Paper details

Paper authors	Emily Bauman
In panel on	The World in Humanitarian Objects: Power, Change, Care and Control
Paper presenter(s) will be presenting	In-Person / Online

Abstract

In recent years the rise of cash transfers and the turn toward knowledge provision and management has challenged the idea that humanitarian action may be reduced to the delivery of discrete products. But the fact remains that goods dominate humanitarian aid, not just as objects of relief but also as logistical facilitators. In particular the construct of the humanitarian kit has come to define service provision at a psychosocial as well as material level. As humanitarianism has attempted to depart from a culture of paternalism the kit has moved with it, now formulated not only to deliver commodities but also “agency” and “empowerment.” This paper examines the impact the “kit-ification” of transformative humanitarianism has on the nature of the care that organizations provide and on the relationships they create with beneficiaries. I contrast this with alternative “un-kitted” approaches to aid logistics that depart from the formalist standardization of the humanitarian object that we see in kit culture; instead of promoting “neutral” bureaucratic internationalism these approaches subject the humanitarian object to local definition and resourcing. Such alternatives raise questions about how objects construct subjects in the field, and which ones might best effect the transfer of power envisioned at the core of the humanitarian response to emergency.

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