Graduate School of Social Science MSc Conflict Resolution and Governance
In partial fulfilment of the requirements for MSc degree in Conflict Resolution & Governance
A worthy candidate for humanitarian compassion:
Gendered expectations in humanitarian assistance to
refugees in Northern France
Name and student number: Eva Jomphe (11763590)
Academic year: 2017-2018
Course: Research project conflict resolution and governance
Supervisor: Dr. Polly Pallister-Wilkins Second reader: Dhr. Dr. J.M.J. Doomernik Date of submission: 29.06.2018
Acknowledgements
First and foremost, I want to thank all the people living in the settlements in Calais and Dunkirk whom I met during my time as a volunteer with Care4Calais. I have met people who I admire for their dignity, their strength and their warmth despite the cold and cruel world they are subjected to. My first words of gratitude go out to them. Although they were not the focus subjects of this research, meeting them taught me so much, things that go beyond the insights presented in this thesis. A special thank you to the people from Care4Calais who offered me the opportunity to combine research with volunteering work. They generously gave me all the space I wanted and needed to conduct this research. Some of them in particular passed on to me their passion for helping people as well as the desire to continue doing it after this learning experience.
To my supervisor, Dr. Polly Pallister-Wilkins, for guiding me through the process and patiently answering my numerous questions.
And of course, my parents, for their unconditional support, regardless of the number of kilometers between us.
Abstract
This paper presents the result of a research project exploring the relationship between gendered expectations and humanitarian assistance in the context of the refugee crisis. In the highly criticised era of feminized humanitarian representations of the refugee, this study offers a new exploration of the issue of gender and humanitarian response to the refugee crisis. Based on data gathered through a combination of semi-structured interviews and participant observation conducted in Calais, France, this paper critically explores the various factors influencing volunteer’s gendered expectations and how the latter might affect the way humanitarian assistance is delivered to refugees in Northern France. The findings of this research suggest that the temporality of humanitarianism, understood as the level of experience in the field combined with the time spent in Calais, greatly impacts volunteers’ understanding of humanitarianism and its gendered dimension. More easily influenced by humanitarian narratives about women’s suffering, short-term and unexperienced volunteers tend to pay special attention to refugee women, sometimes at the expense of refugee men.
Key words: humanitarianism, humanitarian narratives, compassion, gender, volunteering, temporality, refugees, Northern France.
« ... plus on a rien et plus on veut croire. »*
Romain Gary (1975). “La vie devant soi”
*« ... the less we have and the more we want to believe. »
Acknowledgements Abstract
Table of Contents
1. Introduction ... 7
1.1 Aim and Research Question ...9
1.2 Outline of the Research ... 11
2. Literature review ... 11
2.1 Humanitarianism ... 12
2.2 Gender ... 13
2.3 Feminist Geopolitics: Embodying Politics ... 13
2.4 Feminized Humanitarian Representations of the Refugee ... 15
2.5 Innocence and Humanitarian Compassion ... 18
2.6 Temporality and Professionalism in Humanitarianism ... 19
3. Theoretical Framework ... 20
3.1 Humanitarianism as a Politics of Life ... 20
3.2 The humanitarian Narrative and the Suffering Body... 22
3.3 Humanitarianism as an Arena... 24
4. Methodology ... 25
4.1 Research Design ... 25
4.2 Data Collection ... 26
4.3 Limitations and Ethics ... 28
5. Analysis of the Empirical Findings ... 29
5.1 Temporality of Humanitarianism ... 30
5.2 Humanitarian Narratives ... 31
5.2.1 Humanitarian Narratives and the Desire to Volunteer ... 32
5.2.2 Humanitarian narratives and Understandings of Suffering ... 33
5.3 The humanitarian arena of Calais ... 38
5.3.2 The Role of the Public in the Aid Provision ... 42
5.3.3 The role of the Volunteers in the Aid Provision ... 43
5.4 Hierarchy of Humanities ... 47
5.4.1 A gendered hierarchy ... 47
5.4.2 The Hierarchy of voices ... 51
6 Conclusions ... 54
6.1 Conclusion ... 55
6.2 Theoretical implications ... 57
6.3 Limitations and further research suggestions ... 58
1. Introduction
In a declaration made in June 2014, the then United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, António Guterres, announced that according to his organization, the UNHCR, the global total of refugees and displaced persons, had exceeded 50 million for the first time since the Second World War (Freedman, 2015). Such a high number of persons ‘of concern’ to the UNHCR demonstrates that the issue of refugees is becoming ever more important on the global stage. People seeking refuge in a host country have always been a characteristic of times of crisis and conflicts. However, the current global refugee crisis has caught the world’s attention as the management of the arrival of refugees in European countries has become a challenge as well as a sensitive political debate.
A significant outcome of the recent refugee crisis has been the abandonment of forced migrants in makeshift camps inside Europe. The migrant camp infamously known as the “Jungle”, on the edge of the French town of Calais, was the largest such camp in Northern Europe in 2015. Informal settlements have existed in Calais since the late 1990s, especially since the closure of the Sangatte processing center in 2002 (Davies et al., 2017). However, in 2015, the refugee crisis put a strain on the region. The site itself was not managed or administered by the French state in any meaningful way (Davies et al., 2017). In March 2016, the French government forcibly demolished the camp, and provided inadequate temporary housing in shipping containers for a minority of those displaced. Since the closure of the camp, the number of migrants has diminished (Toussay and Tremblay, 2017), but around 1,000 people live on the streets and in wooded areas in and around Calais (UNICEF, 2017). Hence, despite the closure of the “Jungle” camp, informal camps remain an integral part of the refugee experience in Northern France (Davies et al., 2017). As a matter of fact, the term “Jungle” is still used by the refugees to refer to the makeshift shelters they live in. The use of this term is a way to demonstrate that they are “treated like animals” (Davies et al., 2017; Fieldwork, 2018). Humanitarian agencies
have played an increasingly crucial role since the demolition of the camp, despite the frequent disruption of humanitarian assistance by the police (HRW, 2017).
Many of the migrants remaining in Calais are hoping to cross the Channel to reach the United Kingdom (Turner, 2015). However, the chances for them to be able to continue their journey to the U.K. have gotten smaller in recent years. The refusal of a majority of asylum applications under the strict British asylum laws has forced migrants to stay in and around Calais (Turner, 2015). As a matter of fact, the British government publicly stressed that only the most vulnerable are eligible for resettlement. By this, the British government focused on women and children, making the admission of male refugees an exception (Turner, 2015). According to Freeman, “this discrimination against men travelling alone derives from the premise that single men and boys visibly detached from a family pose a threat to security.” (Freeman, 2015: 208).
