Category: Blog (Page 1 of 7)

Project on the International Red Cross Movement and the Cold War Divide, the 1940s–1980s

May 22, 2025 / / 0 Comments
Severyan Dyakonov at Carleton University’s Archives and Special Collections, MacOdrum Library.
Credit: Dominique Marshall

Severyan Dyakonov is a SSHRC postdoctoral fellow at the Department of History of Carleton University, supervised by Erica Fraser. He is currently in the third year of a research project on the history of the Soviet Red Cross within the broader International Red Cross movement after the Second World War. In this blog entry he wants to briefly talk about themes he is working on and future plans. His current project is part of a long-term commitment to understanding how Cold War dynamics shaped global humanitarianism and public health, particularly within the League of Red Cross Societies (LRCS).

Founded after World War I, the LRCS was created to coordinate the work of national Red Cross and Red Crescent societies around the world. In the aftermath of WWII, the organization—like the United Nations and other major international bodies—underwent a profound transformation due to decolonization. As newly independent nations in Asia and Africa established their own national Red Cross or Red Crescent societies, they joined the League in significant numbers. While there were just over 60 member societies in the 1940s, by the 1970s this figure had doubled to more than 120.

For many of these new states, having a national Red Cross or Red Crescent society served as a marker of sovereignty and international legitimacy. This context also helps explain why the Eastern Bloc, led by the Soviet Union, sought active participation in the Red Cross movement. It offered a valuable platform for engaging with the decolonizing world and promoting alternative models of humanitarianism grounded in socialist ideals.

The Red Cross movement became a key arena for debates over the very meaning of humanitarianism during the Cold War. Socialist countries challenged the dominant philanthropic model, which prioritized emergency aid, and instead advocated for a more developmental approach that emphasized long-term structural transformation. They argued that true humanitarianism required mobilization toward development goals, particularly in newly decolonized nations.

In contrast, Western actors insisted on the neutrality and apolitical nature of humanitarian work, often accusing socialist countries of politicizing the movement. From the perspective of left-leaning thinkers, however, claims of neutrality were often viewed with suspicion—interpreted as tacit alignment with conservative or right-wing ideologies. In the socialist world, humanitarianism was inseparable from the political goal of empowering the decolonizing world to develop independently of former colonial powers. It was not merely about relief, but about supporting a new world order rooted in equality and self-determination.

As part of my research, I examine how Cold War tensions shaped the international humanitarian field by tracing debates within the League of Red Cross Societies. I rely on archival materials from the LRCS, held in Geneva, as well as documents from national Red Cross societies. My first article from this project, titled “‘Resilience, Perseverance, and Sense of Diplomacy:’ The Soviet Red Cross in India, 1954–1963”, has been accepted for publication in the European Journal for the History of Medicine and Health and is expected to appear later this year. I had a chance to present it at Carleton in March.  In Ottawa, I conduct research at Library and Archives Canada and draw on Carleton University Library’s Special Collections to examine the role of the Canadian Red Cross and its involvement in Cold War humanitarian dynamics. John MacAuley, originally chair of the Manitoba branch of the Canadian Red Cross, served as president of the Canadian Red Cross and then of the League of Red Cross Societies from 1959 to 1965. Operating from his office in Winnipeg, he led the organization during a pivotal period marked by decolonization and a significant expansion of the League’s membership. You can watch a video of him visiting the LRCS office in Geneva here and also find lots of other Red Cross related documentaries and reels on the International Federation of the Red Cross historical films collection YouTune resource.

Carleton University holds the archival collection of the Ukrainian Red Cross in Exile (URCE), an organization headquartered in Geneva between 1939 and the early 1950s. Although the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) did not formally recognize the URCE, archival evidence suggests that informal relations existed between the two bodies. The URCE’s historical position is particularly intriguing. During World War II, when Ukraine was under Nazi occupation, it was the Soviet Red Cross that found itself effectively in exile from Ukrainian territory. Meanwhile, the URCE served as a hub for correspondence between the Ukrainian diaspora—such as communities in Brazil—and Ukrainians residing in Nazi-occupied parts of Europe.

