Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-fbnjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T11:05:37.120Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The humanitarian protectorate of South Sudan? Understanding insecurity for humanitarians in a political economy of aid*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 August 2017

Bram J. Jansen
Bram J. Jansen*
Affiliation:
Sociology of Development and Change, Wageningen University, P.O. Box 8130, Wageningen, the Netherlands
*
Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper aims to contribute to debates about humanitarian governance and insecurity in post-conflict situations. It takes the case of South Sudan to explore the relations between humanitarian agencies, the international community, and local authorities, and the ways international and local forms of power become interrelated and contested, and to what effect. The paper is based on eight months of ethnographic research in various locations in South Sudan between 2011 and 2013, in which experiences with and approaches to insecurity among humanitarian aid actors were studied. The research found that many security threats can be understood in relation to the everyday practices of negotiating and maintaining humanitarian access. Perceiving this insecurity as violation or abuse of a moral and practical humanitarianism neglects how humanitarian aid in practice was embedded in broader state building processes. This paper posits instead that much insecurity for humanitarian actors is a symptom of the blurring of international and local forms of power, and this mediates the development of a humanitarian protectorate.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 55 , Issue 3 , September 2017 , pp. 349 - 370
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

Thanks go to Prof. Dr. Dorothea Hilhorst and Prof. Dr. Bram Büscher, and two anonymous reviewers at the Journal of Modern African Studies for their insightful comments on this text. The fieldwork was supported by the Dutch Organisation for Social Scientific Research (NWO-Wotro).

