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CNHH Presents: Essential Reads in the History of Humanitarianism

February 13, 2024 / / 0 Comments

Top 5 Reads on the Historical Role of Media in the Ethiopian Famine Crisis of 1984

~ As recommended by Jonathon Zimmer, January 2024 ~

When I first began working on my MA thesis at the University of Regina, it didn’t take long to realize the intricate connection between humanitarian aid mobilization and the portrayal of crises by the media. My MA research focused on the portrayal of the Ethiopian famine of 1984, one of the worst humanitarian disasters of the twentieth century, by television, newspaper, and magazine outlets in Canada. Fueled by news reports of a disaster impacting millions in Africa, Canadians ‘stepped up’ by collectively donating millions of dollars to the relief effort. Not only did such support surprise the media, but also the Canadian government, which quickly worked to facilitate the cooperation of both the public and private sectors.

I was fortunate to have at my disposal several scholars whose work covered the broad and remarkably complex history of the famine. Indeed, some scholars like Suzanne Franks, Eleanor Singer, and Phyllis M. Endreny directly address the role of the media in reporting on humanitarian crises, with specific reference to the Ethiopian famine. Others, like Fen Hampson and Nassisse Solomon, note the effect of the media on government decisions relating to aid. With such a broad range of topics at one’s disposal, here are the sources that I would recommend, among others, for those interested in the portrayal of humanitarian crises by the media, using the Ethiopian famine as an example:

  1. Suzanne Franks. Reporting Disasters: Famine, Aid, Politics and the Media. London: Hurst & Company, 2013.

Suzanne Franks’ Reporting Disasters is one of most important sources for examining the role of the media in exposing the scale of the Ethiopian famine and is an essential read for those interested in the intricate tie between the media and humanitarianism. As she delves into the role of the BBC and the challenges their reporters met in exposing the famine to the wider Western public, she identifies how little aid had been entering the country prior to the media devoting significant attention to the crisis. Without the BBC and other subsequent media entering Ethiopia, the famine would not have attracted the international attention that it did. However, as she delves into the processes and behind-the-scenes workings of the BBC, she discovers that there is more at play than the benevolent intentions of individuals and instead the corporate workings of the media room may work against the humanitarian agenda of famine relief.

  1. Eleanor Singer and Phyllis M. Endreny. Reporting on Risk: How the Mass Media Portray Accidents, Diseases, Disasters, and Other Hazards. New York: Russel Sage Foundation, 1993.

Eleanor Singer and Phyllis M. Endreny do well in their demonstration of the competition between domestic and international stories for an audience–or, put another way, the value of a news story. Singer and Endreny note several important points about how the media portrayed the Ethiopian famine in the United States. For example, Singer and Endreny attribute the use of blame by the media to being one of the key factors in derailing American aid efforts. Specifically, American media sought to blame part of the origins of the crisis on Western governments, which they contend have been ignoring Ethiopia’s call for help.

  1. Susan D. Moeller. Compassion Fatigue: How the Media Sell Disease, Famine, War and Death. New York: Routledge, 1999.

A topic that can be reflected in numerous humanitarian crises, Compassion Fatigue echoes similar points to Reporting on Risk by examining the selection of news stories and their implications on the attitudes of the American public. Her selection focuses on disasters from the 1980s and 90s, particularly on famines, wars, diseases, and other causes of death. Of note, the third chapter of her book has a significant portion devoted to the famine in Ethiopia. She provides a wonderful overview of the situation on the ground and then delves into the role of the American media in exposing the scale of the famine. Further, she does well in noting the impact of celebrity aid, the role of print media, and what various reporters focused on throughout the period of attention the famine received.

  1. Fen Osler Hampson. Master of Persuasion: Brian Mulroney’s Global Legacy. New York: Signal, 2018.

Many historians examining the famine and Canada’s humanitarian response have used it as a milestone for Brian Mulroney’s federal Progressive Conservative government. Fen Hampson’s Master of Persuasion features an excellent overview of what he dubs “the CBC Factor,” or how the CBC’s November 1st, 1984, broadcast elicited such a strong response from the Canadian public. The Canadian media kept federal aid efforts in check by bringing up various issues and shortcomings on the part of the government. Such reporting elicited a response from within Parliament, which would debate and discuss matters of aid in the House of Commons. Overall, Hampson’s work demonstrates the evolving link between the public and private sectors with regards to famine relief, galvanized by the CBC and other Canadian media.

