Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-nwzlb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-19T03:46:17.469Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Cruel to care? Investigating the governance of compassion in the humanitarian imaginary

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 June 2014

Juha Käpylä*
Affiliation:
Research Fellow, The Finnish Institute of International Affairs, Helsinki, Finland
Denis Kennedy*
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of Political Science, College of the Holy Cross, USA

Abstract

Compassion is a key moral emotion of liberal modernity. Traditionally, it is seen as an unproblematic moral compass, both theoretically and ethico-politically. This applies especially in the case of humanitarian action, which hinges on the compassionate impulses of individuals – to care, to give and to act – in the face of distant suffering. The article takes a critical approach to compassion. It argues that humanitarian action is incomprehensible outside of a general theory of how compassion structures the encounter between the suffering object of relief and the caring public. It does this by elaborating a pragmatist and eclectic approach to compassion in which seemingly internal affective responses have a socio-political existence and are already enabled by productive power, in particular by socially circulated and embodied narrative frames. By engaging a representative sample of NGO imagery related to the 2010 post-earthquake response in Haiti, the article illustrates not only how specific narrative frames seek to both elicit and govern the ways of feeling compassion, but also how these aesthetic and emotional practices are ethico-politically problematic in portraying distant sufferers and facilitating action. As a result, the benevolent self-image of compassion becomes circumspect. The article concludes by exploring two alternative avenues for compassion and caring.

Type
Original Papers
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aaltola, Mika. 2009. Western Spectacle of Governance and the Emergence of Humanitarian World Politics. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Aaltola, Mika 2012. “Theoretical Departures to Disasters and Emergencies.” In The Politics and Policies of Relief, Aid and Reconstruction: Contrasting Approaches to Disasters and Emergencies, edited by Fulvio Attinà, 5775. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Abu-Lughod, Lila, and Lutz, Catherine A.. 1990. “Introduction: Emotion, Discourse, and the Politics of Everyday Life.” In Language and the Politics of Emotion, edited by Catherine A Lutz and Lila Abu-Lughod, 123. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ahmed, Sara. 2004. The Cultural Politics of Emotion. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Allen, Amy. 2008. The Politics of Ourselves – Power, Autonomy, and Gender in Contemporary Critical Theory. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Arendt, Hannah. 1990. On Revolution. New York: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Aristotle. 1959. Rhetorica. Oxford: The Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Armon-Jones, Claire. 1986. “The Thesis of Social Constructionism.” In The Social Construction of Emotions, edited by Rom Harré, 3255. New York: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Barnett, Michael. 2011. The Empire of Humanity: A History of Humanitarianism. New York: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Barnett, Michael, and Duvall, Raymond. 2005. “Power in International Politics.” International Organization 59:3975.Google Scholar
Barnett, Michael, and Weiss, Thomas G.. 2008. “Humanitarianism: A Brief History of the Present.” In Humanitarianism in Question: Politics, Power, Ethics, edited by Michael Barnett and Thomas G. Weiss, 148. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Batson, Daniel C. 2009. “These Things called Empathy: Eight Related but Distinct Phenomena.” In The Social Neuroscience of Empathy, edited by Jean Decety and Willian Ickes, 315. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Belloni, Roberto. 2007. “The Trouble with Humanitarianism.” Review of International Studies 33:451474.Google Scholar
Benthall, Jonathan. 1993. Disasters, Relief and the Media. New York: Tauris & Co Ltd.Google Scholar
Bernstein, Richard J. 1998. New Constellation: The Ethical-Political Horizons of Modernity/Postmodernity. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Berlant, Lauren. ed. 2004. Compassion: The Culture and Politics of an Emotion. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Bhattacharjee, Abhijit, and Lossio, Roberta. 2011. Evaluation of OCHA Response to the Haiti Earthquake: Final Report. New York: United Nations.Google Scholar
Bially Mattern, Janice. 2011. “A Practice Theory of Emotion for International Relations.” In International Practices, edited by Emanuel Adler and Vincent Pouliot, 6386. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bleiker, Roland. 2001. “The Aesthetic Turn in International Political Theory.” Millennium – Journal of International Studies 30(3):509533.Google Scholar