References

REFERENCES

Agier, M. 2011. Managing the undesirables: refugee camps and humanitarian government. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Agier, M. & Bouchet-Saulnier, F.. 2004. ‘Humanitarian spaces: spaces of exception’, in Weissman, F., ed. In the Shadows of ‘Just Wars’: violence, politics and humanitarian action. New York, NY: Cornell University Press, 297–313.Google Scholar
Allie, M.P. 2011. ‘Acting at any price?’, in Magone, C., Neuman, M. & Weissman, F., eds. Humanitarian Negotiations Revealed: the MSF experience. London: C. Hirst & Co Publishers, 1–13.Google Scholar
Anderson, L.R. 2012. ‘State building as tacit trusteeship: the case of Liberia’, in Bliesemann de Guevara, B., ed. State Building and State-formation: the political sociology of intervention. New York, NY: Routledge, 132–48.Google Scholar
Apthorpe, R. 2011. ‘With Alice in Aidland: a seriously satirical allegory’, in Mosse, D., ed. Adventures in Aidland: the anthropology of professionals in international development. New York, NY: Berghahn Books, 199–219.Google Scholar
Autesserre, S. 2014. Peaceland: conflict resolution and the everyday politics of international intervention. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bakewell, O. 2008. ‘Research beyond the categories: the importance of policy irrelevant research into forced migration’, Journal of Refugee Studies 21, 4: 432–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barnett, M. 2008. ‘Humanitarianism as a scholarly vocation’, in Barnett, M. & Weiss, T.G., eds. Humanitarianism in question: politics, power, ethics. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 235–63.Google Scholar
Barnett, M. 2011. Empire of humanity: a history of humanitarianism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Barnett, M. & Weiss, T.G. (eds). 2008. ‘Humanitarianism: a brief history of the present’, in Humanitarianism in question: politics, power, ethics. London: Cornell University Press, 1–48.Google Scholar
Bennett, N. 2013. ‘Humanitarian access in South Sudan’, Humanitarian Exchange. Special Feature: South Sudan at a crossroads. London: Humanitarian Practice Network/ODI, 5–7.Google Scholar
Bliesemann de Guevara, B. (ed.) 2012a. ‘Introduction: state building and state-formation’, in State building and state-formation: the political sociology of intervention. New York, NY: Routledge, 1–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bliesemann de Guevara, B. (ed.) 2012b. Statebuilding and state-formation: the political sociology of intervention. New York, NY: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Büscher, K. & Vlassenroot, K.. 2010. ‘Humanitarian presence and urban development: new opportunities and contrasts in Goma, DRC’, Disasters 34, S2: S256–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Collinson, S. & Duffield, M.. 2013. Paradoxes of presence: risk management and aid culture in challenging environments. London: Overseas Development Institute.Google Scholar
De Waal, A. 1997. Famine crimes: politics and the disaster relief industry in Africa. Oxford: James Currey.Google Scholar
De Waal, A. 2000. ‘Wars in Africa’, in Kaldor, M., ed. Global insecurity. London: Pintor, 24–52.Google Scholar
De Waal, A. 2014. ‘When kleptocracy becomes insolvent: brute causes of the civil war in South Sudan’, African Affairs 113: 347–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Donini, A. 2012. The Golden Fleece: manipulation and independence in humanitarian action. Sterling: Kumarian Press.Google Scholar
Donini, A. & Walker, P.. 2012. ‘So what?’, in Donini, A., ed. The Golden Fleece: manipulation and independence in humanitarian action. Sterling: Kumerian Press, 243–63.Google Scholar
Duffield, M. 2002. ‘Social reconstruction and the radicalization of development: aid as a relation of global liberal governance’, Development and Change 33, 5: 1049–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Duffield, M. 2007. ‘Development, territories, and people: consolidating the external sovereign frontier’, Alternatives 32: 225–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Duffield, M. 2010. ‘Risk-management and the fortified aid compound: everyday life in post-interventionary society’, Journal of Intervention and State Building 4, 4: 453–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Egeland, J., Harmer, A. & Stoddard, A.. 2011. To Stay and Deliver: good practice for humanitarians in complex security environments. Geneva: OCHA.Google Scholar
Fassin, D. 2012. Humanitarian Reason: a moral history of the present. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Fast, L., Patterson, R. & Amule, A.. 2011. South Sudan Country Report. Key findings from field research on acceptance in South Sudan. Washington, DC: Save the Children.Google Scholar
Goodhand, J. 2002. ‘Aiding violence or building peace? The role of international aid in Afghanistan’, Third World Quarterly 23, 5: 837–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hammond, L. 2008. ‘The power of holding humanitarianism hostage and the myth of protective principles’, in Barnett, M. & Weiss, T.G., eds. Humanitarianism in Question: politics, power, ethics. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 172–95.Google Scholar
