New publication on global politics and practices of humanitarianism from below by ECMI researcher Elmira Muratova
We are pleased to announce the publication of Humanitarianism from Below? Universalism and the Politics of Inhumanity, edited by Elmira Muratova and Till Mostowlansky. The volume is now available in Open Access.
Bringing together leading scholars in the field, the book presents case studies from Ukraine, the Turkey–Afghanistan, diasporic West Africa, Thailand, the Kyrgyzstan–Kuwait, and Indigenous Canada. Together, these contributions offer a fresh perspective on the global politics and practices of humanitarianism.
Since the late twentieth century, humanitarianism has largely been associated with wealthy nations and international organisations, often portrayed as grounded in secularised Christian ethics and Euro-American politics of life. Even critical scholarship has tended to reproduce this framing. Yet across the world, diverse humanitarian institutions and practices have flourished beyond this dominant regime of global aid.
Often invisible to Western publics, these forms of “humanitarianism from below” have profoundly reshaped global aid landscapes. From protecting Indigenous communities in Canada, to African diasporic responses to the Ebola pandemic; from Islamic economies of giving and Buddhist concepts of the human, to grassroots crowdfunding initiatives in Ukraine – the volume demonstrates that these actors are not merely local or peripheral. Rather, they actively transform humanitarianism itself, advancing alternative moral economies and political visions.
Drawing on original ethnographic and historical research, Humanitarianism from Below? speaks to scholars and students in humanitarian and development studies, anthropology, and political science. By tracing humanitarianism’s multiple histories and power relations, the book offers a timely and far-reaching reassessment of humanitarian pluralism today.