  1. Nassisse Solomon. “Tears are Not Enough: Canadian Political and Social Mobilization for Famine Relief in Ethiopia, 1984-88,” in The Samaritan State Revisited. Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2019.

The Samaritan State is a fantastic collection of works pertaining to Canada’s aid history. The contribution by Nassisse Solomon, a fellow CNHH member, in part explores how the famine’s publicity, generated by various media outlets, drove the close cooperation between the government and the public. She, like other scholars on this list, asserts the importance of the media in enabling various members of the Canadian government to undertake an aid mission to Ethiopia. Further, her work represents one of the rare instances in which she was able to interview a key member of the response team, its federal organizer, David MacDonald.

Jonathon Zimmer is a PhD candidate in the Department of History at Queen’s University, Kingston. His doctoral work, under the direction of Dr. Lisa Pasolli, examines the actions of the Canadian government in response to famine in Ethiopia. This research builds upon his University of Regina MA thesis that explored Canadian media reactions to the Ethiopian Famine of 1984, and how this influenced federal approaches to the crisis. He is the author of “Mobilizing the World: Brian Mulroney and Canada’s Humanitarian Response to Famine in Sub-Saharan Africa,” in Canada and the Challenges of Leadership: How Canadian Prime Ministers have Responded to Crises at Home and Abroad (Regina: University of Regina Press, 2023).

CNHH Presents: Essential Reads in the History of Humanitarianism

November 9, 2023 /

Top 5 Reads on the History of Development

~ as recommended by Jill Campbell-Miller, October 2023 ~

When I started looking into the history of Canadian foreign aid some fifteen years ago or so, not much scholarship existed about the history of development and foreign aid. As a student of Canadian foreign assistance, I was fortunate to have David Morrison’s Aid and Ebb Tide: A History of CIDA and Canadian Development Assistance. From a global perspective, the book most often referenced at the time was the late Gilbert Rist’s History of Development: From Western Origins to Global Faith. Though the book is undoubtedly a valuable piece of scholarship, the late Dr. Rist was not a historian, and the book was too broad and too thinly sourced to be comparable to the type of historical scholarship I sought.

Since that time, the landscape has changed dramatically. While I struggled to put together five works of professional history on this subject in the late oughts, today, I struggle to narrow down the choices to just five. I might have felt alone starting my PhD, but little did I know there were many scholars with similar interests working on major projects. While it came late for my historiography chapter, maybe it is not too late for someone else’s PhD dissertation. Here are five to get you started:

  1. Stephen J. Macekura and Erez Manela. The Development Century: A Global History. Cambridge University Press, 2018.

Fifteen years ago, I would have been amazed and delighted to find an edited collection of historical essays all covering histories of development. This collection is divided into four thematic groups that examine the origins of development, development in a decolonizing world, Cold War politics, and development and international society. It has a nice balance of geographies, topics, and temporal scopes, and is a good introduction to many of the key areas of study for historians of development. I have a particular soft spot for histories of development that locate the very early origins of the development project, and co-editor Manela’s chapter on “Smallpox and the Globalization of Development” is a great example of this.

  1. Matthew Connelly. Fatal Misconception: The Struggle to Control World Population. Harvard University Press, 2010.

While perhaps not a “history of development” proper, this book is an absolute must for understanding the development movement of the twentieth century. So many of the aid programs that developed in the 1950s and 1960s were based around the idea of controlling the world’s population, and so many of the prominent figures within important global institutions believed in a gospel of population control. Understanding this history is a crucial part of understanding the whole landscape of development in the mid-to-late twentieth century, and Connelly is not only a good historian, he is also an excellent story-teller.

