Politics of Food and Technology Series | India’s protracted hunger crisis and the digitalisation of its Public Distribution System   

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This blog is part of a series on ‘the Politics of Food and Technology’, in collaboration with the SOAS Food Studies Centre. All of the blogs in this series are contributions made at the International Humanitarian Studies Association (IHSA) Conference in Istanbul-Bergen, October 2025, to the panel with a similar title. To read the rest of the blogs in this series, please click here.

The Public Distribution System (PDS) of India, one of the largest food security programmes in the world, is a rights-based legal entitlement that distributes food grains to below poverty line households. In 2015, digitalisation, using a biometric Aadhaar system, was introduced to deal with the problems of corruption and leakages and make it more efficient. In this blog, C. Sathyamala and Somjita Laha argue that digitalisation has not necessarily led to the streamlining of the programme but has, in fact, resulted in the exclusion of the food insecure. 

  

Photo Credit: Bliss

In the early post-colonial period, India was a food deficit country dependent on international food aid. However, in the last three decades, it has become self-sufficient in food production and a net food exporter. Yet, the country has one of the highest prevalence rates of undernutrition in the world, which has been termed an ‘Asian enigma’, or a ‘development paradox’.  As such, the country is experiencing a protracted hunger crisis. In 2025, as per the Global Hunger Index, out of the 123 countries that were assessed, India ranked 102: that was categorized as ‘serious’ level of hunger. This is despite the existence of  several food security and social assistance programmes, the foremost being the Public Distribution System (PDS). Touted as one of the world’s largest food-based safety net programmes, the PDS’ aim is to ensure that certain foodstuffs are distributed at highly subsidised prices to vulnerable populations. In 2015, digitalisation was introduced to deal with the problems of corruption and leakages. In this blog we argue that digitalisation has not necessarily led to the streamlining of the programme but has, in fact, resulted in further exclusion of the food insecure.  

Evolution of the PDS 

During World War II, the British had introduced a system of food rationing that was functional from 1939 to 1943. Post-Independence, the Indian state revived it primarily to stabilise open market food prices and to provide some basic measure of food security, and the programme came to be known as PDS. Since its inception in 1950 the PDS has undergone several changes. In 1997, it changed from universal provisioning to a targeted system catering to only those households identified as below poverty line (BPL). Passed in 2013, the National Food Security Act (NFSA) made PDS into a rights-based legal entitlement even while retaining the targeted approach.   

In 2015, digitalisation was initiated by linking ration cards with the Unique Identification biometric (Aadhaar) number of the recipients. This was to enable the authentication of the biometrics (fingerprints and iris scans) during collection of rations. This move was based on the state’s rationale that corruption would be reduced by accurate identification of beneficiaries and the elimination of fraudulent ‘ghost’ beneficiaries. During the Covid crisis, under the  Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY) (The Prime Minister Food grain Scheme for the Welfare of the Poor) food grains were distributed free. This scheme  of free grain distribution has now been extended until January 2029.  According to the 2025 year-end review of the Department of Food and Public Distribution, digitalisation of PDS is a resounding success with the digitisation of 100 % of ration cards with beneficiaries data and an almost 100 % of ‘Aadhaar’ seeding (linking to the Aadhaar card). 

Problems of exclusion  

The ground level reality is somewhat sobering, though. Marginalised populations in the country have faced serious problems of exclusion. Even if eligible, households may not possess a ration card or are unable to include additional household members on that card. One reason for exclusion has been the faulty methodology used in identifying BPL households. Another is the limiting of coverage and freezing of enrolment because of a quota system. The initial BPL household identification was based on the 2011 census and in the subsequent years no cognition was taken of the population growth or changes in the economic status of a household. For instance, the central government had allotted 7.27 million programme beneficiaries in Delhi. This allocation was exhausted by 2020. Following this, a freeze on new ration cards resulted in a long list of pending applications. In 2024, the Delhi government acknowledged that 1.1 million beneficiaries were to still get a ration card.  

Catch-22 situation  

At times, registering for the PDS, can be a ‘Catch-22 situation’, where following official channels could result in further exclusion. One example is from our study carried out in urban resettlement colony in Delhi. An eligible BPL household attempted to access rations several times without success. This was because, the first time, a clerical error meant that their card did not have an official stamp. They were denied rations because the card without the stamp was considered invalid. Some 3 to 4 years ago, the family paid Rs 2000 (approximately €25 at the then exchange rate) to a middleman to mitigate this issue but the problem could not be resolved. One year ago, they approached yet another middleman who told them that they needed to cancel their previous ration card and make a fresh application. They then decided to give up. The irony is that digitalisation had probably categorised them as a ‘ghost’ beneficiary household because they had not accessed their rations from the time the card was made. This could also happen to migrant households if they are unable to verify their existence by completing their e-KYC (electronic know your customer) process in the specified period at the original place of registration. Currently, only 800 million people are being covered by the PDS as against the intended coverage of 813.5 million pe. 

Digitalisation is not fool proof 

Digitalisation poses further hurdles in accessing benefits, including difficulties in the authentication of beneficiaries. To be able to claim their food entitlement, beneficiaries must authenticate their fingerprints or iris scans at ePoS devices in ration shops that are linked to the centralised database for Aadhaar. However, the biometric authentication process is not infallible, and fingerprints may not match for the elderly or manual workers, the latter forming the bulk of the PDS recipients. When this happens, an iris scanner is used, but that can also fail for people with eye problems such as cataracts, or if they have had eye surgery. Often connectivity is an issue with the server being frequently down, in which case the customers have to wait until it is back online. The other problem that digitalisation cannot resolve is the quality of food grains in the warehouses which was not always found to be good. Though black market diversion has somewhat reduced, leakages continued because digitalisation has not led to the elimination of fraudulent/inaccurate measurements at the distribution point.  

Conclusion  

Digitalisation of the PDS has been promoted for its efficiency and transparency, but the ground-level realities appear to be different. By making it dependent on a ‘BPL’ constructed at a particular point of time, a dynamic situation has been made static. Further, digitalisation assumes importance only in situations when social welfare is targeted at a subsection of the population where it needs to operationalise a dividing practice in the Foucauldian sense. Given that digitalisation is not fool proof, it inevitably leads to further marginalisation of the marginalised.         

 

Acknowledgements: Subodh Kumar, Arjun Dubey (IHD) and Chhaya Sharma for data collection.  

 

This blog post uses findings from an ERSC-funded project entitled: Digitalising food assistance: Political economy, governance, and food security effects across the Global North-South divide (https://digitalisingfood.org/). For the working paper on India see  https://digitalisingfood.org/digital-food-assistance-in-india-towards-a-digital-welfare-state/  

 

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the authors:
C Sathyamala 

C Sathyamala is the Co-Principal Investigator and India lead researcher of the project. She is a Senior Visiting Senior Fellow at the Institute for Human development (IHD), New Delhi, and a Visiting Fellow at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Hague. Her areas of interest include food politics, political economy of health, reproductive rights, environmental justice, and medical ethics. 

Somjita Laha

Somjita Laha is a Visiting Senior Fellow at the Institute for Human development (IHD), New Delhi, and is trained in Heterodox Economics, and Development Policy and Management. She is interested in interdisciplinary research on political economy of labour, global value chains, environmental sustainability and gender in development. 

 

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Reset how? A commentary on ‘The Humanitarian Reset’ by members of the Humanitarian Observatories Network

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‘The Humanitarian Reset’ is an initiative launched in March 2025 by the (at the time) new UNOCHA Emergency Relief Coordinator, former British diplomat Tom Fletcher. According to the UN Inter-Agency Standing Committee, it is a ‘collective effort to deliver for people in crisis today while building a system fit for tomorrow. The Humanitarian Reset is about making our system faster, lighter, more accountable, and more impactful.’ The initiative combines several sub-projects, including trying to stimulate localization, creating “sharpened” country plans, finding “efficiencies”, and advocacy.

But is this really a true ‘reset’? And for whom is the system being ‘reset’? Similar promises were made following the World Humanitarian Summit and associated ‘Grand Bargain’ in 2016, but  these initiatives were characterized as top-down, and in some cases quite removed from the daily lived realities of people affected by crisis, and the people and organizations that respond to crisis.

Photo Credit:  Baset Alhasan

This blog follows a discussion held by members of the Humanitarian Observatory movement: a network of 16 grounded, self-governing, and multi-actor spaces that aim to foster humanitarian knowledge sharing, research, advocacy, coordination, and dialogue. During the Observatory Network meeting in October 2025, held in Istanbul in the lead-up to the IHSA Conference, more than 25 people representing 16 Observatories discussed the ‘Humanitarian Reset’ (split into groups), critically analysing its relevance in the real world and imagining a more relevant a poignant reset. This meditation on the Reset joins several others, including a statement by NEAR Network, ICVA, and even a recently-released think piece by the CHA thinktank in Berlin heralding the ‘fading’ of the Reset.

This blog is based on those discussions, with three main themes having emerged:

Theme 1: A Humanitarian Reset focusing only on better responses is partial

Across multiple groups, Network members discussed a perceived focus only on making humanitarian response better within the Humanitarian Reset. Multiple groups highlighted the need for a more holistic and long-term approach to humanitarian action if the Reset was to be made more relevant. This approach should be cognizant of and try to combat past historical injustices that have affected how people in various contexts are able to ‘deal with’ humanitarian crisis: “we should focus on the structural and historical issues, including everyday threats to people’s lives”, and “a lot of crises are structural and based in power and historical structures.” It was felt across various groups that formal humanitarianism focusing only on responding to disasters is missing quite a lot of ingrained and historically-related precarity that affects people’s day-to-day lives more than technical disaster response improvement does.

Meanwhile, multiple groups also highlighted that with the ever-growing effects of climate change leading to a “permanent state of emergency”, the nature of humanitarianism is changing and thus the Reset should consider taking a different and more cyclical approach: “Why is the current system not working? It is designed for quick fixes and emergency management”. In general, the groups saw a lack of attention in the Reset documents and discourse around Disaster Risk Reduction, Anticipatory Action, and other longer-term projects and initiatives that try to reduce people and societies’ vulnerabilities. One contributor quipped that the Reset seems to be trying to make the formal humanitarian system more resilient to funding cuts, rather than making societies more resilient to disasters; especially due to its call for ‘hyper prioritisation’.

Theme 2: The Humanitarian Reset should pay attention to a wider range of actors as being part of the ‘humanitarian system’

Across all discussions, Observatory Network members highlighted that the Humanitarian Reset seems to spend too much time focusing on the work of the ‘formal’ humanitarian system; for example iNGOs, UN Agencies, and some national organisations (depending on the context). This leads to a partial definition of ‘who’ and ‘what’ needs to be ‘reset’, and also reduces the transferability of its proposed changes. The focus on the international organisations leading local also led to discussions on the Reset as a form of neo-coloniality.

For example, several groups highlighted that the Reset up until this point has not particularly engaged with state actors, which are becoming ever-more pertinent humanitarian actors (or: actors with humanitarian aid roles), and especially with reference to slower-moving crises caused by climate change, such as extreme heat. The axing of most USAID programmes in early 2025 underlined this experience in Namibia: “it was a wake up call to the government, to work on its own and sustain its own people. This is something of a positive, it has helped push the government to provide for its communities… there is a new youth empowerment programme, whether the government is giving funding for young people to start up projects.” Meanwhile in  South Asia, colleagues found that following USAID cuts they could pivot to work with affected people to define their own recovery from disaster (in this instance, extreme heat).

HO Network members brought attention to the point that most of the actors addressed by the Humanitarian Reset’s priorities are part of the established or ‘formal’ humanitarian system: “I haven’t really seen any region where the reset is happening or being driven by people on the ground. It is very top down”, and “most of the humanitarian [work] is coming from the North to the South, and this is part of the problem.” One group brought up the continuing presence of UN Agencies as being the main funding channels as an example that the approach taken in the Reset is unnecessarily narrow. The impression for many members of the Network is that the reset is a Global North-led initiative, that hasn’t really begun to approach shifting the centre of humanitarian work from its historic headquarters. In Kenya, for example, despite its ambitions, Reset-led initiatives it have not yet demonstrated a meaningful shift toward locally led decision-making or recognising the leadership of actors responding to climate-related crises, especially in the Kenyan arid/semi-arid regions. This theme also raised questions about accountability: you cannot genuinely reset a system if governments (and the donors supporting that system) do not feel accountable for causing the conflict or crisis (e.g. in Palestine and Sudan).

However, many of the groups did note that the number of people and organisations doing humanitarian work is broadening as a response to their context. Trends highlighted include several donors (for example, Gulf Donors) preferring to channel their funds directly to local or national actors.

Theme 3: A Humanitarian Reset cannot be ‘one size fits all’, and should be contextual

“We need to break down the universalism of the humanitarian system, as there are multiple humanitarian systems in place”. Many members of the Observatory Network observed that assumptions of universal applicability of many humanitarian reform initiatives hamper actual, real-world reform. Several people also highlighted that the language of humanitarianism used in many of the Reset documentation is not an accurate reflection of most people’s lived realities, and drew parallels to HDP Nexus initiatives: “it is now becoming detached from reality, and is becoming only useful for donors.” It is also important to highlight that a universal attempt to reform the humanitarian system minimises the differences in how change happens in diverse contexts. For example, in DRC, Network members noted that change will require bringing together national Civil Society organisations, not just (i)NGOs. “In our experience, changes are not linear. It is like a farmer; you plant seeds and wait. Something is happening [under the surface], but it is hard to see each step.” Meanwhile, the more diverse and plural the reset, the more effective it is likely to be in South Asia. Standardization is useful, and as a start, to lead to many local blooming of reset that is harmonized, localized, and contextualised.

Other takeaways

Within the group, several people noted that the Humanitarian Reset documents and statements mention further collaboration with the Private Sector as a way to increase efficiencies, funding, and broaden service provision. Whilst participants generally mentioned the potential possibilities of (further) Private Sector inclusion in humanitarian aid provision, for example by allowing displaced people living in Thailand to work in the private sector, obtain a wage, and live with more dignity, many sounded cautionary notes:

In India there is a discussion that there is a huge focus on corporate organisations taking humanitarian action. A lot of privatisation is taking place. A lot of monetisation is taking place in the name of cash transfers. The victims are not seen as victims, but as a potential workforce. HOISA finds that Reset must move from this ahead to make each victim an agent of new, safe, and less at risk community and nation with the help of the authorities and corporations as soon as possible.

In Kenya, meanwhile, there are discussions within the observatory network that increasing private sector involvement in drought response and climate services, while useful in some cases, is also creating concerns. In several contexts, essential services risk becoming commercialised, with vulnerable households treated more as customers than rights-holders. Hence, the need for safeguards to ensure that private sector engagement supports resilience rather than deepening existing inequalities.

In general participants also called attention to issues with “hyper prioritization”, which may lead to humanitarians having to make choices between contexts undergoing moderate severity crisis versus high severity crisis, with one participant saying that the approach might lead to “not providing food aid to the hungry, to allow provision to the starving”.

Conclusion – Reset how?

The Humanitarian Reset has the same potential as other reform initiatives led by the UN (as one participant highlighted: “this isn’t a new initiative”) including the Grand Bargain, but it might be better for the UN to take a more introspective look and propose reform, for example via the UN80 initiative. Within the Reset, there is a lot of talking happening, but this risks of becoming performative, rather then genuine transformation and meaningful action. Unfortunately, the Reset’s narrow focus in several ways means that it is likely to be a tool for funders and institutions that consider themselves part of the ‘formal’ humanitarian system. Indeed, several people highlighted that the slashing of USAID funding and programming caused bigger on the ground shifts due to necessity. Whilst there are new developments in multiple humanitarian contexts, including bigger roles for local/national organisations, inclusion of networks and citizens’ groupings in programming, and new forms of funding – these are happening at the same time as the Humanitarian Reset, not as a result of it.

This blog was written with contributions from:

  • Humanitarian Observatory DRC
  • Humanitarian Observatory of Ethiopia
  • Humanitarian Observatory of Latin America and the Caribbean
  • Humanitarian Observatory of Palestine
  • Humanitarian Observatory of the Netherlands
  • Humanitarian Observatory Initiative South Asia (HOISA)
  • Humanitarian Observatory of Namibia
  • Humanitarian Observatory of Kenya
  • Humanitarian Observatory of Central and Eastern Europe
  • Humanitarian Observatory for Policy and Education, South East Asia (HOPESEA)
  • Humanitarian Observatory of Nigeria
  • Humanitarian Observatory of Myanmar
  • Humanitarian Observatory of Somalia
  • Humanitarian Observatory of the Philippines
  • Maraka Humanitarian Observatory of Pakistan

 

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

The Authors:

Mihir Bhatt (AIDMI), Juan Ricardo Aparicio Cuervo (Uni. Los Andes), Eunice Atieno (ORNACO), Patrick Milabyo Kyamugusulwa (ISDR-Bukavu), Julia Goltermann (KUNO), Tom Ansell (HSC-ISS), Kaira Zoe Canete (HSC-ISS), Gabriela Anderson (HSC-ISS) 

 

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This blog is part of the ‘Humanitarian Observatories: Building a Knowledge and Advocacy Network on Humanitarian Governance’. This project has received funding from the European Union under the Horizon European Research Council (ERC) Proof of Concept.

Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or European Research Council Executive Agency (ERCEA). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

Europe’s Silent Middle: Why Migration Isn’t the Polarised Fight You Think It Is

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The Dutch have voted. Migration was once again front and centre. Campaigns warned of crises, headlines framed Europe as divided. Open borders versus closed minds, compassion versus control. It all sounds like Europe has taken sides.

But has it?

New research from the PACES project, led by Anne-Marie Jeannet, Associate Professor at the Department of Social and Political Science, University of Milan, suggests a quieter, more nuanced reality.

Photo Credit: Rob Curran

Most Europeans are not at the extremes. They sit somewhere in the middle. Ambivalent, thoughtful, and conflicted, they recognise that migration can be both necessary and challenging. They want rules and fairness, but, they also care about protecting people in need. Europeans Want Balance and Fairness.

The findings show that Europeans tend to support strong border control and structured return policies, conditional welfare benefits, and targeted regularisation schemes. For example, this could include returning rejected asylum seekers, limiting benefits to those who meet certain conditions, and allowing some undocumented migrants to stay legally.

Immigration policies that included returning migrants with criminal convictions were over 10 percent more likely to be supported than those that did not. By contrast, policies proposing to contain asylum seekers in third-country camps were 4 percent more likely to be rejected, as were policies offering residential or tax-based incentives to attract migrants (3 percent more likely). Overall, the study shows that the public favours policies that are lawful and orderly, but not excessively restrictive.

The silent middle often resolves tensions between competing values using mental shortcuts, or heuristics. Citizens distinguish between authorised and unauthorised migrants and between law-abiding and criminal individuals when forming policy opinions. When rules are transparent and fair, trust grows. Yet migration policies are often viewed as unclear, which can fuel fear.

The Middle Is Large, But Quiet

This middle majority is easily overlooked. Loud, extreme voices dominate headlines, giving the impression that Europeans are either for or against migration. In reality, most people hold multiple, sometimes conflicting, values: humanitarian concern, fairness, and a desire for order. They recognise that migration is not simply good or bad — it is a normal part of social life that can bring benefits, challenges, and everything in between. Rather than choosing sides, they weigh trade-offs, evaluate policies conditionally, and respond to evidence.

