSF’s Advocacy

Journal of humanitarian affairs, Nov 11, 2021

The following conversation explores the emergence of advocacy within the MSF movement. Maria Guev... more The following conversation explores the emergence of advocacy within the MSF movement. Maria Guevara was Senior Operational Positioning and Advocacy Advisor in the Operational Centre Geneva (OCG) at MSF Switzerland. Marc DuBois was the Head of the Humanitarian Affairs Department in the Operational Centre Amsterdam (OCA) at MSF Holland and the former Director of MSF UK. Together, we discuss the principle of ‘bearing witness’ and the dilemmas it has raised among MSF’s different sections, as well as its link to eyewitness.

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Research paper thumbnail of When ‘Seeing Was Believing’: Visual Advocacy in the Early Decades of Humanitarian Cinema

Journal of Humanitarian Affairs, 2021

Focusing on the pivotal period of 1919–23 and the large-scale humanitarian responses in Central a... more Focusing on the pivotal period of 1919–23 and the large-scale humanitarian responses in Central and Eastern Europe, this paper discusses the development of advocacy in the movies made by organizations like the ICRC, Save the Children Fund or American Relief Administration. While aid agencies observed and competed with each other for visibility, humanitarian cinema shaped visual advocacy, grounded in the idea that ‘seeing is believing’. Exploring the fragmented audiovisual archives, as well as magazines and promotional material, this paper explores the testimonial function of humanitarian films in the 1920s. It first shows that the immediacy of the cinema technology increased the immersive and affective experience of the viewers by using forensic evidence and images of the body in pain. It then analyses how these films compelled audiences to witness suffering and act through persuasion, suggestion, and emotions. Finally, it inquires into the use of eyewitness images and firsthand acc...

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Introduction: The past and present of humanitarian communication

Journal of Humanitarian Affairs, 2021

This article introduces you to the general themes and questions of this special issue. We argue t... more This article introduces you to the general themes and questions of this special issue. We argue that history and visual media have long been central to humanitarian communication, but that the overlaps between history, visual media, and humanitarian communication have seldom been addressed. A focus on those overlaps, we suggest, not only demonstrates that critical historical inquiry has much to offer for professional communication specialists, it also sheds new light on the workings, changes and persistence of humanitarian narratives over the twentieth century.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Immersive journalisme and the migrant crisis: The case of Exils as mobile radio reportage

Journal of Applied Journalism and Media Studies, 2018

This article retraces a conversation with Nicolae Schiau – a radio journalist at RTS (the French-... more This article retraces a conversation with Nicolae Schiau – a radio journalist at RTS (the French-speaking Swiss national radio and television broadcaster) – and the face behind Exils. This ‘augmented’ reportage followed the journey of six young migrants from the Syrian border to Germany and France. The two editors of this special issue interviewed Schiau to question him about his practice as a paradigmatic example of important shifts in crisis-reporting, in terms of format, relationship with the audience and sources as well as personal experience (as a journalist and human being). By using innovative forms of immersive journalism and storytelling, Exils therefore illustrates how combining mobile journalism and traditional reporting practices can meaningfully increase visibility in the media of people previously voiceless, and can potentially provide alternative perspectives on an event by reaching a wider audience, who might not be initially concerned by the situation.

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Research paper thumbnail of Journalistic practices in the representation of Europe’s 2014–2016 migrant and refugee crisis

Journal of Applied Journalism & Media Studies, 2018

Since its surge in 2014, the migrant and refugee crisis has been a major issue for the European c... more Since its surge in 2014, the migrant and refugee crisis has been a major issue for the European community, not only impacting the geopolitical, economic, societal and humanitarian sectors but also challenging media practices, narratives and framings. This special issue investigates journalistic routines, norms and representations of migrants and refugees in western mainstream and digital media by questioning innovations in journalistic practices. Drawing on a wide range of case studies and various methodological approaches, the contributions in this issue, both from scholars and practitioners, analyse different journalistic ecosystems and visual narratives. Have stereotypical portrayals of migrants and refugees from previous episodes of massive displacement been challenged? How were the visual politics of migration shaped by a humanization discourse? To what extent did editorial choices and newswork routines adapt to this type of crisis reporting? How have media narratives shifted through several western contexts to engage audiences into this human tragedy? In the end, this issue aims at exploring a variety of dynamic approaches related to the media perspective on representations of migration and refugee studies, in the light of new potentials offered by storytelling and immersive forms of journalism.