  1. Sarah Lorenzini. Global Development: A Cold War History. Princeton University Press, 2019.

Odd Arne Westad refreshed the field of Cold War history by forcing his readers to see the rest of the world within a history that had been so often framed by American-Soviet politics in The Global Cold War (2005). Helpful as it was, as a reader in the 2000s, I also hoped for a book that would flesh out the way that development programming played into Cold War politics. Lorenzini’s book has finally brought these two fields together into one comprehensive volume. Arguing that development was “molded by the Cold War and, in turn, actively designed some of its structures” (4), Lorenzini’s book covers a huge terrain – from the colonial precedents of the interwar years to the major projects of American and Soviet aid, to those trying to challenge the bipolar constraints of the Cold War through development.

  1. Corinna R. Unger. International Development: A Postwar History. Bloomsbury Academic, 2018.

Unger’s book is the type of textbook I craved as a student. It covers the vocabulary and terminology central to development history, the important philosophical and colonial precedents to the post-war development movement, the major programs of the twentieth century, and the critiques and challenges the development movement faced in the late twentieth century and beyond. Unger’s book is a solid first place to start for anyone interested in this field, and despite the breadth of its subject matter, it is quite concise.

  1. Kevin O’Sullivan. The NGO Moment: The Globalisation of Compassion from Biafra to Live Aid. Cambridge University Press, 2021.

I will finish with a book from one of the CNHH’s very own, Kevin O’Sullivan. O’Sullivan’s book is a much-needed bird’s-eye view on one of the most important driving forces of development in the latter years of the twentieth century – development and humanitarian non-governmental organizations. Past books on developmental NGOs have typically had an agenda – either as hagiographies or as take-downs – but O’Sullivan’s book is a critical yet nuanced look at the history of these important organizations within the geopolitical context of the larger development movement. Focusing on three states, Britain, Canada, and Ireland, O’Sullivan examines the “‘progressive, interventionist model of compassion that privileged aid over political solidarity with the Third World.” By taking a transnational perspective, O’Sullivan is able to emphasize the global linkages between many different NGOs, and the ideologies that linked them together. Also, there are just a lot of fascinating stories in this book.

Dr. Jill Campbell-Miller is a historian who specializes in twentieth-century Canadian political and social history. Her interests particularly focus on Canadian foreign assistance and humanitarianism in South Asia during the mid-twentieth century. Her dissertation, which she is currently revising to become a manuscript, examines the history of Canadian foreign aid in India during the 1950s. She completed postdoctoral fellowships at the Gorsebrook Research Institute at Saint Mary’s University, and in the Department of History at Carleton University, and presently works as a civil servant with Fisheries and Oceans Canada. She is co-editor, with Greg Donaghy and Stacey Barker, of Breaking Barriers, Shaping Worlds: Canadian Women and the Search for Global Order (UBC Press, 2021). 

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

October 20, 2023 /

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.

CNHH Presents: Essential Reads in the History of Humanitarianism

October 1, 2023 /

Top 5 Resources on Humanitarianism, Development, and Photography

~ as recommended by Sonya de Laat, September 2023 ~

Chances are quite high that if you are working with the archives of an aid organization or a humanitarian worker from the past 150 years, you’ll encounter photographs. This is very exciting but can also be daunting depending on how many there are, your experience with working with images and the content of the pictures. On the one hand, photographs are evidentiary: they can show—to an extent—what the past was like. Pictures show what people wore, what they drove, what an individual looked like. They also (at least before the advent of CCTV) prove that someone was there; there was an event and it was witnessed. On the other hand, photographs are social and political artifacts. Learning about what they represent—at the time they were made as well as today in the present (often quite different meanings)—can be more important than what is depicted on the surface of the image. Considering what is not depicted, what sits outside the frame, can also be critically important to explore. 


Photographs can also be powerful methodological tools for historians. They can jog peoples’ memories when used in photo-based oral histories or, when used as part of photo elicitation, can help access different knowledge and emotions otherwise difficult to reach. When shared by historians in publications or presentations, it is important to recognize these different dimensions of photographs—as artifacts, as evidence, their significance, their affect—to make full use of their richness while remaining attentive to potential limits and harms that can come from their use (or neglect).

This blog post shares some resources on the relationship between photography and histories of humanitarianism and international development actions. How are photographs to be “read” or interpreted? How can they be contextualized or treated versus other archival documents and artifacts? In what ways can photographs support the development of histories of humanitarian aid?

