Report of the Fifth GHRA (2019)

Academic Conveners: Fabian Klose (University of Cologne), Johannes Paulmann (IEG Mainz), Andrew Thompson (University of Exeter) in cooperation with the International Committee of the Red Cross (Geneva)

Date: 07.07.2019-19.07.2019, Mainz / Geneva

The fifth edition of the Global Humanitarianism Research Academy (GHRA) took place at the Leibniz Institute of European History Mainz and the Archives of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva from July 7 to 19, 2019. It approached cutting-edge research regarding 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. With the Chair in International History and Historical Peace and Conflict Studies at the Department of History of the University of Cologne, a new partner joined the GHRA 2019. As in the last four years the organizers FABIAN KLOSE (University of Cologne), JOHANNES PAULMANN (Leibniz Institute of European History Mainz), and ANDREW THOMPSON (University of Exeter) received again a large number of excellent applications from more than twenty different countries around the world. Eventually the conveners selected eleven fellows (nine PhD candidates, two Postdocs) from Brazil, Cyprus, Egypt, Ireland, Japan, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The multitude of disciplinary approaches from International Law, Political Science, and Medicine proved to be very rewarding just as the participation of guest lecturer CLAUS KREß (University of Cologne), visiting fellow JULIA IRWIN (University of South Florida, Tampa) as well as STACEY HYND (University of Exeter) and MARC-WILLIAM PALEN (University of Exeter) as long-standing members of the academic team.

First Week: After the intense discussion of a previously prepared reading list on Day One, the Second Day was reserved entirely for the presentations und discussion of the participants’ projects. The range of studies on historical forms of humanitarianism and human rights encouraged a productive atmosphere of exchange, critique and pondering among the peers. Concretely, the topics presented encompassed the history of humanitarian aid in authoritarian states and the comparison of projects of Oxfam and Médecins sans Frontières from the 1970s to 1990s (MARIA CULLEN); a longue durée view of displacement and hospitality in an African borderland (Uganda/South Sudan) by conceptualizing languages of aid and lands of refuge (MITCHELL EDWARDS); a glance on new colonial challenges in the Portuguese Colonial War (1961-1976) and the role of international intervention and humanitarian assistance in Angola, Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique (ANA FILIPA GUARDIÃO); the history of psychiatry in refugee camps dealing with uprooting, trauma and confinement in various case studies from the 1940s onwards (BAHER IBRAHIM); an interdisciplinary historical legal investigation of international humanitarian law in the Republic of Cyprus from 1963 until 1971 in light of the 1949 Geneva Conventions (NADIA KORNIOTI); an ‘imperial’ history of the Salvation Army’s overseas settlements and colonies between 1890 and 1939 (ADAM MILLAR); the role of international humanitarian relief and local female aid in counter-insurgency warfare in Kenya 1952-1960 (BETHANY REBISZ); a multifaceted history of refugee politics, foreign aid, and the emergence of American humanitarianism in the early twentieth century (KYLE ROMERO); the legal history of slave trade suppression and the reimagining of peace in 19th century international law with a focus on dynamics between Britain and slave-based Latin-American states (ADRIANE SANCTIS DE BRITO); a history of disaster, recovery, and humanitarianism focussing on the Japanese Red Cross Society between 1877 and 1945 (MICHIKO SUZUKI); the scale of a humanitarian turn in the BBC External Services and the benevolence of British internationalism from 1965 to 1995 (STEPHEN WESTLAKE).

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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

 

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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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.

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.

Reflections on two weeks of humanitarianism, historiography, research, and collaboration… and the creation of lasting friendships

Cross-posted from: http://careforthefuture.exeter.ac.uk/2018/09/reflections-on-two-weeks-of-humanitarianism-historiography-research-and-collaboration-and-the-creation-of-lasting-friendships/

