Mostowlansky, T and Muratova, E (Eds).
(2026)
Humanitarianism from Below? Universalism and the politics of inhumanity.
[Book].
UCL Press: London, UK.
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Abstract
Since the late twentieth century, wealthy nations and international organisations have claimed a monopoly on humanitarianism. Even critical views of this regime of global aid and assistance have reinforced the image of a phenomenon shaped by secularised Christian ethics and Euro-American politics of life. At the same time, around the world various humanitarian institutions and practices have flourished that remain outside this realm. Mostly invisible to Western publics, these forms of humanitarianism have reshaped global landscapes of aid in tangible ways; from protecting Indigenous communities in Canada to African diasporic initiatives in response to the Ebola pandemic; from Islamic economies of giving and Buddhist concepts of the human to crowdfunding aid in Ukraine. Written by leading scholars in the field, Humanitarianism from Below? forcefully illustrates that these humanitarian actors do not merely represent grassroots initiatives but have altered humanitarianism at large, involving alternative economies and politics. Drawing on original ethnographic and historical research, Humanitarianism from Below? addresses a wide audience of scholars and students in humanitarian and development studies, anthropology and political science. This volume considers humanitarianism’s multiple histories and relations of power and offers a profound reassessment of humanitarian pluralism today.
| Type: | Book |
|---|---|
| Title: | Humanitarianism from Below? Universalism and the politics of inhumanity |
| ISBN-13: | 9781806550210 |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.14324/111.9781806550210 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.14324/111.9781806550210 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Collection © Contributors, 2026 Text © Contributors, 2026 Any third-party material in this book is not covered by the book’s Creative Commons licence. Details of the copyright ownership and permitted use of third-party material is given in the image (or extract) credit lines. If you would like to reuse any third-party material not covered by the book’s Creative Commons licence, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright owner. This book is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-commercial Non-derivative 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), https://creativecom mons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. This licence allows you to share, copy, distribute and transmit the work for personal and non-commercial use provided author and publisher attribution is clearly stated. Attribution should include the following information: Mostowlansky, T. and Muratova, E. (eds) 2026. Humanitarianism from Below? Universalism and the politics of inhumanity. London: UCL Press. https://doi.org/10.14324/111.9781806550210 Further details about Creative Commons licences are available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/ |
| Keywords: | Humanitarianism, Humanity, Universalism, Development, Charity, Aid, Indigenous communities, Islam, Buddhism, War |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10220254 |
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