As World Migrants Day approaches on the 18th of December, perhaps it is time to move beyond framing people as simply for or against migration. These debates often make me wonder why so many of us feel torn about it. Many people say they want to help refugees while also wanting borders to be managed, or that they support integration but worry about pressure on housing or jobs. That mix of concerns is not a contradiction. It reflects the complexity of real life.

It also raises further questions: why is it so difficult for the silent middle to express their moderate views? Is it a lack of knowledge, a lack of interest, or simply the noise of polarised debate? And what would it take to bring these more balanced voices into the conversation?

Migration is more than a policy debate. It is a mirror reflecting our values, fears, and hopes. Acknowledging the silent middle, the thoughtful but often conflicted majority, opens the door to conversations and policies that reflect reality rather than rhetoric. And the next time you read that Europe has turned against migration, it is worth remembering that while extreme voices are loud, a much larger, quieter middle is watching.

 

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the authors:

Anne-Marie Jeannet

Anne-Marie Jeannet is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Milan and affiliated with Bocconi University’s Dondena Centre. Her research examines how social changes such as deindustrialization and immigration reshape political life and public perceptions. She leads the ERC-funded project Deindustrializing Societies and the Political Consequences (DESPO) and has published widely in leading journals.

Marcela Rubio

Marcela G. Rubio is an Economist in the Migration Unit at the Inter-American Development Bank. She earned her Ph.D. in Public Policy and Administration from Bocconi University in 2022 and studies how migration dynamics affect crime, human capital, and development outcomes. Her work spans Latin America, the Caribbean, the United States, Europe, Africa, and Asia, with prior experience in academia, NGOs, and international organizations.

Lois Mobach

Lois Mobach is a Communications Advisor at Erasmus University, where she supports major research initiatives. She works on projects including PACES, helping translate complex findings into accessible communication. As co-author, she brings expertise in research dissemination and public engagement.

 

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Experiences and observations of Hurricane Melissa’s path through Cuba: preparations, sanctions, and citizen networks

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In this blog, humanitarian practitioner and researcher Carla Vitantonio reflects on the immediate experiences of people in Cuba affected by the path of Hurricane Melissa, which slowly approached the Caribbean nation in mid-October 2025. As the Hurricane approached Cuba, various (international) NGO, citizen-led, and civil defence preparations were triggered, despite issues with international sanctions and internal bureaucracy. Though regularly battered by tropical storms and hurricanes, the experiences of Cuban people and institutions with Hurricane Melissa reveal some timely developments in the country.

Photo Credit: Esteri

We began observing Melissa on October 21st. It was a tropical storm, one step below hurricane level, according to Saffir-Simpson hurricane wind scale. However, we knew that its slow pace did not bode well, and realized that it wasn’t a matter of predicting whether it would pass through Cuba, but simply of understanding where.

I have been working in disaster risk prevention and management for fifteen years, seven spent in Cuba. I know the protocols and am well aware of my role in a situation like this. I have studied the preparedness system developed by the EMNDC (Estado Mayor de la Defensa Civil) in Cuba, and which many around the world admire. This system has allowed this small country in the Caribbean to survive  annual hurricanes and storm seasons since the triumph of the Revolution in 1959.
Yet I live here and know that, beyond the official propaganda and its many detractors, Cuba is no longer what it once was.

Like many, I still sting with the memory of Hurricane Oscar, which devastated eastern Cuba a year ago. Last year, when a colleague from Brussels called me the day before Oscar made landfall in Cuba, to ask if we needed support, I responded with a bit of bravado: “Cubans brush their teeth with a Category 2.” And I was wrong. Even today, a year later, there is no clarity on the number of deaths or the damage caused by Oscar and the human errors that followed, and many believe that the historically efficient Early Warning System failed that time.

I’m not the only one who bitterly remembers October last year, the 3 (for some up to 7) days without electricity, refrigerators left open, as if gutted, while the luckiest ones tried to cook their stored food in an attempt to save at least some of it, the chaos of information and misinformation and the clear feeling, listening to the fragmented accounts of colleagues from the affected areas, that beyond the usual duel between the regime and dissident press, something really hadn’t worked in the preparation and response.

Unfortunately, we were not involved in any learning exercises after the fact: we don’t know whether the Civil Defense  analyzed what happened and learned any lessons, nor can we hope to know: living in Cuba means oscillating between a scandal-mongering and delegitimizing press that is mostly funded by the diaspora and quoted by international media, and a state-controlled press, which publishes only sanitized and repackaged news, increasingly detached from what we see every day on the streets.

But let’s go back to October 21st. Melissa’s slow approach allowed everyone to organize. The Civil Defense evacuated approximately 500,000 people. In Cuba, preventive evacuations have historically been managed along two lines: anyone who finds themselves in a situation where they need to leave their homes, first looks to family members nearby living in areas designated as safe by the Civil Defense. Only a small portion go to shelters, which are generally schools temporarily set up as shelters. Cuba’s civilian evacuation mechanism does not allow for individual objections.

Recently,  a Cuban doctor that helped interrupt mother-to-child transmission of HIV told me about Cuba’s approach to HIV: “Because in Cuba, the life of every citizen is worth more than anything else. And to save it, we do everything, sometimes without caring whether someone agrees with our methods, or not. As if we had these lives at our disposal.”

I personally experienced the truth of this statement during COVID, when the state, to protect its citizens, imposed measures that would have been deemed unacceptable in many countries around the world. This was done precisely because of this duty to protect, which sometimes goes even beyond recognizing the agency of citizens. Evacuations during hurricane preparations, a painful process in which people are forced to leave behind what is most precious to them, and often even their livelihoods, work in the same way. We must save what is most precious to us: our lives. Everything else can come later.

International Reactions and Preparations

Meanwhile, mindful of the events of 2024, several European donors, including Germany, announced a couple of days before the hurricane hit that they would donate several hundred thousand euros to CERF, the United Nations emergency fund that will most likely handle the response. This is a sign of confidence in multilateralism. Unfortunately, the sixty-years long embargo (unilateral sanctions with extraterritorial effect imposed by the US), combined with the notoriously lengthy and complex internal bureaucracy in Cuba, make it virtually impossible to import any goods in less than three months—an interminable time for those who have lost their homes, and even for those wishing to provide almost immediate relief. And so, we are now witnessing creative appeals from the United Nations urging local entrepreneurs and individuals willing to respond, and who have access to products already on the local market, to come forward and join forces.
Beyond the commendable coordination effort, it is clear that the crisis the humanitarian sector has reached this country too.

Meanwhile, on October 29th, after 24 hours of intense rain and wind, Melissa made landfall as a Category 3 hurricane, hitting the provinces of Holguin, Granma, Santiago, and Guantanamo. The latter two are regions that have become extremely socially and economically impoverished in recent years, and are still struggling following the impact of Hurricane Oscar in 2024. Furthermore, these are the areas of Cuba hardest hit by the deterioration of the national electrical system and the infamous and lengthy apagones, blackouts that last for days, punctuated only by a few hours of power, which now plague the country relentlessly.

This year, the Early Warning System did not fail, and everyone is already prepared: international NGOs have alerted their local partners of the need to gather information as quickly as possible, the United Nations has activated its coordination system, and above all, the Cuban Civil Defense has mobilized the complex network of military and civilian personnel (including the Red Cross) that will handle the response in the hours immediately following Melissa’s passage. Within 24 hours, the hurricane receded, leaving behind destruction and fear, but the consequences continued for days to come: rivers, swollen by the rain, began to overflow their banks on October 31st, especially in the province of Granma, forcing the Civil Defense to launch a massive rescue operation that even included a mass transportation of people by train.

As I write this article, it seems we have emerged from the most critical phase and that we can all deal with the very delicate recovery phase.

What have we learned, as citizens and people involved in disaster preparedness and response?

  • Times have changed, and the Cuban government is slowly shifting to a different approach: on November 1st, an official gazette formally established that the government would pay 50% of the reconstruction costs for all citizens who need to rehabilitate their homes. We are therefore moving away from the “the state will take care of it” approach, which in recent years had sadly turned into empty rhetoric, given that the state no longer had the resources to handle everything. We are moving toward a supportive approach, where the state recognizes the citizens’ leading role while still striving to offer participation and support. The feasibility and sustainability of this offer remain to be seen.
  • Beyond the national and international agencies traditionally responsible for response, we need to rely on all those networks of private citizens who, from areas of Cuba less affected by the hurricane and often even from abroad, offer material support and donations. This change in trend began, I recall, with the tornado that hit Havana in 2019. Just a few months earlier, Cubans had gained access to 3G connectivity on their cell phones. Thanks to it, citizen movements rapidly mobilized to provide aid beyond and regardless of the official response.
  • That climate change is not an opinion, and we must think in terms of systems: for the first time we are witnessing a joint effort by agencies based in different countries (Cuba, Jamaica, Bahamas) to reflect on the impact of the event and combine their energies, not only for the response, but for future preparations.
  • That climate change is not an opinion (reprise), potentially disastrous events are intensifying in frequency, becoming more unpredictable in nature and, therefore becoming difficult to prepare according to the “business as usual” model.

In short, it would be interesting, beyond the usual ideological controversies that inevitably emerge when discussing Cuba, to look at this recent event as a source of learning, a pilot, something that can point us in the right direction for the future of preventing and responding to disasters.

 

Originally published in Italian on Left.

 

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

 

About the author:

Carla Vitantonio is a humanitarian practitioner and researcher who has worked across a number of contexts and organisations, including CARE (as country Director for Cuba), and Handicap International (including as country Director for North Korea). She contributes to academic research initiatives at institutes including the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, the European University Institute, and ODI. Carla hosts the podcast ‘Living Decoloniality’, and also serves on the Board of the International Humanitarian Studies Association, as well as regularly contributing blogs, think pieces and papers – in English, Spanish, and Italian.

 

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The politics of land: Introducing an important new collection

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Land lies at the heart of contemporary politics. As a site of contestation and negotiation, land is central to struggles that affect us all. The Oxford Handbook of Land Politics , edited by ISS Professor Jun Borras and Jennifer Franco, brings together contributions from leading scholars in critical agrarian studies, offering an invaluable guide to these debates. In this blog, Ian Scoones reflects on the book and its timely contributions.

Land is central to contemporary debates about politics. Land sustains the livelihoods of millions through farming, livestock keeping, hunting and collecting. Such livelihoods are intimately bound up with nature, and the complex and diverse ecosystems that thrive on land. Land creates a sense of identity refracted through gender, race, class and other axes of difference.  Through diverse institutions and forms of authority, land connects citizens and states, corporations and capital, and is the locus of accumulation, extraction and control. Access to land is thus contested, negotiated and claimed through multiple, competing actors, linked to a myriad of struggles. Land, in other words, connects us all through its politics. This is why the newly-published Oxford Handbook of Land Politics is so important. Across 38 chapters (880 pages), written by a veritable who’s who of the broad field of critical agrarian studies, the book offers an invaluable guide to these debates, with a stellar overview and introduction. from its editors, Jun Borras and Jenny Franco. What follows are some reflections taken from the Foreword that I wrote.

At the end of the Foreword, I ask, what are the new axes of debate, transforming our understandings of agrarian change and politics of land offered in the pages of the Handbook? There are many, but I highlight just four.

  • First is the move from seeing land as only a site of production and so accumulation, but also social reproduction, and the locus of highly gendered social and cultural relations. This suggests a much more diverse land politics going beyond class to gender, race, identity and so on. It in turn suggests a renewed focus on labour, with complex livelihoods generated from multiple sources beyond the fixed plot of land, through migration, trade and so on. The classic categories of land-based classes centred only on production are thus unsettled as new forms of livelihood are created. As a result, the dynamics of differentiation and accumulation shifts, with land politics changing as a wider appreciation emerges of Henry Bernstein’s classic questions of agrarian political economy – who owns what, who does what, who gets what and what they do with it?
  • Second, the centring of nature, environment and climate in relation to land is a theme that resonates across many chapters. Humans and nature (and so land) are inseparable yet have often become disconnected by the forces of capitalist modernity. The importance of reconnecting is central, requiring a new political ecology/economy of land. This has deep implications for how we see land; again not just as a demarcated plot, but as part of a wider living landscape and territory, within a broader planetary system. This in turn highlights the crucial connection between land and the climate crisis. Changing land use, whether through deforestation, intensive agriculture and extraction of water or minerals is a major contributor to climate change. As the regimes of extraction evolve under new frontiers of capitalism, land is central. Such regimes of food, water and energy are constituted through a contested politics and, as the imperative to switch from fossil fuel dependence and intensive, polluting systems of agriculture accelerates, new challenges emerge. In the rush to ‘net zero’, for example, alternative energy, climate adaptation and nature-based ‘solutions’ are offered, yet all these have implications for who controls the land, with land grabs increasingly justified in the name of green and climate ‘transitions’, which in turn create new land-based politics across the world.
  • Third, many chapters argue for going beyond a narrow, individualised approach to land rights, tenure security and land governance. This managerial, administrative and technocratic frame dominates policy thinking but is incompatible with the realities on the ground. As the introduction points out, such efforts to provide ‘security’ for women, Indigenous peoples and others can paradoxically lead to opportunities for dispossession, as speculation, appropriation and extraction increase in areas where ‘regularisation’ has generated legibility through demarcation and delimitation. Instead, there is a need to think about land as constituted through hybrid, mosaic forms of property relation, with property-making as a continuous, contested and negotiated process. Land is always embedded in power relations and so thinking about how authority over land is generated – through interactions between citizens, states, corporations and other actors – can help us elaborate more appropriate democratic institutions for land control and a more innovative, grounded approach to ‘land governance’.
  • Finally, the Handbook points to the importance of understanding land as a ‘regime’, situated in a wider historical political economy context. As the introduction highlights, a land regime – just as a food regime – is stabilised, perhaps only tentatively and temporarily, by a set of political-economic forces that operate within a particular phase of capitalism. But regimes change due to the intersection of local struggles and wider political forces and interests. Today these are influenced by new frontiers of extraction and accumulation, linked to globalised economic relations, changing food systems and heightening climate-environment imperatives. Meanwhile, authoritarian, populist regimes define the nation in terms of the relationship between ‘the people’ and their mother/fatherland, always in ways that act to exclude some, while incorporating others in a populist politics of land and belonging. Until we understand this wider historically situated, structural context, the attempts to address the pressing challenges of land and its use at more local levels – whether through moves to agroecology or food sovereignty, for example – will remain elusive.

The Handbook is a rich, diverse and deeply informed collection, mixing theoretical perspectives and grounded reflections. By going beyond a narrow Marxist canon to encompass a wide array of perspectives, no particular line is taken. The introduction encourages readers to find their own way, to read across conceptual framings and reflect on different dimensions – in other words to generate a critical sensibility to agrarian studies and land politics.

For any student of land, or indeed politics more generally, as well as activists and practitioners grappling with the challenges of land politics, this Handbook is an enormously valuable and vital resource.

 

Note: There are two publication dates mentioned on the website of the Handbook: 2022 was the year when the Handbook project formally got started; 2025 was when the Handbook was actually completed and published as a whole.

This blog was first published by Transnational Institute

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the author:

Ian Scoones

Ian Scoones is a professor in the Resource Politics and Environmental Change cluster. He was co-director of the ESRC STEPS Centre at Sussex (2006-21) and the principal investigator of the ERC Advanced Grant project, PASTRES (Pastoralism, Uncertainty and Resilience: Lessons From the Margins, (2018-2023).

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Caring as a Practice of Everyday Peacemaking in the Lives of Sexual Violence Survivors in Kenya

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Earlier this year, Bilge Sahin and Phyllis Livaha, with support from Anne Biwott, organized a one-day workshop in collaboration with Grace Agenda—a Kenyan civil society organization that supports survivors of the 2007–2008 post-election violence. The workshop, held in Nairobi, focused on care and healing in the lives of survivors of sexual violence. The goal of the workshop was to shift the narrative from violence and victimhood toward one of agency—highlighting the everyday realities of survival, resilience, and the process of rebuilding life. This blog piece focuses specifically on the experiences of Jaqueline Mutere, founder and director of Grace Agenda, offering insight into the importance of healing and care. Her perspective sheds light on the often-overlooked roles women play in mitigating violence, sustaining families and communities, and fostering social cohesion during and after conflict. This blog has been put together in a specific narrative style, weaving together academic observations with the words of Jacqueline which are italicized for clarity.

“Together with other survivors that we work with, we offer care and support to others, to enable them work through their trauma” 

Photo Credit: Authors

In the field of peace and conflict studies, care is often overlooked—its significance overshadowed by the dominant focus on violence and suffering. This reflects broader biases in knowledge production and the privilege of certain narratives over others. Yet, when care is taken seriously in contexts of violence and armed conflict, it opens up space for a more nuanced understanding of how individuals and communities navigate recovery and ongoing violence. Recognizing that care and violence often coexist is essential to grasp the realities of rebuilding after conflict.

Crucially, centering care should not romanticize or erase the enduring pain and hardship survivors’ experience. Rather, care and violence often operate simultaneously. Efforts to heal and rebuild are ongoing and form a vital component of everyday peacebuilding. Understanding these care practices is essential to appreciating how resilience and recovery take shape in communities affected by conflict.

Fisher and Tronto define care as “everything we do to maintain, continue, and repair our ‘world’ so that we can live in it as well as possible. That world includes our bodies, ourselves, and our environment, all of which we seek to interweave in a complex, life-sustaining web.” This definition deepens in real life experiences:

“For a longtime after the birth of my baby, I struggled a lot with self-worth. Because this pregnancy was hidden and my body suffered through it, the post-natal care and recovery was no less brutal. But as soon as I realized that my children would suffer tremendous loss on so many levels, physically emotionally, economically…. It came to me that I need to recover FOR MYSELF so that I could give back to my children and give them the life they deserved, BUT…it all started with ME. So, I had to start the work internally, before reaching out to my children and doing damage control because I realized my internal turmoil had affected my personality and hence my relationships with those near and dear to me…I realized that my children would suffer at the hands of these who despised me. This realization hit me like a rock, but sparked a fire in me so deep. I started on a journey of daily self-reflection, first of all dealing with the historical bile that I felt for those around me in treating me like a pariah, and more so the perpetrator who intentionally inflicted this heinous offence of raping me.”

Building on Fisher and Tronto’s insights, we see that care is embedded in the everyday work of peacemaking. Peace is not merely the product of formal agreements or political transitions—it must be understood through the lived realities of those who have endured violence. For survivors, violence often continues to manifest in their daily lives, relationships, and bodies. Peace, then, becomes an ongoing, embodied effort—one that involves negotiating and resisting gendered, militarized, racialized, capitalist, and colonial structures. Therefore, for survivors of sexual violence, the impact of unresolved mental stress and the small acts of self-care help navigate their daily life, symbolizing ongoing healing and techniques for rebuilding peace:

“I have realized that when I have a lot of things on my mind that I have not processed and made decisions on, continue to nag me, robbing me of mental peace. This affects how I eat and sleep. Also, if my body doesn’t get enough rest, I get headaches and feel heavy the entire day. But if I get an opportunity per chance to take a power nap and calm the nerves through sleep. I realized waking up that the tautness in my body has left, I gain clarity of thought, able to process and conclude issues faster. This automatically puts me in a more positive mood. I love my house and a clean environment, I love and care for my plants, that I talk to when watering them. The green of the plants give me peace, seeing them flourish does something to my insides, and so I endeavor to maintain this equilibrium. What I wish I could do for myself is have the same energy for domestic, work that I had previously. But with age comes certain physical limitations and so with the added responsibilities of supporting others, I am not able to do as much as I would like to. What I still enjoy is cooking… for myself, for my children, for others, and making things work around me.”