Most refugees living in makeshift camps in Northern France fall under the category of ‘young single men’ (Refugee Rights Europe, 2017). Different reasons can explain this phenomenon, but gender has a great impact on migration. Indeed, “gender influences reasons for migrating, who migrates and to where, how people migrate and the networks they use, opportunities and resources available at destinations, and relations with the country of origin” (IOM, 2018). For instance, within a family or a household, the ongoing gender relations or hierarchies can affect the reasons behind migration as well as the process. Certain gender expectations might push particular groups of people to migrate in particular ways: men might be expected to support the family economically so they see themselves forced to migrate to try to earn money, leaving their wives behind (Jolly and Reeves, 2015). In the case of some countries, such as Eritrea, young men can be targeted by extremist groups or potential military recruiters. Hence, they might leave the country to escape being forced to become soldiers (Jolly and Reeves, 2015).
In the highly politicised environment in which humanitarian aid takes place, combined with limited aid resources, the narrative of vulnerability has direct
implications on the way protection and assistance is being allocated. Indeed, vulnerability is a central principle of the refugee response, defining who is most in need (CARE, 2017). Moreover, the conception of vulnerability often bears an important gendered dimension. Gender has been given growing attention in humanitarian and refugee literature, but in the majority of humanitarian approaches, gender is still largely treated as synonymous of women alone. This feminisation and victimisation of refugees tend to make the male refugee less visible (Olivius 2016).
1.1 Aim and Research Question
This thesis is aimed at understanding how certain factors influence gendered expectations and how the latter have been applied in humanitarian aid to refugees in Northern France delivered by the organisation Care4Calais since the closure of Calais migrant camp. Consequently, the research question that will be answered in this study is the following:
How do gendered expectations influence humanitarian assistance delivered to refugees in Northern France by the organisation Care4Calais?
In this research, I will argue that the temporality of humanitarianism influences Care4Calais volunteers’ gendered expectations, which act to create a politics of life, to some extent. A combination of interviews and participation observation, in addition to the theoretical insights gained prior to fieldwork, allowed me to identify four themes that will be used to answer the research question formulated above. The first theme, the temporality of humanitarianism, enables us to explore how the level of experience and the amount of time spent in Calais influence the volunteers’ understanding of humanitarianism and its gendered composition. Indeed, short-term volunteers tend to have a simplistic view of humanitarianism and to be more easily influenced by discourses on refugee suffering. This leads us to the second theme, namely the humanitarian narrative,
and its effect on volunteers. Humanitarian narratives portraying refugee women as the most vulnerable ones and making refugee men less visible play an influential role in how volunteers perceive and categorize the refugees in Calais. The third theme, the specificities of Calais, act to metaphorically build a humanitarian arena in which negotiations over inclusion and exclusion between the actors along the aid chain shape the outcomes of aid. Finally, the fourth theme, the hierarchy of humanities, allows an investigation into how the combination of the temporality, the humanitarian narrative and the specificities of Calais creates a politics of life in which refugee women are seen as more deserving of help than refugee men by short-term and unexperienced volunteers.
The theoretical relevance of this research lies in its contribution to the literature on the relationship between gendered conceptions and humanitarian assistance. The issue of gender and the humanitarian response to the refugee crisis is relevant since refugee camps are post-conflict environments where gender relations are particularly manifested (Krause, 2015). A more accurate understanding of the on-the-ground situation in refugee settlements and of the needs and priorities of specific populations will enable a more appropriate and effective responses by the aid agencies.
However, it seems crucial to stress that, as Freedman says, a critique of the tendency in the humanitarian field to simplify, feminize and victimize portrayal of refugees is not an argument against a feminist agenda. It is important to keep in mind that women do need protection and are vulnerable under certain circumstances (Freedman, 2007), just as it is important to recognize that men can be vulnerable as well. Many scholars have stressed the need for revisiting notions of gender and vulnerability in humanitarianism in order to deliver a more efficient response, both in the short and long run (Freedman, 2007; Hyndman, 2000; Olivius, 2016; Carpenter, 2005).
1.2 Outline of the Research
This research has been structured into five chapters. Following the introduction, which serves to set the scene for this study, Chapter 2 offers an overview of the literature on humanitarianism, gender, feminist geopolitics as well as literature on refugees. Chapter 3 moves to the theoretical framework which is based on an interlinkage between theory on the humanitarian narrative and the suffering body, the humanitarian space as an arena and humanitarianism as politics of life. Hereinafter, the qualitative methods used to collect the evidence are discussed in Chapter 4. Chapter 5 moves to an analysis of the empirical findings. This fifth chapter is divided into four different themes: the temporality of humanitarianism and its effect on volunteers, the humanitarian narrative and its effect on volunteers, the specificities of Calais and their effects on the outcomes of aid, and finally the hierarchy of humanities arising out of the combination of the first three themes. Finally, Chapter 6 offers a conclusion to the research as well as suggestions for potential further research.
2. Literature review
In this chapter, I will attempt to provide a concise overview of the contemporary literature on humanitarian assistance to refugees. Firstly, I will present the concept of humanitarianism designed by Michael N. Barnett (2014). Secondly, I will summarize the concept of gender, using the definition offered by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA, 2012). I will then use feminist geopolitics to discuss how refugees’ corporeality bears a political dimension. Thereafter, I will review the literature on feminized humanitarian representations of the refugee and its critics. Finally, I will address the matter of the language of humanitarianism and how it plays a crucial role in conveying certain
representations of refugees and in establishing who is a worthy subject of humanitarian compassion.
2.1 Humanitarianism
Michael N. Barnett has broadly defined humanitarianism as “the attempt to alleviate the suffering of distant strangers” (2014: 4). According to his definition, people in need of assistance usually live in or originate from other countries. Humanitarianism can be defined by seven principles drawn up by Jean Pictet (1979) of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC): humanity, impartiality, neutrality, independence, voluntary service, unity and universality. The first four principles constitute the core of humanitarianism: humanity reflects the belief that all humans are equal and have inalienable rights; impartiality requires that assistance be based on need and not on the basis of nationality, race, religion, gender or political opinion; neutrality commands not taking part in hostilities; and independence demands that assistance should not be connected to any of the parties directly involved in the conflict or who have a stake in the outcome (Barnett and Weiss, 2008: 3). These fundamental principles are constitutive of humanitarianism, thus defining what it is. Moreover, they serve as a functional guideline for agencies. When followed and respected, these principles create “humanitarian space” that provides a sanctuary for aid workers as well as for aid recipients. Barnett writes: “We know who the humanitarians are because they act according to these principles and fulfil their duties to help distant strangers” (2014: 4). Although Barnett offers a wide definition of humanitarianism, he distinguishes two types that have dominated the modern history of humanitarianism: emergency humanitarianism and alchemical humanitarianism. The first type concerns the provision of relief to those who are in immediate peril. Agencies that fall into this type of humanitarianism – such as the ICRC and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) - strongly identify with the principles of impartiality, neutrality and independence, and usually present themselves as being apolitical. This type of humanitarianism
focuses on saving lives; in other words, on the symptoms and not the root causes of suffering (Barnett, 2014). The second kind, alchemical humanitarianism, involves a broader ambition which is saving lives at risk, but also addressing the root causes of suffering. Because of this ambition, alchemical humanitarians tend to be less devoted to the principles of impartiality and neutrality (Barnett, 2014).
