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Fourteenth Bulletin of the CNHH

November 10, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Fourteenth Bulletin of the CNHH, November 2023

With a goal of having at least two bulletins a year, this is the second bulletin of 2023. Please continue sending updates as we prepare for the next bulletin for May 2024.

CONTENT

  • CNHH at Congress 2024, York University or virtual  
    • Round table on Local histories of famine relief – still time to join the panel
    • Annual general meeting – Save the approximate date
  • News from members
  • Archives news
  • Common initiatives from members
  • Blogs & talks published by the CNHH
  • Welcome to new members

I. CONGRESS 2024 McGILL UNIVERSITY

CNHH ROUNDTABLE, ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING & OTHER NEWS

  • Roundtable: “Local histories of famine relief: food, (in)security, justice and nature at the village/micro level”
  • Format: Roundtable, hybrid format (online + in-person).
  • Venue: McGill University, Montreal
  • Date & Time: TBD June 2024

Chair: Dominique Marshall

  • Description: Humanitarian agencies have long tackled questions of food (in)security. In doing so, they have largely contributed to contemporary conceptions of the causes and remedies of famines, to the making of a vocabulary around food security, and to the construction and the dissemination of the main representations of famine. This panel explores practices of famine relief at the village/micro level on three continents, by international and local agents. Furthermore, it discusses the convergence and divergence of ideas between humanitarian workers, about governance of food production and delivery, about healthcare and debility, and about climate and nature. The panel will compare how they leveraged these assumptions to accomplish their missions in four different micro-contexts.

Panelists:

  • David Webster, Historian, Bishop’s University and Rogerio Savio Ma’averu, independent researcher, Timor-Leste, Famine, Aid and Strategies for Resilience in Timor-Leste Villages, 1975-79.
  • Nassisse Solomon, Western University, “Village-to-Village”: Micro-initiatives with large-scale impact in Canadian Engagements with the Ethiopian Famine of 1984-88.
  • Sonya de Laat, Research Associate, McMaster University, Dearth and Detail: Reviewing Historical Images for Greater Understanding of Causes and Responses to Food Security Crises.
  • Machia Désiré, Enseignant permanent d’histoire-géographie-Education à la Citoyenneté et à la Morale, CES DE NKASSOMO /MINESEC, La diplomatie humanitaire suisse en Afrique centrale : dimensions locales, rétrospective et prospective.
  • Interested in being a panelist? There is still an opportunity to join this panel. Please contact Dominique Marshall, DominiqueMarshall@CUNET.CARLETON.CA, by December 15 so that the panel can begin communicating about the round table in the New Year.
  • The Annual meeting of the CNHH will take place during Congress which runs 12-21 June 2024. Details of when and where the meeting will take place, registration link, and an agenda will be shared closer to the date. It will be hybrid.

II. NEWS FROM MEMBERS

Dominique Marshall published “Teaching Human Rights History,” American Review of Canadian Studies, 53:1 (2023),118-130. She presented “The League of Red Cross Societies & Disabled People: Transnational insights on war impairment, capacity & debility”, Geneva, June 2023, Symposium on “The League of Red Cross Societies: Historical Perspectives 1919-1991”.  The science portal of Gendered Design in STEAM, an initiative of the International Development Research Centre, which she co-directed, is now open:  https://carleton.ca/gendesignsteam/ .

CNHH members Sonya de Laat and Nassisse Solomon have been collaborating with Arsenii Alenichev, as postdoctoral fellow at Oxford, on a project exploring historical legacies shaping contemporary visual representations of global health issues and activities. Alenichev recently published preliminary results of an exercise that aimed to explore the promise of generative AI to produce more ethical depictions than those that have been the subject of critique for the better part of the past several decades. Coinciding with the publication of an NPR piece about the project, de Laat (SdL) asked Alenichev (AA) about this experiment:

[SdL] What inspired the project?

[AA] Since I started writing a PhD about precarious [clinical] trial subjects, Facebook started showing me the images of, like advertisements of young clinical trial [subjects], and they were smiling people and that was kind of very, very different from local realities, at least what I encountered in [west African country]… I interviewed trial subjects and many of them they were well really disturbed people because many of them there were ex-combatants, many of them just marginalized youth who participated in the trial for the money…That kind of prompted me to start asking questions about who created those images, how they’re created, why they are shown on Google in that way. 

[The AI exercise] was a spontaneous kind of thing because my co-author really wanted to invert typical global health images. As I was trying to invert those images, I realized that it’s not really possible. I initially overlooked it and I remember I messaged [my co-author] just to say, “hey, we cannot do this exercise because it always tends to revert back to the suffering subject, the white saviour tropes.” [My co-author] was like, “Oh my God this is horrifying,” and then I was like, “oh, wait a second, yeah this is indeed horrifying because it actually tells quite a lot about the visual culture of global health and the kind of the relationship between artificial intelligence and chronic socioeconomic issues and the stereotypes and in ways in which they traveled.” And then I sent it to some friends and colleagues, some of them from the global south, and they were like, “it’s really horrifying.” It was quite striking that even if you ask AI specifically to produce images of black African doctors taking care of white kids, white suffering kids, it would always show you black kids as a recipient of care, and it would occasionally show you white doctors as providers of care. This really showcases the biases that whiteness is hegemonically coupled with the provision of care and blackness with reception of care. 

[SdL] What is the main takeaway about generative AI in this instance?

[AA] The whole harmful stereotypes that global health practitioners activists and scholars have been fighting against it just is being casually reproduced. The whole exercise makes me feel very uncomfortable because these images are problematic; I mean, those images were co-created, I participated in the creation of those images. I’m still deeply disturbed by the whole thing. But again those images they’re replicated from the matrix of quote-end-quote ‘real images’ and I think this is where the complexity lies primarily…

One thing that is crystal clear, that there is this biased one way another and we should actively resist the political, the contextualising notion that AI products are somehow neutral and value free. No, they’re the mirror of reality. We could employ people with global health heritage to kind of improve AI, to make sure that the data sets are more inclusive, but that, ultimately, is not going to fix the chronic systematic inequalities that are in the very fabric of our societies. So that’s one of the key takeaway messages. Yes, there should be more involvement of people from diverse backgrounds, but also, it’s a sign that our society is not OK.