A feminist understanding of peace locates its meaning not in political pronouncements but in the everyday lives of survivors—where acts of survival, care, and the pursuit of dignity become central to peacebuilding. In these everyday struggles and strategies, care—whether for oneself, for others, or received from others—emerges as foundational to life-making and community-sustaining practices.

“This process of realizing that because my children needed me, dawned on me that I was valuable to SOMEONE, my kids. This bloomed in me, awakening a flower of hope in me. With this realization I reflected on those who were not so lucky as me, who had no family, were orphaned and were going through the same trauma and journey of healing like me, those less fortunate and more vulnerable…. This flicker of fire grew to where I committed to make others better and not have to go through what a tunnel of blackness I had just overcame. This then has become my life`s work in supporting others to get back in touch with themselves after trauma of sexual violence and realize that it is not others who qualify your worth and value, But YOU!”

A feminist ethics of care resists essentialist and individualistic interpretations of survival. It recognizes that healing after sexual violence cannot rest on the shoulders of individuals alone. Instead, it requires collective efforts—relational networks of mutual support built on empathy, solidarity, and shared struggle among informal survivor networks or through grassroots organizations. Mutual support is at the center of Grace Agenda’s mission:

“Together with other survivors that we work with, we offer care and support to others, to enable them work through their trauma. Appreciating and realizing stigma (the silent derogatory ridicule) that survivors go through, we create an environment that one can be themselves and start on the journey of healing. Rape has a culture of silence, and together in solidarity we have come out to challenge the culture of silence around the violation. We came together to initiate Grace Agenda that speaks of Reparations for Sexual Violence, develop self-agency to speak for oneself your concept and perception of justice, and memorialize the journeys, to healing, championing the same for the impact of the violation like the children that have been born from rape”.

Among survivors and the civil society organizations that support them, networks often form around affection, trust, and a shared commitment to healing. These relationships address not only trauma but also the economic and social challenges that survivors face. As Browne et al. remind us: “given our interdependence and vulnerability, it is caring that sustains us and can therefore serve as a starting point for imaging a different kind of politics.”

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the authors:

Bilge Sahin

Bilge Sahin is an Assistant Professor of Conflict and Peace Studies at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), Erasmus University Rotterdam. Her teaching and research explore the complex intersections of gender, sexuality, war, and security.

Phyllis Livaha

Phyllis Livaha is a senior lecturer at Erasmus University College, Rotterdam, where she teaches international law and international relations courses. Her research interests include women’s rights, human rights law and international relations. Her current work focuses on decolonization and critical (legal) analysis.

Jacqueline Mutere

Jacqueline Mutere is the founder and director of Grace Agenda in Nairobi, Kenya, which she established in 2010 to support survivors of sexual violence during Kenya’s 2007–2008 post-election crisis. Her work, which initially focused on children born of rape, has grown to champion reparations, survivor dignity, and mental health recovery. Mutere has been nationally and internationally recognized for her leadership, including nominations and awards from Kenya’s Women Human Rights Defenders and Physicians for Human Rights. She serves on regional and global networks such as the East African Women Human Rights Defenders Network, the SEMA Network, and the Geneva Centre for Humanitarian Studies Steering Committee. She continues to mentor youth champions challenging stigma and has co-authored research on children born of sexual violence.

Anne Biwott

Anne Biwott works with grassroots organizations to challenge harmful gender norms and champion for equity and equality for all.

 

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Society Must Be Defended! Rethinking Defence and Security in the age of Cognitive Warfare and the WPS Agenda

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In his 1975–76 lecture series at the Collège de France, Michel Foucault famously declared, ‘Society must be  defended’. While framed within the context of biopolitics and the genealogy of state violence, this provocation has found renewed relevance in the 21st century as new forms of warfare emerge. Today, the greatest threats to societies are not only kinetic or territorial but epistemic and cognitive. Cognitive warfare – an increasingly salient form of conflict – operates by targeting perception, social cohesion and identity, often exploiting the fault lines of gender, race, and class, to undermine collective resilience.

Photo Credit: United Nations

This blog post explores how NATO’s instrumental engagement with the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Agenda intersects with these new threat environments. Despite normative commitments to inclusion, NATO’s implementation of WPS remains structurally tethered to operational efficiency and military effectiveness, rather than transformative gender justice. The rise of cognitive warfare, which thrives on polarization and symbolic manipulation, underscores the urgent need to reassess what it means to defend society. Rethinking defence in the cognitive age requires not merely stronger militaries but stronger democracies – and this is only possible by fully integrating marginalized voices, particularly women, into the foundations of security thinking and practice.

Cognitive Warfare: Targeting the social fabric

Cognitive warfare is a strategic practice that seeks to influence, destabilize and control the minds and behaviours of target populations through information manipulation, disinformation, psychological operations and narrative disruption. Unlike traditional warfare, its objective is not the destruction of infrastructure but the corrosion of shared meaning and societal coherence. In this form of conflict, the ‘battlespace’ is everyday life: news media, education systems, social media platforms and interpersonal trust.

Actors – both state and non-state – engage in cognitive warfare to reshape identities, manipulate emotions and undermine public consensus. These operations often capitalize on gender, ethnic and ideological divisions to deepen internal discord. For example, campaigns may weaponize narratives about gender roles, women’s rights, or ‘wokeness’ to generate backlash, recruit supporters or delegitimize institutions. Importantly, cognitive warfare targets not just what people believe, but their capacity to believe ‘together’, fragmenting the cognitive unity that underpins democratic societies.

The challenge cognitive warfare presents to traditional security paradigms is profound. Institutions such as NATO, built on hierarchical, masculinized models of defence, remain structurally oriented toward external threats, kinetic action and deterrence. However, when societies themselves become the battleground – through misinformation, distrust and symbolic violence – conventional tools fall short. A broader, more inclusive understanding of what constitutes security and who is responsible for producing it becomes indispensable.

The WPS Agenda and NATO: Between inclusion and instrumentalization

Since the adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 in 2000, the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Agenda has sought to mainstream gender perspectives within security and peacebuilding processes. NATO, as one of the earliest international actors to adopt a WPS action plan, has made formal commitments to increasing women’s participation, integrating gender-sensitive policies and addressing conflict-related sexual violence. However, feminist critiques have consistently argued that NATO’s engagement with the WPS Agenda has remained instrumental rather than transformative.

Rather than challenging militarized logics or hegemonic masculinity, NATO has largely used gender inclusion as a means of enhancing operational efficiency. Gender advisors, female engagement teams and gender training have been deployed to bolster mission success – particularly visible during operations in Afghanistan – without addressing the broader patriarchal structures of the alliance itself. Gender becomes a force multiplier, not a site of political transformation.

This approach not only limits the potential of the WPS Agenda but also creates vulnerabilities within the alliance. In an age of cognitive warfare, where legitimacy and perception are key, superficial inclusion can be co-opted or weaponized. Anti-gender movements, emboldened by populist and nationalist currents, have already begun to frame gender-sensitive policies as distractions from ‘real’ military priorities. Recent statements by US officials, such as Pete Hegseth’s denunciation of the WPS programme as ‘woke’, reflect a broader backlash against gender equality within defence institutions.

Such politicization renders NATO’s fragile engagement with WPS even more precarious. It also highlights a core contradiction: an institution that seeks to defend democratic societies cannot afford to marginalize the very constituencies that embody those democratic values. In failing to fully embrace gender justice, NATO not only undermines its own legitimacy but also cedes ideological ground to actors who seek to destabilize democratic cohesion through cognitive means.

The intersection of cognitive warfare and WPS reveals the limitations of a security architecture premised on traditional threat-response frameworks. Defence, in this context, cannot merely be about protecting borders or building military capacity. It must involve cultivating epistemic resilience, narrative sovereignty and social inclusion.

Women’s participation is not just normatively important – it is strategically essential. Excluding or tokenizing women undermines collective intelligence and leaves societies vulnerable to the very divisions cognitive warfare exploits. Conversely, including women in meaningful, leadership-level roles across security institutions expands the range of perspectives, narratives and strategies available to resist cognitive incursions.

Moreover, feminist security thinking – rooted in care, relationality and structural critique – offers tools for reimagining defence beyond violence. It prompts us to ask: What are we defending? Whose society is being protected? And how do we define threat in the first place? These are not ancillary questions but central ones in an age when the terrain of conflict is symbolic, social and affective.

To truly defend society, institutions must undergo epistemic transformation – not just integrate more women, but reconfigure how knowledge is produced, valued and operationalized. This involves dismantling the false binary between hard and soft security, and recognizing that resilience against cognitive warfare begins with inclusion, trust and equity.

Rethinking defence: Defending democracy from within

In light of these dynamics, it is time to revisit Foucault’s challenge: ‘Society must be defended’ – but how? The answer lies not in a return to fortress mentalities or reactive militarism, but in a proactive commitment to inclusive, democratic resilience. In the face of cognitive warfare, defending society means defending its pluralism, its capacity for critical thought and its inclusive institutions. It means moving beyond tokenistic gender inclusion toward structural empowerment.

NATO and other security actors must rethink what constitutes strength. In the long run, it is not military hardware but social cohesion, narrative legitimacy and institutional trust that will determine whether societies withstand the assaults of cognitive conflict. Women are not auxiliary to this project – they are central to it. As the global security landscape evolves, so too must our understanding of defence. In an age where societies themselves are the battlefield, the imperative is not only to defend, but to transform. And that transformation begins by taking seriously the voices, knowledges and futures that have long been sidelined.

 

This blog post is based on the authors’ presentations delivered at the Pre-NATO Summit event at De Haagse Hogeschool / The Hague University of Applied Sciences on 5h June 2025.

 

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the authors

Shyamika Jayasundara-Smits

Shyamika Jayasundara-Smits is an Associate Professor in Conflict and Peace Studies at ISS/Erasmus University Rotterdam. She is a transdisciplinary researcher specializing in Political Science, with expertise in International Relations and Critical Peace and Conflict Studies. Her research and teaching focuses on the intersections of governance, development, armed conflict, post-war transitions, and peacebuilding.

Bilge Sahin

Bilge Sahin  is an Assistant Professor of Conflict and Peace Studies at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), Erasmus University Rotterdam. Her teaching and research explore the complex intersections of gender, sexuality, war, and security.

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To address recurring crises, we must attempt global development policy reforms

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Global Governance and Policy Analyst Chimwemwe Salie Hara looks into the road towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030 in this blog, arguing that reform of financing and governance must be made in the face of significant geopolitical tensions if we are to achieve better outcomes for countries across the world that ‘leaves no one behind’.  

Photo by John Cameron on Unsplash

The world is experiencing an escalation of geopolitical tensions that have impacted development trends in various regions. These tensions have led to uncertainties as various shocks require responses from global development policies that are coordinated and cooperative between the countries in the ‘Global North’ and the ‘Global South’. Currently, the global value chain has been disrupted and high inflation rates have led to increased poverty for many people in both developed and developing countries. In addition, challenges such as wars, climate change which has exacerbated inequalities and immigration, and the rise of populism have made global cooperation more difficult as actors from the Global North and South have failed to tackle these important issues together. At a time when global governance institutions such as the United Nations are focused on achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030, ongoing conflicts in regions such as Africa, Europe and Middle East are jeopardizing SDG 16, which emphasises the promotion of peace and SDG 17 of promoting partnerships to achieve all goals.

Nationalist turns in the ‘Global North’ hit development financing

The challenge of financing these global goals is exacerbated by a shift in priorities in relation to multiple armed conflicts. Much of the effort and attention is now focused on buying arms rather than investing in development cooperation programs that could help people affected by geopolitical crises, many of whom are currently living in dire poverty. Unfortunately, as a result of these geopolitical upheavals, some regions, particularly in Europe and America, have changed their development policies and prioritised security over global development cooperation. Recently, the ‘Dutch government’ announced to cut development cooperation and the British Prime Minister also announced to cut development aid and allocate more funds to defence security. And the USAID was disbanded with President Trump’s second term. This shows that most countries that had pledged 0.7% of their gross national income (GNI) to the United Nations are reducing their spending on official development assistance (ODA)/development cooperation. This puts progress towards achieving some of the SDGs at risk around the world, particularly on poverty, hunger, education and health.

This shift can largely be attributed to the rise of nationalist governments and populism, reminiscent of the situation in the United Kingdom (UK) during Brexit. Although, there are some efforts at engagement, such as the European Union’s (EU) Global Gateway Initiative (launched in 2021), which aims to strengthen relations with African countries, significant changes in their approach are still needed.

The focus should not only be on humanitarian aid, but also on investments in the energy sector development and trade that focuses on improving the value chain and governance as these remain major challenges for most African governments. For example, Malawi has an energy sector problem and poor road infrastructure development that affects industrialisation and trade for economic transformation. With allies like the EU through the Global Gateway Initiative, the country could improve its socio-economic development indicators. This approach would help achieve some development initiatives despite the geopolitical challenges.

Global governance has struggled with difficulties in development cooperation, especially in climate finance, even after the heads of state and government endorsed the Paris Climate Agreement in 2015. The situation worsened when the United States withdrew from the climate agreement during Donald Trump’s first term, and then again now in his second term as part of an inward-looking development policy and significant funding cuts under the nationalist slogans of ‘America First’ and ‘Make America Great Again’. This highlights the challenges facing global cooperation, leading to a decline in development efforts rather than strengthening solutions to tackle climate change. This call for radical reforms to international financial planning draws some lessons from the Bridgetown Initiative, which campaigned and advocating for reforming global financing in 2023 Paris Summit, France.

Reducing geopolitical tensions is key for better outcomes for all

With only five years left until the 2030 deadline for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), significant efforts must be made, especially by global leadership with negotiating experience, to reach common agreements that reduce geopolitical tensions. This focus is critical to advancing global development cooperation, especially in times of crisis. The geopolitical tensions on trade between China and the United States must be resolved amicably as no country can sustain itself in a globalized world with its own resources. This requires the intervention of institutions such as the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to protect global trade partnerships. Therefore, considerable efforts should be made to review trade agreements between the two countries on the basis of rules, not power. If these tensions escalate, they will disproportionately affect countries in the Global South, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa and others, as President Trump has already announced tariffs around the world, even on poor countries like Malawi.

Once geopolitical tensions subside, world leaders must find common ground to address the major challenges by organizing global development cooperation in a way that takes into account the interests of all stakeholders from the Global North and the Global South. Efforts should also be made to develop mechanisms that support long-term global sustainability goals. A global governance institution such as the United Nations should lead the reform process and ensure that global development cooperation adapts to current realities rather than relying on the development models of the 1940’s when most institutions were established. It is important to remember that the world is currently facing several geopolitical crises. Financing should also be a priority, as financial challenges are hampering achieving global goals. There is an urgent need to develop clear standards that apply more equitable and inclusive methodologies. This will help define future collective, complementary, and cooperative activities and responses.

The world needs a leader that can influence and set an example in this regard. The countries of the Global South, especially sub-Saharan Africa, should advocate innovative investment approaches such as the exchange of technical knowledge and value creation capacities with a liable partner. This would promote trade within the framework of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) established in 2018. In the long term, the continent will move away from dependence on the global economic system by promoting economic trade for socio-economic development instead of relying solely on aid. Financing opportunities for domestic revenue mobilization in the Global South should be promoted through the development of a strategy aligned with the 2015 Addis Ababa Action Agenda (AAAA). This approach can help finance the Sustainable Development Goals and close some of the gaps created by donor fatigue

In this way, voices from the Global South would have much to say about their development pathways, strategies, and tactics to combat poverty, food insecurity and cross-border challenges through collaborative and coordinated global development policies. In that way, SDGs ‘Leave no one behind’ by 2030 will be achieved.  Currently, the system is still dictated by the countries of the Global North, be it in trade or in the financing of global goals thus why radical reforms are needed.

Therefore, to effectively address today’s polycrisis and global social issues, changing global development policy will require a consensus that prioritizes fairness, economic stability for all, and collaboration.

 

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the Author:

Chimwemwe Salie Hara

Chimwemwe Salie Hara is a Global Governance and Policy Analyst and Programmes Adviser for Sustainable Livelihood Development at Opdracht (Mission) in Africa (AiO), The Netherlands. He holds an MSc in International Public Administration from Erasmus University Rotterdam, with a focus on governance, management, and policy. His work centers on globalisation, development cooperation, public policy, social protection, and humanitarian governance.

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Amsterdam’s Troubling Children’s Book

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Amsterdam marked its 750th anniversary by distributing 60,000 copies of a commemorative book, Mijn Jarige Stad (“My Birthday City”), to children across the Dutch city. But what was intended as a celebratory gift has instead sparked controversy over its casual perpetuation of racial stereotypes. In this blog, Zhiqi Xu, PhD student at the International Institute of Social Studies, reflects on how unconscious bias infiltrates children’s literature and its wide-reaching impacts.

An expanded Image of the full Board Game. Image: Het Parool

On page 31, within the book’s board-game section, young readers encounter this instruction: “Ni Hao! Chinese tourists are blocking the bike path. To avoid them, go back to square 39.”

The passage, framed as playful gameplay, exposes a more troubling reality: how racial stereotypes can be seamlessly woven into educational materials, normalizing prejudiced thinking from an early age. What publishers likely viewed as harmless humour instead demonstrates how unconscious bias infiltrates children’s literature—and how such casual stereotyping can shape young minds in ways that extend far beyond the pages of a book.

 

The cover of the book. Image: Reddit
The problematic passage in question. Image: Reddit

The incident raises critical questions about editorial oversight in educational publishing and the responsibility institutions bear when shaping children’s understanding of diversity and inclusion. For a city celebrating nearly eight centuries of history, the oversight represents a missed opportunity to model the inclusive values Amsterdam claims to champion.

Who are Amsterdam’s Tourists?

The idea of Chinese tourists “blocking the bike path” paints a vivid, supposedly familiar image—but it’s not supported by data. According to the 2023–2024 Toerisme MRA report, visitors from Asia accounted for only 8% of hotel overnight stays in Amsterdam in 2023. In contrast, 54% came from the rest of Europe, 17% from the Americas, and 18% were Dutch.

Tourism growth between 2019 and 2023 was highest among European and American guests, not Asian ones. The visibility of Asian tourists is being exaggerated and weaponized through cognitive distortions like availability bias, where rare but vivid impressions are perceived as more common than they are.

From Bias to Dehumanization

In psychology, stereotypes are heuristics— mental shortcuts used to categorize and simplify. They reduce people to flattened, predictable group traits. Although they ease mental load, they cause real harm when used to navigate social life.

