Paper details

Paper authors	Anna Macdonald
In panel on	The Safety of Strangers: humanitarian protection in South Sudan, Sudan and Uganda
Paper presenter(s) will be presenting	In-Person / Online

Abstract

The failures of the expansion of humanitarian protection programmes since the 1990s to actually keep people safe, has prompted demands to take account of local contexts, capacities and priorities. In this paper, we develop the concept of ‘public mutuality’ to analyse modes of civilian self-protection during complex humanitarian emergencies in the conflict-affected borderlands of Uganda and South Sudan. We propose that people and groups often find ways of sharing and helping each even in the most extreme of social circumstances. However, there will inevitably be those who are excluded because all groups require social boundaries. We explore different sites of public mutuality, from civil economies and informal welfare, to dispute resolution, to first responses to humanitarian disaster. We also analyse the common attributes of public mutuality in both discourse and practice and we explore linkages to current development and peacebuilding theory and practice, particularly in relation to the concept of resilience.

Back