Description:
During the Cold War, humanitarianism became the focus of intense debates among intellectuals, politicians, and diplomats from capitalist, socialist, and nonaligned countries about the boundaries between the political and nonpolitical. However, with the fall of socialism near the end of the twentieth century, these discussions over what humanitarianism is, what it could be, and what it ought to be were largely forgotten.
Realigning Humanitarianism in the Balkans examines how the fall of socialism changed humanitarianism in the Balkan region, beginning with the work of the Yugoslav Red Cross within the Non-Aligned Movement in the 1970s and continuing with the work in Montenegro by local organizations in a refugee camp between 2000 and 2018. Author Čarna Brkovic traces how humanitarian regimes of care and discipline, implemented by local staff, have become the main source of support and the main channel of sociocultural integration of displaced communities in the Balkans. Within these regimes, though, structural problems generate a profound sense of disappointment for both the humanitarians and the displaced people.
By tracing the shifts in humanitarianism between the West, the East, and the South, Realigning Humanitarianism in the Balkans uncovers how the fall of state socialism shaped not only humanitarian practices but also how we analyze them--often in ways that have gone unnoticed.
Review Quotes:
"Through reviving forgotten worldmaking projects from the Cold War era, Realigning Humanitarianism is much needed reading in our current increasingly militarized period. It is also an important contribution to rethinking the place of anthropological critique and analysis of different scalar projects."--Martin Fotta, author of From Itinerant Trade to Moneylending in the Era of Financial Inclusion: Households, Debts and Masculinity among Calon Gypsies of Northeast Brazil
"This landmark study takes the reader on a riveting journey from socialist to neoliberal humanitarianism. In the process, it touches on one of the central questions of our time: what kind of world to care for and work toward."--Till Mostowlansky, author of Azan on the Moon: Entangling Modernity along Tajikistan's Pamir Highway
"This book is an essential read about world-making projects but also a world-making practice in itself as it reclaims this lost capacity epistemologically, addressing important themes of our political time from the largely disregarded problem-space of (post)socialist Yugoslavia."--Tanja Petrovic, author of Utopia of the Uniform: Affective Afterlives of the Yugoslav People's Army