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

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 August 2017

Bram J. Jansen
Bram J. Jansen*
Affiliation:
Sociology of Development and Change, Wageningen University, P.O. Box 8130, Wageningen, the Netherlands
*
Email: bramj.jansen@wur.nl
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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.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 55 , Issue 3 , September 2017 , pp. 349 - 370
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

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Footnotes

*

Thanks go to Prof. Dr. Dorothea Hilhorst and Prof. Dr. Bram Büscher, and two anonymous reviewers at the Journal of Modern African Studies for their insightful comments on this text. The fieldwork was supported by the Dutch Organisation for Social Scientific Research (NWO-Wotro).

References

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