https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7934-644X
![Sample our Humanities journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5939/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Humanities.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
This article uses the experiences of expatriate aid workers in South Asia to examine the contours of the global aid industry in the long 1970s. It begins by outlining the impact of the crisis on the aid sector, before using case studies of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) from three Anglophone states – Britain, Canada (Québec excepted) and Ireland – to examine the spaces of social experience, spaces of knowledge circulation and imagined spaces of belonging and solidarity in which ideas of aid-giving were made. The article is framed through a concept that ethnographers call ‘Aidland’: the mix of volunteers, experts and aid professionals that make up the aid community. Taking this model as its starting point, the article makes three claims about the aid community that emerged in South Asia and what its story tells us about transnational activism in the long 1970s. The first is to see this as a moment of acceleration for the sector, in which its activities radically diversified while simultaneously carrying with them the baggage of what had come before. Second, and related, it argues that gwhile there were certain characteristics that were common to aid workers in every environment, we should be careful not to lose sight of the specific contextual factors and points of reference on which responses to humanitarian crises were based. Understanding that complexity, and its consequences, provides us with the basis for the final claim put forward here. By laying bare the processes through which ‘Aidland’ was constructed in South Asia, we can test how that community imagined and reinforced a particular (paternalistic) role for itself in the Third World.
Acknowledgements
I wish to thank Sonja Levsen, Kiran Klaus Patel and the participants at the two ‘Contours’ workshops at Maastricht and Freiburg for their comments on earlier drafts of this paper.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. Samstag, “Fading Flush,” The Guardian, December 23, 1972.
2. For an introduction to the wars that created Bangladesh, see Bass, Blood Telegram; Moses, “East Pakistan War, 1971”; Raghavan, 1971: A Global History; and Saikia, “Beyond the Archive of Silence.”
3. See Samstag, “Fading Flush.”
4. For an introduction to the Biafran humanitarian crisis, see Desgrandchamps, L’Humanitaire en Guerre Civile; Heerten, The Biafran War; Moses and Heerten, Postcolonial Conflict and the Question of Genocide; and O’Sullivan, “Humanitarian Encounters.”
5. O’Sullivan, Hilton, and Fiori, “Humanitarianisms in Context.”
6. A rich new historiography of non-governmental aid in Europe and North America has emerged in recent years. On the late twentieth-century period, see, for example: Davey, Idealism Beyond Borders; Glasman, Humanitarianism; Hong, Cold War Germany; Mann, Empires to NGOs; Nunan, Humanitarian Invasion; and Rossi, Slavery to Aid. For a broader introduction to this literature, see also Hoffmann, “Human Rights and History”; Hilton et al., “History and Humanitarianism”; Hodge, “Writing the History of Development (Part 1)”; and Hodge, “Writing the History of Development (Part 2).”
7. Cooper, Colonialism in Question, chapter 4.
8. Notable exceptions include Reinisch, “‘Auntie UNRRA’ at the Crossroads”; Salvatici, “UNRRA Relief Workers”; and Taithe, “Cradle of the New Humanitarian System?” See also work from the fields of development and imperial history: Fischer-Tiné, “The YMCA”; Hodge, “British Colonial Expertise”; Muschik, “Art of Chameleon Politics”; and Pernet, “FAO from the Field.”
9. For an introduction to ‘Aidland’, see Fechter and Hindman, Inside the Everyday Lives of Development Workers; Mosse, Adventures in Aidland; and Smirl, Spaces of Aid.
10. Apthorpe, “Who is International Aid?” 200.
11. For an overview of this period, see Barnett, Empire of Humanity; O’Sullivan, “Global ‘Nervous System’”; and Salvatici, A History of Humanitarianism.
12. Chabbott, “Development INGOs,” 227.
13. Hilton et al., A Historical Guide to NGOs in Britain, 301.
14. On the concept of ‘the NGO moment’, see O’Sullivan, “Humanitarian Encounters”; O’Sullivan, “Global ‘Nervous System’”; and O’Sullivan, The NGO Moment.
