CfP: The Red Cross Movement, Voluntary Organisations and Reconstruction in Western Europe in the 20th century

This one-day symposium will be held at the Centre d’Histoire de Sciences Po (Paris, France) on Friday 12 June 2020

Historical research on voluntary or non-government organisations and their contribution to the reconstruction of states, communities and humanitarian assistance to civilian populations following conflicts, epidemics and disasters through the twentieth century has generally focused on non-Western European countries. The historiography suggests that it is mostly in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Africa that natural or man-made disasters have occurred, and that these places have been the focus for humanitarian assistance. The major geographical spheres of interest for Red Cross societies and non-government organisations to provide assistance to populations in times of severe crises do not generally include Western Europe, except for World War II. Rather, the humanitarian enterprise is viewed through the binary of the Global North/Global South, those who save, and those who are saved.

This symposium intends to explore the ways in which non-government organisations have contributed to the reconstruction, and care for populations, in Western European countries such as France, the UK, Ireland, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Italy and the Netherlands. It seeks to investigate how the Red Cross movement – the League of Red Cross Societies/International Federation of Red Cross/Red Crescent, the International Committee of Red Cross and individual national societies – alongside other voluntary organisations such as the Rockefeller Foundation, Save the Children and a range of other international and local non-government bodies, have contributed to reconstruction in these countries at both national and local levels following times of crises such as wars, civilian upheavals and natural disasters.

Here, reconstruction is not understood in its narrow and literal sense of the rebuilding of infrastructure, or the return to a previous state of being. Rather, we understand reconstruction as a series of complex social, economic, political, cultural and demographic processes that alter the status quo through their transformative nature, including immediate post-war assistance to populations. As Sultan Barakat (2005) has explained, reconstruction is “a range of holistic activities in an integrated process designed not only to reactivate economic and social development but at the same time to create a peaceful environment that will prevent relapse into violence”, or chaos. The focus of this symposium, therefore, is to survey the role, influence and agency of not-for-profit and non-governmental organisations and civil society in times of reconstruction. 

Questions to consider include but are not limited to:

► What is the role of such non-for-profit organisations in states traditionally understood as strong, stable and self-sufficient?

► How have those states relied on civil society to assist the population where state services could not?

► What was the role of Western European voluntary organisations in helping these global powers?

► How have voluntary organisations assisted vulnerable populations immediately after conflicts or major crises?

► How have voluntary organisations been able to create institutional resilience in times of crises?

► What was the relationship between governments and non-government organisations within and between the processes of reconstruction?

► What role did individuals play in navigating the world of reconstruction?

Please submit a 300-word abstract and a short biography by 21 September 2019 to humanitarianreconstruction@gmail.com. A few small travel grants will be available for PhD candidates and Early Career Researchers. Should you wish to apply for funding, please attach a budget to your application and a short rationale for the funding request. Please note that this symposium is focused toward the publication of new research.

Organising Committee

Dr. Romain Fathi, Flinders University / Sciences Po

Prof. Melanie Oppenheimer, Flinders University

Prof. Guillaume Piketty, Centre d’Histoire de Sciences Po

Prof. Davide Rodogno, Graduate Institute Geneva

Prof. Paul-André Rosental, Centre d’Histoire de Sciences Po

 

CfP: Joint Mainz-Oxford-Graduate Workshop: “European History across Boundaries from the Sixteenth to the Twentieth Century”

Academy Conveners: Sarah Panter (Leibniz Institute of European History, Mainz), Johannes Paulmann (Leibniz Institute of European History, Mainz) and Lyndal Roper (University of Oxford)

Venue: Leibniz Institute of European History, Mainz

Date: 1–3 April 2020

Deadline for Applications: 15 October 2019

The Leibniz Institute of European History at Mainz, Germany, and the University of Oxford, Faculty of History, invite international Ph.D. students to a workshop on European history across boundaries from the 16th to the 20th century, including Europe’s relations with the world. We encourage researchers working in this field to present their Ph.D. projects and to discuss the transcultural and transnational scope of their findings in a stimulating environment. Topics that aim to cross and reflect boundaries and borders are of particular interest. Projects can employ a variety of methodical approaches such as comparative studies, the study of transfer processes and entanglements, or the histoire croisée. The location of the joint workshop alternates annually between Mainz and Oxford. In 2020, the workshop will take place in Mainz.

At the workshop, we will discuss pre-circulated papers based on archival research (max. 8,000 words, written in English, to be submitted by 1 March 2020). Accommodation for the duration of the workshop and a contribution to travel expenses within Europe will be provided.

