In parallel to the expansion of the global humanitarian system, there has been a general rise of humanitarianism as field of study. Anthropology is arguably the most established discipline with a focus on humanitarianism, though the discipline has predominantly concerned itself with how people - recipients, practitioners, decision makers and donors - interact with the discourses, narratives, structures, institutions and rules of humanitarianism. A major challenge is the discipline's strong focus on participant observation, which needs to be multi-sited to enable the study of a global phenomenon. The use of ethnographic methodologies creates challenges as well as possibilities, but what are they and how do they impact on the findings of the research?
Dear Ashild,
I think ethnography & P.obs can give really good insight into humanitarianism as a field, particularly as what tends to happen in the globalised humanitarian system is very local manifestations of global discourses and knowledge regimes in particular contexts. Participant observation is great for seeing how those local spaces really unfold, which is often very different to globalised policies or expectations. I've written a chapter on how to follow human rights discourses across multiple sites in my book Right After Wrongs: Human Rights and Local Knowledge in Zimbabwe ( Stanford University Press, 2016); plus George Marcus on multi-sited ethnography could be useful to you in figuring out the nuts and bolts of doing multi-sited participant observation. If you're interested in the legal elements of humanitarianism Mark Goodale and June Starr's Doing Ethnography in Law could also be very helpful.
Hope that helps,
Shannon
Thank you for your enlightening response, Shannon Morreira. I have shared your answer with a couple of colleagues, who I'm sure will be interested and find your answer useful as well!
Hi Åshild,
You have raised some important and interesting issues! Yes, there are many challenges as well as possibilities associated with the use of ethnographic research methods to study humanitarianism. One of the challenging issues would be the state or global political power, which is often beyond an ethnographer's ability to observe, record and to analyze. Think about recent Rohingya refugee crisis in Myanmar and in Bangladesh. An ethnographer can observe, record and analyze all the visible violence and suffering of the minority groups of people. However, it can be very difficult for an ordinary ethnographer to get access to many other domains of research where actual power is being exercised, policies are made and implemented to annihilate humanity! Personal safety and security, political threat or many other local, regional or global issues can affect an ethnographer to conduct a comprehensive research on such an issue. Interdisciplinary and collaborative research approaches as well as supports from government and NGOs / research agencies may require facilitating multi-sited ethnographic research on such issues!
Thank you for sharing your insights, H M Ashraf Ali . Much appreciated.
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