Research Programmes

Humanitarian Performance came out of Professor James Thompson’s research with the In Place of War project that has developed and documented theatre and performance initiatives in war zones since 2004. That initiative won the Times Higher Education ‘Excellence and Innovation in the Arts’ Award 2010.

Forthcoming research examines the history and practice of humanitarianism from the perspective of performance studies, exploring its representations in the media, writing and the arts, how it relates to different local and international audiences, and adapts or reworks certain narratives.

Tied into the idea of Humanitarian Performance in conflict zones is Rubina Jasani's new research which examines the use of street theatre by civil society organisations as a means of creating peace activists in post-conflict Gujarat. This research, in addition to analysing the theatre performances produced by these individuals will also chart their personal and political journeys through this process of transformation

Another strand is Tanja Müller's work on celebrity humanitarianism that makes use of social theory to explore its antipolitical foundations. In a further step Tanja investigates how humanitarian performance and its representation relate to increasing demands for effectiveness or efficiency within the humanitarian sector. The research on humanitarian performance and representation will lead to articles, a monograph and initial field work in Sri Lanka and DR Congo. It will also contribute to current debates on ‘disasters’ such as famines and their representation, and the functions of such representation within the global capitalist order.

Example publication:
Thompson, James (2011) 'Humanitarian Performance and the Asian Tsunami.' TDR: The Journal of Performance Studies. 55:1 (T209), 70-83.

Müller, Tanja R. (2012) 'The Ethiopian Famine Revisited: Band Aid and the Antipolitics of Celebrity Humanitarian Action.' Disasters, forthcoming.

The multiple relationships between conflict, states and geopolitical structures at various levels form a common thread in the research agendas of a number of HCRI staff.

For example, Alison Howell’s research focuses on the interface of conflict and medicine, with a particular interest in psychiatric and psychological interventions in both conflict situations and in the state militaries that intervene in or produce conflict. Here Alison currently works on the role of psychiatry and psychology in Western militaries, where she is interested in how the mental health and resilience of soldiers is increasingly being positioned as a pre-condition for their success in contemporary forms of humanitarian intervention and counterinsurgency warfare, thus reducing mental health to the instrumental aim of mission success.

Tim Jacoby is interested in the ways that states and other actors define the causes of, and respond to, political violence and conflict. This may involve various forms of justification, distraction functions and scapegoating (particularly the current presentation of a Muslim “threat”). In the case of Turkey, Tim’s main point of focus, this has taken the form of militarisation, a tendency to co-operate with the political right and alterations to the ways in which conflict response agents are trained, mobilised and included in education initiatives, surveillance programmes and the notion of “civil resilience”.

Tanja Müller is interested in revolutionary states – states that have been profoundly reshaped by political revolutions – and investigates in particular how post-conflict political trajectories are determined by patterns of rebel governance. In the case of Eritrea, one focal point of Tanja’s work, governance trajectories that helped the revolution succeed have become a liability in the subsequent state-making process. More generally Tanja investigates patterns of state militarisation in historical perspective, currently conducting a comparative study of ancient Sparta and present-day Eritrea.

Jen Peterson’s central research interests include the intersection of politics (broadly defined) and practices of humanitarian, development and security assistance. With a particular interest in the concept of ‘political space’ and its impact on aid policy and practice, her current research agenda questions the possibilities for policy innovation within the aid industry. She explores these issues by engaging with and deconstructing dominant concepts within the fields of peace and security studies, including current critiques of liberal peacebuilding, the ideals of the human security discourse and the notion of ‘emancipation’.

Finally Steve Reyna is interested in critical humanitarian scholarship. He is concerned with identifying the theoretical basis of different humanitarian policies and practices and in understanding the political and economic forces producing, and served by, such policies and practices. Ultimately at issue is the truth-value of the assertion: humanitarian narrative serves the interest of political and economic elites. He conducts research concerning a major cause of humanitarian problems, contemporary warfare, both those of the United States and of a number of developing countries. He also studies the political economy of oil. Finally, he has experience both in the practical and scholarly sides of development having worked in the design, evaluation, and implementation of development interventions in 12 African countries.

Example publications:

Howell, Alison (2010) Sovereignty, Security, Psychiatry: Liberation and the Failure of Mental Health Governance in Iraq. Security Dialogue 41(4), 347-67.

Jacoby, T. (2008). Understanding Conflict and Violence: Interdisciplinary and Theoretical Approaches. London: Routledge.

