Thesis advisor: Gerald Easter / Thesis advisor: Timothy Crawford / Currently there are millions of people trapped within the confines of a failed state, where each day they are met with extreme risk in order to acquire the basic human needs. While these situations are easily classified as humanitarian emergencies, more often than not, the billions of dollars sent in aid harms the very communities they are charged to help. Through the case study of the world's most failed state, Somalia, this thesis defines and deconstructs state failure, explains life on-the-ground in Somalia, while suggesting solutions for the future. / Thesis (MA) — Boston College, 2010. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Political Science.

Focusing on humanitarian aid to refugees in the Nyarugusu Refugee Camp in Western Tanzania, this dissertation argues that humanitarianism has shifted from the care of the bodily and immediate material needs to a form of moral care inflected by contemporary human rights discourse. The camp, in operation for over 17 years, became the site of a pedagogical intervention aimed at teaching refugees human rights. Informed by essentialist understandings of Congolese culture, aid agencies enforce a version of human rights in which only women’s rights are human rights. Refugees respond to this in a variety of ways, by contesting, appropriating, or exiting the framework of rights entirely. In reading human rights discourse as a site for an anthropology of ethics, this dissertation argues against simply understanding humanitarian confinement in terms of biopolitics, and looks to black feminist theorizations of the “human” to gesture beyond human rights. It shows how Nyarugusu residents make claims based on bodily vulnerability to decolonize the “human” of “human rights,” and how, in doing so, they point us towards a politics of vulnerability grounded in an ethics of sincerity.

The research outlined in this thesis explores the practice of providing humanitarian aid to refugees and displaced persons in Bangladesh. This aid, offered in a limited way by international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) is similar to aid provided to refugees in many other parts of the world, however my research reflects the specificities of research in Bangladesh, the particular conditions of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar (Burma) and the practices of aid work in a Muslim-identified aid organization. The purpose of this study was to investigate the strengths and weaknesses of this kind of aid as a response to protracted refugee situations. Rohingya refugees, the recipients of this aid, fled to Bangladesh in successive waves beginning in the 1970s, leaving villages in Myanmar where they faced extreme levels of persecution, violence and discrimination. Although the government of Bangladesh initially welcomed the Rohingya, in subsequent years, the government has sought to return Rohingya refugees to Myanmar. Approximately 28,000 refugees remain in two camps run by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), and another approximately 60,000 refugees (without official refugee status) live in camps run by INGOs. The bulk of my fieldwork was conducted conducted between June 2011 and September 2012 using participant observation, interviews and focus groups in one of these INGO-run camps. Other research on humanitarian aid tends to focus on either the practical challenges of aid work or the philosophical and ethical shortcomings of the system. In this thesis, I examine the day-to-day practices of aid workers, the challenges they face, the contributions they make and the conflicts that arise from their work. This dissertation argues that humanitarian intervention, as it is currently practiced in Bangladesh, while marked by inefficiencies, corruption and conflict, does improve the material lives of the refugees it seeks to assist. I also argue that humanitarian aid, as currently practiced, is fundamentally weakened by the premise that humanitarian crises are short term and by the shared understanding that host countries can set absurdly impossible restrictions on refugees and aid workers. One key contribution I make is to examine the experiences of expatriate aid workers, situating their work as migrant laborers who cope with precarity and the instability of humanitarian crises.

Purpose: The paper’s purpose is to critically discuss how a government institution, the Migration Court in Stockholm, interprets the law and how this interpretation reflects value choices and value priorities.  Methodology/Design: The present paper employs qualitative research methods focusing on discursive social psychology and the interpretative repertoire of “effortfulness”.  Results/Findings: This paper suggests that the definition of values as behaviour predictors helps us understand how state institutions and, in the present study, the Migration Court in Stockholm can express “other-oriented” values.  Value/Originality: The paper’s socio-legal analysis of the humanitarian sector highlights the emergence of the judiciary system as a new humanitarian actor.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hong Kong, 2007. / Title proper from title frame. Also available in printed format.

