Paper details

Paper authors	Fonkem Achankeng Fonkem Achankeng
In panel on	Alternative Humanitarian Principles & Non-Traditional Humanitarians
Paper presenter(s) will be presenting	In-Person / Online

Abstract

Humanitarianism in war and peace studies focuses on protecting, helping, and assisting the vulnerable in situations of violent conflicts. The claims about humanitarianism are generally unknown and unexperienced in many orphaned wars. Even when violent conflicts are noticed, humanitarian attention is focused mainly on those refugee populations that are registered by the UNHCR. While thousands of other refugees never get noticed, registered and/or become the focus of humanitarianism, the bulk of internally displaced persons (IDPs) may never be known or noticed for any humanitarian purposes. This paper presents the lived experiences of internally displaced women with young children caught in the web of the Cameroon War on the Republic of Ambazonia. Using decolonizing research methods and critical pedagogy, this paper will question the epistemological structure of humanitarianism as we know, practice, and reach it, as well as our humanitarian thoughts and actions or inactions on the daily lives of women with young children who are left on their own devices in orphaned wars with no mention of humanitarianism. The paper makes a case for a different approach to humanitarianism, one that does not rely on UNHCR’s “benevolence” or any other colonial narrative that serves the social and economic interests of a complacent ruling elite ‘within and away”, but on "achenandia" also known as "ndiabanwoh menkwei" or family is supreme from an African perspective.

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