In March of this year, I helped organize a seminar at the newly established Center for Digital Humanities and Multilateralism in Geneva. The event brought together scholars and practitioners to discuss the future of Red Cross–related archival research in the digital age. Among the participants were Grant Mitchell, Head of Archives at the International Federation of the Red Cross (LRCS before 1991), and Professor Jean-François Fayet, historian at the University of Fribourg. Together, we explored strategies for the digitization and integration of Red Cross–related archival materials, which are currently dispersed across institutions and countries. I hope the seminar will be helpful to fostering collaborative frameworks for improving global access to humanitarian archives.

Looking ahead, I plan to apply for additional funding to continue developing this project. My aim is twofold: to produce further scholarly output and to build a digital database supported by AI-powered research assistance. This platform would help facilitate research in the history of humanitarianism by making archival materials more accessible and searchable for scholars working across disciplines and geographic areas.

Last but not least, my interest in the theme of humanitarianism extends beyond historical research into current global developments. This spring, I recorded a 55-minute podcast with Dr. Yipeng Ge, a Canadian physician who was suspended from his university program after publicly expressing antiwar views on the conflict in Gaza. Although the suspension was later revoked, Dr. Ge chose not to return and instead joined a humanitarian mission to Gaza. The podcast is available on YouTube and Spotify.

I will be happy to find other researchers that work on similar themes and interested in discussing collaborative research funding options. One of them is the European Research Council Horizon Europe Pillar 2 scheme (cluster 2 Culture, Creativity and Inclusive Society) that Canada joined last year. You can reach me out on LinkedIn, Bluesky, and by emailing me:

severyandyakonov@gmail.com

Link for my talk at Carleton:

The Soviet Red Cross in 1950s-60s India-Talk. – Canadian Network on Humanitarian History

Link for event on digital humanities’ seminar:

Digitisation of Red Cross Archives: The Challenges of Digitising the Archives of the International Red Cross and National Societies | IHEID

Link to YouTube video with John MacAuley visiting the LRCS in Geneva:

John A. MacAulay, Chairman League of Red Cross Societies, visits its Geneva headquarters (1959) – YouTube

Link to IFRC archives’ film collection:

IFRC Film Archives Digitization Project (2021)

Yipeng Ge interview on YouTube:

Interview with Yipeng Ge — Canadian Doctor Who Went to Gaza on Humanitarian Mission.

On Spotify:

Interview with Yipeng Ge — Canadian Doctor Who Went to Gaza on Humanitarian Mission. – Interview with Dr. Yipeng Ge – Canadian doctor that went to Gaza. | Podcast on Spotify

ERC Horizon Europe how to apply link:

How to apply to Horizon Europe

International cooperation between Indigenous peoples in the late twentieth century : inter-governmental undertakings and the history of Indigenous rights

May 5, 2025 / / 0 Comments

Centre for Sámi Studies at UiT the Arctic University of Norway scholar Jonathan Crossen visits Carleton University in June 2025

I am a historian of organized internationalism, particularly international cooperation between Indigenous peoples in the late twentieth century. My past researched has focused on both institutions like the World Council of Indigenous Peoples (WCIP) and the individuals that contribute to their work. I am currently focused on efforts at Indigenous international diplomacy during the 1990s, including international Indigenous women’s activism; global Indigenous youth conferences; joint Indigenous responses to European seal skin restrictions; Indigenous cooperation surrounding the 1992 Kari-Oca Conference; as well as various examples of Indigenous-led economic development work.

I am based at the Centre for Sámi Studies at UiT the Arctic University of Norway in Romsa, Sápmi / Tromsø, Norway. Dominque Marshall has kindly invited to come to Carleton as a Visiting Professor and I will complete a brief research stay in June 2025.

During my time in Ottawa and Algonquin territory, I hope to gain further insight into how the synergies between various inter-governmental undertakings helped advance Indigenous rights, both directly and indirectly. Gatherings like the UN Working Group on Indigenous Populations, the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio, or the Arctic Council’s Ministerial meetings not only not only draw international attention to Indigenous peoples’ rights but provide space for Indigenous delegates to practice their diplomatic skills in a high-level forum. I aim to analyze this growth period while also explaining the parallel demise of the WCIP, one the first global Indigenous organizations.