Ryan W. Heyden

As historians have engaged in a widespread and heated discussion about the history of human rights and its relationship to contemporary political and social developments around the world, many have also turned to humanitarianism. With new and protracted conflicts raging in the Middle East and other parts of the world, and with the growing number of natural disasters caused by a rapidly changing climate, humanitarian workers and organizations are busier than ever before. And yet, the scholarly literature on humanitarianism and the labours of humanitarian workers since the 1700s was, until the last decade or so, focussed mainly on humanitarian aid delivered to various sites of conflict after the end of the Cold War. Political scientists were the primary researchers pushing this field of humanitarian studies. Thankfully, historians have joined this scholarly discussion, adding a much-needed historical perspective. Historians at all levels are trying to understand the origins and development of humanitarianism, asking many vital questions:  what has mobilized empathy for those suffering during war; how has humanitarianism been used and abused by the West in its effort to colonize the Global South; how can we understand the often-fraught gender and power dynamics involved in humanitarian campaigns and in the administration of aid; and, what is the relationship between humanitarianism and human rights? Scholars are also historicizing humanitarian institutions – like the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Oxfam, Médecins Sans Frontières, CARE, and older institutions that tried foster “humanitarian sensibilities” like religious groups (missionaries) and the abolitionist movement – and asking how they fit into this budding historical narrative?

This rather brief outline of the field and its vital questions are merely a sampling of the work being done by historians around the world. It is also a snap shot of some of the themes I took away from this year’s iteration of the Global Humanitarianism Research Academy. In July 2018, I had the privilege of travelling to the University of Exeter in the UK and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Public Archive and Library in Geneva, Switzerland with the generous support of Care for the Future, the Leibniz Institute for European History, the German Historical Institute in London, and the ICRC. During my two-week intensive workshop and archival work, I had the pleasure of meeting and exchanging views with established scholars, newly-minted PhDs, and fellow PhD Candidates. I learned a lot during what can only be called a two-week academic adventure! While I could probably write ad nauseum about what I learned, my archival finds, and the people I met, I want to draw attention to a few lessons.

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Report of the GHRA 2018

The fourth Global Humanitarianism Research Academy (GHRA) took place from July 09 to 20, 2018 at the University of Exeter and the Archives of International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva. The GHRA was organized by FABIAN KLOSE (Leibniz Institute of European History Mainz), JOHANNES PAULMANN (Leibniz Institute of European History Mainz), and ANDREW THOMPSON (University of Exeter) in cooperation with the International Committee of the Red Cross and with support by the German Historical Institute London. The Steering Committee received a huge amount of applications for the GHRA 2018 from around the world and selected twelve fellows (nine PhD candidates, three Postdocs). The participants came from Canada, China, France, Germany, Norway, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States and represented a range of disciplinary approaches from History, International Relations, and Political Science. Additionally, the GHRA was joined by GUY THOMAS (ICRC Geneva), IRÈNE HERRMANN (University of Geneva), STACEY HYND (University of Exeter), MARC-WILLIAM PALEN (University of Exeter), and ANDREAS GESTRICH (German Historical Institute London).

First Week:

On Day One, the participants started with discussing crucial texts on the historiography of humanitarianism and human rights. The common reading list included texts regarding the historical emergence of humanitarianism since the eighteenth century and the troubled relationship between humanitarianism, human rights, and international humanitarian law. Furthermore, the participants reflected on twentieth century conjunctures of humanitarian aid and the colonial entanglements of human rights as well as recent scholarship on the genealogies of the politics of humanitarian protection and human rights since the 1970s. In the evening, MARCUS GEISSER (ICRC, United Kingdom) gave a stimulating public guest lecture “The ‘present’ is never present – it is already past. Humanitarian action in an age of reorder” at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum Exeter, in which he reflected on his personal experiences as an ICRC delegate for twenty years in various conflicts around the world.

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IEG Fellowships for Postdocs

Application deadline: October 15, 2018
For fellowships beginning in April 2019 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.

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.

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) or visit our website:
http://www.ieg-mainz.de/en/fellowships

Fourth GHRA, 09-20 July 2018

In about a month the fourth Global Humanitarianism Research Academy (GHRA) will meet for one week of academic training at the University of Exeter before continuing with archival research at the ICRC Archives in Geneva. 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.


The GHRA received a huge amount of applications from an extremely talented group of scholars from more than twenty-one different countries around the world. The selection committee considered each proposal carefully and has selected these participants for the GHRA 2018:

Monique Beerli, University of California

Monique J. Beerli is a research associate at the Centre de recherches internationals and a visiting researcher at UC Berkeley. Her current project, Governing the Global Governors, received support from the Swiss National Science Foundation. In 2017, she received a double degree in political science from Sciences Po Paris and the University of Geneva. Her thesis, Saving the Saviors: An International Political Sociology of the Professionalization of Humanitarian Security, examined the genesis of security specialists within the humanitarian field and the effects of this professional transformation. Her work has been published in Global Governance, International Political Sociology, and International Peacekeeping.

