Journal of Humanitarian Affairs

The Journal of Humanitarian Affairs is an exciting, new open access journal hosted jointly by The Humanitarian Affairs Team at Save the Children UK, and Centre de Réflexion sur l’Action et les Savoirs Humanitaires MSF (Paris) and the Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute at the University of Manchester. Contributing to current thinking around humanitarian governance, policy and practice with academic rigour and political courage, the Journal of Humanitarian Affairs challenges contributors and readers to think critically about humanitarian issues that are often approached from reductionist assumptions about what experience and evidence mean. The journal engages with contemporary, historical, methodological and applied subject matters through diverse online content, including peer reviewed articles, expert interviews, policy analyses, literature reviews and ‘spotlight’ features.

The journal was founded on the belief that the sector is growing and facing severe ethical and practical challenges. The Journal of Humanitarian Affairs provides a space for serious and inter-disciplinary academic and practitioner exchanges on pressing issues of international interest.

The journal aims to be a home and platform for leading thinkers on humanitarian affairs, a place where ideas are tested, controversies are aired and new research is published and scrutinised. Areas in which submissions will be considered include humanitarian financing, migrations and responses, the history of humanitarian aid, failed humanitarian interventions, media representations of humanitarianism, the changing landscape of humanitarianism, the response of states to foreign interventions and critical debates on concepts such as resilience or security.

Open Access Policy

The Journal of Humanitarian Affairs is a fully Open Access journal. No fee is payable by the author or their institution to submit or publish in the journal. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search or link to the full texts of the articles under a CC-BY-NC-ND licence:

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Alternative Creative Commons licences can be used, and if this is required (e.g. by a funding institution or UKRI), authors must inform the Editors when their article is accepted. Authors can also self-archive their Accepted Manuscript on their personal or departmental website, or an institutional or non-commercial subject repository upon acceptance. For more information on Open Access and journals, see here.

Ethics

Manchester University Press is committed to upholding high ethical standards across all of its journals and providing guidance in order to meet these standards. See here for a summary of our expectations for authors, reviewers and editors.

Copyright notice

Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives License (CC BY-NC-ND), which allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work’s authorship and initial publication in this journal. The work may not be remixed, transformed or built upon and any reuse or sharing must be non-commercial.

Peer Review Process

Submissions to the Journal of Humanitarian Affairs will undergo a blind peer review process by two reviewers. We rely on experts for candid but fair advice in our review process. We operate a 'double-blind' refereeing process whereby author(s) and reviewers never know each other’s identities.

Editors

Fernando Espada, Save the Children
Juliano Fiori, Save the Children
Duncan McLean, MSF Switzerland – UREPH
Tanja Müller, University of Manchester
Michaël Neuman, MSF-CRASH
Róisín Read, University of Manchester
Bertrand Taithe, University of Manchester
Miriam Bradley, University of Manchester
Gianluca Iazzolino, University of Manchester
Arif Azad, Institute of Social Policy Islamabad

Managing Editor

Panagiotis Karagkounis
University of Manchester
Email: journalofhumanitarianaffairs@manchester.ac.uk

Advisory Board

Sharon Abramowitz, The State University of New Jersey
Urvashi Aneja, Jindal School of International Affairs
Laëtitia Atlani-Duault, Columbia University
John Borton, HPG Overseas Development Institute
Jeff Crisp, Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford and Chatham House
Samir Elhawary, OCHA
Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, University of College London
Dorothea Hilhorst, International Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam
Shani Orgad, London School of Economics and Political Science
Lisa Ann Richey, Copenhagen Business School
David Rieff, non-fiction writer and journalist
Miriam Ticktin, The Graduate Centre, City University of New York

Information for Authors

The editors encourage the submission of inter-disciplinary papers that challenge and advance the growing area of Humanitarian Affairs. Details of the types of articles, including extent, themes and approach, are below. Articles must be prepared according to the journal’s style guidelines.

Submissions are made online via the JHA ScholarOne website: https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jha

Types of Article

Research article (max. 7,000 words including abstract and bibliography)
Original research articles are encouraged on any aspect of humanitarianism, encompassing both theoretical and/or practice-based issues. Articles should advance knowledge about the field of humanitarianism, including articles on the broader implications of the topic as well as those focused more narrowly on specific case studies, practices or concepts. The humanitarian sector is rapidly changing and faces a range of ethical, political and practical challenges. Therefore, the editors welcome original research contributions which critically engage with how these challenges are being negotiated in theory and in practice. In turn, contributions will draw from a range of disciplinary perspectives, including, but not limited to, anthropology, cultural studies, economics, law, history, organisational studies, philosophy, politics, public health and sociology.

We particularly encourage interdisciplinary papers and those that use innovative approaches to interrogate the field and identify new areas of inquiry. Topics include, but are not restricted to, humanitarian financing, migrations and responses, the history of humanitarian aid, failed humanitarian interventions, media representations of humanitarianism, the changing landscape of humanitarianism, the response of states to foreign interventions, critical debates on concepts such as resilience, sustainability, security, etc. Manuscripts should be original contributions and should not have been published elsewhere or be under consideration for any other publication at the same time. We aim to appeal to a broad audience, so articles should be written in an accessible English and any specialist terms should be clearly explained.

Op-ed (max. 1,000 words including abstract and bibliography)
Op-eds should relate directly to the theme of the journal issue. Authors should concisely put forward an opinion, supported by argument and evidence that engages with existing debates or opens up new debates. Op-eds can focus on practical or theoretical questions, but preference will be given to those that speak to both practitioners and academics.

Field report and situation analysis (max. 3,500 words including abstract and bibliography)
Each issue of the journal will include two pieces reflecting on humanitarian programmes, recounting experiences of humanitarian practice, or providing analysis on a particular programme or response. These can be written as descriptive reports, analytical essays, or chronicles/diaries. Focused on experience, they should give particular attention to tensions and contradictions, innovative practices, challenges and struggles, and stories of success and failure.

Literature review (max. 4,000 words including abstract and bibliography)
Literature reviews or extended book reviews should contain the state of the art pertinent to a particular topic, present clearly to readers the challenges and debates around this topic and give indications on where to find the best sources. We expect this section of the journal to open doors and facilitate further critical engagements. Authors who wish to concentrate on a major new publication are invited to present it in relation to the wider literature. Authors who wish to concentrate on a debate and its wider literature are invited to present their argument through a clear and concise exposé if the state of the art. Submissions should normally be no longer than 4,000 words. Longer texts may be acceptable subject to discussion with the editor. Submissions will be reviewed by the editorial committee of the journal and are subject to approval.