An Interdisciplinary Approach to the Issues, Challenges and Evolutions Related to the Practices of Humanitarian Actors
This issue brings together contributions from researchers from three disciplines : anthropology, political science and information and communication science. They extend reflections on the anthropology of humanitarian aid, the rhetorical registers used, the proliferation of actors and the political and diplomatic issues at stake. Rather than a paradigm shift, all the contributions offer an updated approach to the issues, challenges and changes in the practices of humanitarian actors. The perspective developed starts from a diachronic approach to better situate the influence of current socio-economic and political contexts on the humanitarian phenomenon. Through a multidisciplinary and complementary vision which takes the form of a wide variety of approaches, materials and methodologies, the four analyses focus specifically on the crises and issues linked to the discourses, dynamics of actors and fields of humanitarian aid. They examine four main dimensions of the humanitarian aid phenomenon : info-communicational dynamics, the relationship between humanitarianism and politics, encounters with beneficiaries and issues related to the coordination of policies and actions in the field.