This definition of humanitarianism offered by Barnett has been chosen for this research precisely because it is rather expansive and consequently can be applied to many aid initiatives.
2.2 Gender
For this research, I have chosen to use the definition of gender offered by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA):
“Gender refers to the social attributes and opportunities associated with being male and female, the relationships between women and men and girls and boys, and the relations between women and between men. These attributes, opportunities and relationships are socially constructed and learned through the socialization processes.” (OCHA, 2012: 11).
Those socially constructed characteristics constantly vary, depending on the place and time (Courtenay, 2000). Indeed, gender theorists argue that common agreements on masculinity and femininity are the result of discourses and not the expression of absolute truth. Views on men and women’s roles are reproduced by discourses which enables the possibility to change them (Courtenay, 2000).
2.3 Feminist Geopolitics: Embodying Politics
Since its inception in the early 2000s, feminist geopolitics has developed as a distinct branch of critical geopolitics and feminist geography enabling an
understanding of the operation of various forms of power through situated, embodied, and politically transformative theories and research methodologies (Massaro and Williams, 2013: 567). As Hyndman writes, critical geopolitics is a departure point and antecedent to a feminist geopolitical imaginary (Hyndman, 2001). Noting the lack of attention to gender at the intersection of international relations and critical geopolitics, feminist geopolitics aim at offering a more accountable, embodied and responsive notion of geopolitics. Hence, a feminist geopolitical approach examines how global political processes impact everyday experiences – usually framed as “feminine” – on one hand and how they are influenced by them on the other (Massaro and Williams, 2013).
Within the feminist geopolitical school of thought, Fluri offers interesting insights into how gendered corporeality is transformed as a political and geographic space. The author explores the ways in which the body represents a contested site and how it is put to work for geopolitical manipulation as part of the global “war on terror” (Fluri, 2011: 522). More specifically, she examines how gender roles and relations among and between international workers and Afghan recipients of international aid lead to embodied geopolitics in Afghanistan. According to Fluri, corporeal modernity positions the body as a representational space of geopolitical discourse through dress, mobility and immobility (Fluri, 2011: 532). She concludes that the male body represents an oppositional figure and site for potential violence and is often presented in opposition to the female body. Moreover, she argues that efforts to “assist” those in need tend to reproduce hierarchical power relations.
Jennifer Hyndman, figurehead of the feminist geopolitical body of thought, has touched upon, among other things, the dynamics of conflict that create refugees and displacement and, more specifically, the feminist dimension of migration. She offers an interesting analysis of how refugees’ bodies come to embody migration policies. Indeed, she shares a light on the gender-coded portrayal of refugees. On one hand, “refugees on the move to seek asylum in the global north are perceived as a threat and coded as part of a masculinist geopolitical agenda that controls and securitizes
their movement” (Hyndman and Giles, 2011: 361). On the other hand, refugees in long-term camps, also known as protracted situations, are feminized by being portrayed as immobile and passive. Because of this distinction, refugees ‘over there’, as she writes it, are seen as more legitimate than those who try to claim asylum in the global North (Hyndman and Giles, 2011: 374). Refugees’ bodies then become public sites on which global politics and regimes of power take place. The use of corporeality in political debates can also be part of an intentional tactic to raise awareness within the audience and mobilize it. Talking about O’Kane’s work, Hyndman and Giles explain how the particularities of people affected by conflict can be used to politicize and protest violence.
Feminist geopolitical analysis enables an examination of precisely how otherness is produced through gendered, racialized, and sexualized discourses and then mobilized to justify various forms of violence and oppression (Massaro and Williams, 2013). For this research, feminist geopolitics offer a useful framework to analyse the particular ways risks come to be embodied. Indeed, a feminist geopolitical framework allows us to look at other sites on which power is exercised and to investigate to what extent corporeality bears a political dimension.
2.4 Feminized Humanitarian Representations of the Refugee
A great number of scholars have written on how refugees are represented and situated in the humanitarian sector (Hyndman, 2000; Rajaram, 2002; Johnson, 2011; Ticktin, 2011, 2016). The way refugees are portrayed is crucial since it greatly influences how refugee policy is written and translated into humanitarian practice. Indeed, “meanings are made public through representations” (Johnson citing Bleiker, 2011: 1017). It is through the dynamics of representation that the categories that shape our social world and views are constructed. Those categories form the content of the social and political structures which influence how we engage with the world. Hence, the public representation of categories constitutes the foundation of our interpretation and understanding of the world (Johnson,
2011). More specifically, how we understand particular categories of people, such as refugees, greatly impacts how we engage with them.
Humanitarian agencies tend to represent refugees in terms of helplessness and loss (Rajaram, 2002: 247). In this matter, Heather Johnson describes how, in the past 60 years, the image of the refugee has been reframed. Indeed, there has been a shift from the image of a heroic and political individual to “a nameless flood of poverty-stricken women and children” (Johnson, 2011: 1016). Such a shift of representation occurred in the context of three overlapping patterns of transformation. Firstly, the racialization of the refugee, echoing the shift of the global refugee regime from integration and resettlement to repatriation and protection. Secondly, the victimisation of the refugee with a shift from the image of a powerful and political figure to a voiceless victim lacking political agency. Thirdly, the feminisation of the refugee, resulting in a shift from the figure of a man to a woman (Johnson, 2011: 1016). This shift of representation resulted in the construction of the image of the vulnerable refugee woman deprived of agency which is used as a tool for the mobilisation of support behind humanitarian work (Johnson, 2011). To illustrate this, Johnson uses the example of the well-known image of a woman and child beneath the caption ‘Click to donate’ on the UNHCR homepage (Johnson, 2011: 1016).