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Research paper thumbnail of Mediatized Conflict and Visual News Framing. How Swiss Audiences React to News Images from the Syrian War

Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication, 2017

The Syrian conflict has challenged both the ways of reporting war and its impact on the public. H... more The Syrian conflict has challenged both the ways of reporting war and its impact on the public. However, only a few empirical studies have tried to assess public reactions to representations of war. In this paper, we use an empirically-based study that combines quantitative and qualitative methods to assess how Swiss audiences react to crisis reporting and visual news framing in French-speaking Swiss media. The study offers a preliminary understanding of how people react to images in the media, especially with respect to military and political contexts, and also builds a visual map of how audiences process information contained in news images of war.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of The journalist as a foreign expert: American television correspondents reporting on the November parades (1960s-1980s)

Twentieth Century Communism. A journal of international history, 2017

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Research paper thumbnail of Les commémorations de la révolution russe d'Octobre 1917 dans la presse filmée occidentale (1947-1967)

Traverse. Revue d'histoire, 2016

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Research paper thumbnail of Iconographies of humanitarian aid in Africa

Humanitarianism has been predicated on and constituted by visual images. Operations in the field ... more Humanitarianism has been predicated on and constituted by visual images. Operations in the field have had to be recorded, both as a documentary and an anthropological scene, to support themselves ideologically and financially, and to legitimise an event or action as humanitarian. Originally conveyed through illustrations, paintings and ‘visual’ and ‘floral’ language (Mitchell, 1987), photography quickly became the medium of choice after its emergence in the mid-nineteenth century. Photography helped shape and define international humanitarianism as a system of action and of representation to the point that, today, the humanitarian image is less concerned with the events causing suffering than with the image of the humanitarian organisation, its self-representation and branding.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Innovation(s) in Photojournalism: Assessing visual content and the place of citizen photojournalism in Time ’s Lightbox photoblog

Digital Journalism, 2015

This paper examines the place of amateur imagery and citizen photojournalism in Time magazine’s p... more This paper examines the place of amateur imagery and citizen photojournalism in Time magazine’s photoblog, Lightbox. If user-generated content has been seen as a threat by professional photojournalists in the last decade, Lightbox offers a paradigmatic example to understand if the visual elite still has a dominant status in the decision-making processes of news production. This paper, therefore, explores how citizen imagery is shaping and challenging a photojournalistic culture still influenced by criteria of excellence, legitimacy, and authority. Managed by professional photo editors, Lightbox has included a variety of sections which emphasize new, original work by professional photographers as well as weekly news reviews that sometimes incorporate amateur photography. Through a visual analysis of amateur imagery in Lightbox’s sections and a textual examination of the editors’ discussions on citizen photojournalism, this paper analyzes how the photoblog is adapting to the shift towards a digital age of innovation and hybridity. The results show that photo editors apply strategies to delimit citizen productions by very rarely selecting them and avoiding specific mention of the amateur nature of such images. Moreover, they underline that hybridity is understood not as multimodal content and co-creative processes between professional and amateur incorporations, but rather as professional and creative practices, for example by highlighting innovative photographers who use cell phone imagery and photo-sharing websites. While this paper interrogates the new careers in photography of amateurs turned professionals, it also shows how digital platforms emphasize the photographers’ personal initiatives over usual gatekeeping processes.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of L’enfance comme figure compassionnelle: étude transversale de l’iconographie de la famine aux dix-neuvième et vingtième siècles

European Review of History, 2015

Despite the growing interest in the use of child images in humanitarian contexts in the last few ... more Despite the growing interest in the use of child images in humanitarian contexts in the last few years, there has been no transverse study of the iconography of famines in contemporary times. On the contrary, this iconography has been analysed in a scattered way, in disciplinary boundaries that prevent a more global understanding of the birth and use of these images. By comparing the approaches of the history of humanitarianism and childhood, as well as of social photography and media analysis, the purpose of this article is to show that visuals of starving children eventually find their roots at the end of the nineteenth century, at a time when charitable organisations are using photography as a tool to mobilise civil society and governments as well as to internationalise the humanitarian response. This analysis of Western visual strategies and media mobilisations throughout the twentieth century helps to put into perspective the so-called rupture between a first and a second age of humanitarianism. It shows first how young generations have become a privileged form of representation since the nineteenth century, using an aesthetic universe that is morally compelling; then, later, how the depoliticisation of the victim’s figure engages a political message.

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Research paper thumbnail of Face à la famine: mobilisations, opérations et pratiques humanitaires: Introduction

European Review of History: Revue européenne d'histoire, 2015

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Research paper thumbnail of Millions of children in deadly peril': utilisation des d'enfants affamés par Save the Children pendant l'entre-deux guerres

Revue Suisse d'Histoire , 2014

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Research paper thumbnail of Couverture du Time magazine, « The Angelina Effect » (27 mai 2013)

Socio-anthropologie, Jun 15, 2014

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Research paper thumbnail of La couverture médiatique de la guerre civile du Biafra au regard des enjeux humanitaires dans les médias français, suisses et américains (1967-1970)

Le Temps des médias, 2013

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Research paper thumbnail of Looking back over 150 years of humanitarian action: the photographic archives of the ICRC

International Review of the Red Cross, 2012

The purpose of this article is to suggest some historical milestones for a retrospective reflecti... more The purpose of this article is to suggest some historical milestones for a retrospective reflection on the photographic archives of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). This collection is little used by researchers, although the 120,000 photographs which it contains have helped to forge the symbolism and identity of the institution and to document its operations in accordance with a memory preservation policy which gradually emerged in the course of the 20th century. The photographs shown in this article are divided into three main themes (the ICRC delegate, the context of action, suffering and the victims), in order to make it easier to discuss the key aspects of this tremendous visual heritage which looks at humanitarian action, its protagonists and its beneficiaries from an anthropological and ethnological point of view.