15. O’Sullivan et al., “Humanitarianisms in Context,” 6.
16. Hilton et al., Politics of Expertise.
17. O’Sullivan, “Humanitarian Encounters.”
18. Figure from “Bengal Emergency: The Facts,” memorandum prepared by Oxfam, November 1, 1971, Oxfam Archive, Bodleian Libraries (Bodleian: Oxfam COM/2/6/4, fol. 5).
19. Smillie, Land of Lost Content, 175–6.
20. Kothari, “Spatial Practices and Imaginaries,” 235. Emphasis in the original.
21. Smirl, Spaces of Aid, xiii.
22. Figure for Oxfam taken from: “Oxfam Needing Big New Funds to Aid Refugees,” The Guardian, July 13, 1971.
23. Combined Appeal for Pakistan Relief (CAPR) press release, “Smith, Pharmaceutical Expert, Returns from Pakistani Refugee Camps in India,” July 9, 1971, Oxfam-Canada Archive, Library and Archives Canada (LAC: Oxfam-Canada MG28, I270, vol. 4, file 22).
24. Hollomon, “Oxfam and the Bengali Refugees, April-August 1971,” August 14, 1971 (Bodleian: Oxfam COM/2/6/4, fol. 5).
25. Jackson, “Report on Visit to West Bengal – 20th–22 June 1971” (Bodleian: Oxfam COM/2/6/4, fol. 5).
26. Francis, “Remembering the Fallen,” BDNews24, November 2, 2019 https://opinion.bdnews24.com/2019/11/02/remembering-the-fallen-2/ (accessed November 27, 2019).
27. Longley, “Bangladesh Needs Cash, Not Surplus Goods,” The Times, March 9, 1972.
28. Finucane, “Concern: Ten Months in Bangladesh, February to December 1972,” Department of Foreign Affairs Files, National Archives of Ireland (NAI: DFA 2004/7/57).
29. Farmar, Believing in Action, 55.
30. Smirl, Spaces of Aid, 16. See also Redfield, “Unbearable Lightness of Ex-pats,” 358–82.
31. On the concept of “parochial cosmopolitanism” see Rajak and Stirrat, “Parochial Cosmopolitanism and the Power of Nostalgia.”
32. Smillie briefly describes these events in The Alms Bazaar, 265 (n. 20).
33. Farmar, Believing in Action, 55.
34. “Confidential Diary of the Lady Alexandra Metcalfe, Vice Chairman, SCF, on her Visit to West Bengal, June 25th – July 2nd, 1971,” Save the Children Archive, University of Birmingham (UB: SCF/OP/4/10/1); Foley, “Irish in Dacca Celebrate on the Double,” Irish Independent, March 16, 1972.
35. On the importance of balancing this understanding of individual aid worker identities with the insights that the Aidland concept provides, see Eyben, “Fellow Travellers in Development”; Fechter, “Inhabitants of Aidland”; and Stirrat, “Mercenaries, Missionaries and Misfits.”
36. Farmar, Believing in Action, 55.
37. Heathershaw, “Who are the ‘International Community?’” 93.
38. Smirl, Spaces of Aid, 9–10.
39. For an overview of these diverging interpretations of the crisis, see O’Sullivan, The NGO Moment, chapter 2.
40. Lord Paul Gore-Booth (chairman, SCF) to J.A.M. Graham (Foreign and Commonwealth Office), September 22, 1971 (UB: SCF, Box A38).
41. “Relief for Refugees from East Bengal: Bulletin No. 33,” August 17, 1971 (Bodleian: Oxfam, COM/2/6/4, fol. 6).
42. On the importance of expertise to the growth of NGOs in the twentieth century, see Hilton et al., Politics of Expertise.