As mentioned above, the representation of refugees often bears an important gendered dimension. Carpenter (2005) writes about how many aid organisations adopt a gendered language to maintain access to populations in need in emergency situations. Taking the “protection of civilians” international issue as an example, she describes how it has been framed in such ways to reproduce the traditional notion that “women and children” (but not adult men) are “innocent” and “vulnerable” (Carpenter, 2005: 296). Carpenter argues that such pre-existing cultural assumptions about the innocence and vulnerability of women and children are turned into calls for action by aid agencies, often for strategic reasons. This language and imaginary is chosen because it will most likely resonate with their
target publics. According to Keck and Sikkink, “Campaigns against practices involving bodily harm to populations perceived as vulnerable or innocent are most likely to be effective transnationally” (Keck and Sikkink, 1999: 27, cited in Carpenter, 2005: 327). This gendered emphasis on vulnerable groups, such as women and children, comes with the risk of obscuring the gender-based vulnerabilities of men.
When analysing the initial response by national and international agencies to gender issues during the aftermath of the tsunami in the Maldives, Fulu recognized the tendency to exclusively focus on the universal category of the “vulnerable women” requiring assistance, while ignoring men’s vulnerabilities (2007: 1). She argues that, because of the nature of international bureaucracy, aid agencies used a language which entrenched women as victims, obscuring men’s vulnerabilities, and over-simplified gender issues. Olivius (2016) observes the existence of the same dichotomy between the portrayal of men and women with regards to refugees. Refugee women are perceived as vulnerable victims who need to be saved by humanitarian workers. While being perceived as such, they are also considered as reliable partners in humanitarian developments. On the contrary, “refugee men are constituted as the implicit opposite of refugee women’s usefulness” (Olivius 2016: 279). According to Olivius, this dichotomy is observable in humanitarian policy texts. She cites the IASC (Inter-Agency Standing Committee) as an example where recommendations for action almost exclusively focus on women’s experiences, roles, needs and contributions. Consequently, she notes that women are privileged by humanitarian agencies while men are given less attention because they are seen as unreliable and problematic (Olivius 2016: 279). She regrets that key policy texts reproduce such stereotypes regarding refugees. Moreover, she deplores that, in the majority of humanitarian approaches, gender is still largely treated as synonymous with women alone. This feminisation and victimisation of refugees tends to make the refugee men less visible. This type of gendered discrimination may act to increase the vulnerability of these men inside refugee camps, where they often find
themselves last on the list for humanitarian aid, behind those deemed more “vulnerable” by organisations and aid agencies (Freedman, 2007).
2.5 Innocence and Humanitarian Compassion
As mentioned earlier, the language of humanitarianism plays a crucial role in conveying certain representations of refugees (Hyndman, 2000; Rajaram, 2002; Johnson, 2011; Ticktin, 2011, 2016). Similarly, the language of humanitarianism plays an important role in establishing who is a worthy subject of humanitarian compassion. As Ticktin explains it, humanitarianism is about feelings and greatly depends on individuals’ sensibilities which are shaped by racialized and gendered ideas of who deserves compassion (Ticktin, 2016: 265). Compassion is related to the perception of suffering in others and results in a motivation to alleviate this suffering. However, because compassion is a limited emotion, it requires choosing a few exceptional individuals to help, excluding the rest. In order to be qualified for this humanitarian compassion, refugees must look innocent. Indeed, innocence is the necessary accompaniment to suffering in order to designate the sufferer as worthy (Ticktin, 2016). Ticktin notes that certain forms of this universal suffering body are more appealing and recognisable than others, which can explain why women and children are usually the face of humanitarianism; portrayed as innocent and vulnerable, they are the ideal candidates for compassion. But, if there is innocence, there is guilt. Indeed, this focus on innocence as the requirement for humanitarian compassion inevitably causes a particular consideration for the guilty. “Humanitarianism requires innocent sufferers to be represented in the passivity of their suffering, not in the action they take to confront and escape it” (Boltanski, 1999 cited in Ticktin: 259). Hence, this can be related to Hyndman and Giles' argument that two categories of refugees exist. On one hand, there are refugees ‘over there’ who are immobile and passive, therefore innocent and deserving of help. On the other hand, there are refugees guilty of being on the move, portrayed as
a threat, and thus not deserving of humanitarian compassion (Ticktin, 2016; Hyndman and Giles, 2011). Inevitably, the necessity of innocence to be a worthy subject of humanitarianism establishes a hierarchy of humanities (Ticktin, 2016; Fassin, 2010).
2.6 Temporality and Professionalism in Humanitarianism
Cathrine Brun (2016) touches upon the importance of temporality of humanitarianism and has advocated for integrating a more explicit time-dimension in humanitarian work. Many scholars have written on how humanitarian action primarily aims for temporary solutions that lead to people being stuck in protracted humanitarian situations (Malkki, 1992; Hyndman and Giles, 2011). But, Brun argues that there is currently little room to think about futures in the humanitarian system, among other reasons, because of the urgency inherent in humanitarian work (Brun, 2016: 394). She also relates this time-dimension challenge to the inflexibility of the new standardized and professionalized humanitarian system (Brun, 2016: 396). More specifically, Brun raises interesting points regarding the professionalization of the humanitarian system. She argues that, although an universalist language of humanitarian agencies conformed to the key principles of humanitarianism exists and guides humanitarian practices, specific organisational frameworks depend on several other factors. Among them, the individual experiences and skills among staff in the organisation, the relationship among staff as well as the relationship between staff and the aid recipients (Brun, 2016: 403). Moreover, she claims that “it is the individual experiences and insights of staff that are used to make decisions on what to do, and what is possible to do in this particular context” (Brun, 2016: 403). Indeed, even when humanitarian workers or volunteers do not have experience in the specific context they are working in, they use their experiences and skills acquired in the past to read the situation they are in and to do what they think is the best thing to do (Brun, 2016). According to her, time and experience does matter in humanitarianism.
In the same vein, Slim and Bradley suggest in a brief literature review that the durable presence of humanitarian actors in a conflict or disaster does necessarily challenge the humanitarian principles of neutrality and impartiality (2013: 404). With the potential development of relationships between humanitarian staff and aid recipients, the instrumental ethics of neutrality is challenged since the relationship is likely to become the core motive to assist.
3. Theoretical Framework
Considering the interdisciplinary nature of the topic, I believe it is important to combine insights from various fields of study in the theoretical framework. I consider humanitarianism to be the main concept, which will be employed in relation to, inter alia, an analysis of Didier Fassin’s conception of Humanitarianism as a Politics of Life and Thomas W. Laqueur’s thoughts on humanitarian narrative. Moreover, I will touch upon Hilhorst and Jansen’s notion of humanitarian space as an arena.
