![Sample our Politics & International Relations journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5947/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Politics-International-Relations.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
This article responds to suggestions that Australia is becoming increasingly insular and that Australians should direct their compassionate and humanitarian efforts wholly towards other Australians. This paper briefly reviews arguments for this inward turn, as well as the extant polling evidence about the prevalence of such attitudes, which appear to be reflected in the recent cutting of overseas aid budgets by the Australian government. However, the authors do not agree with even well-meaning exhortations to Australians to direct their altruistic activities to local communities only. To explore the compassionate and humanitarian sensibilities and activities of Australians who are actively supporting distant others, sixteen interviews were conducted with practitioners in non-profit organisations and ventures in Melbourne. We sought to understand how they came to dedicate their lives to working for or founding organisations whose aim is to benefit distant others; how they navigated the potentially overwhelming nature of global problems; and finally the hurdles they faced in continuing their work. Despite the challenges that both these practitioners and the world face, this article concludes with grounded optimism and defends a more expansive scope for our care for others.
Acknowledgments
The authors of this article would like to thank the anonymous reviewers of this article for their feedback. We also are grateful to our project’s research assistant, Natassia Bell, for her role in interviewing some participants and transcribing the audio recordings of the interviews.
Notes
1. We note that latterly in the interviewing process, in order to draw in a comparative aspect to the project, two organisations were included which served people experiencing homelessness in Melbourne.