By Tyler Owens and Dominique Marshall

The postcards and images 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?. On the same occasion, he  laid the foundations for Canadian Overseas Volunteers, which would  become Canadian University Students Overseas (CUSO). This is the story of this trip in his own words. Click the arrows below to take this voyage with him.

As part of the preparations for A ‘Samaritan State’ Revisited Conference in December 2016, CNNH research assistant, Tyler Owens, put together these ESRI Story Map presentations.

The fourth newsletter of the CNNH was sent out this afternoon. For any who missed it, the full text of the newsletter can be read below. This update addresses recent posts, events, and news from the members of the Network.

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by Tyler Owens

On December 12th and 13th 2016, the conference A Samaritan State Revisited: Historical Perspectives on Canadian Foreign Aid, 1950-2016 was held at the Global Affairs Canada Lester B. Pearson Building in Ottawa. The aim of the conference was to explore the development of Canadian foreign aid over the preceding 60 years. (In footnote: 2016 was also the 60th anniversary of the publication of A Samaritan State?, among the first scholarly analyses of Canada’s foreign aid policy, written by Dr. Keith Spicer.) Prior to the official opening of the conference, archivists, historians, and members of the aid sector from Quebec and Ontario gathered for a workshop session. The aim of this session was to bring together colleagues from all branches of aid history; those gathered were experts in the archival, library, and document management sciences related to the production, preservation, and use of archives on humanitarian aid. The workshop therefore facilitated the sharing of tips, procedures, and best practices for researching the history of Canadian aid.

The workshop took the form of seven presentations followed by a brief question period.

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by Sandy Barron

AM Session
Attending: Dominique Marshall, Will Tait, Sundas Khan, Nassisse Solomon, Stephanie Bangarth, Kevin Brushett. Skype: Matthew Burch, Sarah Glassford, Erin Edwards, Kevin O’Sullivan, Laura Madokoro (10:15-11:15). Notes: Sandy Barron.
Introductions/Updates
Dominique Marshall:

1) Renew connection to CASAID?
2) Match International Archives at Carleton – Dr. Marshall will email members about progress of file     organization.
3) 2017 Conference (150 Ideas of Canada) – Kevin Brushett to look into CNHH involvement
4) Journal of Canadian Studies – 2018 themed issue on Canadian aid
Kevin O’Sullivan – make as coherent as possible; have a chapter on ethics written by a philosopher
5) SSHRCC funding – not awarded. Why? – Kevin O’Sullivan: break into different component parts to increase coherence, make more conducive to current concerns
6) Collaborations with NGOs – movement of personnel within NGOs making this difficult
7) Social Media – #aidhistory hashtag working well

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The second Bulletin of the Canadian Network on Humanitarian History was sent out last week.  For any who missed it, the full text of the newsletter may be found below.  This bulletin covers the upcoming Congress and Workshop in Calgary, some recent blogs, and the Network’s research activities and work with NGOs.

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The Canadian Network on Humanitarian History proudly announced the lauch of the Network’s new website with the release of its first newsletter to its membership.  See the complete newsletter with recent posts, announcements and the activities of the Network below.

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Cambridge University Press recently published a new volume on humanitarian aid and intervention of potential interest to the community.  Edited by Dr. Fabian Klose of the Leibniz-Institut fuer Europaeische Geschichte, Mainz, The Emergence of Humanitarian Intervention: Ideas and Practice from the Nineteenth Century to Present presents articles by academics including Michael Geyer, Daniel Marc Segesser, Stefan Kroll, and Mairi S. Macdonald.

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By Carlos Uriel Contreras Flores

Hello,

In this post I will let you know my experience in Toronto at the offices of Plan Canada, a visit I made last week.

Some weeks ago, Professor Dominique Marshall asked me to check some irreplaceable documents that Plan Canada had in their offices in Toronto, and that are part of the historical archives of the organization. These are basically letters and photo albums of some of their most important and lasting donors and sponsors.

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By William Tait

The Second Canadian Workshop on the History of Humanitarian Aid took place on 30 May 2015 at Carleton University in Ottawa.  The event built on a workshop held last year where historians  from across Canada, archivists from Library and Archives Canada and Carleton University Archives, a well as humanitarian practitioners from Partnership Africa Canada, Oxfam, and MATCH International Women’s Fund met to welcome Dr Kevin O’Sullivan from the National University of Ireland.  Kevin was a catalyst for the first workshop in 2014 when he travelled to Canada to conduct research.  In his latest book O’Sullivan has likened Irish and Canadian use of soft power through aid and development¹.  Under the organisation of Dominique Marshall, Professor and Chair of the Department of History at Carleton and former President of the Canadian Historical Association, a website was created after the 2014 meeting to link a growing online collaboration of aid practitioners, archivists, and academics interested in preserving the history of humanitarian action both in Canada and elsewhere.  O’Sullivan returned to Carleton this year to brief the workshop and members of the Canadian Network on Humanitarian History (CNHH) on developments in the field and to continue to expand collaboration with European partners.

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Hello!

Welcome to the new website of the Canadian Network on Humanitarian History: aidhistory.ca. In this website you will find the materialization of the wishes of the members of the network, who expressed their feelings and necessities on what the website should include during the Second Canadian Workshop on the History of Humanitarian Aid, which was held on May 30 2015.

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