Aid work as edgework – voluntary risk-taking and security in humanitarian assistance, development and human rights work

Abstract

Contemporary societies have been characterized as risk societies. While considerable research on individualized risk and risk management exists, voluntary risk taking has so far found less attention. This article explores the tensions between voluntary risk-taking at the individual level and risk management at the organizational level by analysing aid work as edgework. Between 1990s and 2009, the number of attacks on aid personnel including killing, kidnapping and armed attacks has steadily increased. Security and how to deal with it has become a central concern of aid organizations. While the increased insecurity of aid workers and the responses of aid organizations to security threats have been widely documented, less attention has been paid to the role risk-taking plays in aid workers lives. Edgework is a form of voluntary risk-taking and has been primarily studied in the context of risk-taking leisure such as action and adventure sport. Aid work encompasses a wide range of interventions, including development and emergency relief. Depending on assignment and region, people working in the aid industry find themselves in high- or low-risk situations. Based on biographical interviews with people working in aid, this article addresses motivations for getting involved in aid work and experiences of danger in Aidland. Contrasting individualized risks with security procedures of aid organizations, my article contributes to a better understanding of risk-taking behaviour in general and in the context of overseas aid in particular.

Keywords:

• voluntary risk-taking
• edgework
• humanitarianism
• self-government
• self-realization

Acknowledgements

This research would not have been possible without the generosity of the interviewees for which I am deeply grateful. I thank Derek McGhee and the anonymous reviewers for their perceptive, detailed and encouraging criticism and comments. The University of Pennsylvania and the University of Southampton supported this research with small grants.

Notes

1. Safety threats are, for example, related to traffic accidents and health issues, whereas acts of violence constitute security threats which can be generalized or random (ambient) or targeted (situational) (ibid., 138f).

2. Securitization refers to the fact that after 9/11 development policy has been increasingly shaped by foreign policy and security agendas (Howell and Lind 2009). Securitization is distinct from but related to the security management of aid organizations: The (renewed) politicization of aid has resulted in an increase in attack on aid personnel to which aid organizations have responded with intensified security management.

3. Professionalization processes in humanitarian assistance include the introduction of codes of conduct and standards as well as the proliferation of academic and non-academic training opportunities (Rainhorn, Smailbegovic, and Jiekak 2010; Walker and Russ 2010). They are a response to the increased complexity and challenges that contemporary aid workers face (Walker et al. 2010).

4. The risks for national and international aid workers differ, while international aid workers tend to be kidnapped, national aid workers are more likely to be killed (Stoddard, Harmer, and DiDomenico 2008). Although local and national aid workers represent about 90% and thus the vast majority of the aid worker population, security measures still primarily target international staff (Stoddard, Harmer, and Haver 2011).

5. In addition to these interviews, I also spoke with human resources staff of an NGO and a UN agency as well as with instructors on humanitarian studies courses. Furthermore, some of the biographical interviews or short conversations with people working or planning to work in aid were not recorded and thus not included in this analysis.

6. This article is based on the analysis of 55 interviews; two were excluded because the respondents were not yet involved in aid work at the time of the interview. Out of the 55, at the time of the interview seven (13%) were under 30, 28 (51%) were between 30 and 39, 14 (25%) were between 40 and 49 and six (11%) were over 50, including three who were 60 or older.

7. In contrast to ‘free nodes,’ ‘tree nodes’ comprise sub-categories.

8. Nineteen interviewees (35%) were under 25 when they first got involved in aid work, including three who were under 20, 16 (29%) were between 25 and 29, seven (13%) between 30 and 34, seven (13) between 35 and 39, and six (11%) were over 40, including one who was over 50 when she first got involved in aid work.