Cold War humanitarians

NGOs as national political actors in the Global South

AvMaria Cullen

Inbunden, Engelska, 2026

Del i serien Humanitarianism: Key Debates and New Approaches

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Beskrivning

Oxfam and MSF clashed over the meaning of ethical humanitarian action and the relevance of human rights to their work during the Cold War. To understand why, this book compares how the NGOs’ identities were forged within specific political cultures in Britain and France. While MSF gave voice to the anti-totalitarian convictions of disillusioned ex-communists, Oxfam’s members had a less ideologically charged background and gravitated towards criticism of Western realpolitik, leading the NGO to engage differently with leftist actors in negotiating access to suffering populations in the Global South. Across three case-studies – post-Khmer Rouge Cambodia and displacement in Thailand, the Salvadoran civil war and refugees in Honduras, and the Ethiopian famine – this book demonstrates that the NGOs’ interactions with refugees, civilians and states are best understood when contextualised within the national civil societies and social movements they emerged from.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum:2026-09-15
Mått:156 x 234 x undefined mm
Format:Inbunden
Språk:Engelska
Serie:Humanitarianism: Key Debates and New Approaches
Antal sidor:304
Förlag:Manchester University Press
ISBN:9781526187215

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Mer om författaren

Maria Cullen is Postdoctoral Research Associate on the European Research Council project 'Solidarity, Sovereignty, and Sanctuary on the Seas: A Global History of Boat Refugees since the 1940s' (SOS) at University College Dublin, and an affiliate of the ‘Developing Humanitarian Medicine’ project, supported by the Wellcome Trust at the Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute, University of Manchester.

Innehållsförteckning

Introduction1: The ghosts of the Second World War: How European memories of the Holocaust shaped emotional representations of postcolonial genocide in Cambodia, 1979–812: Sovereignty deficits and the practical exercise of power: Oxfam and MSF’s encounters with local agency in Phnom Penh and at the Thai–Cambodian border, 1980–83:Covert warfare and the performance of humanitarian neutrality in Cold War Central America4: Intellectual formations, professional ideologies and attitudes to human rights in the Salvadoran refugee camps in Honduras5: The diffusion of malnutrition response practices in the Ethiopian famine,1984–5 6: Repressive developmentalism in the Ethiopian famine: NGOs, resettlement and the continuity of colonial counterinsurgency practices on the African continent Conclusion Bibliography