Speaker
Description
The talk demonstrates that some of the fundamental moral-political categories we use in Europe today – such as humanitarianism – have been developed through historical conversations between the so-called West, the East, and the South. Drawing from her book “Realigning Humanitarianism in the Balkans: From Cold-War Politics to Neoliberal Ethics” (Indiana University Press 2026), Brković explores the 1970s attempt of the Red Cross of Yugoslavia to encourage the International Red Cross Movement to reconsider its humanitarian principles and include perspectives from the countries belonging to the Non-Aligned Movement. The Yugoslav proposal provoked discussion in the International Red Cross Movement over the meaning of “humanitarianism,” “neutrality,” and “peace.” The push for the perspectives of non-aligned countries to be better represented within the International Red Cross Movement resulted in an ambivalent humanitarian imaginary that both challenged and reproduced the premises of the humanitarian sector in the West. This episode in the history of humanitarianism shows that rebuilding the international order after WWII was a messy, contradictory, and multifaceted undertaking, marked by multipolarity, disagreement, and randomness, in which the East and the South played an active role.
| Presenting author | Prof. Dr. Čarna Brković |
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