As Barnett explains it, since the Cold War, humanitarianism and the management of refugees are closely associated (Barnett, 2014). However, the manner in which key humanitarian policy texts and humanitarian agencies focus almost exclusively on women as vulnerable victims in need of help whilst ignoring men’s vulnerability and needs tend to generate discrimination in the provision of aid (Freedman, 2007; Hyndman, 2000; Olivius, 2016; Carpenter, 2005). A hierarchy in the provision of aid is hence established because of this gendered discrimination.
3.1 Humanitarianism as a Politics of Life
The notion of hierarchy of lives in humanitarian action, a “hierarchy of humanity” (Fassin, 2012), can be analysed through Fassin’s concept of Politics of
Life. What he calls “politics of life” are the politics that give special value and meaning to human life (Fassin, 2012: 500). Fassin draws this concept from Foucauldian biopolitics, a new technology of power that emerged in 18th‐ and 19th‐ century Europe for the management of populations. Population became a political issue, and birth rates as well as public hygiene turned into state affairs and subjects of study by experts. Biopolitics is thus characterized by an emerging care for life itself. Fassin argues that humanitarianism is biopolitics in the sense that it sets up and manages refugee camps, among other things (Rozakou, 2012). However, he goes one step further by arguing that humanitarianism is also the politics of life as it involves making a selection of which existences it is legitimate or possible to save. Moreover, humanitarianism is the politics of life because it produces public representations of human beings to be saved (Fassin, 2012: 501). By telling stories of the individuals they attempt to save, humanitarian agencies introduce another type of distinction: the ones who witness the suffering and testify it and the ones who suffer and whose suffering is testified in front of the world (Fassin, 2012: 517). Humanitarian actors telling the stories become subjects while aid recipients become subjects. Then, as Fassin explains it, a new dividing line is created and “life is no longer, as it was before, biologicial (the life that is risked or sacrificed); it is henceforth biographical (the life that is lived but that others narrate)” (Fassin, 2012: 518). This leads to what Fassin termes “a humanitarian reduction of the victim” (Fassin, 2012: 518).
Hence, Fassin’s politics of life creates processes of triage that are central to humanitarianism’s politics of life (Reid-Hendry, 2014). The notion of triage has been explored by Barnett (2014). Like modern humanitarianism, the medical practice of sorting known as triage derives from the experience of war and a medical logic of crisis. With the rise of emergency medicine in the second half of the twentieth century, it became a routine of hospital admissions. “Triage” is either used in reference to a sorting that emphasizes survival, in prioritizing those who have a chance to live, or a sorting that emphasizes severity of need, in prioritizing those who need more immediate attention (Barnett, 2014). As Barnett notes, aid
agencies increasingly deploy techniques that mobilize the logic of triage. The practice of triage involves selection which, according to the author, “disrupts the categorical moral logic usually deployed by humanitarianism by distinguishing among victims” (Barnett, 2014: 206).
Prioritizing some individuals over others involves making decisions based on particular criteria. In humanitarian assistance to refugees, representations of certain groups as victims and being vulnerable might influence this decision-making. Since women are generally accepted as being among the most vulnerable ones, gender might then come into play when having to decide who should receive aid first (Freedman, 2007; Hyndman, 2000; Olivius, 2016; Carpenter, 2005). It is the phenomenon Freedman is referring to when she mentions male refugees finding themselves on the end of the list for humanitarian aid or being the last ones to get housing in refugee camps (Freedman, 2007). Hence, one of the ways humanitarianism produces a politics of life is through attaching different values to different genders by performing different forms of relief along gendered lines. Didier Fassin does not relate Politics of Life to gender per se, but using this notion of hierarchy of lives might be a useful lens to analysis gendered dynamics.
Finally, for Fassin (2013), humanitarianism is composed of an emotional side and an rational side. It is emotional in the sense that it is initiated by a desire “to help people”. People are moved by others’ suffering and feel the obligation to alleviate their suffering. It is also rational in its practice since it requires the application of universal principles.
3.2 The humanitarian Narrative and the Suffering Body
As mentioned earlier, a definition of humanitarianism is an attempt to alleviate the suffering of people (Barnett, 2014). In order to understand the dynamics of humanitarianism, it is relevant to question where this need to alleviate suffering
comes from and what suffering is constructed as. Thomas W. Laqueur discussed those questions when looking at how details about the suffering bodies of others engender compassion and how that compassion comes to be understood as a moral imperative to undertake ameliorative action (Laqueur, 1989: 176). Humanitarian narrative plays a crucial role in generating a feeling of compassion which will compel actions. Laqueur characterized the humanitarian narrative by “its reliance on detail as the sign of truth” (Laqueur, 1989: 177). Indeed, he compared humanitarian narratives with the realistic novel of the time, late eighties to early nineties, and argued that narratives must be graphic in their descriptions in order to pass as truthful accounts. By confronting the reader with details of the suffering bodies, narratives create empathy and, consequently, a sentiment of need for action, also known as a humanitarian attitude. He stated: “Stories and sentiments spread their influence to encompass distant as well as nearby people and to compel action and not just tears.” (Laqueur, 1989: 178). By describing the particular suffering and offering a model for precise social action, humanitarian narrative exposes the connection between causality and human agency. Ameliorative action is thus represented as possible and morally imperative (Laqueur, 1989).
According to Laqueur, “humanitarian narrative relies upon the personal body” (Laqueur, 1989: 177). Such a focus on the individual suffering entails a specific type of humanitarian intervention, namely the new medical humanitarianism and its apolitical status (Ticktin, 2007: 118). Indeed, with a focus on the individual body, the political and historical circumstances of the victims are being ignored. Only the physical suffering is then alleviated. Malkki explains such a focus: “Wounds are louder than words. Wounds are accepted as objective evidence, as [a] more reliable source of knowledge than the words ….” (Malkki, 1996 cited in Ticktin, 2007: 118). The new medical humanitarianism thus forecloses other alternatives to alleviate the suffering – alternatives that would imply a focus on a suffering that is not easily shown on the body, for instance.
humanitarian narrative of the suffering bodies. However, general assumptions about women’s inherent vulnerabilities and innocence tend to engender more compassion (Johnson, 2011: 1032). For this reason, the theory of the humanitarian narratives could be useful to investigate to what extent gendered narratives influence the desire to alleviate suffering.
3.3 Humanitarianism as an Arena
Rony Brauman (1996) has defined the humanitarian space as the field of possibilities for the humanitarian action. It is not a physical space per se, but a symbolic space which determines humanitarian workers’ capacity to fulfill their tasks. Strictly speaking, the humanitarian space implicitly defines what humanitarian assistance is. This humanitarian space exists within the principles of impartiality, neutrality and independence.
