Paper details

Paper authors	Jessica Field
In panel on	Humanitarianism from below: analysing the views, values and practices of local and national aid actors
Paper presenter(s) will be presenting	In-Person / Online

Abstract

India has a long history of humanitarian action, mobilizing responses to frequent conflicts, displacements and hazards within, and over, its borders. The country is notable, too, for its selective engagement with international humanitarian norms and intervention, and the development of its own approaches – while it is signatory to many human rights conventions, for instance, it maintains a more politically pragmatic and non-codified approach to refugee protection. This paper will begin by exploring how that plays out in contemporary India. Using data from recent fieldwork exploring urban refugee self-reliance in Delhi, I will explain what the state offers in terms of protection and assistance, and how local networks and safety nets have evolved in the (substantial) gaps in top-down interventions. Springboarding from this, and building on archival research from a recent project examining crisis management history in the country, I will then explore the history and political, cultural and social values that sit behind these diverse humanitarian practices. I will talk about, at a national level, the impact of the emergence of a set of “crisis management” norms from 1947 to the early 60s, created in the wake of Partition and in response to a range of natural hazards. I will explore how these norms have interplayed over the years with local-level humanitarian practices – some of which are driven by a robust civil society schooled in social work and human rights, others guided by deep-rooted values of faith and charity, some mixing both approaches. The overall aim of this paper is to shed light on what drives (some of) the many humanitarianisms that operate within India’s borders and probe the relevance of the dominant international aid system’s “localization” debate here.

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