Space for engagement: rethinking the humanitarian role

Claims of double standards in human rights approaches and humanitarian practice, as well as accusations of outright hypocrisy in international engagement, pervade critiques of the demonstrations of power and politics in contemporary conflicts. The most visible of these to audiences in the Global North is the conflict in Ukraine and the horrific suffering of civilian populations caught up in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians and its extension into Lebanon. Less evident in the mainstream media is the monumental abuse and suffering of civilian populations in Sudan or Myanmar.

Abject failures in diplomacy at the global and regional levels to bring a halt to these conflicts – despite accusations of violations of human rights and international humanitarian law lodged and acknowledged by the International Court of Justice and other recognised global platforms – indicate that current structures for peacebuilding and conflict transformation no longer function. New spaces for engagement and legitimation are urgently required.

There is no absence of deep debate over remedies for this dysfunction. These range from a redesign of the United Nations (UN) architecture to address the persistent impotence of the UN Security Council and other UN bodies to reach a consensus, to more particular calls for a review of financial resourcing and reorientations of traditional approaches to human rights and interpretations of the humanitarian principles, where notions of humanitarian resistance and solidarity confront the principle of neutrality.

A place to belong yet not belong

All of the current debates confront the ethics of engaging with power. Ever since the formal development of a humanitarian identity in the middle of the nineteenth century, following the formation of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in 1863 and the signature of the first Geneva Convention the following year, traditional approaches have steadfastly promoted the principle of neutrality and distanced themselves from a risk of pollution from politics. Recently, there have been increasing calls for a bolder confrontation with political and social injustice that has led to conflict and the abuse of human rights.

The search is for a middle ground where the humanitarian can co-exist and function within the arenas of politics and power, and support rights-based approaches that are too often seen to threaten its neutral identity by contesting the authority of powerful and abusive states.

I have argued that this elusive middle ground already exists and is not an unfamiliar place for the co-existence of politics and civil society. Since the 1960s, anthropologists have talked about a ‘liminal space’ that exists when a person can both belong yet not belong. Situating humanitarian action in such a liminal space might provide the humility, nuance and creativity needed to have a discourse based less on confrontation and the winning of ideas from a self-referential sense of moral superiority, but more on dialogue and collaboration to achieve outcomes for the affected communities.

This is the elusive middle ground capable of harbouring an identity that acknowledges the ethical importance of resistance but also the realpolitik of the cooperation needed for effective humanitarian engagement. It requires a sensitive balance between being an auxiliary in a system of power, yet having the authority to challenge when the system fails to protect access to dignity and respect: an auxiliary when it works and an anarchist when it does not.

The middle ground in practice

This is not a place of academic or philosophical imagination. Construction of a place for both cooperation and challenge has a long history that is shared across cultures and religions. Enid Welsford outlined how societies have wanted, and those in power have accommodated, figures speaking truth to power stretching across the world and over centuries. This gives evidence of a consistent demand for popular access to a dissonant identity, able to question authority and raise a constructive challenge if it sees it deviating from the accepted norms of the community. In his study on local agency and relations with institutions of state and non-state actors in Africa, Francis Nyamnjoh emphasises a form of collective engagement he refers to as ‘conviviality’ which he describes as an approach to social action that emphasises the commonalities not the differences. The emphasis is on cooperation rather than confrontation.

Personal experiences have frequently shown the comfortable, and often uncomfortable, co-habitation of the humanitarian with the political. All practitioners will be able to relate similar dynamics of cooperation and collaboration. An example from personal experience was during the emergency response to Cyclone Nargis that struck Myanmar in 2008. Informal systems for rescue and recovery were already activated at local level but the primary concern for the military government was security and self-preservation, so foreign access to the affected townships was restricted. Fear and suspicion of the state ran deep. However, once discussion was enabled with the government in the capital Nay Pyi Taw and authorisation for the broad parameters of an international response was obtained, a fear of non-compliance with central regulations at municipal level was replaced by proactive cooperation that enabled a definition of projects in the affected townships, according to the needs identified by the local communities, among which were local government officials and the military authorities. Organisation of the humanitarian response became a representation of the local community, managing projects that were relevant to them and to the authorities responsible for monitoring them.

Having access to the discourse and playing an influential part as a trusted challenge to authority are features of the contemporary humanitarian environment, but they are seldom acknowledged. Practical examples are evident when local actors and national politicians choose to resist authority, or are auxiliaries to authority but have access to opposing discourse as a trusted participant (such as Red Cross and Crescent volunteers able to work in areas not controlled by government). Evidence of a convivial space was found in the hidden bars and cafés in Sarajevo, where Croats, Serbs and Bosnian Muslims intermingled during the war of 1992–1995, and were important places to maintain a spirit of cohesion for a population forced to comply with political authority. The discussions here on the impact of the conflict on communities who had shared a space for cooperation for centuries recognised common mechanisms to bring a sense of normality to an abnormal world.

