Humanitarianism with a neo-liberal face: vulnerability intervention as vulnerability redistribution

ABSTRACT

The notion of vulnerability has recently gained prominence in humanitarian discourses. This article examines the contemporary humanitarian deployment of the notion of vulnerability, with respect to Syrian forced migrants. It argues that current humanitarian deployment of vulnerability hints the emergence of a new humanitarian morality responding to and reproducing neo-liberal political-economic configurations. The article, first, identifies a recent shift in humanitarianism’s lexicon of concern from forced migrants’ vulnerability to ‘vulnerable’ forced migrants. Accordingly, it became thinkable, morally acceptable, reasonable, and even desirable to provide humanitarian assistance only to segments of forced migrants. ‘The vulnerable’ becomes an unevenly distributed label. Second, it examines neo-liberal vulnerability interventions via cash-transfer by means of specific redistributive schemas. It claims that such interventions indicate not only a discriminatory distribution of assistance but also a recalibration of the purpose of humanitarian assistance from relief to terminating migrants’ use of negative coping strategies. Finally, such deployment of vulnerability, at best, redistribute vulnerability, if not in financial terms, by jeopardizing ‘vulnerable’ migrants’ relations within and outside the migrant community. Overall, the article problematises the use of the notion of vulnerability in humanitarianism for its damaging effects made between all forced migrants deserving of humanitarian empathy and the newly ‘vulnerable’ forced migrant.

KEYWORDS:

• Vulnerability
• distribution
• redistribution
• humanitarianism
• cash-transfer
• neo-liberalism

Acknowledgement

The research leading to this article is funded by the Science Academy of Turkey with Distinguished Young Scientist Award in 2015 (BAGEP) and by Middle East Technical University Northern Cyprus Campus with the Campus Research Fund in 2014. I am thankful to three anonymous reviewers and editors for their valuable feedback for the manuscript. I am grateful to Julian Saurin for being a genuine source of inspiration as an intellectual, a colleague, and a friend during the preparation of this manuscript and for being exceptionally kind and patient while editing it. Susan Paste ought to be acknowledged, for being … .

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 The ESSN’s Facebook page on KızılayKart provides publically available information via short, visually attractive announcements about the project. Syrian refugees often use the page to publicly display their frustration when the alternative discrete channels (in person, via email or phone) are available. Therefore, the potential ethical problems about informed consent in using this data is equivalent to that in using any public information or accessing to any unrestricted public place, online or offline.

2 The Facebook comment is made on 23.1.2018, by the user named أنين رجل.

3 The Facebook comment is made on 23.1.2018, by the user named ادم ساهر حوا.

4 The Facebook comment is made on 23.1.2018, by the user named شه هلال.

5 The Facebook comment is made on 23.1.2018, by the user named مرادو البيبرس.

6 The Facebook comment is made on 23.1.2018, by the user named Ibrahim Al-Darwish.

7 The Facebook comment is made on 23.1.2018, by the user named Emad Shaban Kassab.

8 Personal interview in Hatay, 2015.

9 Personal interview in Mardin, 2015.

10 Personal interview in Mardin 2015.

11 Personal interview in Antalya 2017.

12 Personal interview in Sanliurfa 2017.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Bilim Akademisi: [Grant Number BAGEP 2015 (Distinguished Young Scientist Award 2015]; Middle East Technical University Northern Cyprus Campus: [Grant Number Campus Research Fund: SOSY-14-D-1].