Paper details

Paper authors	Davide Rodogno
In panel on	Bringing Political Economy back to Centre-Stage
Paper presenter(s) will be presenting	In-Person / Online

Abstract

Night on Earth (Cambridge University Press, January 2022) examines cases when, in the aftermath of the First World War, short-term relief programs aimed at providing food, shelter, clothing and basic medical aid o distressed civilian populations turned into ante-litteram development projects or state-building attempts. My argument is that in the 1920s and 1930s, European and American humanitarian associations undertook programmes that went beyond relief. The title of the book is a clin d’oeil to Jim Jarmush’s 1991 eponymous movie since the events I write about took place at the same time in different geographical areas. The institutions I study defined their humanitarianism as encompassing a continuum (a nexus?) between relief and rehabilitation and, sometimes, they set up agricultural, educational, public health programmes. Development revolved around the principle of ‘self-help’, which contested older ideas of charity. Contrary to the idea of self-empowerment, seen today as the opposite of social engineering, early-twentieth century humanitarian actors saw self-help as an essential ingredient of their social engineering ambitions and as a way to ensure peace and prosperity in the areas in which they operated. If the past is prologue of something the political economy and politics of international humanitarianism in the Near East tells us something in 2021.

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