Similarly, the span of time between the UN Decade for Women (1976-1985) and the International Year of the World’s Indigenous People (1993) provided bi-directional attention which led to a leap in the organization and effectiveness of Indigenous women’s collaboration. Successive conferences during and after the end of the UN Women’s Decade attracted steadily increasing participation from Indigenous women. Making new connections, they saw opportunities for collaboration and began to organize their own international conferences, and eventually, their own international organizations. During the 1990s, Indigenous peoples completed a draft the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, organized protests and commemorations of the “Columbus Quincentenary.” This work, the added attention of Rigoberta Menchú’s 1992 Nobel Peace Price win, and the proclamation of the first International Decade of the World’s Indigenous People (1995-2004) effectively forced UN bodies to facilitate increased Indigenous participation. By the time of the 1995 World Conference on Women, Indigenous women were well prepared and well situated to make their voices heard.

Letterhead from the Second International Indigenous Women’s Conference (August 1990) under the sponsorship of Sáráhkká, the Sámi Women’s Association.

As well as conducting research at Library and Archives Canada and Inuit Circumpolar Council Canada, I look forward to forging new links with scholars from various units at Carleton, including History, NPSIA, SPAA, FIST, and Indigenous Studies. I aim to investigate the possibility of building an expanded international research project related to Indigenous diplomacy or internationalism.

The CNHH will organize a hybrid event around Jonathan’s work toward the end of his stay.  If you are interested, please contact us at dominique_marshall@carleton.ca

Shocked, but not Surprised: The End of USAID in Historical Perspective.

April 18, 2025 / / 0 Comments

Cross-Posted with ActiveHistory.ca

by Jill Campbell-Miller

Image of a Student Working for the Instagram Account of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). United States of America National Archives. NAID: 236741847.

Shocked, but not surprised.

It’s an ambivalent set of emotions that I, and I’m guessing many others, have become well acquainted with since 2016, when Trump first took charge of the White House. And it’s something that I felt acutely when I heard the news about Elon Musk gutting the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). After all, this is happening under the same President that once referred to Haiti and some African nations as “shithole countries,” so I could not be truly surprised. But it was still a shock when I read that as the unofficial head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a group that has no Congressional authority, Musk began to shutter USAID operations at the beginning of February. Musk bragged on his social media platform that he was putting USAID “into the wood chipper.”  At that time, the USAID website went dark, and as I am writing this, it is still down.

President John F. Kennedy created USAID through an Executive Order in 1961. Though many historians have pointed to earlier origins of humanitarian aid, stemming from imperial, colonial and missionary roots, the government aid programs that developed in mid-century North America were geopolitical and economic expressions of the post-war period. USAID consolidated the growing but piecemeal technical assistance, food aid, education and healthcare-based development programs already underway in parts of the US government throughout the 1950s. A similar consolidation of the Canadian program occurred when the Liberal Lester B. Pearson government created the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) in 1968.[1] As I’ve written about in this forum in the past, the government of Stephen Harper dismantled CIDA in 2013 to more explicitly align aid with the government’s foreign policy goals. While many observers disliked this change, no one could argue it was outside the norms of traditional democratic governance. Aid continued to be a feature of Canadian foreign policy. What is currently happening in the United States is quite different.

Clearly, self-interested economic and geopolitical considerations of the Cold War, such as the need to dispose of food surpluses and support American soft power influence against Communist powers, provided the political currency and motivation to spend aid dollars. Nonetheless, USAID and concomitant support for the Bretton Woods and other multilateral institutions reflected an ideal, emerging from the Second World War, that rejected the autarky of fascism and economic isolation of pre-war America, and sought to build international relationships. Of course, successive US administrations exploited the country’s economic and political power to support anti-democratic and autocratic regimes, including support for the military coup in Iran in 1953 and  the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet in Chile. Many critics argue that global trade arrangements have allowed those in wealthy countries to profit enormously from cheap and exploited labour within countries that receive aid.[2] But USAID and other contemporary nation-based development agencies did at least represent a vision of the global order that saw the prosperity and security of the rest of the world as relevant to the prosperity and security of those at home.

Aid has always been vulnerable to political winds of change and, indeed, fads. From the focus on family planning of the 1960s and 1970s, to the structural adjustment trends of the 1980s and 1990s, to the technocratic Sachsian approach of the 2000s (instead of more cowbell, think more bed nets), the desire to provide an ultimate “fix” to global poverty cheaply and easily is a cycle that has repeated itself over and over again.[3] That no such fix is possible has led to real donor and compassion fatigue, especially as international crises seem to multiply and intensify.