Proposals should include an abstract of the overall project and its archival sources (500 words) plus a brief biographical note.

Please combine all of your application documents into a single PDF except for the application form. You can download the application form here: http://bit.ly/GW_MainzOxford. Applications should be sent to gw@ieg-mainz.de by no later than 15 October 2019. For any questions, please contact the organisers.

Contact:

Dr. Sarah Panter

Leibniz Institute of European History

Alte Universitätsstr. 19, 55116 Mainz, Germany

+49 (0)6131-39 393 63

gw@ieg-mainz.de

International Conference: Human Rights and Technological Change. Conflicts and Convergences since the 1950s

19-20 September 2019 at the Fritz-Thyssen-Foundation, Cologne

Conveners: Dr. Michael Homberg (Potsdam), Dr. Benjamin Möckel (Cologne), Dr. Daniel Stahl (Jena)

Modern technologies have become a major subject of human rights policy. Surveillance technology, the military use of drones, and the possibilities of Big Data analyses pose new challenges for the international human rights movement. At the same time, these techniques offer new ways to document and denounce violations of human rights and to promote mass mobilization. Although these debates are of topical interest, the ambivalent connection between human rights and technologies depicts a long-standing problem. Right from the start, the modern human rights system established in the 1940s and 1950s had to deal with challenges of technological innovations. The appropriation of new technologies in the service of political agendas goes back to these years. Thus, the main focus of this conference is on this ambivalent relation, that has until now scarcely been addressed in historical research.

Empirical case studies from different national and global contexts which focus on the years after 1945 are supposed to lend historical depth to these current debates. The conference analyzes how the spread of modern technologies both challenged and served human rights policies. How did technological innovations change structures, concepts, and practices of human rights policy? And how did these new norms, in turn, shape the way in which new technologies were implemented? Regarding these questions, presentations may take different groups and institutions into account: Governments, media, scientists, industrialists, NGOs and international organizations.

With this approach, the history of human rights can open up new vistas on global history. This is especially true for research on development aid, which hitherto hasn’t taken the historiography on human rights into due consideration. The subject of the conference offers an ideal starting-point: Technological modernization and progress have been promises of salvation by numerous initiatives for the “development” of the “third world”. At the same time, the right to development was of great importance in the debates on human rights. Still, it is important to highlight that such an approach should not only focus on tensions between technologies and human rights in developing countries but also in more developed, industrialized ones.

The conference focusses on five areas: 1) major infrastructure projects; 2) production methods in agriculture and industry; 3) changes in media cultures; 4) the societal impact of computerization; and 5) reproductive technologies. We define technologies as things, infrastructure, techniques, and know-how, which determine and influence social practices and interactions. Revisiting a social history (“Gesellschaftsgeschichte”) of technological change with regard to the transformation of global human rights regimes sheds new light on environmental and economic history approaches as well as the history of technology. Furthermore, it can take new perspectives on the history of migration, postcolonial nation-building, and international policy of the 20th century into account.

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CfA: IEG Fellowships for Postdocs

APPLICATION DEADLINE: OCTOBER 15, 2019

For IEG Fellowships beginning in April 2020 or later The Leibniz Institute of European History (IEG) awards fellowships for international postdocs in European history, the history of religion, historical theology, or other historical disciplines. The IEG funds research projects on European history from the early modern period until 1989/90. We are particularly interested in projects

•with a comparative or cross-border approach,

•on European history in its relation to the wider world, or

•on topics of intellectual and religious history.

AIMS

This fellowship is intended to help you develop your own research project in close collaboration with scholars working at the IEG. Your contribution consists in bringing your own interests to bear on the work of the IEG and its research programme »Negotiating difference in Europe«. This includes the possibility of developing a perspective for further cooperation with the IEG. If for this purpose a promising application for third-party funding is submitted, an extension of the fellowship is possible.

WHAT WE OFFER

The IEG Fellowship provides a unique opportunity to pursue your individual research project while living and working for 6–12 months at the Institute in Mainz. The monthly stipend is € 1,800. Additionally, you can apply for a family or child allowance.

REQUIREMENTS

During the fellowship you are required to reside at the Institute in Mainz. You actively participate in the IEG’s research community and the weekly colloquia. We expect you to present your work at least once during your fellowship. Applicants must have completed their doctorate no more than three years before taking up the fellowship. We expect proficiency in English and a sufficient command of German to participate in discussions at the Institute.