The development of human civilization has not caused the world to be stable under the anarchy, and there are still many states jeopardize humanity safety seriously. If the states still just go there own way, it will certainly cause the risks in human¡¦s development and the damage to the human¡¦s survival right. Since peace will not arrive naturally, we should seek the construction of norms which will keep the human historical development on the track. In March 1999, the humanitarian intervention event in Kosovo has shown the universal human rights value, and challenged the existent paradigm of world order. Humanitarian intervention showed that states without supreme authority can do things along with justice principle and the moral reason, more than just chasing the interest and power. It also emphasized the universal identity of sovereign states under the human rights totem, as well as promoted the will and the right of individuals. It was a significant progress when humanitarian intervention accentuate universal human rights value and put it into effect, nevertheless, it is still challenged and criticized in the real world. The conflicts of interest among sovereign states must be reconciled gradually. Besides, whether the individuals or the political communities (sovereign states) should be the subject of rights and obligations in the world, as well as how should we define the hegemony are still the controversial issues. This article will takes the dialogs among parties that hold different opinions to humanitarian intervention, and try to reach the mutual recognition. It will also point out the differences of human being will be assimilated eventually in consideration of the globalization tendency. Global community which take root on the universal human rights value will be the foundation of norms which lead the world to ideal.

This essay is a type of case study, it examines if intervention in Kosovo were in accordance with humanitarian intervention criteria. This study gives an understanding that intervention may sometime worsen condition for the people it wants to rescue, and that inability to address humanitarian intervention prevails in diffuse victory. The purpose of this essay is to examine the Kosovo conflict and the approach of humanitarian intervention in 24 March, 1999.  The approach made by NATO was seen as a new international phenomenon that sought to protect values of human rights. The results of this study pose doubt to this notion; it reflects that the intervention rested not only on humanitarian grounds. The most important aspect of humanitarian intervention is promoting security for the people it wants to rescue. The results shows that NATO’s intervention in short term failed to provide security; it is shown that the air campaign had little impact at the beginning prevailing only after much damage and suffering has been done. The result also shows that failure to adopt the issue of Kosovo more adequately at an earlier stage on the international agenda resulted in the ''welfare'' of NATO's intervention. Despite the consequences of NATO’s action, situation prevailed for the better outcome for the Kosovar-Albanian people than what might have been has intervention been absent. FRY: s deliberative plan of expelling the Kosovo-Albanian to the last one would have been finalized if intervention would have been absent.

This study highlights the role of humanitarian diplomacy to obtain humanitarian access to civilian victims of forced confinement in the municipality of Samaniego, Colombia. Humanitarian diplomacy is made of humanitarian negotiations, coordination and advocacy to provide suffering-alleviation to victims of armed conflicts, and these components will be discussed thoroughly. To inquire in the use of humanitarian diplomacy by international relief organizations, interviews with thirteen humanitarian workers, two public officers and a human rights worker were conducted. The findings, which are complemented with humanitarian and human rights reports and framed in the theoretical discussion, will be the base to discuss whether humanitarian diplomacy contributed to gain humanitarian access in villages of Samaniego facing restrictions in the mobility of civilians and limitations in the supply of basic means of livelihood and humanitarian assistance.

The purpose of this study is to use a qualitative approach to highlight the western involvement in Thai orphanages and, on basis of Western moral development workers and volunteers, enlighten how Western colonial heritage can be recreated in the humanitarian economic aid. The study is based on the recent tsunami disaster in 2004 which led to a huge voluntary effort by Western volunteers and organizations who wanted to rebuild the country. Now, seven years after the disaster, the country has recovered well and thanks to a strong turism, and industrial growth, the country has now reached the position of a middle income country with regional power. The study presents a selection of previous ressearch in the area from different critical perspectives. It is a field study based on qualitative interviews with six informants that highlights the individual engagment in humanitarian assistance. Theories based on Post-colonialism and globalization have been used in order to analyze and reach the result of this study.

Thesis (M.S.)--Naval Postgraduate School, 2002. / Thesis advisor(s): E. Cory Yoder, James Suchan. Includes bibliographical references (p. 109-112). Also available online.