Children absorb stereotypes early. By age seven, many have already internalized group-based categories learned from books, media, and adults. When a schoolbook casts a specific ethnic group, in this case, Chinese, as a social nuisance, it builds implicit biases: automatic associations between group identity and negative traits.

But the path doesn’t end there. As Gordon Allport outlined in his “scale of prejudice,” stereotypes escalate. When repeated enough, they lead to objectification — seeing people not as individuals, but as representatives of a group. That group is then more easily dismissed, mocked, blamed, or even harmed, with less guilt.

The dehumanizing tone becomes especially stark when we read the other obstacles in the same game section:

  • “Een reiger heeft op je hoofd gepoept. Je moet terug naar huis (vakje 18) om je haar te wassen.”
    (A heron pooped on your head. Go back home to wash your hair.)
  • “Plons. Je probeert een mega-duif te ontwijken met je fiets, maar valt in de gracht. Je moet helemaal terugzwemmen naar start.”
    (Splash. You try to dodge a mega-pigeon on your bike, but fall into the canal. Swim all the way back to the start.)

In this context, Chinese tourists are the only human obstacle, grouped alongside animal accidents and fictional giant birds. This reinforces a subconscious lesson: some people are not peers — they are problems.

A historical pattern

The casual stereotyping found in Amsterdam’s children’s book follows a well-documented historical pattern where seemingly minor representations precede more serious discrimination. The Amsterdam book incident, while seemingly minor, fits within this broader historical context of how prejudice becomes embedded in society’s foundational institutions.

In 1930s Germany, anti-Semitic imagery and language appeared in school textbooks and public messaging years before systematic persecution began. Educational materials depicted Jewish citizens through derogatory caricatures and false narratives, gradually normalizing prejudice in the public consciousness.

During the latter half of the 20th century in America, media portrayals consistently framed Black Americans through the lens of criminality and violence. These representations helped build public support for policies that would lead to mass incarceration, with communities of colour disproportionately targeted by law enforcement and judicial systems.

Following 9/11 attacks, Muslims faced increasingly negative portrayals in media and popular culture, depicted as inherently threatening or suspicious. This narrative shift preceded and justified expanded surveillance programs that specifically monitored Muslim communities and individuals.

Scholars who study the sociology of discrimination have identified this progression as a common precursor to institutional bias: stereotypical portrayals in popular culture and educational materials gradually shift public perception, creating the social conditions necessary for discriminatory policies to gain acceptance.

East Asians, especially those perceived as Chinese, have long faced similar treatment. During COVID-19, Asians across Europe were verbally harassed and physically attacked. In Tilburg, a Chinese-Dutch student at Tilburg University, Cindy, was brutally attacked in an elevator after asking a group to stop singing a racist song: Voorkomen is beter dan Chinezen (“Prevention is better than Chinese”). She suffered a concussion and knife wounds. Before leaving her unconscious, the attackers said they would “eradicate the coronavirus.”

Cindy’s story illustrates the continuum from mockery to violence, and how normalized stereotyping can desensitize people to cruelty.

And racists don’t differentiate between Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or Vietnamese. When one is mocked, all are targeted.

Systemic Roots

Equally troubling is that, according to the publisher’s own statement, the book passed through multiple levels of review and testing—city departments, school boards, and teachers, without objection. This reflects a deeper issue: normative bias, where majority-group perspectives are mistaken for neutrality.

It’s not necessarily malice. But when no one notices, it signals a system that is not built to detect or understand minority harm.

Public reactions have further exposed this divide. Dutch media figure Tina Nijkamp publicly criticized the passage and highlighted the absence of East Asian representation in Dutch TV and media. However, some online commenters called the backlash oversensitive, arguing “it’s just a joke” or “I’m Chinese and I’m not offended.”

Psychologically, this reflects pluralistic ignorance and false consensus bias: the assumption that one’s view is universal, and the failure to recognize diverse lived experiences.

But the data contradicts these dismissals. In March 2024, the Dutch government released the first national survey on discrimination against people of (South)East Asian descent. One in three reported experiencing discrimination in the past year. Minister Van Gennip responded:

“Discrimination against people of (South)East Asian descent must stop.”

Asian-Dutch community leader Hui-Hui Pan (@huihui_panonfire) posted a widely shared critique:

“Mijn stad is jarig. Maar waarom vieren we het met racisme?”
(“My city is having a birthday. But why are we celebrating it with racism?”)

She called it “racism in children’s language.” The Pan Asian Collective, which she founded, launched a national campaign and is organizing the National Congress against Discrimination and Racism on 26 June 2025, where Utrecht University and Dataschool will present findings on Asian underrepresentation in 25 years of Dutch media coverage.

Their message: this isn’t about one book—it’s about a long, visible pattern of exclusion.

Entrenched Normalization

In response to public concern, various institutions linked to Mijn Jarige Stad began clarifying their roles. The Amsterdam Museum stated it was not involved in content creation, despite its name appearing in the book. Stichting Amsterdam 750 funded the project, but delegated execution to the Programmabureau Amsterdam 750, part of the city government. The publisher, Pavlov, initially issued a standard response emphasizing positive intent and broad involvement:

“The book was developed in collaboration with all primary schools through the Breed Bestuurlijk Overleg (BBO), and extensively tested with students and teachers from three different Amsterdam schools… We sincerely had no intention to insult or hurt any group.”

This response—focused on process, intention, and positive feedback—sidestepped the core issue: harm was done, and a line that dehumanizes East Asians passed through supposedly inclusive safeguards. The problem isn’t that one group failed; the problem is how normalized and institutionally invisible anti-Asian stereotypes remain, even in materials for children.

This is not a matter of blaming a single actor or demanding symbolic apologies. The book should be recalled, and what’s needed now is an honest reckoning — not just of the production process, but of how certain forms of discrimination are so implicit, so embedded in everyday thinking, that they go unnoticed by those involved and even by broader audiences who dismiss criticism as oversensitivity.

Yet this very invisibility is reinforced by the fragmentation of accountability. It highlights a deeper issue: when everyone is involved, no one is responsible. And when no one notices the harm, it reveals how profoundly such portrayals are normalized in our collective imagination.

From Learning to Living

From a behavioral science perspective, the issue extends far beyond questions of political sensitivity. Research demonstrates how cognitive shortcuts—the mental patterns children use to navigate social situations, become deeply embedded through repeated exposure to stereotypical representations.

Child development studies reveal that young minds absorb social hierarchies through seemingly innocuous content, internalizing messages about which groups hold value and which can be dismissed. These early lessons shape neural pathways that influence decision-making well into adulthood.

The potency of stereotypes lies not in their malicious intent but in their subtle persistence. They need not provoke outrage to encode prejudice, nor offend every reader to establish harmful categories of human worth. When children encounter these patterns repeatedly—whether in games, stories, or casual conversation—they learn implicit lessons about power dynamics and social belonging.

Educational content serves a dual purpose: it teaches explicit knowledge while simultaneously transmitting unspoken values about empathy, respect, and human dignity. A board game instruction becomes more than entertainment; it becomes a framework for understanding who deserves consideration and who can be overlooked.

The distribution of 60,000 books represents more than a municipal celebration. It constitutes the widespread dissemination of social scripts—subtle but powerful instructions that will influence how an entire generation of children perceives and interacts with others throughout their lives.

In this context, editorial choices carry profound responsibility, shaping not just individual attitudes but the social fabric of communities for decades to come.

This blog was first published by the Contrapuntal

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the Author:

Zhiqi Xu

Zhiqi Xu is a behavioral scientist, psychologist, and development policy researcher. She investigates how people and communities respond to policy interventions and social change, uncovering the social and behavioral roots of transformation across contexts. Her work bridges disciplines to promote more inclusive and human-centered development thinking.

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Governing through expulsion: rise in U.S. deportations quiets the Darién Gap, shifting burdens south

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In this blog, Dr Maria Gabriela Palacio uses the example of The Darien Gap (a jungle crossing formerly utilised by forced migrants and refugees to travel North towards the USA) to consider the effects of recently changed and more brutal deportation policies put into place by the USA. More and more Ecuadorians are being forcefully returned to a country suffering from multiple damaging geopolitical currents, which is being asked to process large numbers of deportees whilst grappling with its patterns of out-migration.

Photo Credit: Akpan, 2024 Simulated by ChatGPT

Barely months ago, Ecuadorians were the second-largest group braving the perilous Darién Gap on their way to the United States; today, the trail is almost silent. Their abrupt disappearance is not just the outcome of a new deportation rule-set. It exposes a deeper political-economy in which mobility and immobility are governed by structures that render certain lives dispensable.

At the centre of this shift is the renewed U.S. deportation regime. Since Trump’s return to office, more than 100,000 people have been deported in just ten weeks. Over 2,000 Ecuadorians have been forcibly returned, many without hearings, detained in private facilities and flown home under armed guard. This is governance through expulsion.

Ecuadorians today are not “deciding” to stay or return. For many, the journey ends not at the border but on a deportation flight, disoriented and handcuffed, arriving with a plastic bag of belongings at Guayaquil airport. They are not returning to opportunity but to the same political and economic structures that first pushed them out.

This is not just the arithmetic of migration: it is the logic of a global regime of accumulation that produces and manages surplus populations. A critical political economy perspective reveals that migration is not just a reaction to hardship but a structural outcome wherein labour becomes mobile, governable, and dispensable due to long-established patterns of dependency, dispossession, and coercive governance. Deportation, in this light, is not a policy failure but a tool that sorts, removes, and disciplines those made surplus by design.

Ecuador sits at the crossroads of this regional machinery. Dollarised and locked into extractive exports, the country relies heavily on remittances, yet now faces budget cuts and austerity at home. It has long sent populations abroad, but it has also become where multiple flows collide or return. Venezuelans, Haitians, and others caught in overlapping crises have passed through or been stranded within Ecuador’s borders. The state is now expected to absorb not just returnees but the violence of the very system that expelled them.

That violence is reflected in the routes themselves, which have begun to bend and shatter. Some Ecuadorians now fly to El Salvador to bypass Darién. Others remain in limbo in Mexican shelters. A growing number of people apply for asylum in Spain. But more and more are returning, voluntarily or not. The International Organization for Migration reports a record spike in Ecuadorians requesting return assistance. We are witnessing less of a voluntary reverse migration but a form of forced and adverse absorption into a country already under immense strain, where access to secure jobs, welfare, and infrastructure is deeply uneven.

Others, unable to return or continue northward, remain like many other Latin American migrants trapped along the Andes–Central America–North America corridor, caught between increasingly punitive migration regimes and the uncertain protection of overstretched asylum systems. As migration routes are militarised and digital tools for asylum access are cancelled or restricted, a growing number of migrants are forced into reverse movement, undertaking costly and dangerous journeys back south. Some, like those arriving in the Colombian port town of Necoclí, spend thousands of dollars only to find themselves unable to continue or return, stranded without money, documents, or shelter. For others, the journey halts mid-route, creating new bottlenecks in Panama, Guatemala, or southern Mexico.

In these spaces of stalled mobility, migrants navigate a dense ecosystem of state and non-state actors: smugglers, private contractors, ferry operators, humanitarian organisations, and municipal authorities, forming a transnational migration industry. This industry manages not just “flows” but also immobility. It offers temporary passage, paperwork, food, or credit, often at a high cost, while blurring the line between protection and extraction. As formal protections shrink, mobility becomes commodified, mediated through precarious arrangements that feed off uncertainty and the shifting contours of migration policy.

What happens when a country simultaneously expels and receives its people, when labour is demanded abroad yet unprotected, and its return is funnelled into informal survival? These trajectories are not individual mishaps; they are produced by a regime that displaces populations through extraction, polices them through securitised borders, and repatriates them under the veneer of humanitarian policy.

In Ecuador, that regime is palpable: rolling blackouts stall hospitals and markets, armed violence reaches classrooms, and Indigenous territories are carved up by legal and paralegal extractive fronts. None of this is accidental. It stems from the dismantling of public infrastructure and the transfer of land and power to corporate actors, all within a global order that treats impoverished, racialised populations as surplus problems to be contained, displaced or discarded.

The question, then, is not only why Ecuadorians are returning but what kind of world is making this return inevitable.

The empty Darién trail is not the end of a journey but proof that a border system built on expulsion works as intended. It shifts responsibility from the global North to Latin American states and turns human mobility into a profitable detention, surveillance and return market. Deportation, in this context, is not an exception.

We must begin by asking different questions. Not only how to make migration safer or more “orderly,” but how to dismantle the global structures that produce dispensability in the first place. Migration regimes do not simply fail; they succeed in what they are designed to do: sort, discipline, and displace surplus populations created by extractive capitalism and securitised governance. In this view, deportation is not an aberration; it is the tangible expression of a world order that governs through expulsion. It legitimises neglect, turns mobility into criminality, and transforms human lives into data points in a market of detention, surveillance, and return.

The return of Ecuadorians is not the end of a journey; it is proof that a border regime built on expulsion works exactly as designed.

Notes:

For readers who want to trace the argument from Ecuador’s current return-migration crisis back to its structural roots, start with Jara, Mideros and Palacio (eds.) 2024, Política social, pobreza y desigualdad en el Ecuador, 1980-2021 my co-edited volume that charts four decades of welfare retrenchment, labour precarity and territorial inequalities. Then situate those findings within the broader politicaleconomy canon: W. Arthur Lewis’s (1954) seminal essay on surplus labour, Celso Furtado’s (1966) classic dependency analysis, Saskia Sassen’s (2014) study of “systemic expulsions” under global capitalism, and Tania Murray Li’s (2010) account of how neoliberal governance renders populations surplus.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the author

María Gabriela Palacio

Maria Gabriela Palacio is an Assistant Professor in Development Studies at the Institute for History, Faculty of Humanities, Leiden University. Her research asks how political-economic forces, social policy and migration regimes shape poverty, inequality and (in)security in Latin America. Trained as an economist, she holds a PhD and MA in Development Studies (ISS, Erasmus University Rotterdam), an MSc in NGO Management and Social Economy (Universitat de València) and a BA in Economics (Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador).

 

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Home(s) in the In-Between: Trauma, Memory, Identity and Belonging in Home Game by Lidija Zelović

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In this blog, Drs. Shyamika Jayasundara-Smits and Bilge Sahin reflect on Home Game, a documentary that unfolds not simply as a story of survival but as a profound meditation on the human condition—on displacement, memory, and the perpetual search for identity and belonging. Based on their contributions as panelists alongside the filmmaker—moderated by Gabriela Anderson of The Hague Humanitarian Studies Centre—this piece revisits key themes discussed during the special screening at the 2025 Movies that Matter Festival at the Filmhuis in The Hague.

Photo Credit: Barbara Raatgever

Set against the backdrop of the breakup of Yugoslavia and its aftermath, Home Game resists conventional narratives of linear healing or neat resolution. Instead, it invites viewers into the fractured, nonlinear experiences of its protagonists, weaving together personal memory and political critique in ways that linger long after the screen fades to black.

The film follows the life path of Lidija Zelovic, opening in Sarajevo during the turbulent 1990s. Lidija’s grandmother offers a haunting reflection: “There is peace until the shot is fired. But once the shot is fired, one realizes that the war started much earlier. Only then it is too late.” This single line unsettles common understandings of war and peace, refusing to treat them as discrete events. Rather, it exposes how the seeds of violence are often sown long before bullets fly—embedded in social, political, and economic structures.

This insight resonates strongly with Johan Galtung’s theory of structural violence. Structural violence refers to the harm caused by systems of inequality—patriarchy, racism, capitalism—that may not be overtly violent but are nonetheless profoundly injurious. These latent forms of harm, often normalized or rendered invisible, create the very conditions that make war possible. Thus, as Home Game suggests, the temporal boundary between war and peace is not a clean break but a blurry continuum.

This continuum is further explored when Lidija and her family relocate to the Netherlands as refugees. On the surface, they escape war. But the film astutely reveals how violence endures in less visible forms: through xenophobic political rhetoric, subtle exclusions, and the cultural dissonance of living between worlds. In the so-called “peaceful” West, the trauma of war does not dissipate—it mutates. Later in the documentary, as Lidija’s mother watches Dutch television from Bosnia, where the family are holidaying, she remarks, “They know how to live.” It is a moment filled with longing and alienation, proximity and distance. A good life appears within reach, yet remains stubbornly inaccessible.

In this way, Home Game challenges simplistic portrayals of migration as a journey from danger to safety, from trauma to recovery. The film instead treats home-making as a fractured and continuous process. Displacement produces a liminal existence—where the self is suspended between multiple geographies, languages, and temporalities. Home is no longer a stable place; it becomes both here and there, both past and present, and never fully one or the other.

Lidija’s now-teenage son, born and raised in the Netherlands, is a powerful example of this, feeling torn between his Bosnian heritage and his Dutch citizenship. His manner of untangling his various identities is contrasted with that of Lidija’s father, who dismisses the idea of being buried in the Netherlands after his death. His eventual interring in a grave in Zaandam marks a ‘full circle’ moment in the film, with Lidija noting that her son now feels Dutch as the screen darkens on an image of the family paying their respects.

One of the most powerful moments in the film occurs when Lidija returns to her childhood home in Sarajevo. Looking out at the familiar cityscape, she says, “I like it because it is mine.” But when her son asks, “Is the view of your country different?” she replies, “I am different; I don’t know about the view.” Her words capture the estrangement that displacement brings—not just from place, but from oneself. The trauma of war ruptures more than just space; it breaks the continuity of self, severing the past from the present in painful and irreversible ways.

Yet, Home Game is not a film of despair. It is honest about the wounds of war—many of which may never fully heal—but it is equally attentive to the quiet resilience of those who carry on. There is joy in the mundane: in a shared meal, a laugh, a football match. These moments are not trivial; they are the fragile threads from which new forms of life are woven.

Here, trauma studies provide an important lens. Scholars increasingly recognize that trauma is not solely destructive. It can also generate what is known as post-traumatic growth: a redefinition of identity, deeper empathy, new affiliations. Home Game captures this duality beautifully. Its protagonists, though fractured, are not broken. They carry layered identities—shaped by loss, survival, and hope—that continue to evolve through everyday acts of connection.

This interplay of trauma and transformation also has a political dimension. Drawing from Hannah Arendt’s concept of the “space of appearance,” the film becomes more than a personal story—it is a political act. Arendt reminds us of that action and speech among others in shared space is what constitutes the political. Home Game creates such a space, where pain, joy, and memory coexist. Through its portrayal of fractured identities and evolving relationships, it reclaims the political from the margins—from the survivors, the refugees, the displaced. Ernesto Laclau’s idea of the “internal antagonistic frontier” further enriches this reading. For Laclau, all social formations contain unresolved tensions—conflicts that can’t be eliminated, only negotiated. Home Game refuses to resolve these tensions. Instead, it makes them visible. Whether it’s the feeling of not fully belonging in the Netherlands or the ambivalence of returning to Sarajevo, the film insists on the legitimacy of contradiction. The documentary becomes a site of dissensus—a space where complex truths can coexist without being forced into a single narrative.