Ultimately, this is a cautionary tale (again) about new technologies—this time it is photo-realistic generative AI and its inherent flaw of reflecting back biases and reinforcing societal prejudices rather than challenging or overcoming them. Even when actively trying to create counter-narratives, photo-realistic generative AI struggles and fails due to the existing historical record of images available on the Internet—which are predominantly reproductions of harmful stereotypes—that form the foundation of the software’s algorithms. 

Possible means of remedying (or ameliorating) this situation include, as Alenichev suggested, involving or following the lead of people from diverse backgrounds in the creation of images. For historians, an option is to flood the net with a diversity of underrepresented or overlooked stories and with alternative representations to add more material for AI to draw from. Examples can be seen in the “Treasures of CIDA Photography Collections” or Chapters 9 of the Samaritan State Revisited.

Watch this space as Solomon, de Laat, and Alenichev build on the generative AI project with a parallel look at the historical record forming the visual foundations of images that generative AI draws from, and with continued discussions of promises and pitfalls of this technology.

More on the project and the full team that can be found here: https://www.oxjhubioethics.org/research/putting-people-and-diseases-into-the-picture

III. ARCHIVES NEWS

For the last three months, the Archival Rescue team based at Carleton University Archives and Special Collections (https://library.carleton.ca/asc)  has been supporting the cataloguing of the library of the Native North American Travelling College (https://www.nnatc.org/). See the blog by Research Assistant Richard Marchese, on the CNHH website: https://aidhistory.ca/creating-an-archive-for-the-native-north-american-travelling-college-a-research-internship-completed-at-carleton-university/

IV. COMMON INITIATIVES FROM MEMBERS

  • The new website of the Carleton University disability Research Group was launched in late October: https://carleton.ca/disability-research-group/ It includes exhibits sponsored by the CNHH:
    • Transnational Representation: Canada and the Founding of Disabled People’s International, 1981 (https://transnationalrepresentation.omeka.net/exhibits/show/transnational-representation–/transnational-representation)
    • Refugees, Disability and Technology in Transnational Postwar Canada, 1946-1953 (https://envisioningtechnologies.omeka.net/exhibits/show/refugees–disability-and-techn/an-unending-global-crisis)
  • The 2013 edition of the CNHH Roundtable at the Annual Meeting of the Canadian Historical Association at York University on “Ahistorical Aid: The Hidden Costs of Historical Amnesia in NGOs” was a great success. Thanks to convenor and chair Sarah Glassford, who is working at making its results public, to participants and CNHH mmbers, David Webster, Chris Trainor, and special guest Fabrice Weissman of the CRASH-msf project.
  • The CNHH helped arrange the visiting fellowship of Ghanaian specialists of coastal fisheries Joseph Aggrey-Fynn  (https://directory.ucc.edu.gh/p/joseph-aggrey-fynn) at Carleton University at the end of the Fall term 2023. Dr Fynn is involved in several transnational development project. The CNHH will post news of the activities surrounding his visits as soon as they are scheduled.

V. BLOGS & TALKS PUBLISHED BY THE CNHH SINCE THE LAST BULLETIN

CNHH Presents: Essential Reads in the History of Humanitarianism—Top 5 Resources on Humanitarianism, Development, and Photography, as recommended by Sonya de Laat.

Symbol stamps inside the cover of the books of the NNATC over the years: The college received book donations from many associations. Some of the content of this library travelled with the founder, Benedict: “For years he drove across the northeastern part of this continent with his library of books and personal knowledge”. [3] “He used a van and a pile of books in his many years journey, driving across the east, alone for much of the time, carrying a dream and the knowledge obtained from Iroquois nationalists.” [4] (Photos taken by: Richard Marchese)

Richard Marchese: “Creating an Archive for the Native North American Traveling College. A Research Internship Completed at Carleton University” (cross-posted from I-CUREUS blog) – early October.

CNHH Presents: Essential Reads in the History of Humanitarianism—Top 5 Reads on the History of Development, as recommended by Jill Campbell-Miller.

Contribute! If readers of the CNHH Bulletin would like to contribute to the “Essential Reads” series, or on any other subject relevant to our membership, please contact Sarah Glassford:  Sarah.Glassford@uwindsor.ca . We would be thrilled to feature your reading recommendations, or your thoughts and experiences on other CNHH topics!

VI. WELCOME TO NEW MEMBERS

Anna Kozlova (2020-present) is a PhD candidate at the Department of History at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. She holds a BA in Communication Studies with a Minor in Law from Carleton University and an MA in World Heritage Studies from the Brandenburg University of Technology in Cottbus, Germany. Her research interests are focused on migration, diaspora, oral history, and transnationalism. She was the lead researcher on a MITACS-funded project “Two case studies in the public history of international development policies in Canada: the Lebanese Special Measures Program (1975-1990) and The Life of Lewis Perinbam (1925-2008),” which you can read about here. 

The full list of members is on the CNHH website.

If you haven’t followed the CNHH on Twitter, please do so!

Feel free to tag us in your announcements, and we will retweet!

@AidHistoryCan

Sonya de Laat, Bulletin Editor

Copyright © 2023 Canadian Network on Humanitarian History, all rights reserved.

Creating an Archive for the Native North American Travelling College: A Research Internship Completed at Carleton University

October 20, 2023 / / 0 Comments

by Richard Marchese, Undergraduate Research Assistant

20 October 2023

Originally posted on I-CUREUS Blog, August 2023

I. The Project Briefly:

What is an internship, what is your internship?

An I-CUREUS opportunity is great for anyone looking to expand their horizons as a student at Carleton University. It is a project that gives funding to your coordinator to allow a student to be paid to do some research. For me, the internship has been mostly about archiving books for the Native North American Travelling College. I was looking at the collection of the books left on the shelves of the NNATC over its 50 years of existence, and was then instructed to do an inventory, by entering the data about each book using archival practices to make an archival catalogue of all the books with the appropriate information.

