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Catherine LeGrand’s Workshop on Catholic Missions and Humanitarianism

April 15, 2017 / Jill Campbell-Miller

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

April 13, 2017 / Sean Eedy

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.

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

April 4, 2017 / Sean Eedy

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.

When Historians Meet Aid Workers and Policy Makers.

March 30, 2017 / Sean Eedy

by Julie Van Drie

Reflections on the Conference, “A Samaritan State Revisited: Historical Perspectives on Canadian Foreign Aid, 1950-2016.”

On December 12th and 13th 2016, the colloquium, A Samaritan State Revisited: Historical Perspectives on Canadian Foreign Aid, 1950-2016 was held at the Lester B. Pearson Building, the main office of Global Affairs Canada, in Ottawa, ON. The conference involved an array of academics and professionals on the history of Canada’s foreign aid policies since 1950, on the 50th anniversary of the publication of Dr. Keith Spicer’s A Samaritan State?[1] The conference featured 17 speakers, all of whom gave a presentation on a specific aspect of Canada’s humanitarian aid policy. With approximately 150 attendees, undergraduate and graduate students, research assistants, professors, academics, bureaucrats, ambassadors, and other distinguished guests gathered together in the impressive Robertson Room at Global Affairs Canada to engage with this important field of study, and explore questions about Canada’s past role in foreign aid and development.

Latin American Working Group (LAWG) library opens at CERLAC’s Resource Centre

March 27, 2017 / Dominique Marshall

On Thursday February 16, CNHH member John Foster was at York for the launch of the LAWG collection. He wrote: “The event was quite wonderful. I attach the ribbon cutting moment, with Prof. Liisa North of York and Caese Levo, former LAWG librarian, both of whom have been instrumental in organizing the collection. We are so lucky that CERLAC negotiated space and is hosting.”

IMG_0061 16 Feb. 2017 archives inauguration

Photo: John Foster

John presented the archives at Carleton University today at the Workshop on Canada’s Past and Future in the Americas in the session on “Historical Perspectives on Canada’s Relations with Latin America”, in a paper entitled” “Life Beyond Death: The Story of the Latin American Working Group (LAWG)”

Photo: Julia VanDrie

Here is the official announcement of the archives opening:

Latin American Working Group (LAWG) library opens at CERLAC’s Resource Centre

Latin American Working Group (LAWG) library opens at CERLAC’s Resource Centre:

We are pleased to announce the opening of the LAWG (Latin American Working Group) Library, part of CERLAC’s Resource Centre, thanks to the efforts of Liisa North and Caese Levo. As Liisa explains, LAWG “played a leading role in sustaining Canadian solidarity with human rights and women’s organizations, peasant and worker unions, ecumenical groups, refugee agencies, and others in the southern hemisphere during some of its darkest hours of war, military dictatorship, and US intervention, as well as the bright moments of popular and revolutionary breakthroughs.”

The LAWG library is a unique collection of ephemeral publications, pamphlets, posters, letters to the public, reports, and other publications dating from 1965 to 1990. It consists of thousands of documents organized and labeled in 120 “banker’s boxes.” The collection is particularly strong on (from north to south) the Dominican Republic, Grenada, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Brazil, Argentina, and Chile. Simon Granovsky-Larsen, Assistant Professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of Regina, who examined the Guatemala collection, found that it contained “rare and important material on the relatively obscure Guatemalan organization that I happen to be interested in” and that the collection as a whole “would attract visiting researchers from across Canada and beyond, as well as graduate students from a number of disciplines” if it were publicized more.

More information on the LAWG Library, as well as other collections at the CERLAC Resource Centre is available on our website (under “Resources”). The collection can be consulted by contacting CERLAC Coordinator Camila Bonifaz (bonifaz@yorku.ca).

To read John’s blog on the recognition of the LAWG by the Chilean government in the fall of 2016, click HERE.

Humanitarianism and its History: Insights from Down Under, 1/3

March 13, 2017 / Sean Eedy

by Sarah Glassford

This series is being reposted in HistPhil

RC Conference Program 2016.

During the weekend of 9-11 September 2016, roughly 50 scholars, archivists, museum curators, and aid practitioners gathered at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia to discuss the oldest and arguably most complex of the world’s major humanitarian organizations. “Histories of the Red Cross Movement: Continuity & Change” brought together representatives of more than a dozen countries in Europe, Asia, North America, and Australasia in lively discussions of Red Cross history, Red Cross archives, and the nature of humanitarianism itself. This is the first in a series of blog posts reporting and reflecting on the issues raised at the conference.

“Histories of the Red Cross Movement: Continuity & Change” drew together three thought-provoking keynote speakers from different parts of the globe: American political scientist Michael Barnett (University Professor of International Affairs and Political Science at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs, Washington, DC), European historian Davide Rodogno (Professor and Head of the International History Department at the Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva), and New Zealander historian Margaret Tennant (Professor Emeritus and Honorary Research Fellow at Massey University, Palmerston North). Each took a particular approach to thinking about the nature of humanitarianism and its history, but collectively their remarks paint a picture of a research field coming into its own.

International Policy Ideas Challenge 2017

February 17, 2017 / Sean Eedy

Tapping into Canada’s research talent for innovative international policy ideas!

Global Affairs Canada (GAC) has published details of this year’s International Policy Ideas Challenge competition. Full details are below and can be found at: http://www.international.gc.ca/world-monde/policy_challenge-defi_politique.aspx?lang=eng

See the SSHRC competition poster.

Past competitions

2016 Policy Ideas Challenge finalists

Job Posting: Lecturer in Humanitarian Studies at the University of Manchester

February 11, 2017 / Sean Eedy

Closing Date : 19/02/2017
Employment Type : Fixed Term
Duration : 01 March 2017 to 28 February 2018
Faculty / Organisational Unit : Humanities
School/Directorate : School of Arts, Languages and Cultures
Division : Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute
Hours Per week : Full Time
Salary : £34,956 to £38,183 per annum
Location : Oxford Road, Manchester
Job Reference : HUM-09435

This position is open to academics outside the European Union as well as those from member states.

Archives and Foreign Aid, A Workshop Summary

February 6, 2017 / Sean Eedy

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.