In refusing closure, Home Game speaks a deeper truth. Will there ever be full healing? A return to what was lost? The film suggests perhaps not. And perhaps that’s okay. Home Game is a reminder that home is not merely a place. It is a practice, process, and feeling that may flicker but never fully disappear. Home as well as life is not a tidy arc from trauma to triumph. It is recursive, messy, filled with beginnings that masquerade as endings and endings that open new questions. What matters, the film suggests, is not arriving at a final destination, but learning how to carry our stories—with complexity, dignity, and grace.

This special screening of ‘Home Game’ was put together by the Leiden-Delft-Erasmus Centre for Governance of Migration and Diversity (LDE GMD) together with Leiden-Delft-Erasmus Global. The other two organizers are the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS-EUR) and the Humanitarian Studies Centre. Photo credits from the event go to Barbara Raatgever. ‘Home Game’ is screening across the Netherlands throughout 2025.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the authors

Shyamika Jayasundara-Smits

Dr. Shyamika Jayasundara-Smits is an Associate Professor in Conflict and Peace Studies at ISS/Erasmus University Rotterdam. She is a transdisciplinary researcher specializing in Political Science, with expertise in International Relations and Critical Peace and Conflict Studies. Her research and teaching focuses on the intersections of governance, development, armed conflict, post-war transitions, and peacebuilding.

Bilge Sahin

Dr. Bilge Sahin  is an Assistant Professor of Conflict and Peace Studies at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), Erasmus University Rotterdam. Her teaching and research explore the complex intersections of gender, sexuality, war, and security.

 

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The need for ‘Impact’: whatever ‘Impact’ means

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What happened to the scholar that didn’t embrace new media? They ran out of cassette tapes! Awful jokes aside, it’s more and more important for scientists, and particularly social scientists, to be plugged in to society to better interact with it. A recent Economist article highlighted that academic research papers in the humanities and social sciences are getting harder to read, more convoluted and stuffed full of jargon and incomprehensible sentences. There is a perception in the ‘outside world’ (perhaps pushed by populist political currents!) that academics are starting to talk more just to other academics rather than to society at large, which is at the very least not conducive to a high level of public discourse. In some cases, it has led to the removal of experts from the policymaking process. At the same time, and partially thanks to the growing legions of science communications officers and the phenomenon of ‘cool geeks’, there are more opportunities than ever for (social) scientists to spread their ideas and research in accessible, bite-sized and socially engaged ways. Even the Lowlands Festival has a science pavilion to show off the latest research on everything from the psychology of perceptions of equality, quantum physics, the creative possibilities of generative AI and much more besides.

Tom Ansell,  Sarah Njoroge (MSc) and Gabriela Anderson intend this blog as a call to academics to think along, repackage their work into fun and digestible gobbets and make use of the science communications talent available to help boost our collective ‘impact’… whatever ‘impact’ means!

This image was taken at Research InSightS LIVE #4 Conflict Compounded: Implications of the war in Ukraine on global development challenges

Social science is best when it’s in conversation with society

Aside from the self-fulfilment element, and the satisfaction of personal curiosity, social scientific research has a function of providing evidence-based approaches to societal questions that can inform various stakeholders in how they act. That could be the government, organizations, businesses or people themselves. Like many forms of scientific enquiry, it serves to further human knowledge, and so (indirectly and ideally) improve people’s lives or the society that they live in. The link between the academic and the society in which they function should be one of constant conversation, where ideas are presented to people, and then validated or reconsidered through their experiences and their interaction with the everyday (this is also expressed by Anthony Giddens as the ‘double hermeneutic’). Of course, this sentence may spark flashing lights in the minds of many academics reading this, but in short – social science is rooted in society and so should seek to be in conversation with ‘real’ people all the time. A social scientist that hides away in a university is an isolated one! This means that researchers must have a way of being in conversation with people. At least part of that conversation must be a clear transmission of social science theories in a compelling and clear way, and knowledge sharing in a form that is digestible, interesting and (hopefully) means that people in the ‘real world’ can see their own lives and questions in cutting-edge research.

This is especially true in the last few years , where a significant portion of the world’s institutions face ‘alternative facts’ and the rise of public discourse strongly influenced by a ‘post-truth’ world. During the COVID-19 pandemic, for example, the need to provide accurate and evidence-based advice to the general public was literally a matter of life and death. Knowledge of the mechanisms of how an mRNA vaccine worked (the Moderna one) helped ensure that enough people went and received the jab to reach the critical mass of vaccinated people. Now imagine if the various biologists had remained hidden behind a wall of jargon and specific terminology, and all the while remained in their labs and refused to speak to the public in understandable language. Naturally, the immediate risks aren’t quite the same in social science research uptake, but the need for public trust and mandate is the same. Where the influence of rigorous social scientific research would help, however, is in government policymaking. Imagine how the new Dutch international aid policy would look had various members of ISS’ work been consulted in its drafting. We can’t make policymakers listen to good research, but we can make it as easy as possible for them to find, digest and be interested by it.

Avoiding extractivism and ‘closing the loop’

Considering the other side of the conversation between research and the public, we need to move beyond the effort of making sure our writing reflects our values as researchers to be ethical and non-extractive only during the research process. Research even in these most critical and conscious of times still teeters on the lines of opinion-mining, often masquerading through notions such as ‘collaboration’ and ‘co-creation’. Jamie Gorman expresses this quite well in the quote (almost jokingly): ‘What does a social researcher have in common with an oil rig operator? The answer is that both can be miners engaged in the extraction of a precious resource’. For social science researchers, that precious resource is knowledge. A key part of making sure that research is non-extractive is ‘closing the loop’ and making sure that the people that have contributed to the research are both involved and can get something out of it (something called participatory research).

The potential impact of research does not stop before and during the research process, it needs to extend into the dissemination and communication of said research. By looking beyond the production of a research to how it can be shared to an audience outside of the academic community, we allow for a greater reach through inclusivity, accessibility and even opening up for future potentials in participation and, most importantly, allowing research to be useable (from theory to practice and vice versa). How is this done? By sharing research in different mediums and through different mediums and media. Examples include translated versions, both in terms of language and even the softening of academic and ‘waffle’ jargon, different (relevant) and contextual forms of outputs, such as radio broadcasts (in the case of the Democratic Republic of Congo), video abstracts, infographics, posters, dialogue cafes, podcasts, etc. In doing so, we reach people at their different levels in all their differences of backgrounds, making room for a greater impact from our research.

Moving from inaccessible papers to socially engaged media

So, how do we actually move from rigorous, well-researched ideas to public discourse and policy that reflect them? The best science communication doesn’t just ‘simplify’ research, it translates, distils, demystifies and engages. It meets people where they are, using formats that are accessible without compromising complexity, and applies sky high thinking to everyday life.

Take podcasts, for instance. The Good Humanitarian bridges the gap between academic research and humanitarianism and the real-world challenges practitioners face. MOOCS, or open access-learning, allows people – whether they have an educational background in social sciences or not – to engage with contemporary debates. Written and visual storytelling, from in-depth interviews, infographics and posters to interactive web experiences, has made complex and socio-political topics more digestible for a general audience. Live shows, such as Research InSightS LIVE or dialogue cafes invite people to listen and engage on topics in enjoyable, yet succinct formats. In addition, social media is increasingly becoming more important for visibility, and as a way to link research that proposes an alternate world to the people that can achieve it. Even platforms like TikTok have been effectively used to debunk misinformation and explain key social science concepts in under a minute, but all face potential challenges of course.

At the same time, researchers must be empowered to engage in these spaces. Not everyone who can run a hefty statistical model or analyse complex patterns can seamlessly translate these insights for public consumption. This is precisely where science communicators come in – not to dilute these ideas but to ensure that big ideas are clarified and shared widely. Closing the loop isn’t just an ethical responsibility in participatory research – it’s a vital step toward ensuring that knowledge serves people by feeding back into their livelihoods.

Science communicators do more than just support researchers. They can be catalysts for expanding the reach and impact of academic work at its inception. Research can often benefit from creativity and audience awareness that can make it resonate beyond academia. In other words, researchers and science communicators can make an excellent team – if they truly collaborate. That means not just seeing communicators as an ‘add-on’, but valuing their input, trusting their instincts and recognizing their ability to turn rigorous research into compelling narratives that engage policymakers, practitioners and the public alike, also extending their inclusion to before and during the research process, not only after.

If universities and research institutes truly want to make an impact, they need to rethink the way they communicate knowledge. The challenge isn’t just about writing readable research papers. It’s about shaping public discourse, informing policy and making social science a living, breathing conversation. After all, what good is knowledge if it’s locked away in academic journals?

 

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

 

About the authors:

Tom Ansell

Tom Ansell is the coordinator and programme manager of The Hague Humanitarian Studies Centre, and the Coordinator of the International Humanitarian Studies Association. He has a study background in religion and conflict transformation, as well as an interest in disaster risk reduction, and science communication and societal impact of (applied) research.

Sarah Njoroge

Sarah Njoroge (MSc) is a multi-skilled communications professional who tells stories on societal issues through videos, articles, podcasts and more. She has extensive experience writing, designing and co-producing content on international development. Sarah is currently a Digital Content Manager at RNW Media and formerly worked as a Communications Officer at ISS.

Gabriela Anderson

Gabriela Anderson is the community manager of The Hague Humanitarian Studies Centre and coordinates the Humanitarian Observatories Network. Graduating with a Master’s from the International Institue of Social Studies in 2022 with a focus on the Governance of Migration and Diversity, her research focuses on notions of (self-)representation, placemaking and the importance of inclusive communication in its various forms and through its different mediums, especially in areas of Conflict & Peace with both academic and practitioner related organizations.

 

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Mobilizing against patriarchy and caste on Twitter: How women in India use digital spaces to speak up against gender-based violence

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Digital spaces can amplify marginalized voices, but for many women, especially Dalit women in India, they often become sites of abuse. Navigating the intersection of gender, caste, and religion, Dalit women face systemic exclusion and violence, reinforced by both offline and online structures. While technology does not oppress all women equally, movements like #MeToo have helped Dalit women spotlight caste-based and patriarchal violence. In this blog, recent ISS MA graduates, Sri Lakshmi, and Emaediong Akpan explore how digital platforms both challenge and reinforce structural inequalities, revealing that technology is never neutral.

Image Credit: DALL-E

Dalit women in India

The Indian Hindu religious caste system (more than 3000 years old) has stratified Indian society into castes based on bloodline, occupation, and economic resources. The Brahman caste and other ‘upper’ castes have capitalized on their social position to exercise superiority and control over the ‘lower castes’ and therefore sustains an exploitative system. At the other end of the scale, the Dalit caste is deemed to have been rejected by God and is therefore ‘outside’ the caste system. While India has made progress in several social aspects, the sturdy caste system continues to prevail based on religious authorization. The Brahman caste has subjugated women from their own caste as well as ‘lower’ castes to maintain ‘caste purity’. This modus operandi is manifested in intense oppression and gender-based violence towards the Dalit women. ‘In every sphere of life, they (Dalit women) are in a pitiable position, worse off than the upper caste women’ due to the triple oppression exerted by men from their own caste and ‘upper castes’. The triple oppression here refers to casteism, patriarchy,and economic injustices that are manifested as gender-based violence, caste-based discrimination, and being limited to low-grade jobs that are poorly paid.

The Janus-faced nature of digital spaces in India: Reflections on the non-neutral nature of digital spaces

Digital technology has expanded communication, breaking traditional media barriers and enabling collective action. Today,people are leveraging digital spaces like Twitter (now X),and FaceBook to organize, draw attention to their struggles, and demand change.

In India, the dawn of digital spaces transformed social interactions, providing avenues for citizens to engage politically, communicate their demands. These spaces are considered revolutionary tools that promote global inclusion and equality. 

These spaces also act as a window into the broader Indian society, where norms and power interact to control individual actions. In navigating societal norms, digital spaces have been useful in helping Dalit women find community and access resources for mobilization. For example, Pallical, a Dalit rights activist, noted that ‘online space is refreshing and a space we never had earlier. There used to be limited regional media spaces, but we are now visible, and much of our anti-caste conversations are now happening on social media platforms’. For example, stories of how Dalit women were flogged and assaulted in public in the small city of Una led to government intervention only after it went viral on Twitter.

In this example, Twitter (and other digital spaces) served as a powerful public space for minorities and marginalized voices to circumvent traditional media; online, these actors could express opinions and opposition in a succinct format, as well as unite and organize swiftly in their capacity as ‘new social movements’. However, this is not the full picture. In these spaces, these marginalized groups are still unable to escape society and have been re-victimized in the spaces that also hold a ‘liberating’ potential’. This inability to ‘escape’ reality is why Wacjman states that technologies are not neutral; they do not exist outside of society but are a part of society. Within digital spaces, interactions are understood as performing gender roles that are deeply ingrained in society.

Digital spaces are a replication of gendered societal values and norms. One such replication is the backlash that followed the posting of an image showing a poster held by Jack Dorsey (former Twitter CEO) and Dalit Activists that read ‘Smash Brahminical Patriarchy’.

Image
Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Activists holding a Poster: Source Nalina

This sparked controversy and threats of boycotts on Twitter, ultimately emboldening casteism by forcing an apology for the poster and image. Despite knowing the impact of the caste system, Twitter conformed to the social norms in Indian society by stating that the poster ‘did not represent Twitter’s official position’. Twitter also apologized for speaking out against marginalization and social injustice in order to avert the risk of losing the Indian market which boasts about 8 million Twitter users. This singular act amongst many others reflects how technology is both a source and consequence of marginalization; first because of how it relates with society and second as a consequence of marginalization by reinforcing it through ‘mindless apologies’.

Twitter’s Denial of Siding with Dalits; Source: Bapuji and Chrispa

Gendered access and use of technology in India: The #MeToo case study in India

The #MeToo movement was a viral online movement of raising voices against the sexual harassment of women. Many women came forward to share their experiences using the hashtag #MeToo on Twitter and other digital spaces.

The Indian #MeToo movement leaves the original ‘Me’ behind

The Indian #MeToo movement was started in 2017 by Raya Sarkar, a woman from the Dalit caste. She used the digital space of Facebook to expose sexual harassment as a form of gender-based violence by male professors in Indian universities by curating a List of Sexual Harassers in Academia (LoSHA). Sarkar was berated for posting such a ‘name and shame list’ in an attempt to re-enact the historical silencing and disregard for the testimonies of sexual violence against Dalit women in India. After this, the movement was taken over by mainstream activists, especially on Twitter and this diffused any remnant attention on the marginalization of women from the Dalit caste. While there were several personal testimonies on Twitter in which Indian women shared their experiences of sexual harassment, the testimonies of Dalit women were absent and scarcely featured in the debates that ensued. Hence, Twitter became a tool used to exclude the voices of the most oppressed who suffer on account of their class, race, and gender. In this way, Twitter reinforced the marginalization of Dalit women.

Technology as a source and consequence of gendered relations: Exclusion and discrediting of marginalized voices

As stated earlier, digital spaces have been instrumental in helping marginalized groups draw attention to social injustices. However, platforms like Twitter are generally unsupportive and even hostile toward women from the Dalit caste. Their marginalization on Twitter reflects these women’s reality by mirroring the existing caste network. It is unsettling to witness the casual and rarely-questioned oppression on Twitter faced by Dalit women. The oppression includes casteist slurs, disparaging comments on darker skin tones, and implicit insults on how women who are academically, professionally, and financially successful, or who have a fairer skin tone, are told that they don’t ‘look’ Dalit. Twitter has also provided the space for misogynists to target Dalit women without any consequences. This shows how technology (digital spaces) embolden and exacerbate existing gender inequalities and caste-based marginalization’ . Gender- and caste-based social dynamics and technology therefore connive to leave women from the Dalit caste behind on Twitter.

Conclusion

While there are numerous accounts of the benefits of social movements that have been organized in digital spaces, the realities are not the same for all, especially for marginalized groups. This lends credence to Whelan’s position that technology does not oppress all in the same way, nor does it necessarily oppress all women. In India, Dalit women, despite having gained access to digital spaces to draw attention to the injustice they face, are often faced with violence based on their gender and caste. Thus, although Twitter helped to break the culture of silence around sexual violence and draw attention to the injustices faced by Dalit women, it did not influence social relations to address the root causes. Rather, it emboldened these root causes and became a space where Dalit women continue to experience violence. People who wield more power (upper caste and those with more access) decide and shape technology by deciding what information is important or true.

Digital spaces are double-edged – they expose women and marginalized groups to harm, yet remain vital for organizing social movements. Recognizing the lack of neutrality of these spaces remains crucial, as offline systems of oppression are often mirrored and reinforced online. While legal frameworks can play a role in addressing digital harms, they alone cannot dismantle deeply entrenched caste and gender hierarchies. Instead, the focus must shift to challenging the power structures that shape technology itself. The experiences of Dalit women show that technology can be both a tool of oppression and resistance. Ensuring that digital platforms do not further marginalize vulnerable communities requires holding innovators and policymakers to higher ethical standards while amplifying the voices of those fighting for justice.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the authors:

Sri Lakshmi

Sri Lakshmi is a recent graduate of the Master’s in Development Studies program at the International Institute of Social Studies. With nine years of experience working with students, caregivers, educators, disability inclusion organizations, and government officials. Sri is passionate about fostering inclusive spaces, bridging the gap between education and social impact.

Emaediong Akpan

Emaediong Akpan is a recent graduate of the Master’s in Development Studies program at the International Institute of Social Studies. With extensive experience in the development sector, Emaediong Akpan’s work spans gender equity, social inclusion, and policy advocacy. She is also interested in exploring the intersections of law, technology, and feminist policy interventions to promote safer online environments. Read her blogs 1,2, 3

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Bodies Designed for Profit

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Gender inequality and the discrimination of sexual and gender minorities in Nigeria are often attributed to sociocultural norms and unfavourable state policies. However, reflecting on body politics reveals a deeper entanglement with state control, colonial legacies, and capitalism. Our bodies are not just personal, they are sites of regulation, commodification, and profit. From the exploitation of women in the corporate sector, often referred to as ‘corporate prostitution’, to the policing of gender nonconforming and the sexualisation of bodies in the creative industry, capitalism thrives on controlling and monetising bodies. In this blog, Eno-Obong Etetim reflects on these dynamics and highlights body politics activism in Nigeria, arguing that a decolonial lens is crucial for reclaiming bodily autonomy. 

Photo Credit: Unsplash

Gender inequality and the discrimination of sexual and gender minorities in Nigeria are often attributed to sociocultural norms and unfavourable state policies. However, my reflection on body politics reveals a deeper entanglement with state control, colonial legacies, and capitalism. Our bodies are not just personal, they are sites of regulation, commodification, and profit. From the regulation of the body by the state to the utilisation of certain bodies to drive profits, the body is a canvas for the expression of capitalism and state power. This commodification and socio-political regulation of human bodies encompasses what is termed ‘body politics’ and has birthed the need for activism to reclaim bodily autonomy.

I reflect on my evolving understanding of body politics and its intersection with capitalism through three illustrative examples:  The commodification of women within the Nigerian banking sector – often referred to as ‘corporate prostitution’; The state’s regulation of sexual minorities and gender non-conforming individuals, and; The sexualisation of bodies within the creative industry. With these examples, I explore instances of body politics activism in Nigeria, ultimately concluding with how decoloniality serves as a relevant framework for conceptualising and fostering resistance.