I used my computer to enter the appropriate information on each book and newspaper, and my note book to reflect about the historical meaning of the collection. (Photo taken by: Lloyd Keane)

Creating the archive, and the work that went into it:

The work that went into creating the archive could be tedious and repetitive at times, but the information that I learned about the Indigenous population of Canada and America, was so valuable to me that I did not mind. I would take a book from the one of the 14 boxes that were temporarily moved to Carleton’s archives, study its features to evaluate the condition, add the title, ISBN, author, page number, and so on, as I was taught by Chris Trainor, Archivist at Carleton’s Archives and Special Collections. The most interesting part of the job was being able to read some of the information. My personal favourites were the creation stories, the textbooks on a particular tribal group, and the binder’s containing minutes about meetings that the College had. These three things allowed me to get a good insight into the types of things each distinct nation valued and used to survive as the generations of people who lived these amazing lives adapted to their environments.

The 13 boxes of books I worked to catalogue, housed temporarily at the Archives and Special Collections on the fifth floor of the MacOdrum Library at Carleton University. The catalogue of the content of these boxes will help produce a bibliography, a series of digitised books, and a report which will reflect on the potential of the collection for future projects. (Photo taken by: Loyd Keane)

Why this summer was great:

This summer was great for me. I was able to help an organization that I believe has not only great historical value but future value to the Indigenous population and settler population. I did this by using the research skills I learned at Carleton University. I have always been interested in Indigenous culture and this summer allowed me to explore that with the proper materials and supervision. I-CUREUS, and the NNATC gave me that opportunity and I am very thankful.

II. The Details of the Project:

The most challenging aspect:

The most challenging aspect of the archive project would have to be the amount of time spent reading. Reading titles, information about the book and even in a few cases the books themselves. The repetitiveness of opening a book, finding the information needed and documenting it then repeating the task over and over again was taxing on my focus.

The most rewarding aspect:

Despite the repetitiveness of the project my attention was quickly redirected by the passion that I found for the information in these books. I feel this archive is very important to the future of the Native North American Travelling college. The most rewarding aspect of the project was being able to help an organization that bases itself around education. Especially when that education is going towards a community that has struggled with systematic oppression.

The most interesting aspect:

The most interesting aspect of the project was the trip to the Akwesasne reserve, where I met the organizers and employees of the NNATC, as well as learned more about its history from a firsthand account. I have never been to the reserve for business and education, so it was cool. During our trip to the reserve the NNATC welcomed both myself and my supervisor with open arms and gave us a full tour of the museum and showed us how they do business. It was very exciting and taught me a lot. It was my favourite workday, the NNATC made it feel like a school field trip.

My visit to the college, at Akwesasne. Founded in 1968, the NNATC (originally the North American Indian Travelling College), was based on “the concept of self-help, [was] an educational venture designed to teach Indigenous students what they want to know, be it business knowledge, handicrafts or marketing of products.” [1] Based in Akwesasne, it operated out of a van, and brought books, films and audio visual materials to Indigenous communities, to “learn all that is still in your minds”, and teach them what they wanted to learn. The “group of young and eager Akwesasronon, founded by [the late] Dr. Ernest Kaientaronkwen Benedict and Micheal Kanentakeron Mitchell,” operated on a small budget. [2] (Photo taken by: Chris Trainor)

III. The Experience Brought to Life:

Tell us about the collection:

The collection of books that the NNATC provided us with were mostly derived of newspapers, binders containing minutes of past meetings of the NNATC, kids’ books, and other miscellaneous books. Most of the books have one of the NNATC stamps. All the books have a tie to Indigenous life, history, culture, organizations, beliefs, or education. This is because the original purpose of the NNATC was to provide education to people who were sent through the residential schools but wanted to learn more about their culture. The books all come from different collections that were donated to or purchased by the NNATC. These books come from a wide variety of schools, people, and organizations looking to help the cause, and for good reason. What is being done by the NNATC is great.

Symbol stamps inside the cover of the books of the NNATC over the years: The college received book donations from many associations. Some of the content of this library travelled with the founder, Benedict: “For years he drove across the northeastern part of this continent with his library of books and personal knowledge”. [3] “He used a van and a pile of books in his many years journey, driving across the east, alone for much of the time, carrying a dream and the knowledge obtained from Iroquois nationalists.” [4] (Photos taken by: Richard Marchese)

Oldest – newest books:

The oldest book in the collection was copyrighted in 1941, it is called “Building America”. It is a Publication of the Society for curriculum study, and it is number 176 in the arrival document.

The newest book was a binder containing the curriculum of a course taken by a trustee for the community from 2012.

IV. Working at Carleton:

Tell us about Carleton’s Archives and Special Collections:

The Archives and Special Collections or ASC for abbreviation, is a centre within the Carleton library where this project took place. I would like to thank the people who worked in the office with me Chris, Llyod, and a special congrats to Monica Ferguson who recently retired. Although I worked on this project by myself, we all shared a work environment. They made my experience great and welcomed me in with open arms, truly making me feel like part of a team. The ASC oversees supporting learning at Carleton university and beyond.

This is a photo of part of the spread sheet that I have been working on, it details the information needed to archive a book. It took many hours to create but is something that I enjoyed working on. There are 10 columns in the spread sheet, box number, type, title, author, date number of pages, ISBN, notes, physical condition, and library number. In this photo is the book “Building America” which is the oldest book in the collection, it can be seen highlighted in row 176. (Photo taken by: Richard Marchese)

Was the I-CUREUS training helpful? If so, what skills did you learn?

The archival training that I received from I-CUREUS was helpful and I learned enough that it was worth my time. When working for I-CUREUS, all research assistants also need to select a training module and I selected self-management, as I felt it was fitting since I was working on my own schedule. I learned things about responsibility, time management and preparation. All these things allowed me to be successful through my I-CUREUS project.