Müller, Tanja R. (2005) The Making of Elite Women. Revolution and Nation Building in Eritrea. Boston and Leiden: Brill Publishers.

Peterson, J.H. (2009) ‘Rule of Law’ initiatives and the liberal peace: the impact of politicised reform in post-conflict states. Disasters 34(1), 15-34.

Reyna, Steve (2009) ‘Taking Place: ‘”New Wars” versus Global Wars’ Social Anthropology/Anthropologie Sociale 17, 291-317.

The history of humanitarianism is a growing field and researchers at HCRI have made, and are continuing to make, a significant contribution to the discipline. We have particular interests in the history of medical humanitarian aid in colonial French Africa and in relation to global population displacement in the twentieth century. Specific research projects include the study of French missionary activities, particularly Catholic missionaries; Quaker relief work in post-1945 Germany and Korea; and the relationship between refugee crises and the concept of ‘rehabilitation’ during the 1950s.

Our recent publications range from Peter Gatrell’s book, Free World? The campaign to save the world’s refugees, 1956-1963 (2011) – the first study of the UN campaign for World Refugee Year (1959-60) – to Bertrand Taithe’s book on the little-studied but contentious Voulet-Chanoine expedition of 1898-9, The Killer Trail (2009). They also include Rony Brauman’s 2009 book 'La médecine humanitaire, Que Sais-je?' of which an English version is forthcoming online. Jenny Carson is preparing to publish her work on British Quakers and the relief of Displaced Persons in Germany in the aftermath of the Second World War.

Other forthcoming works include a global history of population displacement, entitled The Making of the Modern Refugee authored by Peter together with a special issue of French Historical Studies and a series of articles on French missionary humanitarian activities (including the international Ad Lucem movement) edited by Bertrand. Bertrand is also working on a new monograph entitled Humanitarian Technologies: a transversal history of humanitarian aid, 1854-2004, research that builds on a collaborative research interest on consumption and humanitarian aid developed with Julie-Marie Strange in the Department of History. 

This programme of original research is greatly enhanced by the work of our current doctoral research students whose projects include a study of the British Society of Friends and notions of rights in nineteenth-century Europe; programmes of global food aid in the 1940s; the trajectories of refugees from the Spanish Civil War; Karen refugees in refugee camps and in the diaspora; and Christian missionaries in China.

Our collaborative networks extend nationally and internationally, and include joint work with Michael Barnett and Janice Stein. Colleagues in the Department of History with related research interests include Laurence Brown, Ana Carden-Coyne, Max Jones, Aaron Moore, Julie-Marie Strange and Penny Summerfield. HCRI’s research associates and affiliates at the University of Manchester and in other institutions also contribute to our research agenda. They include Rebecca Gill, who works on Save the Children, and Jo Laycock, who is beginning a new project on domestic and international responses to the Armenian earthquake in 1988.

We attach great importance to the dissemination of our research. In 2011 Peter Gatrell is speaking on his research at Hokkaido University, the Royal Military College (Kingston, Ontario), the University of Geneva, Leeds University, and elsewhere; Bertrand Taithe is presenting work in progress at the University of Konstanz, University College Dublin, Tufts University, and elsewhere; and Jenny Carson will be presenting at the University of Bergen on the history of nursing in Korea during the 1950s

Example publications:

Gatrell, Peter (2011) Free World? The campaign to save the world’s refugees, 1956-1963 Cambridge University Press

Taithe, Bertrand (2009), The Killer Trail Oxford University Press

Rony Brauman’s primary concerns include the design and conduct of relief operations in crisis and disasters situations, whether natural or man-made. He is interested in the political implications of humanitarian aid, the use of the military to enforce humanitarian norms (i.e. the 'Responsibility to Protect' ), with a special interest in the public controversies over the characterization of crisis.

Paul Kaliponi’s work starts from the assumption that catastrophic disaster represents a vital issue in emergency management for both industrialised and developing countries. Given the damage to human lives that different hazards and threats represent, various policy options must be considered in order to effectively prepare public/private organisations as well as the public. While there exists a wide range of policy actions to emergency managers in industrialised countries, developing countries are limited in the types of actions they can take to mitigate the costs of both natural and man-made disaster.