Examples of Body Politics at Work

‘Corporate Prostitution’

The Nigerian banking sector has faced criticism for its gender-specific hiring practices, particularly in marketing roles. For these roles, women are often recruited based on certain physical characteristics, like height, slimness, and lighter skin tone. These traits are frequently perceived as advantageous for attracting high-net-worth clients, mostly men, to the bank’s customer base. This recruitment approach is grounded in the belief that female marketers can use their appearance to boost customer engagement and grow the bank’s clientele. Many financial institutions have been alleged to impose unrealistic sales targets on these marketers, with monthly quotas sometimes reaching millions of Naira. Reports suggest that management may advocate for morally ambiguous practices, evidenced by phrases like “do what you must [to bring in customers],” which could pressure women to utilise their physical appeal in questionable ways to meet these benchmarks. In turn, this trend of sexualising women in the workplace has led some male clients to expect sexual favors in exchange for financial services, such as opening accounts or depositing funds. The systemic focus on profit generation has shifted attention away from ethical considerations, linking career advancement directly to the ability to meet these aggressive targets. Employees who fail to meet these expectations face job insecurity or dismissal.

In response to this commodification of women’s bodies and the pressing need for reform, the Nigerian Senate introduced proposals for an anti-corporate prostitution and exploitation bill in 2010 and again in 2016. These legislative efforts aimed to address the intersection of gender, employment practices, and corporate responsibility within the financial sector.

 

LGBTIQ+ and State Control

Another significant aspect of body politics lies in how the state regulates sexuality. Harcourt, in her work, connects the discourse on body politics to Foucault’s idea of Biopolitics, which pertains to the socio-political control and regulation of life, often leading to the reinforcement of gendered identities. A closely related concept is Mbembe’s necropolitics, which discusses the sovereignty of the body, often manifesting as state threats to life and death. For instance, in Nigeria, the government enforces discrimination and threatens the lives of LGBTIQ+ individuals through the same-sex prohibition act, which criminalises all forms of same-sex relationships. This law serves as a clear illustration of body politics since it dictates how bodies must exist. The systematic control of bodies as a means to uphold state order has been the subject of academic discourses.  According to  Alexander the state normalises heterosexuality while condemning any sexual orientation that does not contribute to the reproduction of the nation. In this way, the state views bodies merely as sites for reproduction. By placing LGBTIQ+ rights within the context of capitalism and body politics, we can better understand that state regulation of sexuality is also tied to the need to maintain a future labor force. Historically, states have opposed non-traditional family structures because women’s bodies have been seen as essential for population growth. Furthermore, capitalism thrives on hierarchies and a gendered division of labor, but gender non-conforming individuals challenge these established roles and responsibilities. By reinforcing heterosexuality, the state seeks to secure future populations and, ultimately, the labour workforce.

 

Body Politics and the Creative Industry

The creative industry thrives on the sexualisation of women’s bodies. ‘Sex sells’ is a capitalist phrase utilised in the marketing and entertainment industry as a rationale to portray women’s bodies in an overtly sexualised manner under the guise of sexual liberation. Female talent and capacity for career advancement in the creative industry are measured not by artistic merit, but by whatever erotic heights the body can achieve.
Female artists are subjected to systemic pressures where their physical appearance significantly influences their career opportunities; for instance, actresses are overlooked for roles due to insufficient sexual appeal, and music videos often feature scantily dressed women as vixens, reinforcing a narrative that prioritises hyper-sexualised imagery. This trend reflects a capitalist agenda aimed at profit maximisation, where increased viewership translates into increased financial returns for both the artist and their management. One example is the music video for Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s WAP song – that featured five minutes of ‘twerking’ – which gained 26 million views, within 24 hours of its release, establishing the record for the most views in a day. This is no attempt to condemn the artists themselves but rather to buttress societal response to the hyper-sexualisation of women in contemporary media. The societal pressure to adhere to these narrowly defined body standards has consequently fostered a global market for cosmetic surgeries, with many women opting for surgical interventions to meet these expectations.

Body Politics Activism in Nigeria

Anti-corporate Prostitution and Exploitation Bill

In 2010 and 2016, members of the Nigerian Senate attempted to address the troubling commodification of female workers in commercial banks by proposing the Anti-Corporate Prostitution and Exploitation Bill. This legislation aimed to prevent employers from taking advantage of employees and compelling them to engage in ‘iniquitous’ acts that undermine their integrity for profit. While many hailed this bill as a positive step, it faced significant pushback from the banking sector and ultimately was not passed by the Senate.
Activism may often fail but ‘succeed’ in creating the needed effort to spark public interest in certain issues and catalyse new forms of activism. Although the Anti-Corporate Prostitution Bill has yet to become law, it succeeded in raising awareness and inspired female-led organisations to push for anti-harassment legislation in workplaces and educational institutions within the Senate. One notable example is the anti-harassment bill in tertiary institutions.

Queer Activism

Same-sex unions [and relationships] are illegal in Nigeria, punishable with up to 14 years of imprisonment. This law not only targets same-sex relationships but also criminalises any support offered to individuals within this community. Despite these harsh restrictions, many individuals and organisations are actively fighting for the basic rights to life, health, and social services for queer individuals. Anti-capitalist queer activism in Nigeria has taken on various forms, including campaigns for reproductive justice and opposition to healthcare systems that prioritise profit over essential, life-saving medical care for gender non-conforming individuals, all while facing considerable state resistance. Additionally, efforts to promote inclusion in the workforce for queer individuals, improve representation in organisations and institutions, and advocate against workplace exploitation are all crucial components of body politics activism in the region.

Decoloniality as a Lens for Body Polities Activism

The categories in which we define ourselves – including our understanding of gender and sexuality – are rooted in Universalist perspectives and the “colonial matrix of power”. In her groundbreaking work, The Invention of Woman, Nigerian decolonial feminist scholar Oyéronké Oyewùmí explores how Western discourses have shifted the local socio-cultural understandings of pre-colonial Nigerian societies. She argues that the ongoing debate surrounding the gender binary is, in fact, an imported issue. Oyewùmí highlights how Western privileges tied to the visual perception of bodies created a gendered gaze that systematically categorised certain bodies, perpetuating a narrative of inferiority in comparison to the so-called ‘ideal’ of the white, civilised male. Similarly, Latin American feminist decolonial writer Maria Lugones elaborates on how colonialism has reproduced gendered identities. She contends that binary concepts of gender were used as tools of colonial control, undermining and invalidating the existing understandings of identity. These binaries have played a significant role in sustaining not only capitalism but also patriarchy, effectively serving the Eurocentric agenda aimed at population growth for labour reproduction. Positioning decoloniality in body politics activism requires delinking from Western ideologies of gender and humanness. Activists can benefit from situating their resistance in narratives that do not encourage or conform to Eurocentric and colonial dominant narratives. For instance, recent queer activism by Nigerians has been rooted in re-telling the stories of old Yoruba cosmology by relating its gender complexities and gender-fluid nature through anthropological research and modern art.

Conclusion

Body politics is the commodification and control of human bodies and experiences often through hegemonic power relations, and body politics resistance aims to challenge capitalist, colonial, and socio-political discourses that have shaped hegemonic perceptions of the body. If our bodies are sites that are transformed by hegemonic social relations and “hetero-patriarchal capitalism” we must sever from those ties and learn alternative ways of being, doing, and thinking. Body politics activism provides an opportunity to dispel colonial and hegemonic gendered behaviour that has resulted in the categorisation of women and gender non-conforming persons in the lower global pyramid of power.

This blog was first published as part of the Exercise In World Making 2023-2024.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the author:

Eno-obong Etetim

Eno-Obong Etetim is a researcher and recent graduate of the Master’s in Development Studies program at the International Institute of Social Studies. She has several years of experience working on projects focused on gender, health equity, sexual and reproductive rights, and social norms. Her research interests also extend to sustainability and policy interventions that promote social justice.

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Beyond victimhood: The untold realities of Nepali brides in South Korea

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Nepali brides in South Korea are often portrayed as victims of violence, abuse, exploitation, slavery, and trafficking. But are these the only realities of Nepali brides? Nilima Rai in this article, challenges the dominant monolithic narrative of victimhood and sheds light on the other realities of these women – many of whom navigate such matrimonies with resilience, academic and professional achievements, and significant socioeconomic and cultural contributions in Korea and Nepal. Through patchwork ethnography, this article reveals Nepali brides’ overlooked agency, aspirations, achievements, and contributions beyond their image as victims.

Image by Sukanto Debnath

‘They call us Bhote ko budi,1 someone with Pothi Visa,2 who didn’t find a suitable man to marry, the victims of domestic violence and abuse, and someone who is miserably sitting in a corner and crying over their ill fate,’ one of the Nepali brides said. This illustrates the racist, sexist, and negative remarks the Nepali brides encounter in their day-to-day lives. This article discusses how the dominant narrative of victimhood further reinforces stigmas and prejudices of Nepali brides.

Transnational marriage in South Korea: Nepali brides

Transnational marriage between Nepali brides and Korean men began in the early 1990s when Nepali migrant workers entered Korea through the Industrial Trainee System.3 These brides, mainly belonging to socio-economically marginalised Tibeto-Burmese ethnic groups, are preferred4 due to their physical similarity to Korean people.

Nepali women participate in transnational marriage as an opportunity created by globalisation but with an expectation to fill the bride shortage vis-à-vis the ongoing crisis of social reproduction in South Korea. Like other foreign brides,5 Nepali brides make compromised choice of marrying foreign men and settling outside their country to escape poverty, attain upward mobility, or find access to labour markets that are otherwise denied to them.6  Conversely, Korean men7 rejected in the local marriage market due to their low socio-economic status and societal expectations of women seeking brides outside their racial/ethnic pool in countries such as China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Cambodia, Mongolia, and Nepal to name a few.

In Nepal, such marriages occur through commercial marriage brokers, mutual friends and relatives living and working in Korea. Since the early 2000s, Nepali women have entered transnational marriage through the marriage agencies/bureaus in Korea and Nepal.

The media’s victim narrative and its impact on Nepali brides

With the active involvement of the marriage brokers as matchmakers and the negative implications of such commercialised marriages, Nepali brides are often disparagingly depicted as ‘victims’ – the victims of trafficking, slavery, domestic violence, abuse, and deception. For more than a decade and even today, domestic and international news media have been replete with the sufferings of Nepali brides in Korea, portraying them as pitiful, bleak, wretched, sold, trafficked, and enslaved in Korean households. A rapid increase of unregulated marriage agencies in Nepal and Korea has resulted in increased numbers of fraudulent marriages engendering domestic violence and abuse of some of the Nepali brides. News media have widely reported cases of violence against Nepali brides along with their testimonies. Such efforts have highlighted the grave concerns of violence against those Nepali brides who experienced domestic violence and abuse. However, the paucity of research on the overall experiences of these brides, and the overwhelming representation of these women in media not only created their image as ‘women in peril’ and labelled them as ‘victims’ but also reinforced the already existing stigmas and prejudices against these women within the Nepali diaspora community in Korea.

These brides are subjected to gender-oppressive slurs by the Nepali diaspora community which sees them as ‘promiscuous’, ‘leftovers’, or someone who has a problem or is behaving strangely, thus ineligible to marry a man from their vicinity. The media’s tendency to depict Nepali brides merely as victims, the lack of research as well as the condescending attitudes of the Nepali diaspora community and the potential threat of oppressive slurs has often resulted in the silencing of Nepali brides.

‘Other Nepali brides in our community scolded me for allowing them to take my video and giving an interview to one of the media people,’ said one of the Nepali brides. This illustrates the negative implications of such narratives of Nepali brides fostering distrust and discontentment not only towards the media but also within the Nepali diaspora community. Some expressed their resentment through words, while others demonstrated it through their act of refusal, hesitation and constant need for reassurance that those approaching them were not affiliated with the media.

The realities of other Nepali brides

Narrating these women’s stories only through victimhood perspectives obscures the other realities of brides who claim to be empowered through economic gain, freedom of mobility and the acquisition of new knowledge and skills. These are the Nepali brides whose lived realities differ from those who suffer from violence and abuse.

‘Do we look like the victims of domestic violence or unhappy in our marital life, like how these journalists often portray us? Rather, I think I made the right decision getting married and coming here as I have more freedom to work, earn and live my life on my own terms,’ one of the Nepali brides said.

Similarly, another Nepali bride expressed her frustration, saying, ‘I am sick and tired of how these Nepali media represent us. A few years back, one of the journalists asked for our (her husband and her) photo, saying they wanted to cover the stories of Nepali brides. Still, in the end, they published our photo under the awful title and story that talked about how pitiful Nepali brides are. I am more than happy with my husband, who speaks fluent Nepali and actively contributes to Korean and Nepali literature and society. We both are hotel entrepreneurs. So, do you think my story fits into one of those stories published in the newspaper?’

Nepali bride with her husband tending their kitchen garden at Jeju-do, South Korea

The Nepali brides who were not victims of violence – and whose stories did not fit in with the articles published in news media – claimed to have made adjustments early on in their marriage, particularly in terms of language, food, and culture. They are now content with their familial relationships, have successfully established their professional careers, and are able to support their left-behind/natal families in Nepal.

These brides wish to be recognised as successful entrepreneurs, educators, nurses, police officers, poets, counsellors, interpreters, and promoters of Nepali culture, food, and language across the Nepali border. Instead of questioning their intentions in choosing a foreign spouse and vilifying them as ‘gold diggers’ – those who marry old Korean men for ‘card’/citizenship – and helpless victims of violence – who are beaten, battered, and abused by their husbands and in-laws – they want their achievements and contributions in both Korea and Nepal to be valued and acknowledged.

Furthermore, these women are often fluent in the Korean language and are pursuing/pursued further academic and professional endeavours in Korea; things they believe they could not have achieved in Nepal. Based on my research, Nepali migrant workers and students rely heavily on these brides to book public venues and bargain in local shops. They also rely on them for critical services such as translating/interpreting sensitive court cases and counselling in medical and mental health cases. Furthermore, these brides provide constant support and services as teachers and educators in schools, institutes, and migrant worker centres; provide health and safety orientations in factories and industries; act as counsellors to facilitate immigration procedures; work as nurses in hospitals, as police officers, established women’s shelters for migrant workers and provide all the necessary support in the rescue and repatriation of undocumented migrant workers.

Highlighting these women’s stories as achievers and contributors is not to trivialize the gravity of the issues related to violence against Nepali women/brides at all levels in and outside the country. The main aim of this article was to discuss the consequences of one-way narratives of victimhood that have negative implications on the lives of other Nepali brides who are happy with the positive outcome of their struggles in a foreign land. There is a need for in-depth research into the broader experiences of these women and for a multi-stakeholder dialogue and deliberation with state and non-state actors such as news media.

Endnotes

1. ‘Bhote’ is “a derogatory term for ethnically Tibetan people from northern Nepal (Gurung 2022, 1746). This kind of racial slur has been used against Nepali brides in Korea due to the resemblance or the similar physical features of Korean men with these ethnically Tibetan people.

Gurung, Phurwa.2023. ‘Governing caterpillar fungus: Participatory conservation as state-making, territorialization and dispossession in Dolpo, Nepal’ EPE: Nature and Space 6, No.3: 1745-1766.

2. In Nepal, the word ‘poth’” or ‘hen’ is a derogatory colloquial term often used as an oppressional slur that evinces male dominance or superiority over women (Lama and Buchy 2002).

Lama, Anupama and Marlene Buchy. 2002. ‘Gender, Class, Caste and Participation: The Case of Community Forestry in Nepal’ Indian Journal of Gender Studies 9, No.1: 27-41.

3. Before the Employment Permit System (2004), Korea systematised the inflow of migrant workers by introducing the Industrial Trainee System in 1991. Nepali migrant workers entered Korea through this trainee system. In 1990, 43,017 Nepali migrant workers were recorded in Korea.

Rai, Nilima, Arjun Kharel, and Sudeshna Thapa.2019. Labour Migration from Nepal-Factsheet: South Korea, Centre for the Study of Labour and Mobility and Foreign Employment Board, Nepal. https://archive.ceslam.org/fact-sheets/factsheet-south-korea

Based on my research findings, some Nepali brides were found to enter Korea through the trainee system in the early 1990s and later married Korean men.

4. Kim, Kyunghak, and Miranda De Dios. 2017. ‘Transnational Care for Left-Behind Family in Nepal with Particular Reference to Nepalese Married Migrant Women in Korea’ Global Diaspora and the Transnational Community: Migration and Culture.

5. Kim, Minjeong.2018. Elusive Belonging: Marriage Immigrants and ‘Multiculturalism’ in Rural South Korea. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.

6. Based on the findings of the study.

7. Kim, Hansung, Sun Young Lee, and In Hee Choi. 2014. ‘Employment and Poverty Status of Female Marriage Immigrants in South Korea’ Asian and Pacific Migration Journal 23, No.2: 129-154.

This blog post is based on the empirical evidence collected from field research in South Korea and Nepal (2023-24) for my doctoral study.

 

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

 

About the author

Nilima Rai is a Ph.D. candidate in Gender Studies at Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario. Her research explores the lived realities of Nepali brides in South Korea. She holds master’s degrees in Development Studies from Erasmus University, the Netherlands, and in Conflict, Peace, and Development Studies from Tribhuvan University, Nepal, and the University of Ruhuna, Sri Lanka. Her interests include migration, marriage and labor mobility, social justice, women’s rights, and the intersections of conflict, disaster, and gender.

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Scholar-activist research method – challenging but indispensable

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Although challenging, scholar-activism is a crucial analytical and political endeavor today.

In some particular settings, perhaps the best way to advance social science research is to engage in collaboration with social groups whose vision you are broadly sympathetic to. Yet the challenge is that you may find yourself politically supporting and advocating the very social practices you are studying. Does this make your research biased? Like many other development practitioners, I do not feign to practice disinterested research. Ultimately, ethical and political commitments permanently inform our practice: why we study certain phenomena and not others, why we consider some as problems but not others. Thus, no social science research is politically neutral; it all has a bias. But a certain level of political bias and scientific rigor are two different things.

Acknowledging that social research is biased does not imply a lack of rigor. As scholar-activists, our duty is to ensure that the visions we identify with are also subjected to theoretical scrutiny and peer review, and to practice honest reporting. The challenges are enormous. For instance, can you disagree with your local collaborator? Does scholar-activism mean ‘anything goes’ in terms of accepting uncritically whatever is being claimed by your local researcher partners? In this blog, Lorenza Arango reflects on collaborating with the Norman Pérez Bello Claretian organization (The Claretians, for short) in the eastern plains of Colombia.

The savanna landscape in Puerto Gaitán, Meta. Photo by author, June 2022.

It was in the middle of the 2022 rainy season in the Altillanura, Colombia.

Anita, a member of the Claretian organization and the leader of the field visit, was facing a tough decision: to cancel the visit halfway through – with several of the tasks we had agreed on still incomplete – or to move to another area within the region to finalize our mission. Heavy rains had made several of the roads impassable and navigating the Meta River to reach our next destination seemed the only way out. But travelling by river poses other security concerns, especially to social organizations such as the Claretians, whose members have become targets of threats and persecution.

‘How do you want to proceed? Shall we cancel the visit?’, I asked.

‘Let me think through… People are already waiting for us’, Anita replied.