If you read only five things about histories of humanitarian photography, these suggestions provide a good foundation:

  1. Sonya de Laat and Valérie Gorin. “Iconographies of Humanitarian Aid in Africa,” in Learning from the Past to Shape the Future: Lessons from the History of Humanitarian Action in Africa. Edited by Christina Bennett, Matthew Foley and Hanna B. Krebs. Overseas Development Institute, Humanitarian Policy Group, 2016. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/310366563_Iconographies_of_humanitarian_aid_in_Africa

Arguably a shameless personal plug, this chapter provides a brief history of the emergence of humanitarian photography, an introduction to several significant photographic archives, and a summary of themes often represented in the pictures. Though limited to major photographic collections related to Africa, themes and theories are translatable to other post-colonial settings or those often on the receiving end of aid. 

  1. Heide Fehrenbach and Davide Rodogno, editors. Humanitarian Photography: A History. Cambridge University Press, 2015.

Currently the ‘definitive’ publication on humanitarian photography, Fehrenbach and Rodogno provide a practical definition of the ‘genre’ and have gathered a wide assortment of examples and histories. The collection of essays reach back to the early days of photography, before “humanitarianism “ was considered a specific set of benevolent activities or, for that matter, a profession. Particularly useful are chapters looking at the trope of children, or the concept of visual politics, and the still under explored realm of gender in humanitarian action. Considering the sheer amount of references this book receives, it is a must have in your collection.

  1. Jane Lydon. Photography, Humanitarianism, Empire. Routledge, 2016. 
  1. Valérie Gorin. “Photography, Humanitarianism, Empire.” History of Photography 42, 1 (2018): 98-100.

Lydon’s book provides a rich example of the value in exploring little-known cases in the emergence of humanitarianism through early photographs. Focusing her cases on Australia, and Australia Aborigines in particular, Lydon weaves together a truly global tapestry of historical and visual criticism. The supplementary book review by Gorin will augment readers’ experiences with Lydon’s book.

  1. Carol Payne. “‘You hear it in their voice’: Photographs and Cultural Consolidation among Inuit Youths and Elders.” In Image and Memory: Oral History and Photography, pp. 97-114. Edited by Alexander Freund and Alistair Thomson. Palgrave Press, 2011.

Though not specific to humanitarian or international development actions, or actors, I include this book to present some practical examples on methods of employing photography in historical research. Particularly as humanitarian and international development actors increasingly work in partnership with, follow the lead of, or are themselves from communities often on the receiving end of aid, this book is a great methodological resource in an era of reconciliation and decolonization. 

Suggestions for Further Reading:

  1. David Campbell. “Imaging Famine” exhibition catalogue. From exhibition at The Guardian and Observer Newsroom and Archive in London, August/September 2005. Retrieved 27 September 2023: http://static1.squarespace.com/static/5f0049c5a48d404988af893f/5f00533a5d8ebb04c479bdba/5f0053515d8ebb04c479bf96/1593856849666/Imaging_Famine_catalogue.pdf?format=original 
  1. David Campbell. “The Iconography of Famine.” In Picturing Atrocity: Reading Photographs in Crisis. Edited by G. Batchen, M. Gidley, NK Miller, and J. Prosser. Reaktion Books, 2012.
  2. Aubrey Graham. “One Hundred Years of Suffering? ‘Humanitarian crisis photography’ and Self-representation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.” Social Dynamics 40, 1 (2014): 140-163.
  3. Kevin Grant. “Christian Critics of Empire: Missionaries, Lantern Lectures, and the Congo Reform Campaign in Britain.” The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 29, 2 (2001): 27–58.
  4. Sharon Sliwinski. “The Childhood of Human Rights: The Kodak on the Congo.” Journal of Visual Culture 5, 3 (2006): 333-363. 