Hilhorst, D. & Jansen, B.J.. 2010. ‘Humanitarian space as arena: a perspective on the everyday politics of aid’, Development and Change 41, 6: 1117–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hilhorst, D., Christoplos, I. & Van Der Haar, G.. 2010. ‘Reconstruction ‘from below’: a new magic bullet or shooting from the hip?’, Third World Quarterly 31, 7: 1107–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hutchinson, S.E. 1996. Nuer dilemmas. Coping with money, war, and the state. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Johnson, D.H. 2007. The Root Causes of Sudan's Civil Wars. Oxford: James Currey.Google Scholar
Johnson, D.H. 2014. ‘Briefing: the crisis in South Sudan’, African Affairs 113, 451: 300–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnson, H.F. 2011. Waging peace in Sudan: the inside story of the negotiations that ended Africa's longest civil war. Eastborne: Sussex Academic Press.Google Scholar
Jok, J.M. 2007. Sudan: race, religion, and violence. Oxford: Oneworld Publications.Google Scholar
Keen, D. 2008. The Benefits of Famine: a poltical economy of famine and relief in southwestern Sudan 1983–89. Oxford: James Currey.Google Scholar
Lavergne, M. & Weissman, F.. 2004. ‘Sudan: who benefits from humanitarian aid?’, in Weissman, F., ed. In the shadow of ‘just wars’: violence, politics and humanitarian action. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 137–61.Google Scholar
Lester, A. & Dussart, F.. 2014. Colonization and the origin of humanitarian governance: protecting Aborigines across the nineteenth-century British empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Magone, C., Neuman, M. & Weissman, F.. 2011. Humanitarian negotiations revealed: the MSF experience. London: C. Hirst & Co Publishers.Google Scholar
Marriage, Z. 2006. Not Breaking the Rules, Not Playing the Game: international assistance to countries at war. London: Hurst & Company.Google Scholar
Maskalyk, J. 2009. Six Months in Sudan: a young doctor in a war-torn village. Edinburgh: Canongate.Google Scholar
Middleton, N. & O'Keefe, P.. 2006. ‘Politics, history & problems of humanitarian assistance in Sudan’, Review of African Political Economy 33, 109: 543–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Millard Burr, J. & Collins, R.O.. 1995. Requiem for the Sudan: war, drought & disaster relief on the Nile. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Pandolfi, M. 2010. ‘Humanitarianism and its discontents’, in Bornstein, E. & Redfield, P., eds. Forces of Compassion: humanitarianism between ethics and politics. Santa Fe, NM: SAR Press, 227–48.Google Scholar
Pantuliano, S. 2009. International engagement in fragile states: lessons from Southern Sudan. London: ODI.Google Scholar
Pinaud, C. 2014. ‘South Sudan: civil war, predation and the making of a military aristocracy’, African Affairs 113, 451: 192–211.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Redfield, P. & Bornstein, E.. 2011. ‘An introduction to the anthropology of humanitarianism’, in Bornstein, E. & Redfield, P., eds. Forces of Compassion: humanitarianism between ethics and politics. Santa Fe, NM: SAR Press, 3–30.Google Scholar
Reid-Henry, S.M. 2014. ‘Humanitarianism as liberal diagnostic: humanitarian reason and the political rationalities of the liberal will-to-care’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 39, 3: 418–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rieff, D. 2011. ‘Afterword’, in Magone, C. & Neuman, M., eds. Humanitarian negotiations revealed: the MSF Experience. London: C. Hirst & Co Publishers, 288–96.Google Scholar
Riehl, V. 2001. ‘Who is ruling South Sudan? The role of NGOs in rebuilding socio-political order’, Studies on Emergencies and Disaster Relief 9 . Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikaistitutet.Google Scholar
Salomons, D. 2015. ‘The perils of Dunantism: the need for a rights-based approach to humanitarianism’, in Zwitter, A., Lamont, C.K., Heintze, H.J. & Herman, J., eds. Humanitarian action. Global, regional and domestic legal responses. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 33–53.Google Scholar
Schuller, M. 2012. ‘Haiti's bitter harvest. Humanitarian aid in the “Republic of NGOs”’, in Donini, A., ed. The Golden Fleece: manipulation and independence in humanitarian action. Sterling: Kumarian Press, 171–93.Google Scholar
Smillie, I. 2012. ‘The emperor's old clothes. The self-created siege of humanitarian action’, in Donini, A., ed. The Golden Fleece: manipulation and independence in humanitarian action. Sterling: Kumarian Press, 17–42.Google Scholar
Smirl, L. 2015. Spaces of aid: how cars, compounds and hotels shape humanitarianism. London: Zed Books.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stern, M. & Öjendal, J.. 2010. ‘Mapping the security-development nexus: conflict, complexity, cacaphony, convergence?’, Security Dialogue 41, 5: 5–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stoddard, A., Harmer, A. & Hughes, M.. 2012. Aid Worker Security Report 2012: host states and their impact on security for humanitarian operations. London: Humanitarian Outcomes.Google Scholar
Thomas, E. 2015. South Sudan: a slow liberation. London: Zed Books.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Twijnstra, R. 2015. ‘“Recycling oil money”: procurement politics and (un)productive entrepreneurship in South Sudan’, Journal of Eastern African Studies 9, 4: 685–703.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Veit, A. 2010. Intervention as Indirect Rule: civil war and statebuilding in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Frankfurt: Campus Verlag.Google Scholar

News Media

Sudan Tribune , Paris, ‘Cat fight among the South Sudan experts and the failure of peace making’, by John Young, 11.6.2015. <http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article55298>..>Google Scholar