APPLICATION

Please combine all of your application documents into a single PDF except for the application form and include a word count at the end of your project description. Please send your application to application@ieg-mainz.de. Letters of recommendation should be submitted directly by the referees. You may write in either English or German; we recommend that you use the language in which you are most proficient. The IEG encourages applications from women.

Please download the application form here: http://bit.ly/IEG_Postdoc2019

Please direct your questions about the IEG Fellowship Programme to Barbara Müller: fellowship@ieg-mainz.de

University of Cologne as new Partner of the GHRA 2019

In a few days the Global Humanitarianism Research Academy (GHRA) will meet for the fifth time for one week of academic training at the Leibniz Institute of European History in Mainz before continuing with archival research at the ICRC Archives in Geneva. In this context it is a great pleasure to announce that the GHRA is joined by a new partner, the Chair in International History and Historical Peace and Conflict Studies at the Department of History of the University of Cologne.

The Research Academy addresses early career researchers who are working in the related fields of humanitarianism, international humanitarian law, peace and conflict studies as well as human rights covering the period from the 18th to the 20th century. It supports scholarship on the ideas and practices of humanitarianism in the context of international, imperial and global history thus advancing our understanding of global governance in humanitarian crises of the present.

As in the last four years the GHRA received again a huge amount of applications from an extremely talented group of scholars from more than twenty different countries around the world. The selection committee considered each proposal carefully and has selected these participants for the GHRA 2019:

Maria Cullen is from Dublin and has a great interest in issues of global inequality and development, which is reflected in her studies and her undertaking of an internship with a local NGO in Rwanda last summer. She holds a BA in History and French from Trinity College Dublin and an MA in International Relations from UCD, which gave her an interesting interdisciplinary perspective. She subsequently decided to pursue her  interests further through a PhD in humanitarian history at NUI Galway, which she has now been working on since September 2018.

Mitchell Edwards is a third-year doctoral student in Northwestern University’s African History program. His interest in the continent’s past first developed during his undergraduate career, when he spent consecutive semesters participating in study abroad programs based in the Great Lakes region of East Africa. He has since taught ESL in South Korea, co-managed one of the abovementioned programs in Kigali, Rwanda, improved his comprehension of Swahili in rural Tanzania, and earned a Master’s degree in History from Concordia University in Montreal.

Ana Filipa Guardiao is a PhD candidate at the Lisbon University Institute for Social Sciences, within the Inter-University History Doctoral Program: Change and Continuity in a Global World and with a fellowship by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology. Her dissertation focuses on the processes of humanitarian assistance to the autochthonous refugees from the independence wars of Kenya, Algeria and Angola. With a graduation in Political Science and International Relations and a MA in Political Science, she has participated in national and international research projects, congresses, workshops and publications focusing on political elites, human rights, sovereignty and decolonization processes.

Baher Ibrahim is a history PhD candidate in his third of four years at the University of Glasgow. He is a physician by training, and graduated from Alexandria University, Egypt in 2011. He has since taken time out of a clinical career for research and academia. He holds a MA in Community Psychology from the American University in Cairo, and a MSc in Global Mental Health from King’s College London and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. His interests include refugee mental health, trauma, public health and medical humanitarianism.

Nadia Kornioti holds a Bachelor’s in Law (LLB) from the University of Leicester and a Master’s in Laws (LLM) with a specialisation in Public International Law from University College London (UCL). She is also a qualified advocate under Republic of Cyprus law. Following relevant work experience in Cyprus and abroad, she is currently a PhD student at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan), based at the Cyprus Campus of the university, where she is also an Associate Lecturer. Her research is a legal-historical study on International Humanitarian Law, with an emphasis on common article 3 of the 1949 Geneva Conventions and the armed violence in Cyprus, in the period 1963-1971.

Adam Millar is a History PhD student at the University of Leicester, researching the Salvation Army’s overseas settlements and colonies across the British Empire, supervised by Professor Clare Anderson and Dr Zoe Groves. His research focuses on the Army’s migration and settlement schemes, farm colonies for settlers and indigenous communities, and prison-gate settlements. He previously studied at the University of Huddersfield, writing his MRes on the social history of Hudfam and humanitarianism in Huddersfield, supervised by Dr Rebecca Gill. He is currently writing an intellectual biography of Elizabeth Wilson (founder of Hudfam).

Bethany Rebisz is a second-year PhD student funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council at the University’s of Reading and Exeter. She has a first-class honours degree and graduated with a Distinction for her Masters with both programmes being in history. During her previous degrees she specialised in the Mau Mau conflict fought in Kenya between 1952-60, largely focusing on the British counter-insurgency campaigns and their use of forced resettlement. Her key research interests focus on issues regarding race, gender, humanitarianism and social engineering in the context of modern colonial conflict in Africa.

