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ABSTRACT
We can observe a growing discourse in the humanitarian sector to ‘localise’, ie provide national NGOs and civil society organisations with a leading role in affected countries. Yet, structural hierarchies and inherently discriminating practices based on solidified patterns of perception (frames) of local actors impede rapid progress towards this goal on the field level. In order to elucidate these mechanisms, I will from an anthropological perspective first outline the structural and discursive factors within the humanitarian system that serve as obstacles to more participatory and localised approaches. I will then present empirical data from my field research on the humanitarian action of a European NGO in Haiti after Hurricane Matthew. Despite a high degree of ethical concern and critical reflectivity among the management staff, many practices still exclude local actors, and the way they are framed reflects strong tendencies towards both securitisation and paternalism. Framing in general, and these frames in particular, authorise and justify specific policies and practices while precluding others. As a precondition for the humanitarian sector to change in the intended direction towards a stronger inclusion of the affected populations, participation/inclusion frames need to be better anchored and be endorsed. Only against the background of such frames can more localised practices successfully evolve.
Notes
1. Grand Bargain. Final Version, 10. See ALNAP, “National Actors” on the role of national actors.
2. https://www.agendaforhumanity.org/resources (Accessed 13 November 2017).
3. Grand Bargain. Final Version, 5.
4. Parker, “Is the Grand Bargain.”
5. Hilhorst, “Classical Humanitarianism and Resilience Humanitarianism.”
6. Hilhorst, “Classical Humanitarianism and Resilience Humanitarianism,” 12. According to the State of the Humanitarian system Report 2015, only one-third (33%) of the surveyed recipients had been consulted on their needs and of those merely 19% said that the agency had acted on their feedback. ALNAP, SOHS, 98.
7. Brown and Donini, “Rhetoric or Reality?” 52–58.
8. ICRC and HHI, “Engaging with People Affected,” 54.
9. Brown and Donini, “Rhetoric or Reality?” 59–61.
10. Ibid., 8, 52–54.
11. Ibid., 20–23.
12. Similarly: “Localization of Aid”, Shifting the Power Project, 5.
13. Snow et al., “Frame Alignment Processes,” 464. Frames can be delineated from discourse in that they are limited ideational packages and viewed from an actor’s perspective; discourses in the other hand are in a Foucauldian sense structures and larger packages of not necessarily coherent elements. For a detailed discussion of this question see: Granzow, Framing Threat.
14. Goffman, Frame Analysis.
15. Mayring, Qualitative Inhaltsanalyse.
16. Fechter and Hindman, Inside the Everyday Lives; Fernando and Hilhorst, “Everyday Practices”; Hilhorst, Real World of NGOs; Long, Development Sociology; Mosse, Cultivating Development; Lewis and Mosse, Development Brokers; Maldonado, “Considering Culture”; and Mosse, ed., Adventures in Aidland.
17. Hilhorst and Schmiemann, “Humanitarian Principles,” 493.
18. Mosse, “Introduction,” 16.
19. Autessere, “Dangerous Tales”; Koddenbrock, Practice of Humanitarian Intervention; Hilhorst and Schmiemann, “Humanitarian Principles.”
20. Distler, “Intervention as a Social Practice.”
21. Koddenbrock, Practice of Humanitarian Intervention.
22. Donini, Decoding the Software, 73.
23. Smirl, Spaces of Aid, 7. She builds on: Bourdieu, Logic of Practice; De Certeau, Practice of Everyday Life; and Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception.
24. Smirl, Spaces of Aid, 16.
25. Fassin, Humanitarian Reason.
26. Ibid., 6.
27. See: http://www.sphereproject.org (Accessed 15 November 2017).
28. Sphere Project. Humanitarian Charter.
29. “Sphere in Brief Handout”.
30. Sphere Project. Humanitarian Charter, 40.
31. ICRC and HHI, “Engaging with People Affected,” 40.
32. Ibid.
33. Prominently: Brown and Donini, “Rhetoric or Reality?”
34. http://www.charter4change.org (Accessed 6 June 2018).
35. ICRC and HHI, “Engaging with People Affected,” 13.
36. Ibid., 14.
37. Trouillot, “Savage Slot.”
38. Robbins, “Beyond the Suffering Subject.”
39. Edmonds, “Business of Poverty,” 63.
40. Edmonds, “Business of Poverty,” 63; Disaster Accountability Project, “The Transparency of Relief”; and Lwijis, “What Government Are You?”.
41. Trouillot, “Abse Sou Klou,” 103.
42. Gender terminology was anonymised throughout the text.
43. On the prevalence of Haitian agricultural cooperatives: Vannier, “Audit Culture.”
44. Herskovitz, Life.
45. Autesserre, Peaceland, 264.
46. For different findings in another case see: Schramm/Sändig, “Affectedness Alliances.”
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Tanja Granzow
Tanja Granzow holds a position as Research Fellow at the Collaborative Research Centre 923 “Threatened Order. Societies under Stress” at the University of Tuebingen, Germany. She received her Magister’s Degree in Social Anthropology, Modern History, and Political Science and obtained her doctorate in Political Science for her work on conflict escalation in Yemen. In her current anthropological project, she investigates the processes of social re-ordering within humanitarian assistance after Hurricane Matthew in Haiti.