"Irresistible Compassion" or "Fellow-feeling"?: (Re)Defining Humanitarianism in International Politics.

This paper attempts to problematise commonly held assumptions about humanitarianism, in order to work towards a more nuanced understanding of humanitarian action in international politics. Starting from the assumption that understandings of humanitarianism are historically contingent, I argue that the inattention to humanitarianismÂ’s historical roots has the consequence of reifying the meaning of humanitarianism in terms of the present, which in turn ignores the contingency of humanitarian practice and discourse on time and space. Genealogical discourse analysis may help to show how humanitarian norms emerge and change in international politics. Moreover, humanitarian norms and power are usually posed in opposition to each other, and this paper tries to bring some synthesis to the literature on humanitarian norms and power. Following Barnett and Duvall, and Guzzini, I argue that a broader definition of power reveals how humanitarian norms display elements of productive power. As such, humanitarian discourse not only draws the boundaries for acceptable humanitarian behaviour, but also gives meaning to those practices, while also producing social identities and hierarchical relationships in international politics. The first section of the paper gives a broad overview of humanitarian activity from early modern Europe to the present day; the second section briefly examines the literature on humanitarian norms; the third section attempts to link humanitarian norms to a broader definition of power. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]