Talking Humanitarianism

What role do communities play in accessing energy in humanitarian settings? In this fourth episode of the Humanitarianism and Transitions to a Low-Carbon Future miniseries Ekatherina Zhukova, Senior Lecturer at Lund University in Sweden, and Long Seng To, Senior Lecturer in Sustainable Development and Joint-Director of the Centre for Sustainable Transitions: Energy, Environment & Resilience (STEER) at the Loughborough University in the United Kingdom, discuss how the concept of “community energy resilience” can help bring attention to a human dimension of an otherwise technical world of energy access in humanitarian crises.

Based on To’s extensive work experience in several countries in Africa and Asia, they ponder the importance of co-designing humanitarian energy systems with displaced people themselves and other stakeholders. Zhukova and To also explore how the cluster system of humanitarian response operates in the absence of energy clusters and what meanings different communities affected by crisis across the globe assign to energy resilience.

What is humanitarian energy and how does it operate in the contexts of displacement? In this third episode of the Humanitarianism and Transitions to a Low-Carbon Future miniseries, Ekatherina Zhukova, Senior Lecturer at Lund University in Sweden, and Sarah Rosenberg-Jansen, Research Fellow at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, explore the current state of access to electricity in humanitarian settings and who the providers of energy to refugees are. 

Based on Rosenberg-Jansen’s academic and practitioner work at the international NGO Practical Action, the United Kingdom's Department for International Development (DFID), and the Global Platform for Action for Sustainable Energy Solutions in Situations of Displacement (GPA), this episode discusses how humanitarian organisations are not the main providers of energy access in displacement contexts, but rather the main providers are refugees themselves through local markets and the private sector. Zhukova and Rosenberg-Jansen also explore possible radical options and progressive pathways for humanitarian energy action and the differences in energy provision during short-term and long-term displacement.

How does energy politics work in conflict-affected states? In this second episode of the Humanitarianism and Transitions to a Low-Carbon Future miniseries, Ekatherina Zhukova, Senior Lecturer at Lund University in Sweden, and Kristin Doughty, Associate Professor of Anthropology at University of Rochester in the United States, discuss the competing perceptions of environmental risk in conflict-affected states and the possibilities of a “do nothing scenario” in the face of a collateral damage to the local population.

Based on Doughty’s collaborative work with Elyseé Uwimana and Dieudonné Uwizeye on the methane gas extraction from the Lake Kivu in Rwanda, this episode explores the concept of “Green Extractive Humanitarianism” which helps reveal the tension between the necessity of providing people with electricity and the continuation of extracting natural resources in the Global South. Zhukova and Doughty also discuss the importance of longitudinal ethnography and how understanding energy politics in the Global South can help us better comprehend the workings of energy in the Global North.

How do we comprehend and act upon environmental destruction beyond reason? In this first episode of the Humanitarianism and Transitions to a Low-carbon Future miniseries, Ekatherina Zhukova, Senior Lecturer at Lund University in Sweden, and David Bond, Associate Director of the Center for the Advancement of Public Action at Bennington College in the United States, discuss the limitations of the concepts of environmental justice and ontological utopia in our understanding of the ability of the state and polluting industries to address the ecological crisis.

Based on Bond’s newly published book Negative Ecologies: Fossil Fuels and the Discovery of the Environment with University of California Press in 2022, they explore the alternative concept of negative ecologies and the possibilities it offers to comprehend the scale of environmental destruction and to provide adequate responses to it right now. Zhukova and Bond also discuss the importance of bridging academic theory with the everyday life experiences of destruction and the struggle for justice by frontline communities.

Should existing models of community resilience be challenged? In this fourth and final episode of the Intersecting Vulnerabilities in Humanitarian Disasters miniseries, Roberto Barrios, Professor of Anthropology at the University of New Orleans shares his experiences conducting research in hurricane affected areas of Honduras with Ekatherina Zhukova, Researcher at Lund University, and explains how his findings question existing models of community resilience.

In this extended episode, Zhukova and Barrios also discuss disasters as moments of community emergence, how communities change over the course of a disaster and the internal and external factors that influence why one community may recover after a disaster and another does not.

How do we conceptualise vulnerability in the context of humanitarian disasters? In this third episode of the Intersecting Vulnerabilities in Humanitarian Disasters miniseries, Ekatherina Zhukova, Researcher at Lund University in Sweden, and Andrew Littlejohn, Assistant Professor at the Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology of Leiden University in the Netherlands discuss shifting our understanding of vulnerability to locate responsibility not in people, but with societal institutions and systems that produce vulnerability of particular places or people.

Zhukova and Littlejohn also discuss shifting our thinking about humanitarian disaster responses from a one size fits all approach to emphasise bottom-up processes, where we begin with ethnography and investigation to understand the worlds of the people we are trying to help before dictating how their world is to be reconstructed.

What are the different roles and perspectives of humanitarian researchers and practitioners when it comes to disasters and how are these converging? In this second episode of the Intersecting Vulnerabilities in Humanitarian Disasters miniseries, Ekatherina Zhukova, Researcher at Lund University in Sweden, and Zuzana Hrdlickova, Senior Researcher at Sierra Leone Urban Research Centre and humanitarian practitioner, explore humanitarian disasters through the lens of both humanitarian researchers and practitioners.

Zhukova and Hrdlickova also discuss the similarities and differences between disasters and conflicts, as well as the concept of disaster vulnerability and how this relates to both precarity and informality.

What role does anthropology play in our understanding of humanitarian disasters? In this first episode of the Intersecting Vulnerabilities in Humanitarian Disasters miniseries, Ekatherina Zhukova, Researcher at Lund University in Sweden, and Alicia Sliwinski, Associate Professor of Global Studies at Wilfrid Laurier University in Canada, discuss the tools anthropology offers in addressing issues regarding development, humanitarianism, and disasters. Zhukova and Sliwinski explore concepts such as moral economy, disaster vulnerability and the notion of the ‘gift’.

Should existing models of community resilience be challenged? Roberto Barrios, Professor of Anthropology at the University of New Orleans shares his experiences conducting research in hurricane affected areas of Honduras with Ekatherina Zhukova, Researcher at Lund University, and explains how his findings question existing models of community resilience.

In this extended episode, Zhukova and Barrios also discuss disasters as moments of community emergence, how communities change over the course of a disaster and the internal and external factors that influence why one community may recover after a disaster and another does not.

How do we conceptualise vulnerability in the context of humanitarian disasters? Ekatherina Zhukova, Researcher at Lund University in Sweden, and Andrew Littlejohn, Assistant Professor at the Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology of Leiden University in the Netherlands discuss shifting our understanding of vulnerability to locate responsibility not in people, but with societal institutions and systems that produce vulnerability of particular places or people.

Zhukova and Littlejohn also discuss shifting our thinking about humanitarian disaster responses from a one size fits all approach to emphasise bottom-up processes, where we begin with urgent ethnography and investigation to understand the worlds of the people we are trying to help before dictating how their world is to be reconstructed.