Bleiker, Roland, and Kay, Amy. 2007. “Representing HIV/AIDS in Africa: Pluralist Photography and Local Empowerment.” International Studies Quarterly 51(1):139163.Google Scholar
Bleiker, Roland, and Hutchison, Emma. 2008. “Fear no More: Emotions and World Politics.” Review of International Studies 34(S1):115135.Google Scholar
Blum, Lawrence. 1980. “Compassion.” In Explaining Emotions, edited by Amelié Oksenberg Rorty, 507517. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Boltanski, Luc. 1999. Distant Suffering: Morality, Media and Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bruner, Jerome. 2004. “Life as Narrative.” Social Research 71(3):691710.Google Scholar
Butler, Judith. 2004. Precarious Life – The Powers of Mourning and Violence. New York: Verso.Google Scholar
——Butler, Judith 2009. Frames of War – When is Life Grievable? New York: Verso.Google Scholar
Calhoun, Craig. 2008. “The Imperative to Reduce Suffering: Charity, Progress, and Emergencies in the Field of Humanitarian Action.” In Humanitarianism in Question: Politics, Power, Ethics, edited by Michael Barnett and Thomas Weiss, 7397. Ithica, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Campbell, David. 2002. “Atrocity, Memory, Photography: Imaging the Concentration Camps of Bosnia – The Case of ITN Versus Living Marxism, Part 2.” Journal of Human Rights 1(2):143172.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Camus, Albert. 1970. Lyrical and Critical Essays. New York: Vintage Books.Google Scholar
Chandler, David. 2001. “The Road to Military Humanitarianism: How the Human Rights NGOs Shaped the New Humanitarian Agenda.” Human Rights Quarterly 23(3):678700.Google Scholar
Clark, Candace. 1997. Misery and Company: Sympathy in Everyday Life. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Clark, D.J. 2004. “The Production of a Contemporary Famine Image: The Image Economy, Indigenous Photographers and the Case of Mekanic Philipos.” Journal of International Development 16(5):693704.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cooley, Alexander, and Ron, James. 2002. “The NGO Scramble: Organizational Insecurity and the Political Economy of Transnational Action.” International Security 27(1):539.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crawford, Neta C. 2000. “The Passion of World Politics – Propositions on Emotion and Emotional Relationships.” International Security 24(4):116156.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crisp, Roger. 2008. “Compassion and Beyond.” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 11(3):233246.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Damasio, Antonio. 2003. Spinozaa etsimässä: Ilo, suru ja tuntevat aivot [Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow, and the Feeling Brain]. Helsinki: Terra Cognita. (Finnish translation by Kimmo Pietiläinen).Google Scholar
Dauphinée, Elizabeth. 2007. “The Politics of the Body in Pain: Reading the Ethics of Imagery.” Security Dialogue 38(2):139155.Google Scholar
Dean, Mitchell. 2010. Governmentality: Power and Rule in Modern Society, 2nd ed.London: SAGE Publications.Google Scholar
DEC. 2013a. “Latest Syria Appeal Total.” Disasters Emergency Committee. Accessed August 31, 2013. http://www.dec.org.uk/blog/latest-syria-appeal-totalGoogle Scholar
DEC 2013b. “UK Public Donate £3.4 M for Syria Crisis Appeal.” Disasters Emergency Committee. Accessed August 31, 2013. http://www.dec.org.uk/blog/uk-public-donate-%C2%A334m-syria-crisis-appealGoogle Scholar
Donini, Antonio. 2010. “The Far Side: The Meta Functions of Humanitarianism in a Globalized World.” Disasters 34(S2):S220S237.Google Scholar
Douzinas, Costas. 2007. “The Many Faces of Humanitarianism.” Parrhesia 2:124.Google Scholar
Douzinas, Costas 2008. Human Rights and Empire: The Political Philosophy of Cosmopolitanism. New York: Routledge-Cavendish.Google Scholar
Duffield, Mark. 2001. Global Governance and the New Wars: The Merging of Development and Security. New York: Zed Books.Google Scholar
Elshtain, Jean Bethke. 1995. Women and War. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Enloe, Cynthia. 1990. Bananas, Beaches and Bases – Making Feminist Sense of International Politics. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Fattah, Khaled, and Fierke, Karin M. 2009. “Clash of Emotions: the Politics of Humiliation and Political violence in the Middle East.” European Journal of International Relations 15(1):6793.Google Scholar
Fiering, Norman S. 1976. “Irresistible Compassion: An Aspect of 18th Century Compassion and Humanitarianism.” Journal of the History of Ideas 37(2):195218.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 1980. Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972–1977. New York: Pantheon Books.Google Scholar
