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Negotiated Exceptions at Risk of Manipulation
Maelle L’Homme

In the absence of a normative framework, the concept of humanitarian corridors lacks a consistent definition and is highly vulnerable to political interpretation. The notion underwent multiple semantic shifts, from referring to a right of passage in situations of armed conflict, to an appeal to facilitated access in the face of bordure closures or bureaucratic constraints. The diverse range of situations in reference to which the terms ‘humanitarian corridor’, ‘relief corridor’ or ‘access corridor’ are used, often interchangeably, is matched only by the diverse range of actors that use them. Calls for their opening have become so common that corridors seem increasingly considered a relevant modality of humanitarian action despite much ambiguity around what they are expected to achieve, how much protection they offer, and how they are likely to affect the overall dynamic of conflicts. Meant to allow the unobstructed deployment of humanitarian aid and/or the evacuation of civilians, humanitarian corridors are by definition temporary and limited in geographical scope. As such, they are a timid assertion of the principle of free access to victims, prone to manipulation by belligerents or third parties to serve war strategies or to project an image of civility. Looking at the wide array of its application in history, the author puts the use of the concept into perspective, drawing on a variety of examples to illustrate how both the idea and its implementation have been problematic. A few operational recommendations are then derived from this analysis for humanitarian practitioners to consider and adapt in light of their particular context.

Journal of Humanitarian Affairs
Open Access (free)
Writing about Personal Experiences of Humanitarianism
Róisín Read
,
Tony Redmond
, and
Gareth Owen

This interview hopes to build on and contribute to research on humanitarian memoirs by talking to two humanitarians who have written memoirs: Professor Tony Redmond OBE and Gareth Owen OBE. Tony Redmond’s book Frontline: Saving Lives in War, Disaster and Disease was published in 2021 by HarperNorth and Gareth Owen’s book When the Music’s Over: Intervention, Aid and Somalia will be published in June 2022 by Repeater Books. The interview was conducted by Róisín Read.

Journal of Humanitarian Affairs
Open Access (free)
Local Understandings of Resilience after Typhoon Haiyan in Tacloban City, Philippines
Ara Joy Pacoma
,
Yvonne Su
, and
Angelie Genotiva

In the context of disasters, the term ‘resilience’ is viewed by some humanitarians as overused, underdefined and difficult to operationalise. Moreover, much of this process has been expert- and humanitarian-led, leaving out the understanding of resilience at the local level, among disaster-affected people and in local languages. And when local input from disaster-affected households is included, their understanding of resilience is often filtered through expert and professional opinions. Looking at the case study of resilience-oriented interventions in Tacloban City, Philippines, after Typhoon Haiyan, this study examines local conceptions of resilience by disaster-affected households. Designed and led by local researchers who were also Haiyan survivors, we conducted in-depth interviews with 31 Haiyan survivors in a typhoon-affected community. Results reveal that disaster-affected people have drastically different conceptions of resilience than those promoted by institutions, such as family’s well-being, intactness of the family members after the disaster, durability and having faith in God. Food, financial capacity and psychosocial status significantly influence people’s contextualised meanings of resilience. Access to social and material resources from a household’s social capital networks was also found to be an important factor to understanding resilience.

Journal of Humanitarian Affairs
Lucy Bassett
and
J. Charles Bradley

Substantial evidence across disciplines indicates that children’s early years are critical for building the foundation for optimal development. In contexts of crisis, conflict, disaster and displacement, children are at particular risk. Primary caregivers often have fewer resources and less time to provide children with attention and necessary socio-emotional and cognitive stimulation. Risk factors for children are often multiplied in crises and conflict settings, and access to services becomes more challenging where family and social networks have been weakened and social service delivery interrupted.

To address the needs of young children, we must strengthen humanitarian response. Practitioners often use humanitarian standards and guidance to systematise planning, implementation and evaluation of programming. These documents describe the broad principles and essential elements (i.e. specific benchmarks and actions) for high-quality response, reflecting best practices at a global level.

We analysed the degree to which existing humanitarian standards and guidance documents explicitly recognise young children and their caregivers in humanitarian response and looked at gaps in the five areas that experts agree are essential for children’s holistic development: good health, adequate nutrition, security and safety, responsive caregiving and opportunities for early learning. We then made recommendations for achieving more comprehensive and consolidated guidance to address early childhood development in emergencies.