Advice for anyone looking to participate in a project at Carleton or with the Native North American Travelling College:

My advice to anyone looking to participate at a project involving the NNATC or Carleton would be not to think about it, instead, just do it. I learned so much both about myself, the NNATC, Indigenous culture and Indigenous beliefs in general, that I felt there was no better way to spend my summer. Working as an employee at Carleton showed me what a good work environment is supposed to look like. I now have the knowledge and experience to move into successful employment.

ENDNOTES

[1]  Ernest Benedict, “Travelling College,” National Film Board, 1968, 9 minutes. https://www-nfb-ca.proxy.library.carleton.ca/film/travelling-college/ . Kelly Monique-Pineault, “Shifting the Balance: Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Activism in The Company of Young Canadians, 1966-1970,” MA Thesis (Canadian and Indigenous Studies), Trent University, 2011, pp. 85-91, mentions book donations from Lakehead University’s Students’ Union and the Ottawa Branch of the Imperial Order of the Daughters of the Empire (IODE). https://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/obj/thesescanada/vol2/002/MR81117.PDF?oclc_number=881138044

[2]  https://www.nnatc.org/

[3]  “Ernie and Salli Benedict: Influential father and daughter strengthened Mohawk identity,”March 23rd, 2020, Windspeaker.com, https://windspeaker.com/news/footprints/ernie-and-salli-benedict-influential-father-and-daughter-strengthened-mohawk .

[4]  Doug George-Kanentiio: A tribute to Ernest Benedict, 1918-2011, Indianz.com, 2011, https://indianz.com/News/2011/000095.asp

Richard Marchese is a 5th Year student in Honours Political Science at Carleton University. He completed an undergraduate research assistantship under the joint supervision of Chris Trainor, Archivist, Ann Seymour, Executive Director of the NNATC, and Dominique Marshall, Historian and CNHH founder. The project is part of a larger initiative of the NNATC to celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2024 by highlighting the history and heritage of the college as one of the sources for its renewal.

Thirteenth Bulletin of the CNHH

May 24, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Thirteenth Bulletin of the CNHH, May 2023

It has been more than a year since the last bulletin of May 2022. We hope that you are all well and that you will continue to send news, posts and announcements.

CONTENT

  • CNHH at Congress 2023, York University or virtual
    • Round table on humanitarian archives – 30th May
    • Annual general meeting – 29th May
    • CASID panels
  • News from members
  • Archives news
  • Common initiatives from members
  • Blogs & talks published by the CNHH
  • Welcome to new members

I. CONGRESS 2023 YORK UNIVERSITY


CNHH ROUNDTABLE, ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING & OTHER NEWS

Roundtable: “Ahistorical Aid: The Hidden Costs of Historical Amnesia in NGOs” (Session 48) 

  • Format: Roundtable, hybrid format (online + in-person). 
  • Venue: York University, Toronto – Victor Phillip Dahdaleh Building (DB) room 0016 + online
  • Date & Time: Tuesday, 30th May 2023, 10:30–noon (EST)
  • Chair: Sarah Glassford, Archivist, University of Windsor
  • Panelists: 
    • David Webster, Historian, Bishop’s University
    • Fabrice Weissman, Aid practitioner, Médecins Sans Frontières (Paris)
    • Chris Trainor, Archivist, Carleton University
    • Melanie Oppenheimer, Historian, Australian National University
  • Description: This roundtable will explore the intertwined subjects of archives, history, and aid work in the world of NGOs. The panelists bring overlapping experiences as historians of aid, aid practitioners in the field, advocates for historical and archival preservation, and observers of aid organizations’ uses of history. Rather than the traditional approach of hearing a series of short talks followed by audience Q&A, in this roundtable the chair will ask the panelists to discuss a series of questions in an interactive fashion, with the goal of engaging one another and the audience in a true dialogue on the subject of how NGOs do and don’t use their own histories, why that is, and why it matters for both historians and for the organizations themselves.
  • To participate:
    • Registered attendees of the CHA conference at Congress may attend in person or can join online via a link provided by Congress. The full program of the CHA conference is here
    • Community members not otherwise involved in Congress may join in person at the above location. At this time, it is not possible to join online without paying a registration fee for the CHA conference and Congress. A “community pass” to Congress is available for $55, plus the CHA registration fee (student, full-time employed, retiree & unwaged rates available). See information on the Congress website.


The Annual meeting of the CNHH will take place on Monday, 29th May from 12:00 to 1:30pm (EST)

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  • The agenda will include research updates, David’s Webster suggestion for a project of digitization of humanitarian archives, plans for the future, website update, sponsored panel for 2024, and appointment of future officers. To add other points, please email Sarah Glassford, who will be chairing the meeting (sarah.glassford@uwindsor.ca ).

Panels of interest: Canadian Association for the Study of International Development (CASID)

  • David Webster Open film screening presented by CASID, ‘WHEN I SAY AFRICA’ – ADVANCE FILM SCREENING AND DISCUSSION AT CASID 2023 https://casid-acedi.ca/annual-conference
  • International Development Policy Making in Canada: Actors, Politics and Discourse – 29th May, 1:30 to 3 pm, McLaughlin College MC 215
  • Reflections on International Development Studies in Canada: Change, Challenges and new Directions – 30th May, 1:30 – 3 pm, Vari Hall VHC
  • Deconstructions Development: a panel on practical approaches to achieve justice and equality (my panel) – 31st May, 1:30 – 3 pm, McLaughlin College, MC 215

 

