The “humanitarianization” of urban violence

Abstract

This paper describes how international humanitarian organizations (IHOs) are adapting their operations to working in the urban environment. When levels of armed violence in urban areas are sufficient to trigger international humanitarian law, organizations such as the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) may argue that they have an important contribution to make by offering a set of skills and experience gleaned in conflict and non-governed settings. This paper reflects on this humanitarian turn to the city and uses it to problematize certain assumptions within the existing understanding of "urban violence" and the nature of humanitarianism itself. What does it mean to "humanitarianize" urban violence? What is the value-added that humanitarians might bring? And in what ways might such engagements be changing the nature of the problem itself? Drawing upon a wide range of literature that sets the local structures of violence in light of wider national and international processes, we analyze the "humanitarianization" of urban violence as a cross-scalar governmental assemblage that is likely to play an increasingly important role in cities in the global South in the future.

From armed conflict to urban violence: transformations in the International Committee of the Red Cross, international humanitarianism, and the laws of war

“…For example, the competition and marketisation of transnational civil society have been shown to create incentives which shape IO behaviour, sometimes with dysfunctional results (Cooley and Ron, 2002). Such an explanation is consistent with the idea that the ICRC was seeking to maintain relevance and humanitarian market share as the incidence of armed conflict declines (Bradley, 2016a: 88) and with the fact that the ICRC is not alone in expanding in this direction; ‘urban violence’ has also been incorporated into the mandates of many other international humanitarian agencies, including Médecins sans Frontières, Save the Children and World Vision (Fiori et al, 2016: 63–66; Lucchi, 2012; Reid-Henry and Sending, 2014). Another strand of theory points to the external normative environment in which states, NGOs and other actors exert normative influences that shape policy and operational behaviour, including with respect to mandate expansion (Hall, 2016; Weaver, 2007).…”

“…On the other hand, there is a body of more critical literature that questions the discourse of ‘urban violence’ and ‘fragile cities’ (Miklos and Paoliello, 2017), and related works that problematise the framing of urban violence specifically, and of non-conflict violence in general, as humanitarian crises (Fiori et al, 2016; Reid-Henry and Sending, 2014; Sandvik and Hoelscher, 2016). It is widely recognised that the framing of an issue or a situation as a ‘humanitarian problem’ or a ‘humanitarian crisis’ tends to depoliticise, dehistoricise and decontextualise it (Bradley, forthcoming: chapter 1).…”

“…It is not clear whether this necessarily limits the possibilities for political solutions (compare Malkki, 1996: 398 and Scott-Smith, 2016: 3), but in practice a humanitarian frame is frequently seen to have this effect. For these reasons, a number of commentators have raised concerns about the humanitarianisation of urban violence and the so-called war on drugs (Fiori et al, 2016; Reid-Henry and Sending, 2014; Sandvik and Hoelscher, 2016).…”

Beyond Gang Truces and Mano Dura Policies: Towards Substitutive Security Governance in Latin America

“…At the same time, an additional set of studies has critically examined the consequences of increasingly militarised responses to urban violence (Graham 2011;McMichael 2015). What is more, an abundance of policy-oriented research has investigated different approaches to the response to urban violence committed by gangs, be it by way of humanitarian action, development aid, or peacebuilding interventions (Lucchi 2012;Reid-Henry and Sending 2014;Björkdahl 2013). In the context of Latin America, the literature on anti-gang efforts has focused mainly on coercive mano dura policies (Swanson 2013) on one hand, and cooperative attempts at brokering truces (Cruz and Durán-Martínez 2016) on the other.…”

The participation of urban displaced populations in (in)formal markets: contrasting experiences in Kampala, Uganda

“… 5. These priorities reflect the commitment of humanitarian organizations to the principle of neutrality. Reid-Henry, S and O J Sending (2014), “The ‘humanitarianization’ of urban violence”, Environment and Urbanization Vol 26, No 2, pages 427–442. …”