dossier

CONTAINING POLITICS:

The Rise and Reform of Humanitarianism

October 2026

This dossier explores the politics of humanitarian reform from the 1970s onwards, examining how efforts to transform the humanitarian system have been shaped and constrained by claims of neutrality, institutional power and wider political agendas. Drawing on historical cases, it asks what past reforms can teach us about responding to today’s crises.

INDEX

I. Introduction: Containing politics dossier

Eleanor Davey

Non-Aligned approaches to humanitarianism? Yugoslav interventions in the international Red Cross movement in the 1970s

Čarna Brković, Laura Grigoleit, Marla Heidrich, Marius Jung, Svenja Kimpel, Natalie Sadeq, Annika Völkmann

Western Humanitarianism: Saving Lives or Regulating Death?

Mark Duffield

The Peasant’s Arrested Revolution

Rahmane Idrissa

Race, Humanitarianism and the South African Red Cross Incident 1986-7

Mandisa Mbali

Ecocide: Exploring the Roots and Current Applications of the Concept

Pamela McElwee

Negotiating the ‘Magna Carta of humanitarian action’: Interview with Jan Eliasson

Jan Eliasson

EDITORS

Eleanor Davey, Benjamin Fogel

COVER ARTWORK & ARTISTIC DIRECTION

Thais Trindade

GRAPHIC DESIGN & LAYOUT

Alles Blau Studio

FEATURED ARTISTS

Dima Nachawi, Danilo Christidis, Vherá Poty da Silva, Juliano Fiori, Thais Trindade

DIMA NACHAWI

This artwork is part of a collection “Between the Unrooting and the Re-rooting”, an exploration of living within political boundaries while imagining forms of belonging beyond them. The collection reflects on how borders, systems, and political decisions shape movement, identity, and home, while recognising agency.

Danilo Christidis & Vhéra Poty da Silva

This photograph is part of the book Guarani Mbyá and are the result of seven years of shared experience with 15 Indigenous communities in southern Brazil, grounded in a relationship of mutual learning between non-Indigenous photographer Danilo Christidis and Indigenous artist and leader Vherá Poty. The photographs selected for this publication explore the concept of Ñhande Rekó.

THAIS TRINDADE

This artwork form part of a visual exploration of what it means to live within political boundaries while imagining, carrying, and creating forms of belonging beyond them. The series reflects on the ways in which borders, systems, and political decisions can shape the possibilities of movement, identity, and home, while also recognising the persistence of individual and collective agency within these structures.

JULIANO FIORI

This painting is part of a series entitled ‘Transboundary-work’, and is the result of an attempt to represent the feeling of this tension, the affective disposition produced by the pursuit of limits and the expectation of their displacement.