The messiness of humanity

Hugo Slim observes that formally recognising humanitarian resistance might be politically dangerous for the neutral humanitarian project, but remarks that politically committed humanitarian action ‘makes good moral sense’. In my interpretations, notions of humanitarian resistance ring uncomfortably with ascriptions of ‘lethal aid’ and certain conceptions of ‘humanitarian corridors’ that risk desensitising the ethics of principled humanitarian approaches. I do, however, agree with Slim that humanitarian resistance has considerable moral value because it makes two important ethical commitments simultaneously: one in favour of social and political justice and another responding to the individual suffering caused by injustice.

However, rather than constructing this as a notion in opposition to power and authority, I argue for the recognition of participation in a space of political engagement, where the deciding factor is less one of power, but of capabilities, and of enabling equal access to the human entitlement to a dignified life. This is a voluntary and temporary place with the choice to opt in and opt out, but which has the public legitimacy to engage with politics. Through its popular endorsement, participation in this liminal space is more locally led than most international humanitarian approaches and so is a more inclusive place to engage.

This has the advantage over expressions of humanitarian resistance that are equated with civil resistance and involve the creation of alternative social institutions and parallel government. The liminal space or middle ground I propose here works as far as possible with existing structures and does not create parallel or competing institutions, but is a place for shared discourse and engagement, such as offered informally in the cafes in Sarajevo described above. They do not create competing political spaces but offer a place for the discussion of ‘collective goods’ for the social and political stakeholders faced with a conflict of interests. More formal places arise spontaneously after a humanitarian crisis when the state is unable – or unwilling – to respond and when the communities are often the primary actors to ensure protection and relief.

A new way of thinking

Human rights and humanitarian action are closely interlinked, each aiming to alleviate the suffering and enhance the wellbeing of affected populations, albeit through distinct approaches. It is, therefore, important to have a place where the two approaches can engage and interact. Human rights are always applicable, both in times of peace and during crises, and so require a more permanent platform than the more temporal spaces that humanitarian response usually requires. For a number of historical and institutional reasons, the two are often supported in isolation, leading to neglect and dysfunction on many levels of an international response. This evidences the need to redefine the relationship between human rights and humanitarian action in crisis, to transform the nature of the engagement between all stakeholders (which could include state and non-state actors, donors, humanitarian organisations and, most importantly, the affected populations), and create a less exceptional space for participation.

Legitimising a liminal space for an engagement with politics does not require new structures, templates, policies or principles. Rather, a new engagement with existing structures requires a new way of thinking that complements and ‘operationalises’ the new way of working – promoted with only limited success at the World Humanitarian Summit in 2016, and its declarations of a ‘Grand Bargain’. It requires a transformation of institutional and organisational approaches that confidently engage with the political realities of each context of crisis. This distances itself from the exceptionalism that has dominated traditional humanitarian approaches and goes further than the expressions of localisation that have been seen as the solution until now, but which have been trapped between the boundaries of the humanitarian and human rights. Financial as well as ethical support has, in general, been siloed accordingly.

The new way of thinking about an ethical and operational space suggested here aims to familiarise the competing approaches so that each is less suspicious of the other. By engaging with both the social and the political dynamics of conflict, I suggest that some of the barriers to effective cooperation will be broken down, so making the humanitarian response more representative and relevant to populations in need. In essence, moving away from an ordered humanitarian system to an ordinary humanitarian society that embraces the creative messiness which every situation of crisis presents.

In practice, context matters

There are no blueprints for a humanitarian response, since in every case the social and the political dynamics are different: context matters. The rise in authoritarianism, inequality, social injustice exacerbated by political authoritarianism, and natural disasters through climate change, means that new social movements will emerge and so the humanitarian system must adapt in order to respond. This means acknowledging the hierarchies of politics and power and working more transparently with them. It requires a more honest and less arrogant approach to an understanding of the humanitarian identity and the limits of its abilities. Humanitarian principles must be the lodestar guiding the ethical and operational compass but with recognition of their limits in certain contexts.

The erection of boundaries to principled humanitarian action should not mean disengagement. As evidence of trusted voluntary engagement between stakeholders in practice shows, so long as there are clear red lines to principled participation which cannot be crossed – such as the unquestioned right to a dignified life – then pathways to humanitarian participation in politics can be made less contested. Spaces for negotiation have long been a feature of conflict resolution. The problem is that the current spaces are not working. Engagement has always been exclusive and often been secretive, leading to impotence or collapse when the public voice is denied. New thinking around humanitarian space presents an opportunity for incremental steps towards more inclusive participation that build on even the smallest achievements. As one Ethiopian saying goes: ‘slowly, slowly, the egg grows legs and walks.’

Alasdair Gordon-Gibson is an Honorary Lecturer at the University of St Andrews.

The author thanks Nigel Timmins for his comments and contributions to this article.