After hours on the phone with members of the communities we were to visit, and with the head of the Claretian organization, to validate the security conditions in the area, the decision was made: to get on the first boat departing at 4:00 am, and to stick together during the approximately 8-hour journey, as well as to remain alert and cautious.

In recent years, the eastern Altillanura (high plains) in Colombia – encompassing the department of Vichada and portions of Meta – have turned into a major frontier destination for lucrative investments in land. Over a short period of time, the region changed from being a far, scattered and poorly developed landscape of tropical savannas bordering Venezuela to become the greatest and ‘last agricultural frontier’ of the country and even the new ‘promised land’.

The Colombian Altillanura was part of a broader phenomenon of spectacular, multi-faceted land grabs across the world known as the ‘global land rush’. Roughly between 2004 and 2017, multiple corporate land deals were pursued in the area. Other land deals were halted at early stages of implementation or never really touched the ground, but nevertheless contributed to fuel the investment frenzy. Meanwhile, land accumulation by stealth, effected by low-profile actors, progressed apace – taking part in the bandwagon effect driven by the land rush.

For the indigenous peoples and the peasantry inhabiting the Altillanura, the tropical savannas were not an investment target. They were their home sites and key a source of livelihoods. For decades now, both communities have suffered from the effects of multiple iterations of land dispossession and forced displacement by different actors (including the state, economic elites, armed guerrilla groups, narcotraffickers and paramilitary). The recent land rush in the area, and the ensuing social and environmental crisis, further exacerbated the precarious living conditions experienced by these – making them the poorest strata of the rural population.

An improvised kitchen at the indigenous settlement of ‘Iwitsulibo’ (Puerto Gaitán, Meta). Photo by author, June 2022.

Against this background, the work of the Norman Pérez Bello Claretian organization (Corporación Claretiana Norman Pérez Bello – CCNPB) is fundamental. The Claretians is a Colombian non-profit organization that promotes social justice and peace and accompanies peasant and indigenous communities who assert their rights through non-violent mechanisms. It offers legal advice, as well as psychological, pedagogical and communications support. Since around 2003, the Claretians has continually supported efforts by various rural peoples to improve their living conditions in Colombia’s eastern plains and other regions of the country. To date, it is perhaps the only organization in the area whose work in the defence of rural communities has endured the test of time and the brutality of various forms of violence – including persecution of its members and threats against their lives.

As a PhD researcher within the European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grant-funded RRUSHES-5 project, based at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) of Erasmus University Rotterdam, I am pleased to have collaborated with the Claretians and to have learned first-hand from the work it does in the Altillanura. My first engagement with its work happened when I accidentally came across short online publications by the organization, in which it denounced recent land grabs in the area and the effects these had on Sikuani indigenous peoples. I later heard about the organization from other researchers and investigative journalists and became an admirer of its work.

On the basis of collaborative agreements, the Claretians facilitated a significant part of my fieldwork in the Altillanura for my doctoral dissertation. Together we visited what had become key investment sites by large corporations and political and economic elites in the municipality of Puerto Gaitán in the Meta department and in La Primavera and Santa Rosalía in Vichada. We listened to and documented people’s retelling of harsh stories of dispossession associated with the investment rush and the consequences to their livelihoods of land lost.

While collaborating with the Claretians, the alleged boundaries between scholarly research and activism suddenly becoming less rigid. This collaboration has also taught me the often-challenging practice of scholar activism and how indispensable it is today.

Traversing the open plains and water springs by foot in rural Puerto Gaitán, Meta. Photos by author, June 2022.

On a number of occasions, I inevitably performed tasks closer to advocacy work – which clearly influenced my research outcomes. For instance, at most field sites we visited, I cooperated in setting up meetings and assemblies between indigenous community members and government officers, hoping these could result in the challenges faced by the indigenous people (for example, in terms of their land access and their living conditions) being better addressed. I also helped draft press releases denouncing abuse and threats of coercion by the local police and illegal armed groups against community members and the Claretians and demanding that the state ensure the fundamental rights of the indigenous peoples. I also devised tools that could help to leverage indigenous peoples’ decision-making power in response to state authorities, such as printed maps of their territories.

Public assembly converging indigenous communities across the eastern plains and government functionaries from the National Land Agency in La Primavera, Vichada. Photos by author, March 2023.

At the same time, the collaboration allowed the Claretians to systematize much of the evidence it had collected over the years about the politics of land access in the Altillanura, as well as to reach larger audiences – through reports and other publications that came out of our partnership.

Of course, experiences of scholar-activism such as this are not exempt from challenges. How could both parties ensure that the research project I was representing would be useful and impactful to the people on the ground? What other research strategies should I employ to validate the conclusions resulting from the collaborative work, apart from fieldwork? Also, were the Claretians – given its knowledge of the area and of the communities it accompanies – entitled to set the objectives and terms of our collaboration? Could I object to the organization’s practices or disagree with the behaviour of some of its members in the field? If so, could that risk our collaboration or compromise particular outcomes from it? In the end, all of us, both the members of the organization and myself,  had to deal with these questions and several other contradictions arising along the way.

 

All in all, the underlying message is clear: in contexts of widespread land dispossession, such as the one shaping the Colombian Altillanura, struggles over land remain a key axis of mobilization, which in turn make of scholar-activism an analytically crucial and politically empowering undertaking and method of work – despite of (or even because of) the difficulties surrounding it.

***

Nowadays in academia, research with positive societal impact has gained wide support. It is often interpreted to mean that academic work impacts and transforms society and societal actors. This is certainly valid and important. But in my case, another dimension is also clear: non-academic societal actors can profoundly impact and transform academics and academic work. While the first interpretation  is significantly explored in academic circles, the impact of society and societal actors in academia is relatively less so. Yet I believe it is equally important to think about how non-academic societal actors, especially social justice activists like Anita and her Claretian colleagues, positively impact and transform academic researchers like me, and, for that matter, academia and academic work I am embedded in. And that feels right.

 

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the Author

Lorenza Arango is a PhD researcher at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS, The Hague) of Erasmus University Rotterdam. She is a member of the research team of the European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grant awarded project ‘Commodity & Land Rushes and Regimes: Reshaping Five Spheres of Global Social Life (RRUSHES-5)’, led by Jun Borras. As part of this project, she is working on the interactions between contemporary commodity/land rushes and the spheres of labour and food politics, as well as on state-citizenship relations in Colombia.

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Emphasizing locally-led knowledge interventions in cases of neglected humanitarian crises: Launching the Namibian Humanitarian Observatory

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In this blog, Sister Agrippina Nandjaa (Caritas Namibia) marks the opening of the Humanitarian Observatory in Namibia, considering the importance of ‘neglected crises’ and their intersection with climate change. The Observatory in Namibia joins a growing network of spaces for research, discussion, and advocacy, coordinated by The Hague Humanitarian Studies Centre (HSC).

 

Image by Unsplash : Bernd Dittrich

The Namibia Humanitarian Observatory was launched on 24 May 2024 to create a space for discussion with communities and stakeholders around vulnerability to disasters across the country. The self-governed Observatory aims to engage communities prone to recurrent climate-related shocks to share experiences and explore pathways toward creative and self-reliant communities, especially in the case of drought. The widespread impact and long duration of drought make it one of the most costly hazards in Namibia. However, the impacts of drought can often be lessened through preparedness and early action aimed at decreasing community vulnerability and exposure. Namibia is the most arid sub-Saharan country, experiencing very high evapotranspiration rates (Mendelsohn et al., 2002). Consequently, it is exposed to recurrent droughts, with historically devastating consequences. A growing population, persistent poverty, and climate change provide even greater threats in the future. And, with the situation in Namibia often falling into the category of ‘neglected humanitarian crises; affecting international support and aid, we are reminded of the importance of the everyday actions and practices that drive humanitarian action from the local and grassroots level.

A platform for discussion and analysis around drought

In partnership with The Hague Humanitarian Studies Centre (HSC) of the International Institute of Social Studies, the Namibia Humanitarian Observatory will be a platform for discussions that enable communities and authorities to respond to humanitarian crises. It will bring together communities to assess historical drought events and their extent and impacts in Namibia. It will facilitate the gathering and analysis of relevant data and explore the current institutions and systems involved in drought monitoring, forecasting, early warning, mitigation, and reduction in the country by subsistence farmers.

This space will also act as an early action initiative that initially focuses on rapid-onset hazards such as climate change awareness and strategies for subsistence farming. Agriculture is primarily the main activity for subsistence farming in Namibia. In its humanitarian work across the country, particularly now with the distribution of food parcels for vulnerable households, which includes undocumented people, Caritas Namibia has been thinking of what skills, training, and advocacy of recovery programs are needed in the long term in order to cope with protracted drought in the 14 regions of Namibia. Traditional farmers seem unable to cope with the changing weather and climate that has resulted in low rainfall during the farming season compared to 50 years ago. Now, Caritas Namibia, together with the local government authorities, wants to explore the way of rethinking lost skills, new skills, advocacy, and training for subsistence farmers to improve their household livelihood to counter dependence syndrome and increase the communities’ adaptive capacities. The Namibia Humanitarian Observatory will contribute to this objective and will also safeguard the importance of local and indigenous knowledge and practices when it comes to disaster preparedness, response, and prevention.

The launch was hosted in the Zambezi Regional Councils and was attended by the Governor of Zambezi region, the Councilors, and council staff, Joseph Moowa Kalokela, member of Namibia Observatory, Gabriela Anderson, community manager of HSC, Joram Tarusarira from the University of Groningen and member of the Namibia Observatory, and Agrippina Nandjaa, Coordinator of the Namibia Humanitarian Observatory and Caritas coordinator. The attendees of the launch were able to leave reflecting on how countries like Namibia, who are adversely and continuously vulnerable to the effects of climate change, can play a vital role in international politics in holding other countries accountable for their own roles in the changing climate, like the environmentally damaging consequences of warfare in Israel and Russia.

Together, the presenting team at the launch of the Namibia Humanitarian Observatory were able to gain the support of the local government in the Zambezi region of Namibia and further the roots of the Humanitarian Observatories. That is, the importance of discussing the role of different actors within the humanitarian field and how they work together (or not) in addressing humanitarian needs in a highly contextual and locally relevant way.

For more information about the Humanitarian Observatories, check out The Hague Humanitarian Studies Centre website, and the information pages around the Humanitarian Governance (HUM-GOV) project. The Humanitarian Observatories regularly contribute interesting articles to BlISS. 

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the Author

Sister Agrippina Nandjaa

Sr. Agrippina Nandjaa is a Catholic religious sister lives and work in Namibia, and directing Caritas Namibia-Namibian Catholic Bishop’s Conference. Agrippina hold a master degree in development Studies-Social Policy from International Institute of Social Studies-Erasmus Rotterdam University, Honor degree in adult education and community development and Diploma in community education from the University of Namibia. She has experience over ten years. Agrippina is also coordinating the Namibia observatory which was lunched on 24 May 2024 in Zambezi region-Namibia.

 

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Navigating Polarization through Empathy: Insights from Research on Venezuelan Migration

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In this blog post, Fernando Garlin and Juliana Poveda explore the ethical and methodological dilemmas faced by researchers working with forced Venezuelan migrants in politically polarized contexts in Latin America. Through personal reflections, they delve into how the researcher’s identity shapes their relationship with the research participants and the interpretation of migratory realities, highlighting the tension between neutrality, authenticity and adaptability. They suggest that building human relationships and recognizing local complexities are essential for overcoming the double standards of engaged academics and fostering a deeper understanding of the migratory situation.

 

Image by Authors

In contexts marked by violent conflicts, institutional crises, fast changes and high degrees of political polarization, researchers encounter varying degrees of distrust, suspicion and openness from participants in the field. In our case, both of us have worked with Venezuelan migrants in Colombia, Spain and the United States. Amidst polarizing right- vs. left-wing politics and sentiments, the question constantly arises about how to present ourselves to our research participants: Is it important to disclose fully our personalities and positionalities? Should we embrace the neutrality and formality expected from researchers? Or ought we perform a mixture of authenticity and detachment to open the dialogue with our interviewees?

In this blog post, we use dialogue to explore how each one of us has addressed this situation. Our dialogue is itself a necessary collaboration to enrich our standpoints. Fernando is Venezuelan and Juliana is Colombian and we have both worked with Venezuelan migrants in the same region. However, we have noticed how our nationalities condition our gaze on forced migration.

Fernando: I spent more than a year on the Colombia-Venezuela border, between 2020 and 2022, mostly in Cúcuta. Over time, the whole issue of my ‘position’ gradually lost relevance in my reflections. Not because it stopped being important, but because, little by little, I started blending into my relationships, my surroundings and my belonging to an organization of Venezuelans in the region. So people already knew what my role was and where I stood before even agreeing to an interview: ‘Oh, he’s the guy who works with that aid organization and is interested in those issues.’

While researching violence, abuse and extreme precariousness, I think people cared less about my political stance and focused much more on evaluating my personality – for example, how witty, available or sensible I was. Those things gradually became way more important for coexisting and building human relationships. It helped me move beyond the usual observer-observed/participant mould.

That being said, my political position did matter in institutional spaces with humanitarian officers from the government and international cooperation sectors. My push for more quotas, aid and responses to the situation was seen as ‘left-wing; I pointed out things that needed improvement, to be denounced or reformed. But was I merely a ‘useful leftist’ being used to justify right-wing policies? In governmental or international cooperation settings, people even asked me ‘Are you here to help or not?’ Or was I just here to criticize, a ‘bad leftist’. Being aware of and discussing these issues allows us to be more critical of the role of the researcher in the field, not just as an observer but also as an actor.

I feel that my positionality has been shaped by these two tensions: local sensitivities and national policy discussions in each country. What about your experience, Juliana?

Juliana: I also arrived at the Norte de Santander region in Cúcuta in 2019. One of my first learnings was that authorities and NGOs make distinctions and present measures and procedures for Venezuelans as ‘novel, special and temporary’. Yet these legal measures were very disconnected from the daily life and reality of people forced to migrate into Colombia and join local communities. For example, it was enough to step away from the desk to figure out that the distinction between different types of ‘populations’ and ‘migrations’ might be artificial and pernicious. People with similar needs, newcomers and locals, were competing for attention and resources. Although it was undeniable that an extra layer of vulnerability came from the lack of regular migratory status of Venezuelans in Colombia, their needs and risks were similar to Colombian civilians within the context of armed conflict. This is not novel in forced migration dynamics; similar problems were experienced by Syrians and local communities in Turkey and Lebanon (Müller-Funk 2021).

My second learning was that, although bilateral relations shape migration policies, irrespective of whether there was a right- or left-wing government in Colombia, the change of political wing does not necessarily imply higher compliance with migrants’ rights. Pragmatism informs decision-making. Neither fiercely opposing Maduro’s authoritarian regime nor keeping cautiously silent about it has translated into an open recognition of Venezuelans as refugees or into higher standards of economic and social rights protection.

So, observing the dynamics of Colombian and Venezuelan migrant communities more broadly enabled me to seek a new stance from where I could take a critical and panoramic view of the law and its social context. Thus, I chose social research as a tool to address the law-context interaction. Fernando, how did ethnography help you to be closer to your research participants from an academic standpoint?

Fernando: In my ethnography, I try to distance myself from opinions or reactions that might make me seem like an outsider, as this could jeopardize trust. I prefer to get to know people and adapt to them, rather than taking a fixed stance. After all, every relationship is human, even in research. I find it hard that we must constantly remind ourselves and our colleagues of this. My job as an anthropologist is to explore what people think and how they think. And you have to allow space and time for that to happen.

This doesn’t mean I can’t speak out against authoritarian acts, violence or state terror in Venezuela, but when I’m doing research, all of that is just the backdrop so that the real protagonists – people – can come forward with their beliefs, ideas, opinions, sensitivities and emotions. So, my position leans more towards figuring out where to understand from, with whom and how to make sense of the confusion.

In your experience as a lawyer and researcher, how do you choose to position yourself? Do you have different behaviours, attitudes or decisions that you make depending on the people you’re meeting?

Juliana: From a socio-legal lens, I look at migration and refugee law from the opposing and interacting view of diverse stakeholders. These perspectives have enabled me to develop more reflexivity in my own gaze: conditions, experiences and assumptions. Thus, I can find nuances amidst the binaries suggested by the context and recognise my standpoint. Beyond the partisan right- vs. the left-wing binary (Roht-Arriaza y Martínez 2019), others have struck me: the attention and resources given to Venezuelan migrants undermine those for peacebuilding in Colombia. Or, its analogue, but from another side: the Colombian peace talks with the ELN and the FARC dissidents validate Maduro’s regime and neglect forced migrants.

I also find myself constantly justifying not only why I am researching from a Global North University but also why I am not researching my country’s affairs (Abasli and Elassal 2021). I find only ‘empathy’ as the answer. The experience of Colombian internally displaced people and forced migrants abroad should have also taught us to recognise vulnerability and depart from there. Hence, it is senseless to argue about whether the Colombian or Venezuelan crisis in the region deserves more attention, or should attract more international condemnation and cooperation. They are now entwined. I would rather begin with the fact that both civil societies deal with deep traumas due to polarization, failed democracies, inequality and violence (Bejarano 2011).

Once the polarization noise lowers, it is necessary to spotlight the main role of forced migrants (Clark-Kazak 2021). Nobody can speak on their behalf about how they face challenges such as ‘anti-migrant’ expressions in Global North countries (Achiume 2022). Hence, the researcher, alongside reflexivity, should collaborate with local organizations to protect the interests of forced migrants and amplify their voices (Harley, T. and Wazefadost 2023). Have you found another dichotomy? How did you solve it, Fernando?

Fernando: This might sound abstract and a bit lukewarm, but for me, anthropology isn’t activism or politics; it’s about building connections, relationships and concepts to understand activism and politics. Unfortunately, I’m not sure that understanding makes us ‘better’ at anything – maybe that’s just a knowledge-based illusion. That’s why I believe the role of the ethnographer and anthropologist is to accompany, shape and give meaning and strength to social experiences.

Beyond slogans about defending the most vulnerable – which I consider obvious unless you’re some kind of colonial exploiter – it’s about constantly searching for the spaces where the seeds of change, new futures and hopes for humanity can grow.

Our conclusion

Finally, we both agree that our positionalities are flexible. They evolve as we interact with our research participants and colleagues and reflect on our contexts and biases. We avoid identifying ourselves with binaries or exclusionary positions. That does not mean that we are ambivalent or vague. On the contrary, we believe that rather than being a bystander we should engage with others and collaborate, especially with those on the move. The more researchers can allow themselves to listen to any argument, trying to understand why someone may think or act in a particular way, the more their  work might be collaborative with migrants and local communities. In this sense, socio-legal approaches may be informed by ethnography. We thus believe that the most challenging positionality is imagining new horizons with others: constantly stepping outside oneself, time and again, and returning with multiple perspectives. Every researcher carries something of the migrant, always seeking to understand the other; and every migrant carries something of the researcher, in their own search for understanding.

References

Abasli,I. and Elassal A. (2023) “Why are you not doing research in your home country?” – The complexities of being from and doing research in the Global South. Impact of Social Science. Available from: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2023/12/05/why-are-you-not-doing-research-in-your-home-country-the-complexities-of-being-from-and-doing-research-in-the-global-south/ [Accessed Jul 21, 2024].