Kyle Eulogio Romero is a sixth-year Ph.D. Candidate at Vanderbilt University working with Dr. Paul Kramer. He studies and teaches on the history of immigration, refugee politics, and humanitarianism in the twentieth century. His dissertation, “Moving People: Refugee Politics, Foreign Aid, and the Emergence of American Humanitarianism in the Twentieth Century” explores how U.S. institutions, policymakers, and foreign aid workers in the early twentieth century confronted global refugee crises and the techniques they used in response to displacement.

Adriane Sanctis de Brito holds a PhD in Legal Theory and MSc in International Law from University of São Paulo (Brazil). She worked as Teaching Assistant at University of São Paulo and Global Law Graduate Researcher at Fundação Getulio Vargas (Brazil). During her doctoral studies, she was Visiting PhD Researcher at the Erik Castrén Institute of International Law and Human Rights at University of Helsinki (Finland), Kathleen Fitzpatrick Visiting Fellow at the Laureate Program in International Law at Melbourne Law School (Australia), and Guest PhD Researcher at the Max Planck Institute for International and Procedural Law (Luxembourg).

Michiko Suzuki received a PhD in History at SOAS University of London. She focused on modern Japanese and East Asian history. Her thesis investigated a historical paradox that defined the Japanese Red Cross Society of the interwar and wartime era. Michiko Suzuki is currently acting as a research assistant at the University of Tokyo. She has presented her papers at a number of high profile conferences such as the International Movement of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Conference on the Prohibition and Elimination of Nuclear Weapons in Nagasaki, Japan in 2017.

Stephen Westlake is a PhD Candidate at the University of Bristol. He is broadly interested in transnational and global approaches to British history in the post-war period. His research focuses on Britain’s position within key global networks of transnational broadcasting and humanitarian and human rights activism from the late 1960s onwards. His Ph.D project is provisionally entitled “The Oxfam of the Mind”? Britain, the BBC External Services, and the Benevolence of British Internationalism, 1965-1995.

New book “In the Cause of Humanity” in Open Access

Fabian Klose, “In the Cause of Humanity”. Eine Geschichte der humanitären Intervention im langen 19. Jahrhundert, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2019.

The question of whether, when and how the international community should respond to violations of humanitarian norms and related humanitarian crises is undoubtedly one of the much-discussed issues on today’s international policy agenda. However, it was not only at the end of the twentieth and the beginning of the twenty-first centuries that this problem suddenly emerged from nowhere, but already during the course of the long nineteenth century it was controversially dealt with.

In my recently published German book “In the Cause of Humanity. A History of Humanitarian Intervention in the long Nineteenth Century” I am looking at various case studies such as the fight against the slave trade (1807-1890), the military interventions of the major European powers to protec Christian minorities in the Ottoman Empire (1827-1878) and the intervention of the United States in the Cuban War of Independence (1898) to investigate the emerging doctrine of humanitarian intervention as an instrument in international politics. A central key role in this development was played by the armed international struggle against the slave trade as the archetype of humanitarian intervention. Thus, the long nineteenth century can be characterized as the genuine “century of humanitarian intervention”, in which military interventionism under the banner of humanity was significantly linked with colonial and imperial projects.

Due to the very generous support by the Monograph Publishing Funds of the Leibniz Association, for which I am deeply grateful, “In the Cause of Humanity” is simultanously published in Open Access. If you are interested you can now read and download the complete book at: http://bit.ly/CauseOfHumanity

IEG Fellowships for Doctoral Students

Application deadline: August 15, 2019
For IEG Fellowships beginning in March 2020 or later

The Leibniz Institute of European History (IEG) awards 8–10 fellowships for international doctoral students in European history, the history of religion, historical theology, or other historical disciplines.

The IEG funds PhD projects on European history from the early modern period until 1989/90. We are particularly interested in projects

  • with a comparative or cross-border approach,
  • on European history in its relation to the wider world, or
  • on topics of intellectual and religious history.

What we offer

The IEG Fellowships provide a unique opportunity to pursue your individual PhD project while living and working for 6–12 months at the Institute in Mainz. The monthly stipend is € 1,350. Additionally, you can apply for a family or child allowance.

Requirements

During the fellowship you are required to reside at the Institute in Mainz. You actively participate in the IEG’s research community, the weekly colloquia and scholarly activities. We expect you to present your work at least once during your fellowship. The IEG preferably supports the writing up of dissertations; it will not provide funding for preliminary research, language courses or the revision of book manuscripts. PhD theses continue to be supervised under the auspices of the fellows’ home universities. We expect proficiency in English and a sufficient command of German to participate in discussions at the Institute. The IEG encourages applications from women.