Dr. Sonya de Laat is a scholar of moral and practical dimensions of humanitarian visual culture and practice through the application of historical and new media lenses. Currently working as a Research Associate in the Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence and Impact at McMaster University, Dr. de Laat is an active member of the Humanitarian Health Ethics Research Group, and of the CNHH. Recent publications include “Memory and Photographs of Unrepresentable Trauma in Rwandan Transitional Justice” (2022) and “The Camera and the Red Cross: ‘Lamentable pictures’ and Conflict Photography Bring into Focus an International Movement, 1855-1865” (2021). In 2022 Dr. de Laat was the Caroline Miles Visiting Scholar at the University of Oxford’s Ethox Centre.

Exploring the Intersections of Science and International Humanitarian Aid

January 21, 2023 /

By CNHH for Dominique Marshall

21 January 2023

Often, histories of humanitarianism or specific humanitarian interventions focus on the discourses deployed, the policies enacted, the tangible aid provided, or the actors involved. An equally important but less frequently studied thread running through aid history is the use (and misuse) of science and technology in humanitarian interventions.

During the Fall 2021 semester, students from Ottawa’s Carleton University who participated in Dr. Dominique Marshall’s seminar “STEM in Canadian Society and Policy” partnered with students from Dr. Soenke Kunkel and Dr. David Bosold’s seminar, “Science and Technology in Transatlantic Relations” at the Freie Iniversität in Berlin. As part of their work for these courses, the students created timelines showcasing a variety of humanitarian inventions in which science and technology played a significant part:

The timelines are hosted for public viewing on the Recipro project website. The Recipro project is a collaboration between the history departments of the University of Ottawa and Carleton University, and centers on the convergence of pedagogy, science, and digital humanities. The site allows users to discover the history of transnational solidarity and humanitarian aid through teaching and learning activities, including the resulting student projects (presentations, archival material, timelines, and much more).

Dr. Dominique Marshall is a professor of History at Carleton University and co-founder of the Canadian Network on Humanitarian History.

The History, and Future, of Transnational Humanitarian Work

August 12, 2022 /

Report from Two Years of Co-Creation of Knowledge, Policy, and Education Materials

by Helen Kennedy

August 12, 2022

Back on 6 April 2020, we announced the beginning of a Mitacs-funded research partnership between the Canadian Network on Humanitarian History, Carleton University, and five Canadian NGOs. At that time, we thought pandemic delays might extend our four-month project perhaps an additional two or three months. Now, over two years later, I am happy to announce that the project titled “Micro-Histories of Transnational Humanitarian Aid: Co-Creation of Knowledge, Policy, and Education Materials” has officially come to an end!

For the last two years, I have had the privilege of working with the Latin American Working Group, WUSC (World University Service of Canada), IMPACT (formerly Partnership Africa Canada), the Multicultural Council of Saskatchewan, and the Disability Hub (Centre for Lebanese Studies / Oxfam Quebec) to learn more about the work that they do, tell their stories, and contribute in some small way to the future of their organizations.

Having an opportunity to delve into the diverse histories and policies that shape the work of these disparate organizations has made the long pandemic days a little more interesting. The interviews and archival research I conducted covered a broad spectrum of transnational NGO work, from advocating for more inclusive election practices in Lebanon to contextualizing the work of Black leaders in Saskatchewan at the turn of the 20th century to challenges facing organizations opposed to conflict diamonds to the histories of refugee resettlement and anti-free trade advocacy.

Each organization had unique research challenges and the final reports will be used by the organizations to meet diverse needs.

As the Latin American Working Group grapples with how best to communicate to new researchers the relevancy of their work in the history of transnational solidarity and advocacy movements, we recovered four boxes of archival material and organized their transfer to the LAWG Library at York University. Interviews with former volunteers and the accompanying report sheds light on how anti-free trade solidarity includes more than simply a history of transnational labour history: the histories of refugees, human rights, environmental protection, and diplomacy are bound up in the history of LAWG and Common Frontiers.

As WUSC celebrated its 100th anniversary during the pandemic, we undertook a history of their involvement with Hungarian refugee student resettlement to shine a light on the interconnected nature of their history and their current programming. Today, WUSC hosts over 150 university students annually as part of its Student Refugee Program.

As a founding civil society member of the Kimberly Process, we worked with IMPACT to explore the history of civil society involvement in international diamond regulation. The work aims to support their ongoing advocacy work regarding resource extraction and artisanal mining.