43. Glasman, “Measuring Malnutrition”; and Scott-Smith, “Beyond the ‘Raw’ and the ‘Cooked.’”
44. Glasman, Humanitarianism; and Scott-Smith, On An Empty Stomach.
45. Aengus Finucane, in discussion with the author, Dublin, February 27, 2007.
46. See Apthorpe, “Who is International Aid?” 198.
47. “Relief for Refugees from East Bengal: Bulletin No. 19,” June 22, 1971 (LAC: Oxfam-Canada MG28, I270, vol. 5, file 17).
48. See Hilton, “Oxfam and the Problem of NGO Aid Appraisal.”
49. Francis, “A Survey and Analysis of Administrative Organisational and Technical Experiences Accruing to Oxfam and to Other Voluntary Agencies Arising out of the Bangladesh Refugee Relief Operations, April 1971 to February 1972” (Bodleian: Oxfam, PRG/5/5/6, fol. 1).
50. Taithe, “Cradle of the New Humanitarian System?” 336.
51. “Excerpts of Reports re Pakistan Refugee Situation,” extract from letter by Raymond Cournoyer, dated May 14, 1971 (LAC: Oxfam-Canada, MG 28, I 270, vol. 5, file 2).
52. Farmar, Believing in Action, 63–4.
53. On Kastur, see Winchester, “‘Hippies’ Fly Home to a £14,000 Problem,” The Guardian, June 18, 1971. On the Omega Group, see Hannig, “Negotiating Humanitarianism and Politics.”
54. Francis, “A Survey and Analysis of Administrative Organisational and Technical Experiences Accruing to Oxfam and to Other Voluntary Agencies Arising out of the Bangladesh Refugee Relief Operations, April 1971 to February 1972” (Bodleian: Oxfam, PRG/5/5/6, fol. 1).
55. Glasman, “Measuring Malnutrition,” 20.
56. Green, “Calculating Compassion,” 33.
57. Fechter, “‘Living Well’ While ‘Doing Good’?” 1481.
58. Eyben, “Fellow Travellers in Development,” 1407. On this topic, see also Möller et al., Gendering Global Humanitarianism.
59. John O’Loughlin Kennedy, in discussion with the author, Dublin, November 23, 2009.
60. Mosse, “The Anthropology of Expertise,” 21.
61. Doheny, “No. 7 Report from Bangladesh,” undated [Dec. 1971/Jan. 1972?] (NAI: DFA 2003/17/51); Doheny, “From the Bay of Bengal,” November 16, 1971 (NAI: DFA 2003/17/51).
62. Dr H. Sahara, director of health services, West Bengal, quoted in Hazelhurst, “Britain’s Response to Cholera Crisis Astounds India as Deaths Fall,” Guardian, June 11, 1971.
63. See, for example, “The Irish Trek to Aid Refugees,” Irish Independent, July 12, 1971.
64. Hillen, “A Man in the Middle of Misery,” Winnipeg Free Press, August 21, 1971.
65. Hillen, “So Many Will Die,” Winnipeg Free Press, July 31, 1971.
66. See, for example, “Editorial Copy: Oxfam of Canada: Betty Scott,” undated [June 1971?] (LAC: Oxfam-Canada, MG28, I270, vol. 4, file 22).
67. On the labels that NGOs use to describe humanitarianism, see Dogra, Representations of World Poverty.
68. “Oxfam Needing Big New Funds to Aid Refugees,” The Guardian, July 13, 1971.
69. Coggins, “The Development Set,” 80.
70. Smirl, Spaces of Aid, 39.
71. See Taithe, “Cradle of the New Humanitarian System?” 337.
72. Cooper, Colonialism in Question, 91.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Kevin O’Sullivan
Kevin O’Sullivan is a lecturer in history at National University of Ireland Galway. He is the author of The NGO Moment: The Globalisation of Compassion from Biafra to Live Aid (Cambridge University Press, 2021). His first book, Ireland, Africa and the End of Empire: Small State Identity in the Cold War, 1955–75, was published by Manchester University Press in 2012, and he has co-edited special issues of European Review of History and Moving the Social on the history of humanitarianism. His work has been published in numerous journals, as well as in several edited volumes.