A history of humanitarianism, 17551989
HUMANITARIANISM
SERIES EDITOR: BERTRAND TAITHE
This series offers a new interdisciplinary reflection on one of the most important and yet understudied areas in history, politics and cultural practices: humanitarian aid and its responses to crises and conflicts. The series seeks to define afresh the boundaries and methodologies applied to the study of humanitarian relief and so-called humanitarian events. The series includes monographs and carefully selected thematic edited collections which cross disciplinary boundaries and bring fresh perspectives to the historical, political and cultural understanding of the rationale and impact of humanitarian relief work.
Islamic charities and Islamic humanism in troubled times
Jonathan Benthall
Humanitarian aid, genocide and mass killings: Mdecins Sans Frontires, the Rwandan experience, 198297
Jean-Herv Bradol and Marc Le Pape
Calculating compassion: Humanity and relief in war, Britain 18701914
Rebecca Gill
Humanitarian intervention in the long nineteenth century
Alexis Heraclides and Ada Dialla
The militaryhumanitarian complex in Afghanistan
Eric James and Tim Jacoby
Global humanitarianism and media culture
Michael Lawrence and Rachel Tavernor (eds)
Donors, technical assistance and public administration in Kosovo
Mary Venner
The NGO CARE and food aid from America 194580: Showered with kindness?
Heike Wieters
A history of humanitarianism, 17551989
In the name of others
Silvia Salvatici
Translated by Philip Sanders
Manchester University Press
Copyright Silvia Salvatici 2019
The right of Silvia Salvatici to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published as Nel nome degli altri. Storia dellumanitarismo internazionale in 2015, by Societ editrice il Mulino
First English-language edition published in 2019 by Manchester University Press
Altrincham Street, Manchester M1 7JA
www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk
ISBN 978 1 5261 2014 4 hardback
ISBN 978 1 5261 2016 8 paperback
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Typeset in Arno and Univers by R. J. Footring Ltd, Derby
A history of humanitarianism, 17551989: In the name of others is an extended and updated edition of
Nel nome degli altri. Storia dellumanitarismo internazionale, published in 2015 by Societ editrice il Mulino and translated into English by Philip Sanders.
Contents
I had the idea of trying to reconstruct a long-term history of humanitarianism several years ago, more precisely in 2010, the year of the devastating earthquake in Haiti. The news of the dramatic event that had struck the Caribbean island was accompanied by reports on the international relief operation. An extraordinary humanitarian response matched the enormity of the catastrophe. There were some critical voices though: they noted the lack of coordination between the different humanitarian agencies; they stressed that the rapidity of the interventions undermined the process of obtaining the information necessary to administer the aid effectively; and they highlighted the role the relief could play in strengthening the interests of certain countries such as the United States and France on Haitian territory.
In 2010 I had just started my research on the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), the UN agency tasked originally with getting aid to the populations severely affected by the Second World War. Some of the same questions (coordination problems, the connections between relief and reconstruction, the criteria for optimising resources) fuelling the public debate over the Haitian relief effort also appeared in my work, even though the historical conditions and contexts were different. I was prompted to reflect on the similarities and differences between what had happened in the past and what was happening in the present. I felt I had to answer a twofold need: to interpret the contemporary debate in the light of a long history of the international aid system, and to put UNRRA into a broader picture. I therefore began to work on an overview of the path followed by humanitarianism over a period of more than two centuries. I did so thinking I would have to engage in dialogue with the scholars who had covered this field of enquiry but that I would also have to address a wider public, which was often interested in the subject because of its relevance to current affairs.
The undertaking soon turned out to be more demanding than I had anticipated. The historiography on humanitarianism fairly limited until a few years earlier was growing with a speed that forced me into an ongoing revision and reorganisation of the work. At the same time, the literature concentrated on certain aspects while leaving others uncovered, and this made the reconstruction of the overall picture more difficult. So I enthusiastically greeted the publication of Michael Barnetts Empire of Humanity: A History of Humanitarianism (2011), since it gave me the chance to compare my work with the first attempt to offer a critical analysis of the international relief system that held the past and the present together. A further challenge came with the need for my book to mediate between international historiography and the potential Italian readership, given that the studies on humanitarianism had (and still have) had a limited development in Italy.
Nel nome degli altri (In the Name of Others) was published by Societ editrice il Mulino in 2015, after extensive work in gathering material, reprocessing information and interpretations, and joining up the various historiographical paths. The English edition could not be the mere translation of the Italian text. The revision has been thorough and has primarily followed the invaluable suggestions of the referees who reviewed first my proposal for a publication by Manchester University Press and then the manuscript. It is them I would first like to thank. I then sought to incorporate essays and monographs published after 2015. I have not been able to take every last thing into consideration, and not only because of the increasing pace at which new studies on the history of humanitarianism are appearing. On the basis of the contents of the most recent publications I have gone into more depth on certain aspects and thematically organised some questions in a different way; I have modified the arrangement of the volume without overturning its structure. The English edition, then, is, to a large extent, different from the Italian, but it retains the same twofold aim: to engage in the scholarly debate, and to address non-specialist readers who are interested in the subject.
My work on the English edition received decisive impetus from the conventions and seminars that I have been privileged to attend. It would be impossible to mention all the colleagues who have contributed to the discussion at individual meetings but I would like at least to mention those who promoted the various initiatives and those with whom I have had the most intense exchange of ideas. Thanks, then, to Eleonor Davey, Heide Fehrenbach, Peter Gatrell, Fabian Klose, Daniel M. Maul, Johannes Paulmann, Kevin OSullivan, Caroline Reeves, Katharina Stornig, Corinna Unger, Birte Vogel, Jennifer Welsh and Davide Rodogno, to whom I am particularly grateful for the bibliographical information which he generously shared with me. A special thanks goes to Bertrand Taithe, a brilliant conversational partner and a constant source of ideas who supported the project for an English edition of my work from the very start. Finally, I would like to point out that the translation of the Italian text was made possible by Transition Grant 2015/2017 Horizon 2020, which was awarded to me by the University of Milan.