The Multicultural Council of Saskatchewan has been doing incredible work surrounding anti-racism and educating the community on the benefits of cultural diversity since 1975. Our research project aimed to provide context for the life and achievements of Dr. Alfred Shadd, a Black educator, politician, doctor, entrepreneur, and civic leader at the turn of the 20th century.

The Disability Hub at the Centre for Lebanese Studies used our research into inclusive election best practices in North America and Europe as part of their lobbying campaign to improve inclusivity in the May 2022 elections in Lebanon.

It has been immensely varied and gratifying work and I am grateful that our stakeholders gave me their time, expertise, and advice as they navigated adapting their organizations’ work to the online space. I am looking forward to seeing the ways that all the organizations continue to explore their histories in order to shape their futures.

Helen Kennedy is a PhD candidate at Carleton University where she studies international intervention and humanitarian action in Bosnia (1992-1995).

Preserving the Legacy of Influential Canadian Humanitarian Lewis Perinbam (1925-2007)

April 25, 2022 /

by Sarah Glassford

April 25, 2022

Over the last two years, the CNHH has worked with the Lewis Perinbam Innovation and Impact Awards to preserve and share the memory and legacy of one of the most influential humanitarians in Canadian history: the late Lewis Perinbam.

The Malysian-born, Scottish-educated Perinbam spent most of his career in the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), and “anyone who worked in the international development field in Canada during the 1970s and 1980s would be familiar” with his name. Although Perinbam’s work is well-documented in archival collections and discussed in scholarly publications, those who knew and worked with him wished to make his impact more accessible and widely known to the general public.  As one writer summed up his remarkable career: “Lewis was instrumental in fostering partnerships between Canada and the Global South, in making education more accessible to all and in creating opportunities for young people to become more involved in making our world a better place.” [1]

Thanks to a grant from the MITACS agency, Carleton University doctoral candidate in History Anna Kozlova was able to conduct a series of interviews with friends, relatives, supervisors, mentees, and co-workers of Lewis Perinbam, exploring his significant role shaping humanitarian work and humanitarian workers in both governmental (CIDA) and non-governmental organizations of the later 20th c. The result is a fascinating composite portrait of a pivotal player in the Canadian and international development scene.

Kozlova’s thoughtful interviews, as well as a selection of archival documents not previously available to the public, a podcast, and a timeline of Perinbam’s life can be found in a curated Lewis Perinbam web portal hosted on the World University Service Canada (WUSC) website. Information about the Lewis Perinbam Award (for exceptional volunteers in the field of development work) is also available through the portal.

As ever, the CNHH is proud to support efforts like this one which work to preserve and share the history of humanitarian aid and development work in Canada and beyond.

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Anna Kozlova is a doctoral candidate in History at Carleton University and CNHH member interested in 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).”

Sarah Glassford is the current editor of the CNHH blog, archivist in the University of Windsor’s Leddy Library Archives & Special Collections, and a social historian of 20th c. Canada.

[1] WUSC, Lewis Perinbam web portal homepage, https://lewisperinbam.wusc.ca/ (accessed 21 April 2022).

Nursing, Empire, & Mobility: Lydia Wytenbroek on American Mission Nurses in Iran & Iranian Nurses in the U.S., 1907-1979

March 15, 2022 /

Webinar Report by Maia Luger

March 15, 2022

This blog is cross-posted with DevHistory.

The Tuan Luu Webinar Series continued its 2021-2022 season with Lydia Wytenbroek, an Assistant Professor at the University of British Colombia School of Nursing, who spoke with Dr. David Webster, an Associate Professor in the History department at Bishop’s University. She spoke about the key argument of her current book project, titled American (Inter)Nationalism in Iran, which examines American Presbyterian mission nurses in Iran and their efforts to establish and cultivate international nursing standards in the country.