II. NEWS FROM MEMBERS

  • Sonya de Laat and Nassisse Solomon are collaborating with colleagues at Oxford and Johns Hopkins on a fledgling project exploring the decolonization of global health imagery though a transdisciplinary bioethics and historical lens: Towards an ethics of global health visuals.  The collaboration was initiated between Sonya de Laat and Arsenii Alinechev, a postdoctoral fellow at Oxford, while Dr. de Laat was a visiting scholar at the Ethox Centre last June. The project is currently funded through Dr. Alinechev’s postdoctoral fellowship as a subproject to the GLIDEnetwork. The project team includes CNHH members Sonya de Laat and Nassisse Solomon among the full team that can be found here: https://www.oxjhubioethics.org/research/putting-people-and-diseases-into-the-picture
  • Laura Madakoro, supported by an Early Researcher Award, launched The Disaster Lab at Carleton University. Inspired by very real climate change crises confronting our global community, and the prospect of hundreds of thousands of environmental refugees in the coming years, this project seeks to learn and better understand historic responses to disasters at the local, provincial, federal, and global levels.
  • Dominique Marshall continued the series of joint interviews with Oxfam Canada veterans, conducted in collaboration with Susan Johnson, Marc Allain and Lawrence Cummings.  published three articles: “Teaching Human Rights History,”in The American Review of Canadian Studies; “Creating, Archiving and Exhibiting Disability History: The Oral Histories of Disability Activists of the Carleton University Disability Research Group” (with T. Jennissen, C. Trainor, and B. Robertson), in First Monday; and “Supporting Research on Gender and Design  Amongst STEAM Researchers in the Souths: A Case Study of Subsumption in Design Methods” (with C. Del Gaudio and B. Hallgrimsson), in DRS2022: Bilbao. Dr. Marshall was also involved in the Gendered Design in STEAM project.
  • On 9 May 2023, the chiefs of Canadian humanitarian agencies, members of the Canadian Humanitarian Response Network (HRN), met in Ottawa to discuss issues they face, among them the Canadian response to rising levels of international migration and increased refugee flows, the challenges for humanitarian agencies of sanctions on illegal regimes in crisis situations, and financing mechanisms available to civil society organizations for their humanitarian work.  Presenters included the UN High Commissioner for Refugees representative in Canada, Matthieu Kimmel, the Director of humanitarian policy at Global Affairs Canada, and Hunter McGill, Senior Fellow at the School of International Development, University of Ottawa.
  • David Webster will present a film at CASID (see above) With the help of a SSHRC Partnership Engage Grant, David Webster has been working with the Pacific Peoples Partnership to digitize their archives. PPP was formed in 1975. Based in Victoria, it is the only Canadian NGO working on the Pacific Islands. Its first overseas project, support to build cooking houses in Tonga after a natural disaster, is described at https://theconversation.com/canadian-reconstruction-aid-to-tonga-40-years-ago-points-the-way-today-175506. The digitization stage of this project is now complete and major materials will be described over the course of Summer 2023. We expect to be able to hire a student to work on describing and uploading the materials this summer. If interested, please contact dwebster@ubishops.ca 
  • Stephen Osei-Owusu convened the successful Shannon Lecture Series in History – Spring 2022, on the regulation of natural resource extraction in Canada and Africa.

III. ARCHIVES NEWS

  • Carleton University’s Archives and Special Collections has returned to acquiring personal collections after the pandemic’s ripple effects posed some issues with acquiring and processing archival donations. Multiple donations that were received over the last year are still being processed to be made accessible and discoverable for researchers.

IV. COMMON INITIATIVES FROM MEMBERS

  • At an informal meeting held in January 2022, the CNHH adopted a small Steering Committee. If you are interested in participating in, please get in touch!
  • Caitlin Arbour, Carleton university Undergraduate Student in History, has continued to research the history of Farm Radio International by conducting interviews with veterans of their training program in several countries of the African continent over two academic terms. This has been made possible by a grant from the I-CUREUS program at Carleton University, and within the Practicum Program of the department of History.

V. BLOGS & TALKS PUBLISHED BY THE CNHH SINCE THE LAST BULLETIN

VI. WELCOME TO NEW MEMBERS

  • Caitlin Arbour, undergraduate student in history, Carleton University. Caitlin works with Sylvia Harrison of Farm Radio International at a project of oral history, under the guidance of the CNHH.
  • Claire Lefort-Rieu is a PhD candidate in anthropology at the Centre Population et Développement (Ceped) in Paris. For several years, she worked for international NGOs providing assistance to forced displaced people in the Middle East and Africa. Thanks to her professional and academic experience, she practices a methodology of “networked double ethnography” with both aid actors and their so-called “beneficiaries”. After working on religious “minorities” among the Iraqi refugees, she now studies forced migration governance in Cameroon.
  • Rachel Sandwell, Faculty Lecturer – McGill University – History and Women’s and Gender Studies. Dr. Sandwell’s first book looked at South African women’s exile politics, examining the work of women activists when the major South African resistance movements were based outside South Africa, in other African countries. This led to her current research on NGO, including Canadian NGO, relationships with African liberation movements in the 1960s-1980s. She is exploring how NGOs balanced support for the ambitions of liberation organizations with unease over the military aspect of these movements, and how the movements, NGOs, and African states hosting the liberation movements navigated the differences and overlaps between refugees and political exiles.
  • Jonathon Zimmer, MA Student, University of Regina – History; BA (Thompson Rivers University) Jonathon’s fields of interest involve a broad range of topics pertaining to the history of Canadian reaction to humanitarian crises. For instance, his MA thesis explores the reaction of the Canadian media to the Ethiopian Famine of 1984, and how this influenced federal approaches to the crisis. The media’s role in exposing the scope and scale of the Ethiopian famine, and in evaluating the effectiveness of the government’s response, played a crucial role in shaping that response. The shock value of what was shown on TV was a powerful call to action, and Canadians expected their government to step up.
  • The full list of members is on the CNHH website.

If you haven’t followed the CNHH on Twitter, please do so! Feel free to tag us in your announcements, and we will retweet! @AidHistoryCan

Helen Kennedy, Bulletin Coordinator

Copyright © 2023 Canadian Network on Humanitarian History, all rights reserved.

Minutes of the CNHH Annual Meeting-2022

June 28, 2022 /

Canadian Network on Humanitarian History

Annual General Meeting

May 18, 2022

Held virtually using Zoom
12:30-2:00 p.m.