Application
Please combine all of your application materials except for the application form into a single PDF and send your application to application@ieg-mainz.de.
Letters of recommendation should be submitted directly by the referees. You may write in either English or German; we recommend that you use the language in which you are most proficient.

You can download the application form under the following: http://bit.ly/IEG_2019

The IEG has two deadlines each year for IEG Fellowships: February 15 and August 15.
The next deadline for applications is August 15, 2019.

Please direct your questions concerning the IEG Fellowship Programme to
Barbara Müller: fellowship@ieg-mainz.de

Please also visit our website
http://www.ieg-mainz.de/en/fellowships  

Now in Open Access: “Humanity. A History of European Concepts in Practice From the Sixteenth Century to the Present”

Fabian Klose/Mirjam Thulin (ed.), Humanity. A History of European Concepts in Practice From the Sixteenth Century to the Present, Göttingen 2016.  

This edited volume investigates the development of the concepts and practices of “humanity” from the sixteenth century to the present. By choosing a longue-durée approach the book analyzes how shifting concepts of humanity shaped various practices and at the same time how ideas themselves were informed by these practices in the course of four hundred years. As humanity is evoked in a remarkable array of themes, the contributors deliberately focus on issues such as humanism, colonial expansion and imperialism, missions, abolitionism, international humanitarian law, humanitarianism, human rights, charity and philanthropy. In their understanding, these are crucial arenas, in which concepts and practices of humanity were sustainably shaped, defined, questioned and reconfigured. While there are a huge number of individual studies on each theme, the book seeks to connect these various fields and analyze their entanglements under the overarching theme of the idea of humanity.

The volume is now available in open access and you can now download the complete book at: http://oapen.org/search?identifier=1004710 or
https://www.doabooks.org/doab?func=search&uiLanguage=en&template=&query=32757 

Conference: “Putting Human Rights to the Test Claims, Interventions, and Contestations since 1990”

International Conference in Cologne, May 16-17, 2019 at the Fritz Thyssen Stiftung in Cologne

Cross-posted from https://www.hsozkult.de/event/id/termine-39458

The concept of human rights has profoundly shaped national and international policies after the end of the Cold War and during the worldwide wave of democratization at the end of the 20th Century. However, this development does not necessarily denote an upward trend in human rights. Although states, NGOs and International Organizations enacted important political projects, formulated symbolic demands or implemented instruments of transnational regulation under the label of human rights, the principle of human rights was also heavily contested and strongly rejected. Emphatic hopes of a New World Order of global justice, that had been sparked by human rights in the early 90s, soon faded. Mass killings could not be stopped, authoritarian regimes remained in power, and humanitarian interventions presented drastic and problematic side effects.

Historical research on this complex development has only just begun, with empirical studies and overarching interpretations still lacking. Nevertheless, critical reflection on the history of human rights over the last quarter century is essential for a better understanding of our political presence. This observation provides the starting point for our conference, which brings together experts from different disciplines and world regions to advance research and analysis on the recent history of human rights. The conference neither wants to reproduce the triumphalism of the 1990s nor the narrative of decline which has become dominant over the past years. Instead, it aims to sharpen perspectives on the contradictory developments by including diverse groups of actors in its analysis: states, International Organizations, NGOs, politicians, scholars and experts.

Human rights did not have a breakthrough in the 1990s – they were already a well-established instrument of national and international policies. However, International Organizations, NGOs, politicians, scholars and experts attributed more and more significance to human rights. By doing so – this is the assumption underlying the conference – they tested the limits of human rights policies. A growing number of actors began framing their concerns as human rights issues. The universal claim of human rights received unprecedented support and was adopted in interventionist practices, crossing national borders. At the same time – and in many cases as a direct consequence – the idea of universally valid individual rights was met with heavy opposition and alternative concepts. Different academic disciplines made human rights a subject of their research, thereby impacting the practice of human rights activism and policies. Accordingly, the conference is split into four panels focusing on these developments.

Registration: https://fts.veranstaltungs-anmeldung.de/

Programme:

Thursday, May 16, 2019

10.00 a.m. –5.30 p.m.

