Humanitarianism and the Quantification of Human Needs

Minimal Humanity

Joanna Paliszkiewicz, Kuanchin Chen, Markus Launer (Herausgeber)

Buch | Softcover

260 Seiten

2019
Routledge (Verlag)
978-0-367-46416-5 (ISBN)

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This book provides the first historical inquiry into the quantification of needs in humanitarian assistance. Ultimately the book argues that we cannot understand the global humanitarian aid movement, if we do not understand how humanitarian agencies made human suffering commensurable across borders in the first place.

The book identifies four basic elements of needs: as a concept, as a system of classification and triage, as a form of material apparatus, and as a codified standard. Drawing on a range of archival sources ranging from the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), Médecins sans Frontières (MSF), and the Sphere Project, the book traces the concept of needs from their emergence in the 1960s right through to the modern day, and United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's call for "evidence-based humanitarianism". Finally the book assesses how the international governmentality of needs played out in a recent humanitarian crisis, drawing on detailed ethnographic research of Central African refugees in the Cameroonian borderland in 2014-2016.

This important historical enquiry into the universal nature of human suffering will be an important read for humanitarian researchers and practitioners, as well as readers with an interest in international history and development.

Joël Glasman is a Professor of African History at University of Bayreuth, Germany

Introduction: Minimal Humanity: The Commensuration of Human Suffering on a Global Scale 1. Concepts. Elements for a genealogy of needology 2. Classifications. UNHCR and the legibility of refugees in Central Africa 3. Measures. Malnutrition, MUAC, and the materialization of anthropometry 4. Standards. The 'Sphere project' and the universalization of the vital minimum after Goma 5. Registration. Refugees and the emergence of a humanitarian field in Cameroun 6. Vulnerability. Impartial algorithms and analog malnutrition Conclusion: Infrastructures of commensurability

Erscheinungsdatum	16.12.2019
Reihe/Serie	Routledge Humanitarian Studies
Zusatzinfo	2 Tables, black and white; 10 Line drawings, black and white; 31 Halftones, black and white; 41 Illustrations, black and white
Verlagsort	London
Sprache	englisch
Maße	156 x 234 mm
Gewicht	453 g
Themenwelt	Mathematik / Informatik ► Mathematik ► Finanz- / Wirtschaftsmathematik
	Naturwissenschaften ► Biologie ► Ökologie / Naturschutz
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Politik / Verwaltung
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie ► Spezielle Soziologien
	Wirtschaft ► Betriebswirtschaft / Management ► Logistik / Produktion
	Wirtschaft ► Betriebswirtschaft / Management ► Marketing / Vertrieb
	Wirtschaft ► Betriebswirtschaft / Management ► Unternehmensführung / Management
	Wirtschaft ► Volkswirtschaftslehre
ISBN-10	0-367-46416-0 / 0367464160
ISBN-13	978-0-367-46416-5 / 9780367464165
Zustand	Neuware