Month: April 2017

Keith Spicer: Illustrated Maps of Humanitarian Travels in Asia, 1960

By Tyler Owens* and Dominique Marshall

 

The postcards and personal photographs from Dr. Keith Spicer’s 1960 trip through Europe, Africa, and Asia, were produced during the research he conducted on the trip for a doctoral thesis, better known today as A Samaritan State? External aid in Canada’s foreign policy (1966). On the same occasion, he  laid the foundations for Canadian Overseas Volunteers, which would  become Canadian University Students Overseas (CUSO). These two maps tell the story of this trip, in his own words. Click the arrows below to take this voyage with him.


* Tyler Owens, research assistant for the CNHH paid by I-CUREUS project put together these ESRI Story Map presentations as part of the preparations for A ‘Samaritan State’ Revisited Conference in December 2016 .  We thank the MacOdrum Library Map specialist Rebecca Bartlett for ther technical advice.

Sharing Perspectives on Climate Migration: From Narratives, to Language, to Conceptualization

by Jay Ramasubramanyam

“Rains have become so fickle, the days measurably hotter, the droughts more frequent and more fierce, making it impossible to grow enough food on their land” read an article in the New York Times that appeared in late February which elucidated the grounds for mass-migratory patterns across Sub-Saharan Africa (Heat, Hunger and War Force Africans Onto a ‘Road on Fire’). In light of such patterns increasing more than ever in the global south, the role of Carleton University’s Climate Commons, a working group that brings together faculty members and undergraduate and graduate students to discuss climate change issues, becomes all the more prominent within the context of such narratives. An evening of discussion and dialogue on climate change migration on the 1st of March brought together professors, a slam poet and a graduate student to discuss ‘climate refugees’.

Continue reading

Catherine LeGrand’s Workshop on Catholic Missions and Humanitarianism


Dr. Catherine LeGrand, second from left, speaking on “Canadian Church Groups in Latin America and Civil Society Organizations” during the workshop, “Canada’s Past and Future in the Americas,” 27-28 March 2017. Photo by Julia Van Drie.

On 28 March 2017, McGill University’s historian of Latin America, Dr. Catherine LeGrand, met with students and faculty of Carleton University to discuss Catholic Missions, Liberation Theology, and Humanitarianism in participation with the Canadian Network on Humanitarian History.  The audio of this workshop may be found here.  Details of this event can be found on the CNHH website.

Oxfam Canada and Relief to East Timor, 1975-76

by David Webster

When does the humanitarian impulse to provide aid and relief contribute to activism to promote human rights? When does it prompt avoidance of activism in favour of quietly enduring access to places and people in need?

This is one of the questions I am trying to answer in current research on relations between Canada and East Timor. Under Indonesian military occupation from 1975 to 1999, Canadian aid agencies tended to shy away from criticizing Indonesian actions in order to make sure they could deliver aid supplies. Humanitarian impulses dictated a quiet stance on human rights from a range of Canadian NGOs.  But there was an early exception, in the work of Oxfam Canada.

Continue reading

Latest issue of Refuge: Canada’s Journal on Refugees Available Now.

The current issue of Refuge: Canada’s Journal on Refugees has now been published.  This special issue on Power and Influence in the Global Refugee Regime is one of the results of the workshop hosted at Carleton University in September 2015 with the generous support of Migration and Diaspora Studies.  It is an OpenAccess journal, so you can access and share the special issue through the journal’s Table of Contents or through the provided link.