Hilhorst and Jansen (2010) offer interesting insights into humanitarian action and humanitarian space. Indeed, while humanitarian action is ideally associated with the delivery of aid, according to principles of impartiality, neutrality and independence, the authors argue that the humanitarian space is in fact an arena where actors, including humanitarians and recipients of aid, negotiate the outcomes of aid. Hence, the humanitarian space is not a neutral territory, but instead “shaped by social negotiations over inclusion and exclusion” (Hilhorst & Jansen, 2010: 1133). Humanitarian actors’ practices and decisions are taken in response to their interpretation of the needs of the situation and in interaction with others. Indeed, the authors argue that, in an arena approach, the kinds of action humanitarians will take are not fixed or predetermined, and nor are the principles that qualify humanitarianism. Instead, aid is shaped through the interactions between multiple actors (Hilhorst & Jansen, 2010: 1121). If negotiations over inclusion and exclusion influence the outcomes of aid, the chances are that, in a highly politicised context with very limited resources, such negotiations result in what could be perceived as an unequal distribution of aid.
4. Methodology
In this part, I will elaborate on how I approached and conducted my research in order to answer the following research question: How do gendered expectations
influence humanitarian assistance delivered to refugees in Northern France by the organisation Care4Calais?
4.1 Research Design
As my aim was to explore gender expectations and their influence on the way humanitarian assistance is allocated in the context of the refugee crisis in Europe, I believed the case study to be the best approach. Such a method allowed the exploration and understanding of the complex issue of gender expectations within a specific context. For this reason, I selected a small geographical area and a limited number of individuals as subjects in the study.
After an initial phase of extensive literature research on humanitarian assistance, refugees and gender, I left for Calais, France. This is where I conducted the fieldwork in order to acquire the evidence, in cooperation with Care4Calais, an organisation that provides direct aid to refugees living across Northern France. I followed humanitarian workers and volunteers working for the organisation and I took part in their missions in Calais, Dunkirk, Brussels and Paris. Being able to follow them and observe them during missions allowed unique data collection opportunities. The staff proved to be very helpful as they gave me all the space I wanted to conduct this research and patiently answered my numerous questions.
A choice was made to combine interviews with participant observation in order to create a better understanding of the relationship between gender expectations and humanitarian action. I had the opportunity to visit informal settlements to do participant observation every day during my stay in Calais. It proved to be very insightful, and for this reason I consider the data gathered during those observations to be a strong body of evidence.
4.2 Data Collection
The data of this research was gathered between 4th and 18th April 2018, mostly in Calais, with the exception of visits to Dunkirk, Brussels and Paris. I volunteered for the organisation Care4Calais which has its warehouse situated in the city. This organisation was chosen because of its main mission and its location. Indeed, the decision to do fieldwork in Calais was made based on criteria of accessibility, feasibility and safety. Natalia Rymaszewska, Operations and Development Manager at Care4Calais, was my contact and she helped me get into the organisation’s network.
4.2.1. Semi-structured Interviews
The research was carried out using qualitative research methods that comprise semi-structured interviews and participant observation. Since the focus of the research was on people’s behaviour in relation to their expectations of gender dimensions, qualitative methods seem to be the most appropriate. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with workers and volunteers working for Care4Calais in Calais and the surroundings. I was planning on conducting approximately ten interviews knowing that this number was likely to be altered since I could not guarantee how many people would be inclined to talk with me. In the end, I conducted only five interviews with volunteers. I chose to interview short-term volunteers as well as long-term volunteers. The interviews lasted between 30 and 45 minutes and were recorded with the approval of all the respondents. The interviews were in English, since all the respondents, except for one, were British.
The interviews with aid workers and volunteers served several purposes. The idea was to gain insights from them into gendered narratives and gender expectations within the humanitarian community in order to understand how those influence aid practices. Moreover, through their experience, the interviewees were able to reflect on the dynamics of power existing in the refugee community, a result
of the dominant gender narratives. The interviews were structured in 8 different themes.
4.2.2. Participant Observation
Additionally, I conducted participant observation as I did my volunteering for the Care4Calais organisation. I took part in the humanitarian missions carried out on the streets and in the makeshift camps in Calais as well as in Dunkirk, Brussels and Paris. By joining and becoming temporarily part of the group I was studying, I got a deeper insight into their behaviours.
The days volunteering with Care4Calais are divided into two main parts. In the mornings, volunteers work at the warehouse where they sort clothes destined for refugees and make food packs and hygiene packs to distribute later. Everything given out to refugees by Care4Calais comes from donations. For this reason, the items distributed are more influenced by the type of donations the organisation receives than by the needs of refugees. I came to the realization that most of the donations, in terms of clothing especially, are for women and children. As a matter of fact, Care4Calais included a list of most-needed items on its website to let the public know that they are in great need of items for men. In the afternoons, team leaders and volunteers drive to different locations to do the distribution for the day. Most days, they only do one distribution, but sometimes they drive to two or three different locations in one day, when needed after a police clearance, for instance. There is a strict logistic to follow during distributions, which was explained during briefings before leaving the warehouse. Specific roles were also attributed to every volunteer. After distributions, volunteers usually serve tea, coffee and snacks to the refugees. It is a moment during which volunteers and refugees can discuss but, more importantly, it represents one of the only social interactions refugees have with the “outside world”. Although refugees were not my unit of analysis, those moments
gave the opportunity to have valuable conversations with some of them, which proved to have a major impact on me on a personal level.
Since social research is richer when theoretical insights and social investigation are combined, the data collected through interviews and observations will be analysed in the light of the theories and literature consulted prior to the fieldwork.
4.3 Limitations and Ethics
Doing research in an unfamiliar environment certainly comes with a great number of uncertainties and limitations. The main limitation is that only a selected group working in the humanitarian assistance in Northern France were selected. Indeed, I observed and interviewed people working and volunteering with the organisation Care4Calais. For this reason, I cannot generalize the practices I witnessed to the whole humanitarian field. It is important to keep this in mind.
I also consider my lack of personal experience as a researcher as a limitation. I was not familiar with the refugee community and I had never volunteered in such situations. I was aware that, in the course of this fieldwork, I might come across unexpected situations or behaviours. Therefore, I prepared myself as much as possible by knowing my work material (interview questions) extremely well. Moreover, once I was engaged in fieldwork, I tried to stay flexible and adjust to any unexpected situations.