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Research paper thumbnail of Media Representations of Humanitarianism

Handbook on Humanitarianism and Inequality, 2024

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Research paper thumbnail of Visual archives and visual methods

International Organizations and Research Methods. An introduction, 2023

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Research paper thumbnail of Humanitarian Communication

The Routledge Handbook of Nonprofit Communication, 2022

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Research paper thumbnail of Afterword: Humanitarian Visual Practices: Emotions, Experience

Making Humanitarian Crises: Emotions and Images in History, 2022

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Research paper thumbnail of From Empathy to Shame: The Use of Virtual Reality by Humanitarian Organisations

Making Humanitarian Crises: Emotions and Images in History, 2022

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Research paper thumbnail of L'humanitaire en bulles : Médecins Sans Frontières dans la bande dessinée (2003-2019

L'humanitaire s'exhibe (1867-2016), 2022

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Research paper thumbnail of The visual politics of Red Cross and Red Crescent posters

Posters. The Collection of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum, 2019

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Research paper thumbnail of Advocacy Strategies of Western Humanitarian NGOs from the 1960s to the 1990s

Humanitarianism and Media: 1900 to the Present, 2018

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Research paper thumbnail of La commémoration cathodique. La retransmission télévisuelle des fêtes aux Etats-Unis

Le spectacle de la Révolution. La culture visuelle des commémorations d'Octobre 1917, 2017

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Research paper thumbnail of "Le traditionnel défilé..." : Octobre dans les actualités filmées

Le spectacle de la Révolution. La culture visuelle des commémorations d’Octobre, 2017

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Research paper thumbnail of Introduction. La culture visuelle des fêtes

Le spectacle de la Révolution. La culture visuelle des commémorations d’Octobre, 2017

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Research paper thumbnail of An iconography of pity and a rhetoric of compassion: war and humanitarian crises in the prism of American and French newsmagazines (1967-1995)

Selling War. The role of the mass media in hostile conflicts from World War I to the 'War on Terror', 2013

This chapter explores the rhetoric of compassion in media framings of humanitarian crises in a hi... more This chapter explores the rhetoric of compassion in media framings of humanitarian crises in a historical and cultural perspective across space and time. It shows the first results of an exploratory analysis of media narratives and images of war between the 1960s and the 1990s. Benefiting from the cover of the mass media, modern humanitarianism has played a controversial role in raising public opinion and influencing politics and has contributed to the appearance of the 'victim' concept and its representation in the media throughout the twentieth century, along with images of pain and death. 'Victimization', or the tendency to induce a hiearchy among victims, offers an immediate reading of such humanitarian crises according to a simplified and Manichean scheme. But since media representations insist on producing figures of innocent suffering such as women and children, their narratives and images often fall back on older collective references and memories. Using 'framing mechanisms' as methodological tools, these results provide representations that favor Christian iconography and historical parallels such as World War II. These representations act as means of qualifying the crises and result ultimately in the moral condemnation of them. While there are clear distinctions in how conflicts are treated when they emerge in western as opposed to Third World countries, on how the ethnic victims' background is presented, and on how the paradigm of distance and proximity is dealth with, these media framings are all aimed at relieving suffering, are based on universally shared values, but are at the same time at risk of resorting to reductive schemes.

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Research paper thumbnail of ‘In war’s eyes we all look alike’: représentations de la mort et du corps en souffrance dans les affiches de protestation contre la guerre d’Iraq

La mort et le corps dans les arts aujourd'hui, 2013

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Research paper thumbnail of Le poids des mots, le choc des photos

Haïti, réinventer l'avenir, 2012

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Research paper thumbnail of Hiérarchie de l'information dans la presse illustrée: quand la Somalie et le Rwanda font l'agenda (1992-1994)

Rites, hiérarchies, 2010

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Research paper thumbnail of La photographie de presse au service de l’humanitaire : rhétorique compassionnelle et iconographie de la pitié

Photo de presse. Usages et pratiques, 2009

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Research paper thumbnail of Beyond icons: subjects and stereotypes in humanitarian photography

23 - 24 May 2016 Photography exhibition at the World Humanitarian Summit Description Looking at ... more 23 - 24 May 2016
Photography exhibition at the World Humanitarian Summit

Description
Looking at photographs of humanitarian crises, we often get a sense of déjà vu. This familiarity stems from the repeated use of stereotypical depictions of people-in-crisis over the course of 150 years of humanitarian imagery. This photo exhibit features a range of 'icons', or visual tropes, such as 'The mother and child' and 'The boat people'.
Featuring both historical and contemporary photographs, this exhibit invites critical reflection on how people in emergency settings — from refugees to aid workers to famine victims — are typically portrayed. It also explores the purposes, aims and power dynamics underpinning humanitarian images.
This exhibit is one in a series organised by the World Humanitarian Summit, on the theme of 'reflections'. It forms part of ODI-HPG ‘Global history of modern humanitarian action’ project and was curated by Valérie Gorin (University of Geneva) and Sonya de Laat (Western University).

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