Chair: Dominique Marshall
Minutes: Nassisse Solomon

1. Introduction by Attendees:

Hunter Mcgill (retired CIDA Official), taught courses at Carleton and Ottawa U on Humanitarian Aid and Development ; part of the archival rescue teamStephen Osei-Owusu,
University of Ghana, teaches history – focused on the role of aid and development in Ghana’s development post-colonialism – now working on Environmental History		Simplice Ayanma
Post Doc Banting Fellow
Working with David Webster- at Bishops University The politics of Canada and the Franco-phone
Claire Lefort-Rieu : Ph.D. Anthropology in Forced Migration in Cameroon – Institute of Development and Paris University in French

Rhonda Gossen : Also worked at CIDA – works as a consultant for UNEP and UNHCR consultant – retired from CIDA – interested in the archival rescue project and in the women development projects in Pakistan

John Foster: Teaching at the University of Regina – rewriting 3rd year course on International Human Rights. Involved in MITACS between Dominique et al. Kevin O’Sullivan’s book- the
Nassisse Solomon

  		Lydia Wytenbroek : Assistant professor at UBC,social historian of twentieth-century health care, with a particular interest in understanding and interpreting the historical forces that have shaped the nursing profession and practice. *Interests in Nursing in Iran. Will be responsible to Tweets and coordinating events for CNHH.Sonja De Laat : Degree in Anthropology, specializing in the  History of Humanitarian Representation. Involved with Dominique |Humanitarian Health Ethics – palliative care.
Kevin Brushett : Head of History at the Royal Military College, interested in CIDA work- government and non-government actors brokered the relationship btw the two

 		Jill Campbell Miller: Currently at Fisheries Canada. Interested in working on projects examining relationships b/w India and Canada.  Dominique Marshall: Oxfam Canada|Gender design in Science Technology and Mathematics
Sarah Glassford

 Practicing archivist at the University of Windsor. History of The Canadian Red Cross; interested in collaborating  

 

2. Updates on CNHH Projects:

  • CNHH Blog (Sarah):
     
    The blog will continue to function as it has – a bit of a catchall. A great place to showcase ideas that are not big enough for an article- but you are looking to get it out there. Hoping to grow the list of Humanitarian Reads:  “If you only read 4 things on topic x  – these are the 4 that you should read”. Annotated bibliography.

           E.g. Sonya – how to interpret visual histories

Rhonda Gossen offered the following in the chat: “I have a huge list of books written by humanitarians that has been compiled by the largest Facebook group of humanitarian workers called Fifty Shades of Aid”.

  • Bulletin:  Dominique asked for feedback on how this has been working.

    • Report from ongoing NGO Collaborations (Anna, Helen, Elizabeth, & FRI):

      MITACS project –

      • John- Latin American Working Group
      • Helen- Lebanese Reparations of the 1970s – helping authors with organizing the documents in the archives.

Farm Radio is hiring an RA to do 200 hours of work interviewing people in Africa to see how they benefited from Farm Radio funding


  • Archives (David, Dominique, Sarah)
    Library and Archives Canada – Hunter and Chris working on fishery data from local fisheries. Dominique and David are collaborating in this regard. David is thinking of going to Carleton to do more of this work.

    • Teaching: Recipro, upcoming courses, and other projects:
      History of the Spanish Civil War; Communist Aid; Environmental NGOs
  • Publications (Journal of Humanitarian Affairs) :
    Special issue of the Journal of Humanitarian Aid History



3. CHA Panels:

  • 2022 update: (Stephen, Simplice, Robyn?)

Report on the panel from Wednesday May 18:

Jill – the panel for this year was organically formed as both Dominique and David had post docs attending. A CHA affiliated group can host a panel.| Enticing for emerging scholars/ current students in Ph.D. or MA programs| Pull the proposal together.

Simplice: A major 1968-1980s Cameroon to Canada diplomatic project – CIDA.


Stephen: spoke of an event in 1849 in Ghana. A christianized and indegnous African population. Beyond the normative implications of the clash- a christianized group invading a group that works with the indigenous population….Eurpoean Christianity and modality- often times the indigenous populations gets trumped out. Relevance during the pre-colonial| colonial | and post colonial periods. 

Spring Shannon Lecture series –
https://carleton.ca/history/news/shannon-lectures-spring-2022/
DFO has a social sciences and humanities network teams channel so I will post it there.

Lydia – will be promoting these events on CNHH Twitter account.

Action Items: Dominique and Stephen will connect with Lydia for further action.

  • 2023- Planning: (Nassisse, Jill?)
    Solicitation of ideas for a CHA Panel

    a) Idea Number 1: Sarah- 2023 Panel on Archives- David Webster and Hunter McGill – a running theme is the presence or absence of archives and the crazy states in which they reach us. Jill suggested that the Round table Format might work best for this proposed discussion.  

    Jill – getting conference permission from the DFO is a long process. So start early if we are interested in getting CIDA or GAC involved in the panel.


b) Idea Number 2:  Aid perspectives from the Middle East –

 Lydia Wytenbroek: Area studies

c) Idea Number 3:  Palliative Care| Aging – post-pandemic


*Cross-posting events – joint Congress Panel-   

4. Book Launch (Lydia)

Great attendance- recording of events will be up soon.

If anyone has any ideas – please email Lydia @ lydia.wytenbroek@ubc.ca

5. Future Projects:

  • Events (Lydia) : email Lydia
  • NGO partners  (& Annual Meeting of 2023): York University- Glendon College
  • Archives:

i. Kevin looking to work through CIDA files at LAC. Is there a way of getting more privileged access to these files? Contact Jennifer Anderson and Brandon Kelly at GAC.

ii. Archival Rescue Project: add CIDA to the meeting agenda of this group for ~30 minutes. 

iii. Oral History with donors of the archives to understand the context of the donations.

iv. Rhonda Gossen- contact GAC / Historians to see if a funding proposal can be put forward to get access to files and start cataloguing materials.

