Religion, Bodily Action, and the Secular Subjects of Global Humanitarianism (Pre-Recorded)

• In Event: Religion and Pluralism

Abstract

This paper addresses two central questions: what forms of embodiment underly global humanitarianism governance and how might these be understood as secularizing? It contributes to recent analyses of faith-based aid and embodied subjects in IR. Humanitarianism facilitates relations at the level of body by staging ‘strange encounters’ between expatriate aid workers, regional and local staff, and recipients. It centers on managing and securing bodies made vulnerable by sudden onset disasters or complex emergencies. Humanitarians provide shelter, latrines, health care, and basic food security. Accordingly, considerable attention is paid to the suffering bodies made visible by humanitarian discourse and targeted by humanitarian action. Yet, professional humanitarianism also entails practices that concern the wellbeing of aid workers themselves, structuring their relationships with recipients in ways that shape the humanitarian encounter. I draw on ethnographic research conducted with evangelical Christian humanitarians to illustrate how the bodily practices of global humanitarianism cultivate ‘secular’ humanitarian publics by fostering the privatization of religion and reinforcing separation between humanitarians, faith-based humanitarians, and recipient communities. The bodies of faith-based humanitarians may thereby be understood as both subjects and objects of social differentiation, highlighting struggles faced by faith-based NGOs with mainstream humanitarianism.

Author

• Jonathan Agensky, Ohio University