Humanitarian actions following catastrophic disaster around the world are often necessary to provide much needed expertise and aid in response to these events. However, a greater emphasis should be made to prepare and mitigate damage before disasters occur. HCRI-based research can move the international aid impetus beyond response to disaster and toward a systematic process of preparation and mitigation. Paul's research objectives include: risk analysis of multiple hazards to support disaster mitigation; prescriptive emergency decision-making models; health-based initiatives to limit disaster-related mortality and morbidity; and organisational resilience building for public/private organisations.

Example publications:

Brauman, Rony (2009) Humanitaire, diplomatie et droits de l'homme, préface de Tzvetan Todorov, Editions du Cygne, 2009.

Brauman, Rony (2011) Natural Disasters : Do Something !, in ‘Humanitarian Negotiations Revealed’, C. Magone, M. Neumann, F. Weissman, (eds), Hurst, 2011.

Kailiponi, Paul (2009) Analysing evacuation decisions using multi-attribute utility theory (MAUT).  First International Conference on Evacuation Modelling and Management (ICEM) 3, 163-174.

The health team at the Institute has extensive experience in maternal and newborn health; medical anthropology; design and evaluation of cluster randomized community-based interventions; and assessment of health care in sudden onset disasters and conflict areas.

The team, with their multidisciplinary approach to health care, collaborates with a number of different agencies in low and middle-income countries including India, Uganda, Kenya and South Africa. The Emergency Humanitarian and Medical Assistances cluster practice their work in an environment where analysis of the effectiveness of the response is limited by lack of data. The team works closely with colleagues in the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative and the Karolinska Institute in Sweden in order to develop a minimum data set for use in disasters as well as finding effective mechanisms for the collation, analysis and distribution of data internationally.

Barni Nor's research interests include reproductive health of refugees and migrants, and the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV. She has recently completed a large research project entitled “Promotion of Exclusive Infant Feeding in South Africa” which draws attention to the gap between research, policy and practice. Currently she is working on two projects in Sweden – one is an ethnographic study exploring the changing gender roles in parenthood among the Somali Diaspora and one is a reproductive health study exploring the socio-cultural barriers in access to health care among immigrants.

Trauma and Mental Health
HCRI also conducts multi-faceted research on trauma and mental health in humanitarianism and conflict response, including the work of Rubina Jasani, Alison Howell , Jenny Carson, and James Thompson. This work explores trauma in a number of populations who have experienced or intervened in disaster and conflict situations, including, for example, local populations, relief workers, and military personnel. Our approach is to view trauma in political, cultural and economic contexts, recognizing both the possibilities but also limitations of medical approaches to traumatic experience. We thus take a multi-disciplinary approach, incorporating the insights not only of medicine, but also of anthropology, international relations, the sociology and history of medicine, as well as theatre studies into questions of trauma.

Working in areas of ethnic conflict, Rubina Jasani got interested in distress and mental illness. She has completed two mixed methods studies on Ethnicity and mental health in the UK. One study looked at the role of culture and ethnicity in help seeking and explanations of mental illness. The second study, examined over representation of ethnic minorities in mental health care and the subjective experience of being detained and offered compulsory treatment under the mental health act. In addition to addressing some of the larger epidemiological questions, these pieces will contribute more critical understanding of culture, religion and competing models of help seeking in the British diaspora.

Alison Howell has done significant research on two areas wherein conflict and mental health intersect: psychological intervention in populations who have experienced disasters or conflict, and in the militaries that often intervene in such emergency settings. She is interested in how the diagnosis of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is caught up in broad efforts to individualize the experience of war in particular: both in populations that have experienced war, and in Western militaries. She is also interested in signs that the diagnosis of PTSD may be falling to the wayside of trauma governance, in favour of new neurological and resilience-based approaches.

James Thompson has worked on the relationship between psychosocial support and the arts, particularly in post-tsunami Sri Lanka. His work has sought to question the hold of trauma theory on artists when working in the field of mental health, particularly the assumption of the importance of narrative story telling as part of therapeutic programmes.

Example publications:

Howell, Alison (2012) The Imminent Demise of PTSD: From Governing Trauma to Governance through Resilience. Alternatives: Global, Local, Political. Special issue on ‘Governing Traumatic Events.’ Forthcoming, 36:2 (May 2012

Thompson, James (2009) Ah pavu! Nathiye’ Respecting silence and the performances of not-telling. In Sue Jennings (Ed) Dramatherapy and Social Theatre, Necessary Dialogues (London: Routledge), pp. 48-62.