Abstract
Humanitarian studies—the study of how humanitarian crises evolve, how they affect people and their institutions, communities, and societies, and the responses they trigger—has always been dominated by disciplines such as international law, international relations, and political science. Contributions from sociology have been sporadic, so it is all the more exciting to come across Shai Dromi’s Above the Fray: The Red Cross and the Making of the Humanitarian NGO Sector, a gem that seeks to understand the making of the Red Cross and humanitarianism from a cultural sociology perspective.
The book takes a fresh look at the status and legitimacy of nongovernmental humanitarian agencies during humanitarian crises. Despite misgivings and ongoing discussion about the appropriateness and application of humanitarian principles, the sector is still generally seen as impartial and neutral. Instead of joining the choir of lamentation about the lack of trust in the humanitarian sector, the author is puzzled by just how much trust is invested in the sector.
This puzzle is approached in the tradition of Bourdieu, and the author sets out to understand how the humanitarian sector has become a field, defined as “a domain of relative autonomy marked off from others by its distinctive hierarchy, values, struggles, styles of improvising action, and forms of capital” (p. 11). The book examines how the notion that the best humanitarian organizations are those that demonstrate impartiality and are independent of state interests emerged as a form of field-specific capital, and how the Red Cross came to be the first elite of the nascent humanitarian field of the mid-nineteenth century. How did the idea that humanitarian work is best provided by nongovernment organizations—impartial, neutral, and independent ones—come to prevail?
The author claims that the appearance of a new social field requires a preexisting belief system that orients actors to believe that specific endeavors are so unique and essential that they require an independent social space, or field, where they can be waged according to their own internal logic. Whereas much of the historical writing about the emergence of the Red Cross attributes its origin to an epiphany experienced by Henri Dunant on the battlefields of Solferino, Above the Fray demonstrates how the movement grew from Geneva’s strong Calvinist community. Not only did Calvinists believe that war was (in the short run) an inevitable product of human sinfulness, and that Christianity had to be expressed through civic action, the community was also fiercely independent from the state. The early proponents of the Red Cross were deeply convinced that military care for the wounded and battlefields had to be supplemented with voluntary, independent efforts in the Christian spirit of loving thy neighbors, and even loving thy enemies.
The advent of the Red Cross was not without contradictions and opposition. The Red Cross was most strongly opposed by Quaker-led peace movements that felt that the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) was condoning if not endorsing war. The words of British journalist Edith Durham, that “no Red Cross aid ought to be sent out in war because to heal men’s wounds and send them back to the front as soon as possible is to prolong war indefinitely” (p. 119), still resonate in debates on humanitarianism today.
Having explored the origins of a movement, the book sets out to understand how the idea of humanitarianism became embodied in it. The book follows how the early Red Cross activists propagated the notion of humanitarianism as an independent task that carried transcendent value across Europe and managed to organize the institutional means to realize their vision. Interestingly, it turns out that a certain instrumentalization of the humanitarian idea for other purposes—a dynamic preoccupying many contemporary humanitarian scholars—worked to reinforce and strengthen the origins of humanitarianism. Rising patriotism in the nineteenth century, for example, worked toward strengthening an international movement because the pride national societies took in their membership in an international movement and the chauvinism of societies trying to impress others advanced the fervor of their actions. In a similar vein, it could be stated that the political rise of nation-states was reinforced by the National Red Cross societies, as the ICRC was strong on its insistence that only one society could be affiliated per country. The Red Cross discourse articulated with the needs of other groups seeking their own identity and status, in particular nurses, international lawyers, and journalists.
The author recognizes that conversations about humanitarian policy have diversified over recent decades, with difficult questions arising from Haiti, Srebrenica, and Libya, among others. These conversations have also been charged, I would add, by the rise of resilience humanitarianism (see Hilhorst 2018), recent calls to decolonize aid, and the shrinking space of civil society. Nonetheless, the fact remains that NGO interventions are often perceived as better than other possible channels of aid, and they maintain their influence over international affairs. A key message of the book is that understanding that the ethics of humanitarians are historically contingent may lead to more open reflection on the future of humanitarian aid. In particular, the author invites readers engaged in debates about the merits or demerits of faith-based humanitarianism to remember the deep religious roots of the Red Cross. He also encourages readers to revisit the nineteenth-century debates between the Red Cross and the Quakers to advance work at the nexus of humanitarianism and peace-building.
Scholars under today’s neoliberal academic regimes are facing far too many obligations, and I therefore stay away from the label of must-read. I do promise, however, that anyone interested in humanitarianism’s past and future will enjoy this read. Considering how the humanitarian movement is rooted in specific historical contexts of faith, war, and political upheaval challenges our assumptions about the universality of humanitarian principles today.