Fox, Fiona. 2001. “New Humanitarianism: Does it Provide a Moral Banner for the 21st Century?Disasters 25(4):275289.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garber, Marjorie. 2004. “Compassion.” In Compassion: The Culture and Politics of an Emotion, edited by Lauren Berlant, 1527. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Halttunen, Karen. 1995. “Humanitarianism and the Pornography of Pain in Anglo-American Culture.” American Historical Review 100(2):303334.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Harrell-Bond, Barbara. 1985. “Humanitarianism in a Straitjacket.” African Affairs 84(334):314.Google Scholar
Haskell, Thomas. 1985. “Capitalism and the Origins of the Humanitarian Sensibility, Part 1.” American Historical Review 90(2):339361.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hochschild, Arlie Russell. 1979. “Emotion Work, Feeling Rules, and Social Structure.” The American Journal of Sociology 85(3):551575.Google Scholar
Hodge, Robert, and Kress, Gunther. 1988. Social Semiotics. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Hunt, Lynn. 2008. Inventing Human Rights: A History. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.Google Scholar
Hyvönen, Ari-Elmeri. 2014. “Tentative Lessons of Experience: Arendt, Essayism, and ‘the Social’ Reconsidered.” Political Theory 42, forthcoming.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
IASC. 2010. Response to the Humanitarian Crisis in Haiti Following the 12 January 2010 Earthquake: Achievements, Challenges and Lessons to be Learned. Geneva: Inter-Agency Standing Committee.Google Scholar
Immordino-Yang, A, Helen, Mary, McColl, Andrea, Damasio, Hanna, and Damasio, Antonio. 2009. “Neural Correlates of Admiration and Compassion.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 106(19):80218026.Google Scholar
Jaggar, Alison M. 2008. “Love and Knowledge: Emotion in Feminist Epistemology.” In Just Methods – An Interdisciplinary Feminist Reader, edited by Alison M. Jaggar, 378391. London: Paradigm Publisher.Google Scholar
Jimenez, Sherlyn. 2009. “Compassion.” In The Encyclopedia of Positive Psychology, edited by Shane J, 209215. Lopez, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.Google Scholar
Katzenstein, Peter, and Sil, Rudra. 2010. “Analytic Eclecticism in the Study of World Politics: Reconfiguring Problems and Mechanisms Across Research Traditions.” Perspectives on Politics 8(2):411431.Google Scholar
Kennedy, Denis. 2009. “Selling the Distant Other: Humanitarianism and Imagery – Ethical Dilemmas of Humanitarian Action.” The Journal of Humanitarian Assistance.Google Scholar
Lazarus, Richard. 1984. “On the Primacy of Cognition.” American Psychologist 39(2):124129.Google Scholar
LeDoux, Joseph. 1996. The Emotional Brain: The Mysterious Underpinnings of Emotional Life. New York: Touchstone.Google Scholar
Levin, Michael E. 1981. “Equality of Opportunity.” The Philosophical Quarterly 31(123):110125.Google Scholar
Lieu, Derek. 2011. “Haiti Earthquake Fund Raising, One Year Later.” The Chronicle of Philanthropy, January 7, 2011. Accessed January 30, 2012 http://philanthropy.com/article/Haiti-Earthquake-Fund-Raising/125896/Google Scholar
MacIntyre, Alasdair. 1985. After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, 2nd ed. London: Gerald Duckworth & Co.Google Scholar
Malkki, Liisa H. 1996. “Speechless Emissaries: Refugees, Humanitarianism, and Dehistoricization.” Cultural Anthropology 11(3):377404.Google Scholar
Manzo, Kate. 2006. “An Extension of Colonialism? Development Education, Images and the Media.” The Development Education Journal 12(2):912.Google Scholar
Manzo, Kate 2008. “Imaging Humanitarianism: NGO Identity and the Iconography of Childhood.” Antipode 40(4):632657.Google Scholar
McKinnon, John D. 2010. “Bill Clinton Recuperating.” The Wall Street Journal, February 12.Google Scholar
Möller, Frank. 2010. “Rwanda Revisualized: Genocide, Photography, and the Era of the Witness.” Alternatives 35(2):113136.Google Scholar
Myers, Fred R. 1979. “Emotions and the Self: A Theory of Personhood and Political Order among Pintubi Aborigines.” Ethos 7(4):343370.Google Scholar
Nexon, Daniel H., and Neumann, Iver B. eds. 2006. Harry Potter and International Relations. Lanham: Rowland and Littlefield Publishers.Google Scholar
Newcomb, Matthew J. 2007. “Totalized Compassion: The (Im)Possibilities for Acting Out of Compassion in the Rhetoric of Hannah Arendt.” Journal of Advanced Composition 27(1–2):105133.Google Scholar
Nussbaum, Martha. 1992. Love’s Knowledge – Essays on Philosophy and Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Nussbaum, Martha 2001. Upheavals of Thought – The Intelligence of Emotions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Oksenberg Rorty, Amelié. 2008. “Explaining Emotions.” In Bringing the Passions Back In – The Emotions in Political Philosophy, edited by Rebecca Kingston and Leonard Ferry, 1939. Toronto: UBC Press.Google Scholar
Parkinson, Brian. 1996. “Emotions Are Social.” British Journal of Psychology 87:663683.Google Scholar
