Paper details

Paper authors	Josephin Winkler
In panel on	Navigating Empathy in Humanitarian Education
Paper presenter(s) will be presenting	In-Person / Online

Abstract

Although it is intuitive to state that inducing empathy in university students improves learning on humanitarian action, this needs to be critically examined and qualified. At first sight, students in humanitarian programmes who build empathy with the “beneficiaries” or with “local actors” may become more effectively-working humanitarian staff, feeling more accountable towards “beneficiaries”, considering their needs better. However, critical pedagogies theorist Boler argues that empathy may not change anything or invoke action to do better if it is just passive empathy. What is also needed according to Boler’s “pedagogy of discomfort” is a critical self-reflection as a collective process that may eventually lead to action: A critical inquiry into historically-held power relations is necessary to overcome “us” and “them” dichotomies. I argue that humanitarian education needs such a pedagogical approach so that students become agents of change to the deficient international humanitarian system. This paper answers the question how a critical “pedagogy of discomfort” can be used in humanitarian education. It aims to propose and critically evaluate didactical methods for inducing active empathy in students of humanitarian action.

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