6. Housekeeping:

  • Website Updates
  • Governance Updates & Potential Changes and Additions (Future Executive Committee Meetings – Nassisse) 
  • Membership update and Potential new members

7. New Business & Other Business:

Check to see if there is a copy of the following book at your local libraries/ institutional library:  https://www.ubcpress.ca/breaking-barriers-shaping-worlds

Twelfth Bulletin of the CNHH, May 2022

May 12, 2022 /

Twelfth Bulletin of the CNHH, May 2022

The Twelfth Bulletin of the CNHH has now been sent out to the membership.  If you missed it, the complete PDF of the bulletin can be found here: Twelfth Bulletin PDF

It has been more than a year since the last bulletin of May 2021. We hope that you are all well and that you will continue to send news, posts and announcements.

I. PANEL AND ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

The annual CNHH sponsored panel on Legacies of Colonialism in Africa: Reconsidering Conquest, Capitalism, and Transnationalism in the 19th and 20th Centuries Héritages du colonialisme en Afrique : nouveau regard sur la conquête,
le capitalisme et le transnationalisme aux XIXe et XXe siècles  will take place on Wednesday the 18th of May, from 11:00 am to 12:30 pm Ottawa time.

We are looking forward to watching our colleagues:

  • Stephen Osei Owusu (PhD candidate, Carleton University), “The Mankessim Riots of 1849: a Case of Contested Ethno-forestry practices or Conflict between ‘Europeanized’ and Indigenous Africans.”
  • Simplice Ayangma Bonoho (Banting Fellow, Bishop’s University), « Le « Centre de Rééducation des handicapés de Yaoundé » (CRHY) : Un projet humanitaire
    d’envergure ? : Pour une relecture des relations diplomatiques canado-
    camerounaises (1968-1980). »

  • Chair | Président : Robin Gendron

The full program of the CHA virtual conference is here: https://cha-shc.ca/_uploads/626ac9b5a803e.pdf  Every participant must register for congress here: https://fhss.swoogo.com/22-registration-inscription. Please note that the CHA has waived the registration fee for the CHA Annual Meeting for graduate students, unemployed and precarious historians.

The Annual meeting of the CNHH will take place at lunch time on the same day, on Wednesday the 18th from 12:30 to 2:00 Ottawa time. The agenda will include research updates, plans for the future, website update, discussion of the website, sponsored panel for 2023, and appointment of future officers. Let us know if you would like to add other points. Here is where to register: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/annual-meeting-of-the-canadian-network-on-humanitarian-history-2022-tickets-333051896187

II. NEWS FROM MEMBERS

Jill Campbell-Miller presented her post-doctoral work on “Hydroelectric Dams and the Hinterlands in Canada and India, 1953-1958” at the Ottawa Historical Association on February 15. The recording will be posted shortly on the website of the OHA.

Sarah Glassford started a series of best reads in humanitarian history, last Fall, in the blog of the CNHH. Three have been published so far.

Dominique Marshall published two articles: “‘CIDA Gives You the World!’ Visual Media and Development Education in Canadian Schools: 1980-2000” & “Ethical Traditions in Humanitarian Photography and the Challenges of the Digital Age  – Four Conversations with Canadian Communications Officers”, in theJournal of Humanitarian Affairs, Special issue on “Humanitarian Action in the Age of Visual Media: The Past and Present of Humanitarian Communication” Fall 2021, which came from a CNHH panel at the Canadian Historical Association two years previously.

Stephen Osei-Owusu is convening the Shannon Lecture Series in History – Spring 2022, on the regulation of natural resource extraction in Canada and Africa. Many NGOs are involved.

III. WELCOME TO NEW MEMBERS

William Plowright, Lecturer – Peace and Conflict Studies, School of Government and International Affairs, Durham University, who recently authored Armed Groups and International Legitimacy: Child Soldiers in Intra-State Conflict. (Routledge, 2021)

Robert Anthony Ventresca, Academic Dean (Interim), King’s University College at Western University.

IV. ARCHIVES NEWS

In collaboration with Carleton University’s Archives and Special Collections we helped the Canadian Council of Professional Fish Harvesters (CCPFH) to prepare a successful application to deposit its archives at Library and Archives Canada, which was successful.

The recordings of the twelve group conversations of the “Oxfam Canada between 1964 and 1990: A collaborative memory project” coordinated by Oxfam veterans Marc Allain, Susan Johnson and Lawrence Cummings, with the support of Dominique Marshall, will be deposited at Carleton University Archives and Special Collections later in 2022.

V. COMMON INITIATIVES FROM MEMBERS

At an informal meeting held in January 2022, the CNHH adopted a small Steering Committee. Here are the responsibilities.

Blog and website: Sarah Glassford

Bulletin: Helen Kennedy and Dominique Marshall

Twitter: Lydia Wytenbroek

CHA work

  • Regular updates: Helen Kennedy
    • Annual meetings: Nassisse Solomon
    • Panel at Congress: Jill Campbell-Miller 2022 Nassisse Solomon & David Webster afterwards
    • Community links: Dominique Marshall

Events: Lydia Wytenbroek                                       

Grants, joint research projects: Dominique Marshall

On March 30, Lydia Wytenbroek organised the CNHH sponsored Book Launch for The NGO Moment: The Globalisation of Compassion from Biafra to Live Aid, written by CNHH long-time partner in Ireland, Kevin O-Sullivan, with guest speakers Ruth Compton Brouwer, John W. Foster, Laura Madokoro, and Ian Smillie.

VI. WORK WITH NGOS

Carleton fourth-year student Cailtin Arbour has started an internship with Farm radio International to produce oral histories of the impact of FRI on local communities on Africa, under the supervision of Sylvie Harrison.

VII. TEACHING

Fourth-year students of D. Marshall’s STEM in the History of Canadian Society and Policy course worked in collaboration with the master seminar of Soenke Kunkle on Science and Technology in Transnational Relations at the JFK Institute of North American Studies. The products of the nine transnational teams are posted on the teaching website Recipro: eight timelines of case studies Science and international humanitarianism. The German-based humanitarian transport drone company Wingcopter and the Canadian based NGO Farm Radio International accompanied the making of the projects.

