The humanitarian protectorate of South Sudan? Understanding insecurity for humanitarians in a political economy of aid

Abstract

This paper aims to contribute to debates about humanitarian governance and insecurity in post-conflict situations. It takes the case of South Sudan to explore the relations between humanitarian agencies, the international community, and local authorities, and the ways international and local forms of power become interrelated and contested, and to what effect. The paper is based on eight months of ethnographic research in various locations in South Sudan between 2011 and 2013, in which experiences with and approaches to insecurity among humanitarian aid actors were studied. The research found that many security threats can be understood in relation to the everyday practices of negotiating and maintaining humanitarian access. Perceiving this insecurity as violation or abuse of a moral and practical humanitarianism neglects how humanitarian aid in practice was embedded in broader state building processes. This paper posits instead that much insecurity for humanitarian actors is a symptom of the blurring of international and local forms of power, and this mediates the development of a humanitarian protectorate.

International Aid and Urban Change

“…Another day they might as well meet again at any other expensive Juba bar or club. Hostility and cold anger echoes the co-dependency between humanitarian aid and the South Sudanese elites (Jansen 2017). Griefs remain, but the same groups share the same space again.…”

“…The notion of humanitarian urbanism addresses a broad front of actions and transformations of space, where the planning of sites of interventions and unintended effects come as occurrences of an urban regime where donors influence social relations, urban forms and the modes of governance (Büscher, Komujuni, and Ashaba 2018). Jansen uses the term to describe the multiple and unexpected spatialities and mobilities of the social life in a Kenyan refugee camp (Jansen 2018), while, Humphrey and Valverde use it to picture diverging narratives of crisis and development in the city of Medellin (Humphrey and Valverde 2017). The fluidity of the concept permits using it regarding voluntary or unintended effects of both policies and practices of aid.…”

Humanitarian relief chain agility: identification and evaluation of enabling factors

“…Industry of donors and aid agencies are vital elements in scope of humanitarian relief which includes helps of the governments, NGOs and ordinary people in form of a helpful complex that can be utilized by the needy. Optimal relationships among the humanitarian agencies around the world are tended to effective aids flows in recent years (Jansen, 2017). Researchers found that this factor is enabling to deal with the manmade and natural disasters and related needs quickly (Adhikari et al , 2017).…”

Living with transience in high‐risk humanitarian spaces: the gendered experiences of international staff and policy implications for building resilience

“…South Sudan, the world's youngest nation, has become known in the humanitarian sector as 'a special crisis', one in which 'the uncomfortable elements of poverty, of lack of development, of international pressures on the economy, pay an enormous toll', in the words of the President of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Peter Maurer (Muhumuza, 2017). The crisis is complex and protracted (UN OCHA, 2018), and one of the worst humanitarian contexts globally (United Nations, 2018), raising many challenging issues related to humanitarian and militarised systems of governance (de Waal, 2014;Jansen, 2017). Civil war broke out just two years after independence from Sudan in 2011.…”