Welcome: Norbert Frei
Keynote
: Jan Eckel

Panel I: Expansion
Knud Andresen
(Hamburg): Multinational Corporations after Apartheid in South Africa
Celia Donert (Liverpool): Women’s Rights as Human Rights after 1990
Paul van Trigt (Leiden): The Fall of Utopia and the Integration of Disability in International Law

Panel II: Intervention
Stephen Wertheim
(New York): Transformative Interventions: The Militarization of Humanitarianism in the United States
Markus Eikel (Den Haag): International Criminal Law and the Prosecution of Human Rights Violations
Barbara Keys (Melbourne): The Convention against Torture as a Tool of Intervention


7.00 p.m.

Dan Diner (Jerusalem): Public Lecture

Dinner

Friday, May 17, 2019

9.30 a.m. – 4.30 p.m.


Panel III: Contestations and Alternatives

Katrin Kinzelbach (Berlin): Asian Values versus Western Values – a False Dichotomy
Gudrun Krämer (Berlin): On Difference and Hierarchy: Islamic Debates about Equity and Equality
Averell Schmidt (Boston): Torture during the War on Terror: A Story of Contestation
Robert Horvath (Melbourne): Nationalising Human Rights in Russia

Panel IV: Human Rights and Scholarship
Annette Weinke
(Jena): History und Transitional Justice – A Troubled Relationship
Matthias Koenig (Göttingen): Between Distance and Engagement – Human Rights in the Social Sciences
Heike Krieger (Berlin): From Euphoria to Skepticism: Human Rights Discourses in International Law

Observer statements

Michael Stolleis (Frankfurt a.M.)

Klaus Dicke (Jena)

Carola Sachse (Wien)


Research Fellowships in Global History, Summer Term 2020

Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, one of the leading research universities in Europe, with a more than 500-year-long tradition, is advertising up to five research fellowships for scholars active in global history. The university is committed to the highest international standards of excellence in research and teaching. Fellows will be based at the interdisciplinary Munich Centre for Global History.

During their stay, they will work on a research project in global history or its neighbouring fields. Fellows have no teaching obligation. They are expected to work on their research projects and actively engage with the scholarly community at the university and particularly at the centre. The fellowships are open to postdoctoral researchers from all disciplines. Scholars who are already advanced in their academic careers and have a strong international track record are explicitly encouraged to apply. Depending on the situation of the applicant and the character of the project, the duration of the fellowship will be between one and three months.

Fellowships for the summer term 2020 should be taken up between mid-April and the end of July 2020. The fellowship entails economy travel to and from Munich, a monthly living allowance, free housing in a furnished studio apartment in Munich as well as office space at the Munich Centre for Global History. Health insurance or other social benefits are not part of the fellowship and the responsibility of the fellow. Applications will include a letter of motivation, a short outline of the research to be done during the fellowship (1-2 pages) and a CV. Please also include information as to the preferred time and duration of the fellowship.

All application material should be send electronically as one PDF-file to Dr Susanne Hohler (susanne.hohler@lmu.de) until 31 May 2019. Enquiries should also be directed to Dr Hohler or to the centre’s founding director Professor Roland Wenzlhuemer (roland.wenzlhuemer@lmu.de). More information on the Munich Centre for Global History can be found at www.globalhist.geschichte.uni-muenchen.de.

“Ware Mensch – Der transatlantische Sklavenhandel”

Radio Feature von Michael Zametzer

Vom 16. bis ins 19. Jahrhundert verschleppten Europäer rund 12 Millionen Afrikaner über den Atlantik in die Kolonien nach Amerika, wo sie als Sklaven auf den europäischen Plantagen und Minen Zwangsarbeit leisten mussten. Über diesen jahrhundertelangen Handel mit der “Ware Mensch” zwischen Europa, Afrika und Amerika hat BR-Journalist Michael Zametzer einen sehr hörenswerter Radiobeitrag auf Bayern 2 Radiowissen gemacht.

Slave Trade Memorial in Stone Town, Sansibar, Foto: Fabian Klose

Für alle Interessierten, hier geht es zum Podcast:

https://www.br.de/mediathek/podcast/radiowissen/ware-mensch-der-transatlantische-sklavenhandel/1504049

New Book “Wo liegt die ‘humanitäre Schweiz’?”

Miriam Baumeister/Thomas Brückner/Patrick Sonnack (eds.), Wo liegt die “humanitäre Schweiz?”. Eine Spurensuche in 10 Episoden, Campus Verlag, Frankfurt/New York 2018

Switzerland prides itself on its “humanitarian tradition”. But this master narrative is often tied to well-known testimonies: they tell of the aid provided in the world wars and the generous attitude of Swiss donors, they refer to the long-standing activities of Swiss humanitarian institutions. This book seeks new critical perspectives on Swiss humanitarian action in transnational contexts. Divided into five epochs from the 19th century to the present day, it traces the genesis of Switzerland’s humanitarian aid. The volume includes contributions by Christian Rohr, Michael Höppner, Irène Herrmann, Gaby Sutter, Daniel Högger, Thomas Brückner, Lillian Brise, Daniel Speich Chassé, Muriel Weyermann, Damir Skenderovic, Robert Dempfer, and Jakob Tanner.

