Humanities & Social Sciences
Humanitarian mobilisation in Central and Eastern Europe
Local, national, and international perspectives
by Doina Anca Cretu, Michal Frankl
Description
By focusing on aid Central and Eastern Europe, the volume adds to the existent scholarly explorations of modern humanitarianism, its actors and practices. In the twentieth century, aid workers assisted victims of war and earthquakes, delivered food, supported health care, provided childcare, or sheltered refugees. The contributors not only reconstruct these diverse histories and their protagonists, but also bring international, national, and local actors together: from grassroots activists to private associations to state-driven "socialist humanitarians" to large Western aid organizations. In doing so, they challenge the often unidirectional, from West-to-East, and asymmetrical perspective on donor-recipient relationships in humanitarian processes.
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Albania, Algeria, Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Belgium, Belize, Benin, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Canada, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Chile, China, Colombia, Comoros, Congo [DRC], Congo, Republic of the, Costa Rica, Ivory Coast, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Djibouti, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Faroe Islands, Finland, France, French Guiana, Gabon, Gambia, Georgia, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Guatemala, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Honduras, Hongkong, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kuwait, Latvia, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macau, China, Macedonia [FYROM], Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Mali, Malta, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mayotte, Mexico, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Qatar, Reunion, Romania, Russia, Rwanda, Saint Helena, Sao Tome and Principe, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Somalia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Suriname, Swaziland, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Taiwan, Tanzania, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Togo, Tokelau, Tunisia, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay, Venezuela, Vietnam, Western Sahara, Yemen, Zambia, Zimbabwe, South Sudan, Cyprus, Palestine, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Liechtenstein, Azerbaijan, Jamaica, Kyrgyzstan, Dominican Republic, Myanmar, Monaco
Reviews
This volume explores actors, practices, and meanings of humanitarianism in Central and Eastern Europe during the twentieth century. It brings together a diverse range of scholars and case studies as it offers a cutting-edge perspective on how wars and conflict, state-building projects, nationalist activism and policies, socialist politics, or regime changes influenced the emergence and trajectories of humanitarian aid at various historical junctures in this region. Through its geographic focus, this volume aims to decentre research on the history of humanitarianism. Building on an ever-growing scholarship that has predominantly focused on aid organizations, their architects and their workers, the contributors reconstruct ideas and acts of help from and within a region traditionally treated as a passive space of reception. At its core, the volume helps to consider and conceptualise the diversity of humanitarian thought, action and actors. The authors thus analyse local and transnational private aid associations and their works, "socialist humanitarians," or, indeed, Western organizations and their local projects. Challenging conventional narratives of unidirectional international and predominantly Western-centric humanitarianism, the volume therefore highlights the multifaceted interactions between foreign aid workers, those who mainly operated on the national level, and activists whose help drew on local ideas and resources.
Author Biography
Doina Anca Cretu is Assistant Professor in Modern European History at University of Warwick Michal Frankl was Senior Researcher at the Masaryk Institute and Archives of the Czech Academy of Sciences and Principal Investigator of the ERC Consolidator project "Unlikely Refuge?". Currently, he is the head of the Prague Department "Knowledge and Participation" of the Leibniz-Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe.
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View all titlesBibliographic Information
- Publisher Manchester University Press
- Publication Date November 2025
- Orginal LanguageEnglish
- ISBN/Identifier 9781526189936 / 1526189933
- Publication Country or regionUnited Kingdom
- FormatPrint PDF
- Pages280
- ReadershipCollege/higher education; Professional and scholarly
- Publish StatusPublished
- Dimensions234 X 156 mm
- Biblio NotesDerived from Proprietary 6426
- SeriesHumanitarianism: Key Debates and New Approaches
- Reference Code17252