Adding to this fatigue, some small and big “c” conservatives have long been inclined to be skeptical of aid, asking why money that could be spent at home should be spent abroad (it often goes unnoticed that a lot of aid dollars have been spent at home, purchasing the items that are given abroad). Indeed, this was a question that Prime Minister John Diefenbaker himself once expressed privately in correspondence with one of his Ministers, Donald Fleming, during Canada’s early days of aid-giving.[4] But if anyone today has a relative connected to the “Proud” and Q-Anon adjacent social media universe, you will know that this point has escaped from an uncle’s passing reflection at the dinner table, and entered the online right-wing meme-a-verse. These memes paint government spending as a zero-sum proposition, where resources are spent either on foreign aid or, for example,homeless veterans, and usually contain false statistics. It does not help that such opinions are reinforced by the waste and scandals that have occasionally plagued aid-giving, such as the discovery that Oxfam employees were sexually exploiting women in Haiti. But more than that, they speak to the ideology that allowed USAID to be put into the metaphorical wood chipper.

I do not pretend to know what goes on in the mind of Elon Musk, but I do not think it was an accident that he targeted USAID first. Aid programs have never been an issue that motivated voters one way or another, and the issue has been rife with misconceptions about how much countries spend on aid, so they have always been vulnerable to election cycles. But in the present political context of the US, foreign aid programs stand in direct contradiction to the MAGA movement’s values. Tariffs promise national autarky, opposing the post-war order that encouraged international trade. Foreign aid closes off the mechanism that attempted to foster the growth of political and economic institutions worldwide, promoting more widespread participation in the international rules-based order.

Opposing aid also makes sense to the Christian Nationalist movement that supports Trump. As Vice President J.D. Vance argued in a Fox New interview, the cancellation of foreign aid could be justified by the theological concept developed by Thomas Aquinas of ordo amoris,which Vance stated meant that people “should love their family first, then our neighbors, then love our community, then our country, and only then consider the interests of the rest of the world.” This was an interpretation so out of line with post-Vatican II Catholicism that Pope Francis himself felt the need to correct it. Regardless, it is a view of Christianity that justifies America’s current global retreat from aid-giving. These beliefs lay far from the mission of the mainstream Christian development organizations that grew up in the post-war period alongside government aid programs. One such example is the Catholic organization Caritas Internationalis (the Canadian branch of this organization used to be known as Development & Peace). Officially recognized by the Vatican in 1954, Caritas’ stated aim is to “promote integral human development” and advocate “on the causes of poverty and conflict.”

Critics of aid who do care about global poverty have had no shortage of material to speak about in the past number of decades. Indeed, the development fads I noted above have left their own history of problems, from forced sterilization policies to the rigidly neoliberal governance imposed on highly indebted countries through structural adjustment policies.[5] Many criticized the United States for its hypocrisy in global affairs.[6] However, since the Second World War, it has never been the case that a US administration has so fully refused to state a commitment to the global order it helped create, or refused to participate in a dialogue about compassion and care for the world’s poorest.

Indeed, I find myself in the strange position of missing the hypocrisy. For all its problems, after seventy-five years, aid is needed. It will never “solve” global poverty, and even if it could, it would not be done cheaply or easily. But following a natural disaster or man-made conflict, it can feed and house people, support the construction of needed infrastructure, and help enable a society’s return to a new normal. In an era of climate change, this is more important than ever before. Many non-governmental organizations have become more strategic, focusing support on areas that show the greatest benefits for communities, such as funding small-scale women’s entrepreneurship. Global health campaigns have successfully eradicated diseases or reduced incidence of preventable diseases (bed nets do have their place after all). America’s retreat from this global responsibility will cause suffering, and that suffering will, as always, disproportionately affect those who are most vulnerable in their own societies. Given the comparative size of the US aid budget, representing 40 percent of all humanitarian aid given globally in 2024, it is unlikely that other wealthy democracies, such as Canada, will be able to fill this void, especially as the pressure to increase military budgets rises.

The destruction of USAID is representative of much more than the aid itself. It is the clear rejection of a global norm that, however imperfectly, acknowledges the humanity of all. For those of us that continue to value those principles, we must support those organizations and leaders that will do what they can to make up for America’s absence.

Jill Campbell-Miller, PhD, is a Research Analyst in the Government of Nova Scotia, but this was written in her capacity as a private citizen and does not reflect the views or interests of her employer. Jill is the co-editor of the volume Jill Campbell-Miller, Greg Donaghy, and Stacey Barker, eds. Breaking Barriers: Canadian Women and the Search for Global Order (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2021).