Jennifer Carr, University of Glasgow

Jennifer Carr is a second-year doctoral researcher, writing a medical history of refugee camps at the University of Glasgow, where she is also postgraduate co-convenor for the Glasgow Refugee, Asylum and Migration Network (GRAMnet). Her PhD, funded by a Wellcome Trust medical humanities doctoral scholarship, focuses on medical humanitarian action at times of emergency and the shift from crisis to development, with case studies of Sahrawi refugee camps in Algeria and Palestinian camps in Jordan. She has recently completed a residency at the Brocher Foundation in Geneva, and am an associate of emergency assistance charity, UK-Med.

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Crisis in the Middle East: Humanitarianism, Religion and Diplomacy, c. 1860-1970

Conference at the Leibniz-Institute of European History, 7 – 9 February 2018

The third conference organised by the Network »Engaging Europe in the Arab World: Missionaries and Humanitarianism in the Middle East 1850s to 1970s« focuses on crises in the Middle East and the relation between humanitarianism, religion, and diplomacy. Participating scholars discuss the period from the Ottoman Empire to the Second World War and its aftermath. The panels analyse humanitarianism and missions in the context of imperial troubles, intervention, the European mandate system and nation-building. A round table with Eva Svoboda , Senior Research Fellow at the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), and Jonathan Benthall, Director Emeritus of the Royal Anthropological Institute and Research Fellow at UCL, will conclude the proceedings discussing scholarship and humanitarian practice.

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Why Historians can be valuable Members of the Humanitarian Family

Cédric Cotter,
Law and Policy researcher, ICRC

When I was a young student in history and philosophy at the University of Geneva, I had never thought that one day I may work for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Yet it happened. While I was preparing my Master thesis, the protection division at the ICRC was looking for a young historian to carry out a research in their archives. I got hired for a one-year traineeship contract, which was extended by two shorter terms within the relations with arms carriers unit and at the archives division. This experience was a turning point in my career. As a consequence, I decided to write my PhD dissertation on the history of the ICRC, which was part of a research project dedicated to Switzerland during the First World War. I analyzed the interactions between humanitarian action and neutrality at that time.

In July 2015, during my research, I got the chance to participate in the very first Global Humanitarian Research Academy. This academy played a very positive role for me, as it was an occasion to meet other researchers working on the history of humanitarian action. Our various talks and debates made me think about other practices and ways of studying the past of humanitarian organizations. We shared different perspectives, some close and some more distant from mine; however all of them very interesting and challenging. It also gave me the opportunity to question my hypotheses and research results to more advanced scholars. They gave good advices that I then used during the writing process of my dissertation. Meeting others PhD students was useful in terms of networking of course. Beyond that, the excellent atmosphere created during the academy allowed us to maintain amical contacts as well. Still today, I regularly exchange with my fellows. At the end, this experience was really rewarding.

First GHRA 2015

Now, I am Law and Policy researcher for the Law and Policy Forum (obviously…) at the ICRC. One might wonder why a researcher with a background in history carries out research on issues related to International humanitarian law (IHL). My training as a historian helps me a lot in my work for several reasons.

I first use concrete skills developed during my dissertation and at the Global Humanitarianism Research Academy. On a daily basis, I need to find references on specific topics and read plenty of publications. Mountains of data are stored at the ICRC archives and my role is to exploit them by finding facts, evidences, eloquent examples, by synthetizing them and by enhancing our more than 150 years of experience, successes and failures. Being a PhD student is not only an intellectual adventure; it is also a full professional experience. While researching and writing my dissertation, I gained many soft skills too: project management, responsibility, flexibility, creativity, persistence, communication, teamwork ability, etc. Historians sometimes tend to forget that we have these skills sought in the private sector.

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Reminder: Call for Application GHRA 2018 open until December 31, 2017

Drs Fabian Klose, Johannes Paulmann, and Andrew Thompson are pleased to announce that the Call for Applications for the fourth Global Humanitarianism Research Academy (GHRA) 2018 is now open, with a deadline of 31 December 2017.