Peirce, Charles Sanders. 1997. “How to Make our Ideas Clear.” In Pragmatism: A Reader, edited by Louis Menand. New York: Vintage Books.Google Scholar
Porter, Elisabeth. 2006. “Can Politics Practice Compassion?Hypatia 21(4):97123.Google Scholar
Prinz, Jesse. 2004. “Embodied Emotions.” In Thinking about Feeling: Contemporary Philosophers on Emotions, edited by Robert C, 4458. Solomon,Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Prinz, Jesse 2009. The Emotional Construction of Construction of Morals. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Reddy, William M. 2001. Navigation of Feeling: A Framework for the History of Emotions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Redfield, Peter. 2008. “Sacrifice, Triage, and Global Humanitarianism.” In Humanitarianism in Question: Politics, Power, Ethics, edited by Michael Barnett and Thomas Weiss, 196214. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Rieff, David. 2002. A Bed for the Night: Humanitarianism in Crisis. New York: Simon & Schuster.Google Scholar
Roberts, Robert C. 1988. “What an Emotion is: A Sketch.” Philosophical Review 2:183209.Google Scholar
Roemer, John E. 1998. Equality of Opportunity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rorty, Richard. 1982. Consequences of Pragmatism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Rorty, Richard 1989. Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rorty, Richard 1998. “Human Rights, Rationality, and Sentimentality.” In Truth and Progress: Philosophical Papers, vol. 3, edited by Richard Rorty, 167185. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rose, Nicholas. 1999. Powers of Freedom: Reframing Political Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rose, Gillian. 2007. Visual Methodologies: An Introduction to the Interpretation of Visual Materials. London: SAGE Publications.Google Scholar
Ross, Andrew A.G. 2006. “Coming in From the Cold: Constructivism and Emotions.” European Journal of International Relations 12(2):197222.Google Scholar
Rozario, Kevin. 2007. The Culture of Calamity: Disaster and the Making of Modern America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Sasley, Brent E. 2011. “Theorizing States’ Emotions.” International Studies Review 13(3):452467.Google Scholar
Shapiro, Michael J. 1988. The Politics of Representation: Writing Practices in Biography, Photography, and Policy Analysis. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Smith, Ashley. 2010. “Catastrophe in Haiti.” Socialistworker.org. Accessed October 30, 2013. http://socialistworker.org/2010/01/14/catastrophe-in-haitiGoogle Scholar
Solomon, Robert C. 1980. “Emotions and Choice.” In Explaining Emotions, edited by Amelié Oksenberg Rorty, 251281. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Solomon, Robert C. 2003. Not Passion’s Slave – Emotions and Choice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sontag, Susan. 2003. Regarding the Pain of Others. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.Google Scholar
Spelman, Elizabeth V. 2001. Fruits of Sorrow: Framing Our Attention to Suffering. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Stoianova, Velina. 2012. Private Funding: An Emerging Trend in Humanitarian Donorship. Somerset, UK: Global Humanitarian Assistance (Development Initiatives).Google Scholar
Sylvester, Christine. 2011. “The Forum: Emotion and the Feminist IR Research.” International Studies Review 13(4):687708.Google Scholar
Sznaider, Natan. 1998. “The Sociology of Compassion: A Study in the Sociology of Morals.” Cultural Values 2(1):117139.Google Scholar
The Chronicle. 2011. How Fund Raising for the Haiti Earthquake Disaster Increased Giving in 2010. The Chronicle of Philanthropy, 1 May 2011. Accessed January 29, 2012 http://philanthropy.com/article/How-Fund-Raising-for-the-Haiti/127312/Google Scholar
Tickner, J. Ann. 1992. Gender in International Relations – Feminist Perspectives on Achieving Global Security. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Walker, Peter, and Maxwell, Daniel. 2009. Shaping the Humanitarian World. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Walker, Peter, and Pepper, Kevin. 2007. Follow the Money: A Review and Analysis of the State of Humanitarian Funding. Medford, MA: Feinstein International Center.Google Scholar
Woodward, Kathleen. 2004. “Calculating Compassion.” In Compassion: The Culture and Politics of an Emotion, edited by Lauren Berlant, 5986. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Young, Iris Marion. 2003. “The Logic of Masculine Protection: Reflections on the Current Security State.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 29:1.Google Scholar
Zajonc, R.B. 1984. “On the Primacy of Affect.” American Psychologist 39(2):124129.Google Scholar
Zanotti, Laura. 2010. “Cacophonies of Aid, Failed State Building and NGOs in Haiti: Setting the Stage for Disaster, Envisioning the future.” Third World Quarterly 31(5):755771.Google Scholar