[1] The most complete history of CIDA remains David Morrison, Aid and Ebb Tide: A History of CIDA and Canadian Development Assistance (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier Press, 1998).

[2] From the middle of the 20th century, scholars such as Raùl Prebisch, Fernando Henrique, and Immanuel Wallerstein advanced different versions of the “core-periphery” model of development, arguing that global systems of trade and economics promoted the underdevelopment of the Global South through the development of the Global North. For a summary of their arguments, see David Simon, Fifty Key Thinkers on Development (New York: Routledge, 2005). Following accelerating globalization and the further advancement of free trade in the 1980s and 1990s, more recent scholars such as economist Paul Krugman have proposed updated versions of a similar argument. See Paul Krugman and Anthony J. Venables, “Globalization and the Inequality of Nations,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 110, no. 4 (November 1995).

[3] Jeffrey Sachs is a Columbia economist who became prominent in the media in the 2000s following the publication of his book, The End of Poverty (New York: Penguin Press, 2005) which argued that extreme poverty could be eliminated by 2025. He became popularly known for his public promotion of the mass distribution of insecticidal bed nets to discourage the spread of malaria. See Awash Teklehaimanot, Jeffrey D. Sachs, and Chris Curtis, “Malaria Control Needs Mass Distribution of Insecticidal Bednets,” The Lancet 369 (30 June 2007), 2143-2146. For an exploration of the real-world technical challenges associated with Sachs’ approach, see journalist Nina Munk’s book, The Idealist: Jeffrey Sachs and the Quest to End Poverty (Toronto: Signal, 2013).

[4] University of Saskatchewan Archives and Special Collections, DCC, Diefenbaker papers, John G. Diefenbaker to D.M. Fleming, 26 April 1961, Volume 532, File 802 Conf. World Relations – Economic Assistance Abroad. 1959-1961.

[5] One of the major critics of these structural adjustment policies (SAPs) is economist Joseph Stiglitz, whose book Globalization and its Discontents (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2002) argues that countries that found themselves indebted to international financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund were forced to open their economies to the free flow of international capital without sufficient regulations. Stiglitz argued that when these policies had the effect of further destabilizing the economy, the same conditions imposed by SAPs prevented governments from providing social safety nets to help their populations.

[6] There is such a huge literature on this topic it is impossible to summarize. Noam Chomsky has been one of the most long-standing critics and vocal critics of hypocrisy in US foreign affairs, most recently putting out a new book with Nathan J. Robison, The Myth of American Idealism: How U.S. Foreign Policy Endangers the World (New York, Penguin Random House, 2024). Other examples include Ruth Blakely, State Terrorism and Neoliberalism: The North in the South (New York: Routledge, 2009) and Bradley R. Simpson, Economists with Guns: Authoritarian Development in US-Indonesian Relations, 1960-68 (Stanford: Standford University Press, 2008).

Refugee Letters & the Ukrainian Committee for War Victims’ Relief in World War II

April 2, 2025 / / 0 Comments

Brazilian emerging scholar Henrique Schlumberger Vitchmichen visits Carleton University from April to October 2025

My name is Henrique, and I am currently a PhD student at the Federal University of Paraná (Brazil), under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Marion Brepohl. I am developing a thesis titled Echoes of the Border: Refugee Letters and the Ukrainian Committee in World War II. Below is a brief summary of my ongoing research:

My work aims to investigate and analyze the creation and activities of the Ukrainian Committee for War Victims’ Relief in Europe after the end of World War II, a period in which the continent was overwhelmed by thousands of refugees, war victims, and displaced persons from various regions and nationalities—including Ukrainians who fled their homes or were taken as prisoners following the German invasion of their territory.

Housed in hastily constructed refugee camps across Europe, often lacking adequate resources, these individuals endured the pain of their losses, the humiliation and violence of their conditions, and, ultimately, hunger and material deprivation. In response, many countries, through aid committees, began receiving requests for assistance and providing support in every possible way. One such committee was founded in 1945 in Brazil, in the city of Curitiba, state of Paraná—a region that had received a significant number of Ukrainian immigrants since the late 19th century.

Letter from a Young refugee telling his story in Lviv on the early years of war, and asking for materials, like pencil, paper, ballons, and other thing to play. From the archives of the Ukrainian Society of Brazil.