For more information visit: https://www.campus.de/buecher-campus-verlag/wissenschaft/geschichte/wo_liegt_die_humanitaere_schweiz-15124.html


CfP: Humanitarianism and the ‘Greater War’, 1912-1923

University College Dublin, 6-7 September 2019

This 2-day conference provides an opportunity to debate the ideas, developments and legacy of humanitarianism in the era of the Great War, 1912-1923. The conference sits at the intersection of two burgeoning fields of historical inquiry, the history of humanitarianism and the history of the Great War. Recent years have seen an outpouring of innovative research on humanitarian individuals and organizations, fields of action, and the construction and use of ‘humanitarian narratives.’ A rapidly growing number of scholars, too, have highlighted the unique role the First World War played in fostering a ‘humanitarian awakening’ (Irwin), shaping humanitarian norms, discourses and practices. At the same time, recent scholarship on the First World War has led us to understand that conflict as a geographically and temporally much ‘Greater War’, whose critical events extended far beyond the fighting on the Western front, and 1914-18.

The conference aims to bring together scholars working on a wide variety of topics and employing different methodological approaches to showcase and debate current research trends. It will discuss absences and contradictions in existing scholarship, and identify areas of particular interest for future research. Last not least, the conference seeks to encourage a dialogue between the all too often isolated historiographies on humanitarianism and the ‘Greater War’: for example, how does the study of that period’s unprecedented suffering complicate the war’s accepted chronologies and geographies? And how might new notions of the global nature of the First World War inform our approach to the history of humanitarianism? In all, the conference hopes to interrogate the significance of the era of the Great War for the emergence of modern humanitarianism, while also underlining the importance of humanitarian engagement to understanding the war and its aftermath. It is envisaged that a selection of conference papers will be published in an edited volume.

Topics for presentations might include but are not limited to:

  • the role of individuals and organizations in humanitarian work in the era of the Great War
  • the global dimension of suffering and efforts to ameliorate it
  • the emergence of humanitarian norms, organizational forms, and practices at the time, and (where applicable) their long-term impact
  • the place of humanitarian concerns in (home front) mobilizations and demobilizations
  • the actions and agency of relief beneficiaries
  • ruptures and continuities between the war and the post-war period
  • the relationship between humanitarianism and international politics

Scholars interested in presenting a paper at the conference are invited to send a brief abstract of 300 words and a one-page CV by 15 February 2019 to humanitarianwarconference@gmail.com

The conference will be able to provide hotel accommodation to presenters.

Scientific Committee:

Peter Gatrell, University of Manchester

Robert Gerwarth, University College Dublin

Rebecca Gill, University of Huddersfield

Heather Jones, University College London

Davide Rodogno, The Graduate Institute, Geneva

Organizing Committee: 

Elisabeth Piller, University College Dublin

New Volume: “Humanitarianism & Media. 1900 to the Present” edited by Johannes Paulmann

Cross-posted from https://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/PaulmannHumanitarianism

From Christian missionary publications to the media strategies employed by today’s NGOs, this new interdisciplinary volume edited by Johannes Paulmann explores the entangled histories of humanitarianism and media. The book traces the emergence of humanitarian imagery in the West and investigates how the meanings of suffering and aid have been constructed in a period of evolving mass communication, demonstrating the extent to which many seemingly new phenomena in fact have long historical legacies. Ultimately, the critical histories collected here help to challenge existing asymmetries and help those who advocate a new cosmopolitan consciousness recognizing the dignity and rights of others.