Journal of Humanitarian Affairs
Open Access (free)
Human Remains and Violence: An Interdisciplinary Journal
Difficulties and challenges for the forensic medical system in Mexico
Isabel Beltrán-Gil
,
María Alexandra Lopez-Cerquera
,
Linda Guadalupe Reyes Muñoz
,
Sandra Ivette Sedano Rios
,
Nuvia Montserrat Maestro Martínez
, and
Diana Newberry Franco

As a result of the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic, in 2020 forensic institutions in Mexico began using extreme measures in the treatment of bodies of confirmed or suspected cases, due to possible infection. A series of national protocols on how to deal with the virus were announced, yet forensic personnel have struggled to apply these, demonstrating the country’s forensics crisis. This article aims to reflect on two points: (1) the impact that COVID-19 protocols have had on how bodies confirmed as or suspected of being infected with the virus are handled in the forensic medical system; and (2) the particular treatment in cases where the body of the victim is unidentified, and the different effects the pandemic has had in terms of the relationship between the institutional environment and the family members of those who have died as a result of infection, or suspected infection, from COVID-19.

Human Remains and Violence: An Interdisciplinary Journal
Open Access (free)
The shock of Hart Island, New York
Sally Raudon

When drone footage emerged of New York City’s COVID-19 casualties being buried by inmates in trenches on Hart Island, the images became a key symbol for the pandemic: the suddenly soaring death toll, authorities’ struggle to deal with overwhelming mortality and widespread fear of anonymous, isolated death. The images shocked New Yorkers, most of whom were unaware of Hart Island, though its cemetery operations are largely unchanged since it opened over 150 years ago, and about one million New Yorkers are buried there. How does Hart Island slip in and out of public knowledge for New Yorkers in a cycle of remembering and forgetting – and why is its rediscovery shocking? Perhaps the pandemic, understood as a spectacular event, reveals what has been there, though unrecognised, all along.

Human Remains and Violence: An Interdisciplinary Journal
‘Evil deaths’ and the difficulty of mourning in Brazil in the time of COVID-19
Carmen Rial

Based on the anthropological classification of death into ‘good deaths’, ‘beautiful deaths’ and ‘evil deaths’, and using the methodology of screen ethnography, this article focuses on mourning in Brazil during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially the extreme cases of deaths in Manaus and among the Yanomami people. The article ‘follows the virus’, from its first role in a death in the country, that of a domestic worker, to hurriedly dug mass graveyards. I consider how the treatment of bodies in the epidemiological context sheds light on the meanings of separation by death when mourning rituals are not performed according to prevailing cultural imperatives. Parallels are drawn with other moments of sudden deaths and the absence of bodies, as during the South American dictatorships, when many victims were declared ‘missing’. To conclude, the article focuses on new funerary rituals, such as Zoom funerals and online support groups, created to overcome the impossibility of mourning as had been practised in the pre-pandemic world.

Human Remains and Violence: An Interdisciplinary Journal
Governing COVID dead in southern Arizona
Robin C. Reineke

Research into the governance of dead bodies, primarily focused on post-conflict contexts, has often focused on the aspects of the management of dead bodies that involve routinisation, bureaucratisation and order. Less attention has been paid to the governance of the dead in times of relative peace and, in particular, to the aspects of such work that are less bureaucratised and controlled. This article explores the governance of dead bodies in pandemic times – times which although extraordinary, put stress on ordinary systems in ways that are revealing of power and politics. Observations for this article come from over fifteen years of ethnographic research at a medical examiner’s office in Arizona, along with ten focused interviews in 2020 with medico-legal authorities and funeral directors specifically about the COVID-19 pandemic. The author argues that the pandemic revealed the ways in which the deathcare industry in the United States is an unregulated, decentralised and ambiguous space.

Human Remains and Violence: An Interdisciplinary Journal
Political lives of the surplus dead
Nicole Iturriaga
and
Derek S. Denman

This article sets forth a theoretical framework that first argues that necropolitical power and sovereignty should be understood as existing on a spectrum that ultimately produces the phenomenon of surplus death – such as pandemic deaths or those disappeared by the state. We then expound this framework by juxtaposing the necropolitical negligence of the COVID-19 pandemic with the violence of forced disappearances to argue that the surplus dead have the unique capacity to create political change and reckonings, due to their embodied power and agency. Victims of political killings and disappearance may not seem to have much in common with victims of disease, yet focusing on the mistreatment of the dead in both instances reveals uncanny patterns and similarities. We demonstrate that this overlap, which aligns in key ways that are particularly open to use by social actors, provides an entry to comprehend the agency of the dead to incite political reckonings with the violence of state action and inaction.

Human Remains and Violence: An Interdisciplinary Journal