Panel details

Panel organiser(s) will be presenting	In-Person / Online
Number of paper presentations	13
Location

Abstract

This panel addresses the ambiguous place of humanitarianism in the governance of contemporary migration and borders both in the Global North and South (Walters 2006; Pallister-Wilkins 2018; Della Porta & Steinhilper 2021). From refugee camps to resettlement practices, to search and rescue operations, to the distribution of food rations or legal assistance by solidarity actors, humanitarian practices of mobility governance are central to the contemporary management of mobilities. We argue here that humanitarian practices are inherently about both care and control. They also play a role in containing ‘undesirable’ populations. The relationship between security and humanitarian knowledges is then far from contradictory, they are entangled with each other. This is because humanitarianism asks what sort of life is worth saving. This panel then explores the following questions: How can we understand humanitarianism as informing border security practices? Is humanitarianism a way of compensating for the violence embodied in the border control regime of migration control or is it mutually constitutive of this regime? How do humanitarian organisations operate through their own bordering logics? How is humanitarianism (de)politicized?

Paper presentations