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https://news.asu.edu/20211004-asu-lecture-preview-forthcoming-book-white-savior-and-waif>
"In recent years, respected humanitarian organizations such as Doctors Without
Borders, Feed the Children and Oxfam have come under pressure for being part of
what is described as the “White Savior Industrial Complex.” Critics are forcing
the organizations to confront the historical legacies of empire and colonialism
in their day-to-day operations, media campaigns and collaborations with
countries that have poor human rights records.
Historian and author Keith David Watenpaugh will address this phenomenon during
a free public lecture at 4 p.m. Monday, Oct. 18, in West Hall room 135 on
Arizona State University’s Tempe campus. Watenpaugh’s lecture will preview his
forthcoming book, “The White Savior and the Waif: Listening to
Humanitarianism’s Unheard.”
“The humanitarian industry has remained largely unchanged and unexamined during
the last century,” Watenpaugh said. “What is different now is that the voices
of those facing abuse and discrimination can more easily be raised through
social and traditional media, the arts and literature. Equally, those voices
have become difficult to silence.”
Watenpaugh argues that systematically recovering the voices of refugees, rape
victims and genocide survivors must be a fundamental feature of efforts to
create a more humane and effective humanitarianism. In his talk, he will draw
from historical episodes, including the Armenian genocide and the Syrian civil
war, to ask how the tools of the humanities — history, storytelling and memoir
— can surface these voices.
“Humanitarianism has and always has had a listening problem,” said Watenpaugh,
professor and founding director of human rights studies at the University of
California, Davis."
Via Muse.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