Academy Leaders:
Fabian Klose (Leibniz Institute of European History Mainz)
Johannes Paulmann (Leibniz Institute of European History Mainz)
Andrew Thompson (University of Exeter) in co-operation with the International Committee of the Red Cross (Geneva)
and with support by the German Historical Institute London
Venues: University of Exeter & Archives of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Geneva
Dates: 9-20 July 2018
Deadline: 31 December 2017
Information at: http://ghra.ieg-mainz.de/, http://hhr.hypotheses.org/ and http://imperialglobalexeter.com/

The international GLOBAL HUMANITARIANISM | RESEARCH ACADEMY (GHRA) offers research training to PhD candidates and early postdocs. It combines academic sessions at the Imperial and Global History Centre at the University of Exeter and the Leibniz Institute of European History in Mainz with archival sessions at the Archives of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva. The Research Academy is for 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.

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Call for Applications: Global Humanitarianism Research Academy 2018

Drs Fabian Klose, Johannes Paulmann, and Andrew Thompson are pleased to announce that the Call for Applications for the fourth Global Humanitarianism Research Academy (GHRA) 2018 is now open, with a deadline of 31 December 2017.

Academy Leaders:

Fabian Klose (Leibniz Institute of European History Mainz)
Johannes Paulmann (Leibniz Institute of European History Mainz)
Andrew Thompson (University of Exeter) in co-operation with the International Committee of the Red Cross (Geneva)
and with support by the German Historical Institute London

Venues: University of Exeter & Archives of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Geneva
Dates: 9-20 July 2018
Deadline: 31 December 2017

Information at: http://ghra.ieg-mainz.de/, http://hhr.hypotheses.org/ and http://imperialglobalexeter.com/

The international GLOBAL HUMANITARIANISM | RESEARCH ACADEMY (GHRA) offers research training to PhD candidates and early postdocs. It combines academic sessions at the Imperial and Global History Centre at the University of Exeter and the Leibniz Institute of European History in Mainz with archival sessions at the Archives of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva. The Research Academy is for 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.

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Report Global Humanitarianism Research Academy (GHRA) 2017

The 3nd Global Humanitarianism Research Academy at the Leibniz Institute of European History in Mainz, and the Archives of International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva

GHRA 2017 at the Leibniz Institute of European History Mainz

The GHRA 2017 took place from July 10 to 21, 2017 at the Leibniz Institute of European History in Mainz and the Archives of International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva. It was organized by FABIAN KLOSE (Leibniz Institute of European History Mainz), JOHANNES PAULMANN (Leibniz Institute of European History Mainz), and ANDREW THOMPSON (University of Exeter) in cooperation with the International Committee of the Red Cross and with support by the German Historical Institute London.

The GHRA 2017 had thirteen fellows (nine PhD candidates, four Postdocs) selected in a highly competitive application process. They came from Armenia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Cuba, Germany, Ireland, Morocco, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the USA.  They represented a range of disciplinary approaches from International History, Politics, International Relations, and International Law. The Research Academy was joined by ESTHER MÖLLER (Leibniz Institute of European History) as well as JEAN-LUC BLONDEL (formerly of the ICRC) and MARC-WILLIAM PALEN (University of Exeter).

First Week: On Day One, recent research and fundamental concepts of global humanitarianism and human rights were critically reviewed. Participants discussed crucial texts on the historiography of humanitarianism and human rights. Themes included the historical emergence of humanitarianism since the eighteenth century and the troubled relationship between humanitarianism, human rights, and humanitarian intervention. Further, twentieth century conjunctures of humanitarian aid and the colonial entanglements of human rights were discussed. Finally, recent scholarship on the genealogies of the politics of humanitarian protection and human rights since the 1970s was assessed, also with a view on the challenges for the 21st century.

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CROSS-files: New Blog of ICRC Archives

The Archives of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva has created the new blog CROSS-files! This blog aims at promoting the contents of the rich audiovisual archives, library collections, general archives and what the ICRC calls the “Agency Archives”. This great collection of books, sound recordings, films, videos and photos illustrate and document the activities of the ICRC from the end of the 19th century up to the present day. These archives and library have been continually expanded over more than 150 years and today represent a significant heritage in the field of humanitarian law and action. It is a fantastic resource for all researchers working in the entangled fields of the history of humanitarianism and peace and conflict studies!

Furthermore, there is also the new ICRC Archives facebook account, where you can find additional material regarding the archives.

Enjoy exploring the rich history of the International Committee of the Red Cross and its archives!