Humanitarian Emotions through History
Humanitarian Emotions through History
Imaging Suffering and Performing Aid
This chapter explores how the emotional dimensions of witnessing human hardship play a key role in shaping humanitarian practices. While images of suffering have evoked a range of emotions, contemporary commentators lament that a “politics of pity” fuels Western humanitarian practices. Even if it could seem a recent phenomenon, these emotions have a history. This chapter examines the emergence of humanitarian emotions by linking early modern depictions of suffering with contemporary media images of crises. Furthermore, it analyses how representing distant suffering has led to a “politics of pity.” Exposing the contingency of such emotions, this chapter concludes by emphasizing how feelings hold immanent possibilities for political transformations.
Keywords: Affect, Emotion, Humanitarianism, Humanitarian Emotions, Images, Photographs, Suffering
Illinois Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs, and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.