Achiume, E.T. (2022) Empire, borders, and refugee responsibility sharing. California Law Review, 110 (3), 1011-1040.

Bejarano A. (2011). Democracias precarias: Trayectorias políticas divergentes en Colombia y Venezuela (Precarious democracies: Divergent political paths in Colombia and Venezuela). Bogotá, D. C., Colombia: Universidad de los Andes, Colombia. Retrieved September 4, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7440/j.ctt18crz6b

Harley, T. and Wazefadost, N. (2023) Guidelines for Co-Produced Research with Refugees and Other People with Lived Experience of Displacement. UNSW.

Müller-Funk, L. (2021) Research with refugees in fragile political contexts: How ethical reflections impact methodological choices. Journal of Refugee Studies, 34 (2), 2308–2332.https://doi.org/10.1093/jrs/feaa013.

Roht-Arriaza, N. and Martínez, S. (2019) Grand corruption and the international criminal court in the Venezuela situation. Journal of International Criminal Justice, 17 (5), 1057–1082.

 

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the Authors:

Fernando Garlin

Fernando Garlin is a PhD candidate at Université Paris Cité (CEPED, IRD, INSERM). His research intersects border studies, violence, and migration. Using ethnographic methods, he seeks to understand hate narratives within the governance regimes where they emerge. His publications focus on the political and aesthetic forms that alternative or marginalized groups adopt during sanitary and political crises.

Juliana Poveda

Juliana Poveda is a PhD student in the Law Department at Ulster University. Her research project addresses the linkages between reparative justice, responsibility-sharing, and durable solutions, addressing the case of Venezuelans forced to migrate to Colombia, the United States and Spain (EU). She is interested in sociolegal and interdisciplinary research that engages forced migration, human rights protection, and peacebuilding.

 

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Israeli military occupation in the Jordan Valley denies Palestinian farmers and herders their right to water, livelihood, and life.

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On 19th July 2024, the International Court of Justice ruled that Israel’s prolonged occupation of Palestinian territory is a violation of international law. In this blog post, Michelle Rudolph and Rachel Kurian analyse how the water governance regime imposed by the Israeli occupation in the West Bank generates systemic injustice and water insecurity for Palestinians. Their study was presented at the Teach-In Series on Water Justice in Palestine hosted by IHE Delft in May 2024 and held at IHE and at the Universities of Amsterdam and Wageningen.

 

Palestinian herders’ encampment in the northern Jordan Valley, West Bank (Photo by Michelle Rudolph, Jordan Valley, July 2019).

The sun blazes fiercely, its early morning heat already engulfing the dry landscape. In this wide expanse, a community of tents stands resolute, their silhouettes distinct against the dusty backdrop. Dust settles on every surface, coating the worn fabric of shelters and clinging to the hot iron roofs and water troughs.

Abdullah stands quietly at the edge of the encampment. He wipes his sweat from his brow, his weathered face a testament to years spent under the sun. His sheep huddle in the scant shade, their woolly bodies pressed close together. Each animal is precious, providing milk, meat and wool that sustain his family. As he tends to his flock, a distant rumble disrupts the quiet, catching Abdullah’s attention. The sound of live military training echoes through the valley. His brows furrow as he listens intently, wondering if the manoeuvres will draw closer and disrupt the fragile peace. For a moment, he stands still, his eyes scanning the horizon, the weight of uncertainty heavy on his shoulders.

Yet, immediate concerns press upon him, anchoring him firmly in the present. The problem of finding water for his family and sheep looms large. The water troughs lie empty, a stark reminder of his ongoing struggle to secure this vital resource. Abdullah draws a deep breath, bracing himself for the challenges that lie ahead today, much like every other day before it.

Since the war of June 1967, nearly 90% of the Jordan Valley, West Bank, has been under Israeli military control and so has the distribution of water. As a Palestinian Bedouin in the valley, Abdullah lives alongside his extended family in tents devoid of running water. Groundwater lies beneath their feet, yet regulations prohibit them from digging a well. The Jordan River flows nearby, but its access has been blocked by the Israeli military and Civil Administration. Below the Bedouin encampment, a water pipeline supplies a neighbouring Israeli settlement with continuous water, but Abdullah and his family are strictly forbidden from tapping into it. In an attempt to secure water, Abdullah once constructed a small water tank, only to have it demolished by the Israeli military for lacking proper permission. Each morning, Abdullah grapples with the pressing question: How can he procure enough water for drinking, washing, cleaning, cooking, and caring for his children, while ensuring his sheep thrive to provide income for his family’s survival? Abdullah’s experiences, shared with us during an interview in July 2019, are similar to those of many Palestinians in this area.

In this blog post, we delve into the critical issue of water and human insecurity faced by Palestinian Bedouins and farmers. Drawing from our study on water governance in the West Bank, we explore the underlying causes of these insecurities.

Our research sheds light on the asymmetrical power relations that shape water governance, significantly impacting the lives of vulnerable communities. Central to our discussion is the concept of hydro-hegemony, introduced by Zeitoun and Warner in 2006. This concept was developed to help us understand how stronger riparian states use various tactics and strategies in cross-border water conflicts to assert their dominance. However, we can also apply it to our case in which Israel’s hydro-hegemony over groundwater resources in the West Bank is manifested through three forms of power:

  • Material Power: This includes the use of military force, financial resources, and technological advancements.
  • Bargaining Power: This involves strategic negotiations and the use of incentives to influence outcomes.
  • Ideational Power: This encompasses the use of discourse and ideologies to shape perceptions and narratives.

Our study shows that these power dynamics are not just abstract concepts but have real, tangible effects on the daily lives of Palestinians. The systemic and structural nature of water insecurity means that many Palestinians are not only denied their basic right to water but also their right to livelihoods and to life itself.

The research we draw on combines historical and contemporary data with information based on 27 in-depth interviews we conducted in 2019. These interviews were held in the West Bank, primarily with Palestinian women and men from various communities in the Jordan Valley. In addition, we spoke to representatives from crucial institutions like the Palestinian Water Authority (PWA), the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC), and the Palestinian development and training institution MA’AN.

West Bank, Area C, and the Jordan Valley

The West Bank is a landlocked territory spanning approximately 5700 square kilometres – about one-seventh the size of the Netherlands. It is bordered by Jordan to the east and Israel on the north, south, and west and it has been under Israeli military occupation since June 1967.

The region is rich in freshwater resources, including the Jordan River and three major aquifers: the Western Aquifer, the North-Eastern Aquifer, and the Eastern Aquifer, that are collectively known as the ‘Mountain Aquifer’ and that extend through the West Bank and Israel (see image 2) (World Bank, 2009).

Image 2 – Water resources in the West Bank (by Michelle Rudolph after Zeitoun et al., 2009).

In 1967, the establishment of Kfar Etzion marked the beginning of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. These settlements, built by Israel and populated by Israeli citizens, have grown significantly over the decades. They are illegal under international law, as Article 49(6) of the 1949 Geneva Convention IV – also signed by Israel – explicitly prohibits an occupying power from transferring its civilians into the occupied territory (ICRC, 2018). That Israel’s long-term occupation of Palestinian territory and settlement building are unlawful has also been confirmed by International Court of Justice (ICJ) in its recent ruling of 19 July 2024.

In 1993, the first Interim Agreement, the Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements known as Oslo I, was signed by the Israeli government and the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO). It recognised Israel as a state and created joint Israeli-Palestinian committees for ‘mutual security’ and economic cooperation on several aspects, including water. The second agreement of 1995, the Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip known as Oslo II, divided the West Bank into three administrative zones – Areas A, B, and C – each with a different governance system. Area C which covers 60% of the West Bank and contains most of the agricultural lands and water resources, came under full Israeli civil and security control.

While these agreements seemed to facilitate some level of cooperation, in reality, they allowed Israel’s continued control over Palestinian resources. They legitimized Israel as the sole authority to decide which lands would come under Palestinian control and left open the resolution of key areas of conflict such as borders, refugees, Jerusalem, and settlements. Moreover, they provided no legal power to stop the expansion of settlements and roads in the West Bank (Roy, 2002).

The Jordan Valley, where Abdullah lives with his family, is situated in the eastern part of the West Bank. Most of this area falls within Area C (blue and purple areas on the map), meaning it is under full Israeli military control. Often, these lands are designated as Israeli military zones (grey marked areas) or nature reserves (green marked area), restricting Palestinian access.

Referred to as a “giant greenhouse,” the Jordan Valley is ideal for irrigated agriculture due to its fertile soil, groundwater resources, ample sunlight, and warm climate. However, the stringent controls over land and water have led to a steady decline in Palestinian agricultural production throughout the occupation.

The Jordan Valley (image by Michelle Rudolph after OCHA 2012).
The Jordan Valley (image by Michelle Rudolph after OCHA 2012).

Impact on Palestinian Communities and the Urgent Need for Action

So, what do  asymmetrical power relations in water governance mean for Palestinians famers and herders in the Jordan Valley? Our research reveals that they are confronted with various, interconnected, and cumulative forms of water insecurity in their daily lives:

  • Quantity– The quantitative supply gap is the starkest expression of the discriminatory water regime, as shown by the huge discrepancy in water consumption between Israeli settlers and Palestinians in the Jordan Valley (see image). For example, in the Ro’i and Beka’ot settlements in the northern Jordan Valley, the average household consumption exceeds 400 litres per capita per day (lpcd), compared to just 20 lpcd in the neighboring Bedouin community of Al-Hadidiya (Hareuveni, 2011).
  • Not being served by any network, many Palestinian Bedouin communities are forced to rely on water trucking, obtaining water from wells, springs, or filling points in other communities (UN, 2021). Some Palestinian farmers own their own wells. However, these are usually only a few dozen metres deep, in contrast to Israeli wells that regularly go down hundreds of metres to reach the aquifer. In past decades, groundwater levels have dropped significantly and so have the pumping rates from Palestinian wells. When Palestinian farmers have applied for permission to deepen their wells in order to regain access to fresh groundwater, their applications have often been denied by the JWC or the permission that they have received has not allowed them to dig as deep as required. Quality– While the quality of the water from springs and the Israeli network was generally considered good, water from wells often has high concentrations of chloride, rendering it unsuited for domestic use and posing health risks to families and livestock when they do drink from it
  • Distance and time– Water insecurity also results from the distance to water sources and the time required to collect water. Bedouin families who depend on water trucking endure long daily journeys to access fresh water, particularly challenging during the summer months.
  • Price and Affordability– Access to water is often financially burdensome, the price depending on the cost of the electricity needed to pump groundwater, the cost of water distribution, and the cost of transporting the water. Particularly for Bedouins, it challenges their economic stability.
  • Frequency and Reliability– Several of the issues discussed above show how Palestinians in the Jordan Valley experience water insecurity in relation to both the frequency and reliability of their water supplies. During the interviews, it was highlighted that frequency and reliability of water access were also compromised through the use of military force by Israel’s Civil Administration, as when construction and movement restrictions were imposed on Palestinians and water-related supply systems (e.g. water tanks and pipes) were demolished by Israeli soldiers.
  • Safety– Finally, the enforcement of military power in a context of conflict and occupation creates significant issues around safety of water access. One Bedouin father of eight shared his experience, explaining how he had been arrested several times by the Israeli military for unknowingly letting his sheep graze on closed-off land. “There are no borders. Only by experience you learn where (…) you can’t go”.. The situation is further aggravated by acts of violence perpetrated by armed Israeli settlers against Palestinians, including shootings and vandalism to property, which create a pervasive atmosphere of fear and insecurity. A local NGO member captured the dire reality of Palestinians in the Jordan Valley with stark clarity: “[They] are feeling threatened all the time. They are feeling insecure all the time. They have a lack of everything all the time”.
Daily domestic water consumption in litres per person (image by Michelle Rudolph after OCHA, 2021).

Living under these different forms of water and human insecurity has profound and far-reaching consequences for Palestinians, impacting their farming, herding, livelihoods, health, families and social relations. They are not just denied their fundamental right to water, but also their right to livelihood and life itself. As poignantly noted by a doctor from a health clinic in Area C in the Jordan Valley: “People here die twice in their lives. They die when they are alive, and they die when they are dying. […] no water, no cleaning, no hygiene, problems, conflicts […]”. At the same time, Palestinian farmers and herders are determined to remain on their land, undertaking various strategies to sustain their livelihoods and lives under extreme forms of violence, which we detail in another ongoing study.

This summer marks five years since we spoke with Abdullah and many other Palestinian farmers and herders in the Jordan Valley. During this time, several Bedouin communities in the area have been demolished, and Israeli pressures have only intensified (UNRWA, 2024). Since October 7, reports of settler violence and Israeli military offenses have surged: As of now, 20 Bedouin communities in the West Bank have been forcibly displaced by armed extremist settlers often with the consent and support of the Israeli military which is, as argued by Forey (2024), a form of ethnic cleansing.

These escalating challenges underscore the dire and urgent need for action. The struggle for water and human security faced by Palestinians in the West Bank is not just a local issue but a fundamental human rights crisis. It demands our continued attention, advocacy, and efforts to support those affected and to push for lasting and just solutions.

 

This blog was reposted from: Hypotheses

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

 

About the Authors:

Michelle Rudolph

Michelle Rudolph is a social scientist, water engineer, and visual designer, holding an MSc in Environmental Engineering (Delft) and an MA in Development Studies (SJP)  at the ISS. Michelle’s professional endeavours encompass research, fieldwork, and teaching, with a focus on water governance, disaster risk reduction, social vulnerability, and communication across various global contexts. She currently works as a consultant at HKV, a firm based in the Netherlands, specialized in flood risk and water management.

Rachel Kurian

Rachel Kurian is (retired) International Labour Economist at the ISS. She has done fieldwork and research on Palestine since 2014.

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Sexual and Gender-Based Violence: looking beyond physical crimes

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November 25 is the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, and to mark the day this blog has been written by Carolien Jacobs (Leiden University) Patrick Milabyo Kyamugusulwa (ISDR-Bukavu), and Rachel Sifa Katembera, all three members of the Humanitarian Observatory DRC. The authors argue throughout that it is important that we realise that sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) consists of more than only sexual violence, it also includes structural violence that regulates justice. This is also the case in conflict-settings such as the east of the DRC, where a lot of attention goes to sexual violence.
Photo by Authors
In a time in which ‘her body, my choice’ is quickly – and sadly – gaining traction on social media, it is important that we are aware of the range of crimes that sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) consists of: it is more than physical sexual violence. For many years, sexual violence in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo has gained a lot of attention from media, international donors, and academics, especially when committed by armed groups. In 2018, the renowned gynecologist Dr. Denis Mukwege was awarded the Noble Peace Prize for his ‘efforts to end the use of sexual violence as  a weapon of war and armed conflict’. Although we by no means want to deny or downplay the high prevalence of sexual violence in the DRC – as also shown by ISS colleague Bilge Sahin -, we would like to use this blog to raise attention to other forms of structural violence in many countries across our patriarchically dominant world. These forms of gender-based violence are deeply embedded in society’s structures, making it difficult for women (and minorities) to claim their rights and to find justice. In an earlier blog in this series, Patrick Milabyo and Delu Lusambya already pointed out the importance of rethinking norms of masculinity and of combating toxic masculinity. In this blog we draw attention to two prevalent forms of violence that disproportionately affect women in eastern DR Congo, namely violence related to inheritance disputes, and to witchcraft accusations. What is problematic about this? Which challenges do women face when they seek (state or non-state) justice in such situations? And what can be done about this? Inheritance rights: discrepancy between state law and customary law According to the Congolese Family Code, revised in 2016, women are entitled to a similar share of their parents’ properties after death. Yet, in most parts of the country, custom holds that only the male heirs are entitled to inherit, and daughters often remain empty-handed, this also applies to children born out of wedlock, if they have been recognized by the deceased in life. As such, all children are the first category of heirs (art. 758.1). A similar problem arises for the right to inheritance for spouses, a problem that is even more complicated in polygamous marriages and in marriages that are concluded only on a religious or customary basis. This means that in case of the death of a husband, the husband’s family often claims the property, with the wife losing out, even though the surviving partner, parents and brothers and sisters of the deceased are all heirs in the second category according to the DRC Family Code (art 758.2). If there is no formal wedding registration, women depend on customary authorities to apply the statutory Family Code, but these authorities often adhere more strongly to customary norms that prescribe the return of the couple’s property to her in-laws. In practice, we see efforts of civil society actors to raise awareness about the Family Code and the right of women to inherit both as spouses, and as daughters. Yet, it remains common for families to divide property only among males, with daughters and spouses often losing out. Witchcraft accusations Across Africa, states have difficulties in findings ways to deal with witchcraft and witchcraft accusations. This is not any different in the DRC, where the state does not recognize the existence of witchcraft, nor the threats of witchcraft (Dunn 2024). Accusations of witchcraft are most often geared towards women, especially elderly women. Witchcraft accusations are indicators of tensions and distrust in social relations. Even if such accusations lack material evidence, they are difficult to counterclaim for the person accused. Local (state and non-state) authorities often lack the power to deal with such accusations and to calm tensions, and victims of (false) accusations cannot resort to a legal framework to address such accusations. As a measure of protection, we find that accused women sometimes get expelled from their communities, or are even placed in detention to protect them from ‘popular justice’. The ‘remedies’ that are offered by police and other state services hence harm their rights even further and risk turning accused women into double victims. Seeking justice for gender-based violence in all its forms Women in eastern DRC are disproportionately affected by injustices related to inheritance disputes and witchcraft accusations. For the former type of injustices, a proper legal framework exists, but its enforcement is at odds with everyday practice in many places, even when legal awareness about women’s inheritance rights exists. Witchcraft accusations are more difficult to address within the legal-rational frameworks of state justice, but the current solutions that are sought by authorities are doing even further harm. In sum, we argue that even if state institutions of justice are accessible, societal factors may still hinder the recognition of women’s rights and continue gender-based violence. Raising legal awareness and promoting a change of culture are both need to overcome clashes between human rights and cultural practices that are at a disadvantage of women. Although we have focused here on the DRC, examples of gender-based violence are to be found across the world. Let us not be silent about this and recognize that SGBV is not limited to SV! Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the Authors:

Carolien Jacobs
Carolien Jacobs is assistant professor at Leiden University, and conducts research in collaboration with the Social Science Centre for African Development-KUTAFITI.
Patrick Milabyo Kyamusugulwa
Patrick Milabyo Kyamusugulwa is Professor at the Institut Supérieur des Techniques Médicales de Bukavu, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). He is member of the DRC Humanitarian Observatory and member of the Social Science Centre for African Development-KUTAFITI.
Rachel Sifa Katembera
Rachel Sifa Katembera is a researcher of the Social Science Centre for African Development-KUTAFITI and a member of the DRC Humanitarian Observatory. This blog is based on empirical research conducted by the authors on access to justice in eastern DRC as part of the Just Future Alliance.   Are you looking for more content about Global Development and Social Justice? Subscribe to Bliss, the official blog of the International Institute of Social Studies, and stay updated about interesting topics our researchers are working on.

This blog is part of the  Humanitarian Governance: Accountability, Advocacy, Alternatives’ project. This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 884139