The American nursing mission in Iran started in 1834, and started an emphasis on nursing in Iran. By the start of the early 20th century, the mission established seven hospitals across Iran, with a prestigious reputation for surgery. Although these hospitals were affiliated with Presbyterian missionary work, many nurses who participated in the program weren’t necessarily focused on religious aspects, instead relating more to the sense of adventure provided by the program and the opportunity to create a professionalized agenda for nursing. They acted as ambassadors of the American model of nursing; the program boasted high admission requirements, a standardized nursing curriculum, nursing exams, certifications, and eventually led to the establishment of professional organizations, such as the Iranian Nurses Association in 1953. Through this program, nationalist concerns were articulated through a medicalized discourse, with the Iranian government using imagery of Iran as a sick mother in need of care. An anonymous nurse who participated in the program referred to nursing as a “means of regenerating an unhealthy Iranian nation”, and nursing was framed as a sisterhood, using American imagery of Florence Nightingale to represent nurses as leaders serving the Iranian nation, not just working in mission hospitals.

Dr. Wytenbroek presented the main argument of her book, that nurses occupied a prominent place in Iranian iconography based on 20th century American mission nurses. Nursing was used as a pathway for imperialism and professionalism, as well as a pathway for women’s mobility in terms of financial, social, geographical, and professional avenues. These women who graduated from these programs became supervisors and instructors, earning opportunities that may have otherwise not been accessible for them. Nurses were also able to use their knowledge and education for personal safety during World War I, with Wytenbroek using the example of Grace Sayad, a trained nurse who fled Iran and emigrated to the United States and was able to work as a nurse and financially support her family to join her in safety. (See this blog post to learn more about Grace Sayad’s story: https://nursingclio.org/2017/09/05/mission-nursing-migration-and-mobility-in-twentieth-century-iran/)

Dr. Wytenbroek also fielded questions from students and webinar attendees, discussing the dominant role of midwives prior to the establishment of the American nursing missions due to the high maternal and infant mortality rate in the early- to mid-1900s. She also discussed the sources consulted throughout her research, primarily naming mission records – and the constraints involved in the dominance of mission resources – as her main source of information. Additionally, she conducted oral interviews with Iranian nurses now residing in the U.S., as well as Iranian women’s journals written in Persian.

The webinar served as an opportunity to hear first-hand from Wytenbroek, a nurse and historian, on her experience and research on the American medical missions in Iran and the role of nursing in Iranian national identity. You can learn more about her work here: https://read.dukeupress.edu/jmews/article-abstract/18/1/36/294387/Nursing-Inter-nationalism-in-Iran-1916-1947  The next webinar will be hosted via Zoom on Wednesday, March 23th, with Jill Campbell-Miller, titled A Mission for Modernity: Canadian Women in Medical and Nursing Education in India.

Maia Lugar is currently completing a Master’s degree in Political Management at Carleton University. She is researching the topic of Indigenous territoriality and federalism, and her research interests include Indigenous structures of governance and Canadian federalism as a vehicle for colonialism.

Dr. Lydia Wytenbroek is an Assistant Professor in the School of Nursing at the University of British Columbia, and a 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. Her current book project, American (Inter)Nationalism in Iran, examines American mission nurses in Iran and their efforts to cultivate international nursing standards in the country.

The Tuan Luu Webinar Series is presented by the Department of History at Bishop’s University. Its Winter 2022 program features webinars by emerging scholars on Global Health and History. Talks are held online via Zoom. Register at https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJUvf-GqqT8tGdyMjPDJW6jsUib0VTpwRKNx, … Visit https://devhistory.wordpress.com/ for details, or go directly to https://zoom.us/j/91288274738.

Breaking Barriers, Shaping Worlds: Reflections on Finding the Women Missing from Diplomatic History

March 8, 2022 /

The histories of humanitarian aid and diplomacy are closely entwined. In honour of International Women’s Day 2022, historian and CNHH member Jill Campbell-Miller reflects on the importance of expanding our understandings of diplomacy to include the women whose often unsung contributions have shaped the global order alongside men’s better known diplomatic exploits.

by Jill Campbell-Miller

8 March 2022

If one were to choose a single picture that encapsulates our collective understanding of twentieth-century diplomatic history, a few options easily spring to mind. Perhaps Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin at the Yalta conference of 1945 – or the photo of Woodrow Wilson, David Lloyd George, and Georges Clemenceau that graces the cover of Margaret MacMillan’s Paris 1919. Both photos tell stories of larger-than-life men leading their countries through war and toward peace. These images also carry other notions about diplomacy, such as oak tables surrounded by men smoking tobacco, hammering out the world’s business in an exercise of intellect over force. They arrive in our minds imbued with masculinity, informed by what historians and the media have taught us to see as diplomacy.