Operating under the supervision of the Agricultural Instructional Union (now known as the Ukrainian Society of Brazil), the committee maintained correspondence with numerous other organizations, including the Ukrainian Canadian Committee, as well as others in England, France, Argentina, Italy, and the United States. Additionally, it was part of the Central Ukrainian Relief Bureau (CURB), whose member countries included Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Belgium, France, Italy, and Switzerland.

Through constant communication, these committees played a crucial role in sending supplies to refugee camps and facilitating immigration opportunities for displaced persons. Moreover, they regularly received letters from refugees seeking provisions or information. In the case of the Brazilian Committee, approximately three hundred letters remain preserved under the care of the Ukrainian Society of Brazil. These letters are currently being translated and analyzed as part of my research. Under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Dominique Marshall, I am eager to be there as soon as possible, as a Visiting Scholar, and to contribute in any way I can to Carleton University and to the Canadian Network on Humanitarian History.

Best regards,

Henrique Schlumberger Vitchmichen henrique-sv@hotmail.com

Correspondence between the leadership of the Brazilian and Canadian committees, where the Canadians are orienting the Brazilians about financial business related to the Central Ukrainian Relief Bureau (CURB). From the archives of the Ukrainian Society of Brazil.

Let’s Talk About Humanitarian Archives: 2023 CNHH Roundtable Leads to New Publication

January 15, 2025 / / 0 Comments

by Sarah Glassford

The CNHH is pleased to announce that a peer-reviewed article relating some of its members’ experiences engaging with communities and organizations around issues of humanitarian archives is now available to read in Issue 256 of the Revue internationale des études du développement.

“Creating Development Archives Ethically from an Over-Developed Country” appears in a special issue dealing with development archives around the world. The article is available online and open access at: https://journals.openedition.org/ried/23482.

Co-written by David Webster, Dominique Marshall, Chris Trainor, Sarah Glassford, and Eve Dutil, the article grew out of a thought-provoking roundtable sponsored by the CNHH at the 2023 conference of the Canadian Historical Association (CHA).

The roundtable, which was chaired by Glassford (Leddy Library Archives & Special Collections, University of Windsor), featured a lively discussion between Marshall (Department of History, Carleton University), Webster (Department of History & Global Studies, Bishop’s University), Trainor (MacOdrum Library Archives & Special Collections, Carleton University), Melanie Oppenheimer (Emeritus professor, Flinders University), and Fabrice Weissman (Centre de réflexion sur l’action et les savoirs humanitaires, Médecins sans frontières), on a wide array of issues facing scholars and practitioners who engage with archives of development and humanitarianism.

The discussion raised many points the participants were keen to explore further, and a subsequent call for papers from the Revue offered the opportunity to do so. Marshall, Glassford, Trainor, and Webster were joined by Dutil (formerly Bishop’s University, now a graduate student at Carleton University) in co-writing the paper, while Oppenheimer and Weissman graciously granted permission for their roundtable insights to be used as needed.

The result is an article that grapples with where the primary sources documenting humanitarian action end up archived, how, and by whom. It also highlights the direct work of the CNHH and its individual members in helping to preserve and make those primary sources available for future generations – work of which this network can be justly proud. Additionally, the composition of both the original roundtable and the resulting article’s team of co-authors offers yet another example of the CNHH’s commitment to bringing together scholars and practitioners, and the positive results that can come from those encounters.

As an affiliated committee of the CHA, the CNHH has an annual opportunity to sponsor a traditional panel of research papers or a roundtable like the 2023 one, as part of the CHA conference. If you have a theme or idea in the area of humanitarian or development history, around which you would like to organize a panel or roundtable, consider reaching out to the CNHH at aidhistory.canada@gmail.com, or by individually contacting one of the Steering Committee members (*whose contact information is available in the Members section of the CNHH website). It’s a great chance to link your individual research to a broader conversation, and to tap into the network the CNHH has built.

Dr. Sarah Glassford is an archivist at the Leddy Library Archives & Special Collections, with responsibility for community collections. She is also a social historian of modern Canada, the author of Mobilizing Mercy: A History of the Canadian Red Cross (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2017), and a founding member of the CNHH.

CNHH Presents: Essential Reads in the History of Humanitarianism

February 13, 2024 /

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.

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