humanitarianism

Virtual Issue: Security

The Humanitarian Politics of Testimony: Subjectification through Trauma in the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict

Didier Fassin

As security becomes an increasingly explicit preoccupation within capitalist practice, state ideology, and claims to personal safety, the following section retraces some of the ways in which Cultural Anthropology has explored the topic of "security."

In the post-Cold War era, as civil wars and failed states have threatened people around the world, essays in Cultural Anthropology have examined the concepts, tropes, practices, and institutions of humanitarianism, the forms it has taken, and its cultural effects on its recipients as well as it providers. As global politics have become more perilous, and non-governmental organizations and bureaucracies of relief have multiplied, these essays have taken up some of the most complex questions of citizenship, displacement, and ethico-political responsibilities.