Potential ethical considerations made me change my unit of analysis from refugees to humanitarian workers and volunteers. My first idea was to research refugee men’s perceptions on how gender expectations may influence humanitarian assistance. However, I realised that choosing to conduct interviews with refugees as the main means of gathering data could come with many complications. Among them, the inevitable power imbalance between the researcher and the interviewee worried me. For this reason, I decided upon humanitarian workers and volunteers as my unit of analysis. However, still in regards to ethical implications, it was vital
that the anonymity of the interviewees was guaranteed if they requested this, though none of the five respondents did so in the end.
5. Analysis of the Empirical Findings
In this section, I will attempt to contribute to the theoretical understanding outlined in Chapter 3. As explained earlier, this research is based on the assumption that, as Fassin has argued, humanitarianism is a politics of life. Indeed, although humanitarian action is ideally associated with the delivery of aid according to principles of impartiality, neutrality and independence, many argue that, inevitably, various factors influence the outcomes of humanitarian action. The main objective of this study is to analyse how those factors influence gendered expectations and how, in turn, the latter might hinder the delivery of humanitarian assistance to refugees. Thus, the data collected during interviews and informal talks with volunteers, as well as the insights gained during the participant observation, serve to answer the following research question: How do gendered expectations influence
humanitarian assistance delivered to refugees in Northern France by the organisation Care4Calais?
As mentioned earlier, a combination of interviews and participant observation, in addition to the theoretical insights gained prior to fieldwork, allowed me to identify four themes that will be discussed in this chapter. The first theme and main finding of this research, namely the temporality of humanitarianism, will first be discussed and then used a lens to analyse how it comes into play in the three other themes. Then, using Laqueur’s humanitarian narratives theory, I will investigate how narratives about refugee women influence Care4Calais volunteers’ perceptions of refugees’ suffering and how they come to categorize them. Thereafter, following Hilhorst and Jansen’s theory of the humanitarian space as an arena, I will discuss how the specificities of Calais act to metaphorically build an humanitarian arena in which negotiations over inclusion and exclusion between the actors along the aid
chain shape the outcomes of aid. Finally, through Fassin’s Politics of Life, I will examine how the combination of the temporality, the humanitarian narrative and the specificities of Calais creates a hierarchy of humanities in which refugee women are seen as more deserving of help than refugee men by short-term and unexperienced volunteers.
5.1 Temporality of Humanitarianism
In the following discussion, temporality is understood as the level of experience in the humanitarian field volunteers possess combined with the amount of time they spend volunteering in Calais. The influence of temporality on how volunteers understand the situation in Calais and the specific needs and how they act upon it represents the main finding of this research. Like most other aid agencies helping refugees in Calais and its surroundings, Care4Calais is a grassroots organisation almost entirely based on the work of volunteers and financed by public donations. For this reason, the humanitarian assistance provided by the organisation is carried out by people who for the most part are not professionals in the field and who do not have experience in engaging with refugees. Volunteers for Care4Calais are not asked to have any prior experience in humanitarian work and do not receive training before going to the settlements. This lack of expertise leaves a lot of room for improvisation when the time comes to deliver assistance to the refugees. Moreover, there is no period of time expected for volunteering. Hence, the majority of people who come to volunteer stay for a very short period of time, usually a weekend. Volunteering for such a short period of time, with no prior experience in humanitarianism, does not allow for a very thorough understanding of the situation or the refugees’ needs. Moreover, the understanding of the impact of humanitarian actions on refugees’ lives is rather limited for the same reasons. Although Slim and Bradley claim that the durable presence of humanitarian actors in a conflict or disaster challenges the humanitarian principles of neutrality and impartiality (2013:
404), the case of Care4Calais volunteers and workers suggests the opposite. As I will elaborate in the following chapters, most of the unexperienced people coming to volunteer for a short period of time in Calais were not even aware of the humanitarian principles. In contrast, long-term and experienced volunteers and team leaders seemed to be eager to respect those principles.
Overall, in this case study, the temporality of humanitarianism has proven to greatly impact the way humanitarian assistance is delivered to the refugees in Northern France. It corroborates Brun’s take on the matter when she argues that “it is the individual experiences and insights of staff that are used to make decisions on what to do, and what is possible to do in this particular context” (Brun, 2016: 403). For this reason, the concept of temporality is used as a lens to analyse and discuss the three following themes: the humanitarian narratives, the humanitarian arena of Calais and the hierarchy of humanities.
5.2 Humanitarian Narratives
As mentioned in Chapter 3, humanitarianism is understood as the attempt to alleviate the suffering of people (Barnett, 2014). The aspiration to alleviate the suffering comes from the feeling of compassion, which is generated by detailed humanitarian narratives about suffering. According to Laqueur (1989), it is precisely this feeling of compassion that will compel humanitarian actions. Moved by detailed stories about suffering bodies, people come to perceive humanitarian actions as a moral imperative (Laqueur, 1989: 176).
Exploring how humanitarian narratives influence volunteers' desires to alleviate refugees’ suffering seems to be the logical starting point to answer the research question. Analyzing the effect of those narratives on volunteers enables a clearer comprehension of their understanding of the situation as well as how they put this understanding into concrete actions. The theme of humanitarian narratives will be discussed in relation to the concept of temporality of humanitarianism in order to expose how the level of experience in the field combined with the amount
of time spent in Calais highly influence volunteers’ sensibility to humanitarian narratives.
5.2.1 Humanitarian Narratives and the Desire to Volunteer
Ticktin wrote “Humanitarianism is about feelings” (2016: 264). In this optic, compassion can be understood as the driving force in humanitarianism (Laqueur, 1989). It is precisely the feeling of compassion that drove the short-term volunteers to Calais. The majority of them were unexperienced and untrained. Moreover, they had very limited knowledge of the refugee crisis and its causes and consequences. Such a lack of skills and experience could have stopped them from actively trying to help in this situation. Yet, they were moved by a feeling of empathy and a desire ‘to help people’. Such feelings were generated by the stories they had read and the pictures they had seen on the news or on social media. A young British volunteer who was in Calais during a scheduled school break told me that she decided to make the trip when she came across an article illustrated by a picture of a family of refugees from Afghanistan in an English online newspaper. At that moment, coming to Calais seemed like the right thing to do, she said. The idea of “the right thing to do” can be linked to Laqueur’s argument that people, when confronted with descriptions of particular suffering, come to understand ameliorative action as morally imperative (Laqueur, 1989). Many of the volunteers recognized having no expertise in engaging with refugees but considered that they had to do something about this situation which they judged unbearable. As a matter of fact, one of the volunteers once said to me that he simply decided to travel to Calais one morning in December 2015, after watching a video filmed in the Jungle. He even took some pride in recognizing that it was a very impulsive decision. At the time, he did not have any contacts in Calais or experience in humanitarian work, only he felt deeply touched by this video and had this urge to help those people. Additionally, he mentioned the accessibility of Calais for British volunteers as an advantage. To recall, Barnett has defined humanitarianism as “the attempt to alleviate the suffering of distant strangers” (2014: 4). The notion of “distant strangers” is
interesting here because, in fact, I heard volunteers say that they were shocked when they realized that such a humanitarian crisis was happening on their doorstep. Because people were suffering so close to them, so close to their comfort, they felt the obligation to act. Hence, in this case study, the physical proximity between the volunteers and the refugee crisis seems to have been a determining factor in the decision to volunteer.