Women are largely absent from these famous images and are certainly absent from our shared imagination around what constitutes “diplomacy” in the twentieth-century context. In recent years, however, historians have begun to broaden their outlook on diplomatic history. Indeed, in Canada, the trend has been a shift from a narrower focus on the North Atlantic Triangle and the oak tables of previous iterations of diplomatic history (necessary though that work has been) toward a more expansive version of international history that is willing to look beyond the conference room as the site of diplomacy. This change has allowed women to move to the forefront as historical actors on the international stage.

The new collection Breaking Barriers, Shaping Worlds: Canadian Women and the Search for Global Order, which I co-edited with Greg Donaghy and Stacey Barker, brings together nine chapters that profile the work of Canadian women abroad. Organized around three themes – women in missions, aid, and development; women in international resistance; and women in diplomacy – it examines the work of activists, missionaries, diplomatic spouses, and diplomats. In doing so, it emphasizes one important, overlooked, truth: while these women’s work may have been rendered invisible or simply been undervalued by the societies in which they lived, women were present, and they made an impact.

Breaking Barriers, Shaping Worlds: Canadian Women and the Search for Global Order, edited by Jill Campbell-Miller, Greg Donaghy, and Stacey Barker, UBC Press 2021.

Take, for example, Kim Girouard’s chapter on Dr. Jessie MacBean, a Canadian missionary who worked for decades in South China educating women and men in obstetric specialities. As a missionary, MacBean participated in a network of imperialism, with all the problematic and sometimes destructive qualities that this entailed. Yet her work developing clinics and medical education in South China not only provided quality health care, it helped to train the next generation of Chinese obstetric specialists, including women. Girouard draws our attention to this forgotten story and legacy.

Even when it has not been forgotten, women’s work has sometimes been undermined by gendered stereotyping. Jean Casselman Wadds is well remembered as the high commissioner to the United Kingdom who helped to guide the patriation of the Canadian constitution. But as Steve Marti and Francine McKenzie write in their chapter on Casselman, the tense negotiations that led up to the final agreement have been characterized as a “dinner party war,” thereby undermining the serious diplomatic skills it took to hold many contradictory opinions around the same table. The dining hall of Canada’s high commission in London served as the trench network in this war and Casselman Wadds was not only adept at the domestic art of holding a dinner party, she was also a savvy politician. It was her expertise in both domains that smoothed the way for the patriation. Although traditionally feminine attributes are frequently characterized as weak or silly, they bring an emotional intellect often necessary for tense diplomatic situations.

These chapters and others in Breaking Barriers, Shaping Worlds demonstrate the importance of finding women in the historical record, some of whom may be hiding in plain sight. By omitting women’s history – as well as the histories of Indigenous, Black, LGBTQ2S+, and other marginalized groups – we miss out on a fuller understanding of historical events, even those we think we understand well. That is why events like International Women’s Day serve as important reminders. As historians, we do not seek to make or glorify heroes, but we do want to know what happened. Without understanding women’s roles in history, we will only ever have an incomplete picture of a rich and complex past.

To purchase Jill Campbell-Miller, Greg Donaghy, and Stacey Barker, eds., Breaking Barriers, Shaping Worlds: Canadian Women and the Search for Global Order (UBC Press, 2021), visit: https://www.ubcpress.ca/breaking-barriers-shaping-worlds

Dr. Jill Campbell-Miller is a historian who specializes in twentieth-century Canadian foreign policy and international history, with a focus on the history of foreign aid, international development, natural resources, humanitarianism (especially health education), women and gender. Her PhD dissertation, which she is currently revising to become a manuscript, examined the history of Canadian foreign aid in India during the 1950s. She recently completed an AMS postdoctoral fellowship at the Gorsebrook Research Institute at Saint Mary’s University, and a SSHRC doctoral fellowship in the Department of History at Carleton University.

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

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