Contents

Introduction: Humanitarianism and Media: Introduction to an Entangled History
Johannes Paulmann

PART I: HUMANITARIAN IMAGERY

Chapter 1. Promoting Distant Children in Need: Christian Imagery in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries
Katharina Stornig

Chapter 2. “Make the situation real to us without stressing the horrors”: Children, Photography and Humanitarianism in the Spanish Civil War
Rose Holmes

Chapter 3. Humanitarianism on the Screen: The ICRC Films, 1921–1965
Daniel Palmieri

Chapter 4. “People who once were human beings like you and me”: Why Allied Atrocity Films of Liberated Nazi Concentration Camps in 1944–46 Maximized the Horror and Universalized the Victims
Ulrike Weckel

Chapter 5. The Polemics of Pity: British Photographs of Berlin, 1945–1947
Paul Betts

Chapter 6. The Human Gaze: Photography after 1945
Tobias Weidner

PART II: HUMANITARIAN MEDIA REGIMES

Chapter 7. On Fishing in Other Peoples Ponds: The Freedom from Hunger Campaign, International Fundraising, and the Ethics of NGO Publicity
Heike Wieters

Chapter 8. Advocacy Strategies of Western Humanitarian NGOs from the 1960s to the 1990s
Valérie Gorin

Chapter 9. Humanitarianism and Revolution: Samed, the Palestine Red Crescent Society, and the Work of Liberation
Ilana Feldman

Chapter 10. Mediatisation of Disasters and Humanitarian Aid in the Federal Republic of Germany
Patrick Merziger

Chapter 11. NGOs, Celebrity Humanitarianism, and the Media: Negotiating Conflicting Perceptions of Aid and Development during the “Ethiopian Famine”
Matthias Kuhnert

Chapter 12. The Audience of Distant Suffering and the Question of (In)Action
Maria Kyriakidou

Reviews:


“This volume consists of timely, useful, original contributions by historians, media scholars and anthropologists that will be essential reading for students”. • Davide Rodogno, Graduate Institute of Geneva


“Based on substantial archival research and informed by relevant theoretical debates, this thought-provoking volume engages the reader in an interdisciplinary exploration of the central role the media have played for humanitarian initiatives, contributing significantly to recent scholarship on the subject”. • Nina Berman, Arizona State University

“The Emergence of Humanitarian Intervention” republished as paperback

Fabian Klose (ed.), The Emergence of Humanitarian Intervention. Ideas and Practice from the Nineteenth Century to the Present, Cambridge 2018.

How should the international community react when a government transgresses humanitarian norms and violates the human rights of its own nationals? And where does the responsibility lie to protect people from such acts of violation? In this new volume scholars from various disciplines investigate some of the most complex and controversial debates regarding the legitimacy of protecting humanitarian norms and universal human rights by non-violent and violent means. Charting the development of humanitarian intervention from its origins in the nineteenth century through to the present day, the book surveys the philosophical and legal rationales of enforcing humanitarian norms by military means, and how attitudes to military intervention on humanitarian grounds have changed over the course of three centuries. Drawing from a wide range of disciplines, the authors lend a fresh perspective to contemporary dilemmas using case studies from Europe, the United States, Africa and Asia.

Table of Contents

1. The emergence of humanitarian intervention: three centuries of ‘enforcing humanity’ Fabian Klose


Part I. Theoretical Approach and Legal Discourse on the Concept of Humanitarian Intervention:
2. Humanitarianism and human rights: a troubled rapport Michael Geyer
3. Humanitarian intervention and the issue of state sovereignty in the discourse of legal experts between the 1830s and the First World War Daniel Marc Segesser
4. The legal justification of international intervention: theories of community and admissibility Stefan Kroll


Part II. Fighting the Slave Trade and Protecting Religious Minorities: Major Impulses for Humanitarian Intervention in the Nineteenth Century:
5. Enforcing abolition: the entanglement of civil society action, humanitarian norm-setting, and military intervention Fabian Klose
6. Lord Vivian’s tears: the moral hazards of humanitarian intervention Mairi S. Macdonald
7. From protection to humanitarian intervention? Enforcing Jewish rights in Romania and Morocco around 1880 Abigail Green


Part III. Transferring a Concept to the Twentieth Century:
8. Prudence or outrage? Public opinion and humanitarian intervention in historical and comparative perspective Jon Western
9. Non-state actors’ humanitarian operations in the aftermath of the First World War: the case of the Near East relief Davide Rodogno
10. Humanitarian intervention as legitimation of violence – the German case 1937–9 Jost Dülffer


Part IV. Limited Options or Further Development? Humanitarian Intervention during the Cold War:
11. Cold War peacekeeping versus humanitarian intervention: beyond the Hammarskjoldian model Norrie Macqueen
12. From the protection of sovereignty to humanitarian intervention? Traditions and developments of United Nations peacekeeping in the twentieth century Jan Erik Schulte


Part V. A New Century of Humanitarian Intervention?:
13. A not so humanitarian intervention Bradley Simpson
14. The responsibility to protect: foundation, transformation, and application of an emerging norm Manuel Fröhlich
15. Humanitarian interventions, past and present Andrew Thompson