The case of short-term volunteers at Care4Calais supports Laqueur’s argument that humanitarian action is the result of a feeling of compassion triggered by detailed humanitarian narratives. It also coincides with the emotional side of humanitarianism Fassin discussed (2013). However, a nuance can be made when addressing the case of long-term volunteers. The latter recalled being originally moved by a strong feeling of compassion when they first started volunteering. However, what drove them to Calais was more the continuation of a career path. Volunteering for Care4Calais – or working, in the case of a very low number of people – was the result of a rational process of thoughts, and not solely an emotional reaction. Thus, it is possible to distinguish a different sensibility to humanitarian narratives depending on the temporality of humanitarianism. The act of coming to Calais to help refugees is entirely driven by the feeling of compassion short-term volunteers have felt when coming across pictures or stories about refugees’ suffering. Coming to Calais was a response to the urge of alleviating people’s suffering they felt. Conversely, long-term, experienced volunteers have moved beyond the feeling of compassion and have made a more rational and thoughtful decision when coming to Calais, which matches Fassin’s thoughts on the rational side of humanitarianism (2013).
5.2.2 Humanitarian narratives and Understandings of Suffering 5.2.2.1 Physical Suffering
As stated above, humanitarian narratives about refugees’ suffering drove most of the short-term and unexperienced volunteers to come to Calais and help. Through observation and formal as well as informal talks with Care4Calais’ team members, it appeared clear that the same type of narratives greatly influences the way they perceive the situation in which they volunteer. In the contemporary literature, some scholars have highlighted the fact that those narratives tend to focus solely on one form of suffering, namely physical, which acts to invisibilise other forms of suffering that are not easily shown on the body (Malkki, 1996; Ticktin, 2007). Such focus prompted volunteers to look for a visible and physical type of suffering, which in turn affected their perception of the refugees’ situation and needs, and guided their behavior during distributions.
“And I think it is common sense, you can tell when someone really needs
something.” (Respondent 2, 2018)
The above statement is illustrative of the assumption by most short-term and unexperienced volunteers that they can recognize suffering wherever they see it. The use of “common sense” to determine who is more deserving of aid suggests that there is no room for thinking or questioning on what basis someone is in need because it is something physically and universally recognisable, which supports Ticktin’s argument (2007). This way of thinking translates a simplistic understanding of humanitarianism shaped by views of what is “right” and “wrong”. However, it seemed to only prevail among the short-term volunteers who had little experience in the humanitarian field. Long-term, experienced volunteers were less influenced by narratives about physical suffering. For instance, a respondent who had over 25 years of experience in the humanitarian field once mentioned the ravages of a lack of attention to mental health issues when it comes to refugees. He specifically said that, because it is not a visible condition, humanitarians tend to minimise it. It is interesting since, once again, it links back to the common idea that suffering is something visible and easily recognisable. In general, experienced
volunteers demonstrated a higher awareness on the matter of suffering, as the following statement illustrates:
“I think experience, mostly. Some volunteers come with a very high-level
understanding of vulnerability, because they have worked in other contexts. For me, I think, it comes with my age and my work.” (Respondent 1, 2018)
Undeniably, having practiced humanitarianism in other contexts improves volunteers’ capacity to question the popular beliefs regarding suffering and vulnerability. Respondent 1 had been doing humanitarian work for more than 25 years, in various countries. Volunteers like him have had the opportunity to see for themselves how, in practice, vulnerability and suffering are not fixed categories in which it is easy to categorize people. It seems to take more than “common sense” to define who is in need. Here, the temporality of humanitarianism comes into play in the way volunteers look at suffering and understand it. While short-term volunteers tend to look for a physical, “obvious” type of suffering, long-term volunteers are able to look beyond that and question common ideas on suffering.
5.2.2.2 Gendered Suffering
In the mind of most short-term volunteers, suffering often bore a gendered dimension. Indeed, the overall opinion emerging from informal discussions as well as interviews was that refugee women are more vulnerable and suffer more than refugee men. Interestingly enough, most of the volunteers supporting this argument were unable to further explain why they believed so. When asked where his conception of women’s particular vulnerability came from, one volunteer answered: “I think it is purely based on… the idea that women are physically more
physically lighter, if you are not strong enough, you are going to lose.” (Respondent 4,
2018)
The answer provided tells us that, in the mind of this respondent, women’s inherent vulnerability stems from their physical condition. For the respondent, women’s physical condition is recognisable and unquestionable. Moreover, their physical condition is what qualifies them for assistance. This could be justified by Ticktin’s idea of compassion as a limited feeling which requires selecting a few individuals and excluding others (Ticktin, 2007). The idea is that it is impossible to feel for everyone, and it is impossible to save everyone, so a selection must be made. Such a selection is shaped by racialized and gendered ideas of who is a worthy subject of compassion (Ticktin, 2016: 265). The gendered language used in many humanitarian policy texts and by aid agencies have a major impact on those ideas. Indeed, pre-existing cultural assumptions about the innocence and vulnerability of women are usually turned into a call for action and create a gendered emphasis on vulnerable groups (Carpenter, 2005: 296), which tend to influence volunteers' perceptions of aid recipients in the case of Calais.
Refugee women are seen as a worthy subject of compassion, and thus humanitarian assistance, because of their inherent vulnerability. Their intrinsic innocence is also what qualifies them for assistance. As Ticktin quotes from Boltanski: “Humanitarianism requires innocent sufferers to be represented in the passivity of their suffering, not in the action they take to confront and escape it” (Boltanski, 1999 cited in Ticktin, 2016: 259). Refugee women’s innocence is usually constructed in opposition to refugee men’s guilt. In Calais and its surroundings, most refugees were men and were trying to cross to the U.K. every night. They were guilty of actively trying to improve their situation and, thus, less legitimate to receive help than women who only make it to Calais in limited numbers. Refugees’ bodies then become a political symbol of “right” and “wrong”, deserving or not of assistance. Those embodied politics conveyed by humanitarian policies greatly shape volunteers’ perceptions of the refugee. They dictate to volunteers how to