VIII. BLOGS & TALKS PUBLISHED BY THE CNHH SINCE THE LAST BULLETIN

Preserving the Legacy of Influential Canadian Humanitarian Lewis Perinbam (1925-2007), April 25, 2022, by Sarah Glassford.

Nursing, Empire, & Mobility: Lydia Wytenbroek on American Mission Nurses in Iran & Iranian Nurses in the U.S., 1907-1979, Webinar Report. March 2022, by Maia Luger.

Breaking Barriers, Shaping Worlds: Reflections on Finding the Women Missing from Diplomatic History March 2022, by Jill Campbell-Miller.

Teaching with Humanitarian Archives: Three Lessons from Collaborations between Carleton University Archives and Special Collections and the Canadian Network of Humanitarian History, January 21, 2022 , by Dominique Marshall with Sarah Glassford

The “Creative Crusade”: Settler Colonial Antinomies and Books for Development in the Age of Three Worlds, January 1961, by Jody Mason.

Lost and Fonds. Declassification of Government Records in Canada., January 2022, by Isabel Campbell.

CNHH Presents: Essential Reads in the History of Humanitarianism, September 2021, by Sarah Glassford.

Was it really “different back then?” Reflecting on current global health ethics with a NFB film about CUSO, 1965, September 2021, by Sonya de Laat.

If you haven’t followed the CNHH on Twitter, please do so! Feel free to tag us in your announcements, and we will retweet! @AidHistoryCan

Copyright © 2022 Canadian Network on Humanitarian History, all rights reserved.

Teaching with Humanitarian Archives: Three Lessons from Collaborations between Carleton University Archives and Special Collections and the Canadian Network of Humanitarian History

January 21, 2022 /

In December 2022, CNHH member Dominique Marshall participated in a workshop showcasing learning by doing with library resources. In the six minutes that follow, she speaks about the fit between Archives and Special Collections‘ fonds of humanitarian archives and ‘experiential learning’ at the undergraduate and graduate levels.
She thanks her three partners in the ongoing Humanitarian Archival Rescue Project, Chris Trainor and Lloyd Keane of ASC, as well as Hunter McGill, veteran of Canadian International Development Agency; Nina Dore of Carleton’s Teaching and Learning Services, organized the event and kindly produced the clip.

Spotlight on Experiential Learning: Instructor Panel with the Library (Maps, Archives, Rare Books, and Ottawa Resource Room) – Dominique Marshall presentation

Lost and Fonds. Declassification of Government Records in Canada.

January 7, 2022 /

On 16 September 2021, the Bill Graham Centre hosted an important forum entitled Lost and Fonds. Declassification of Government Documents in Canada.  Originally available as a zoom presentation, the Bill Graham Centre has now made the entire forum available on Youtube at this link: Lost and Fonds: Declassification of Government Documents in Canada — Bill Grah Lam Centre (utoronto.ca)

Members of the CNHH will likely already know many of the key speakers, including retired archivist Paul Marsden who has been leading public advocacy work for improved access to government information. In addition to Marsden, the forum included rising academic stars, Susan Colbourn and Tim Sayle, along with Senator Peter Boehm, Ian Wilson, a retired National Archivist, and others. I spoke on historians and their duty to the documentary record, specifically drawing upon my own naval history research and the value of adopting an activist feminist lens to revisit prior research on operational intelligence to discover what I and other historians had missed in previous examinations of open Canadian government records on this topic. 

Here is a summary of the speakers for the session:

2 pm: Welcoming Remarks: John Meehan

2:05: Paul Marsden on “Lost and Fonds”: the LRC article and next steps

2:15 Panel One: Chaired by Tim Sayle:

2:20: Transparency in the Making of National Security Policy: Thomas Juneau

2:30: The Historian’s Task and the Documentary Record: Isabel Campbell

2;40: History and the Policymaker: Sen. Peter Boehm

2:50: Panel Two: Chaired by Ian Wilson

2:55: ATIP and the Historian: Susan Colbourn

3:05: The View from LAC: Daniel German

3:15: The View from OIC: Allison Knight

3:25: Q&A: Moderated by John Meehan

The topic of access to Canadian government records is of interest to all historians as well as to members of the public and especially to advocates for refugees and other vulnerable groups. Without accurate and complete records, it is impossible to evaluate Canadian policies and their historical influences upon vulnerable peoples and others. 

I hope that members of the CNHH will take the time to watch the Youtube video if they did not get a chance to join our zoom session. And also wishing all members the best as we struggle together during this time when historical research has become particularly difficult to undertake.

Isabel Campbell, Senior Historian, Directorate of History and Heritage, National Defence Headquarters, Ottawa, Ontario.

CNHH Logo Long

Eleventh Bulletin of the CNHH, May 2021

May 19, 2021 /

The Eleventh Bulletin of the CNHH has now been sent out to the membership.  If you missed it, the complete PDF of the bulletin can be found here: Bulletin of the CNHH May 2021 FINAL

It has been more than a year since the last bulletin of April 2020. We hope that you are all well and that you will continue to send news, posts and announcements.

  1. I. PANEL AND ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

The annual CNHH sponsored panel on “Making Connections with the Public: Alternative Approaches to Learning History” will take place on Monday May 31, from 11:00 to 12:15 Ottawa time, virtually. The program of the CHA virtual conference is here: https://cha-shc.ca/_uploads/6092c3d816fd7.pdf

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Taking Inventory of WUSC’s Past – A Basement Journey

August 26, 2020 /

by Elizabeth Reid

In the Winter of 2020, I had the opportunity to work with the communications department at the World University Service of Canada, or WUSC, to help sort through decades worth of documents, photos, and other forms of media stored in its Ottawa office. Shortly after the First World War, WUSC, under its original name, European Student Relief, was created in Switzerland to help support European students displaced by the war. Although the archives I had the chance inventory did not span all the period back to the 1920s, they helped to paint a picture of the work WUSC has done in the last several decades, and the aid they have been able to provide to students on an international level. While most of WUSC’s archives are held in an off-site storage facility, a small portion of them are still stored in their main office and needed to be inventoried.

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