Paper details
| Paper authors | Ian Madison, Imri Schattner-Ornan |
| In panel on | Teaching Global Humanitarian Assistance in Turbulent Times: Challenges and Opportunities in Higher Education |
| Paper presenter(s) will be presenting |
In-Person / |
Abstract
Teaching Humanitarian Studies requires a capacity for irony, or even cognitive dissonance. We teach how International Humanitarian Law (IHL) is a vital part of the humanitarian world and a keystone of the global governance of conflicts, then demonstrate how it is continuously disregarded and ignored. We highlight the importance of core humanitarian principles like neutrality and independence, then show how international humanitarian agencies are happy to be predominantly funded by belligerent states. We explain the importance of localisation, decolonisation, and accountability, and at the same time show how reforms to encourage these values systematically fail.
We acknowledge that irony is a feature of humanitarianism. However, we also argue that irony can be a critical pedagogical tool in navigating these contradictions, one that enables students to confront the dissonance between humanitarian ideals and operational realities without descending into cynicism or despair. Drawing on classroom experience with both graduate and undergraduate students, this presentation explores how irony can be mobilized to support critical pedagogy in the humanitarian classroom—as a tool of critical reflexivity, an entry point into critique, and a way to counter moral certainty. In doing so, we reflect on how a pedagogical posture of ironic engagement does not necessarily imply sarcasm or detachment; rather, by being aware of the limits and complexities of our shared field, it may point the way to a more intellectually honest and ethically grounded practice.
