What is a humanitarian crisis, really? | Rethinking Humanitarianism

What is a humanitarian crisis, as it’s commonly understood? What’s the historical weight of that term? What happens if we change our common understanding of it?

It may seem like a game of semantics, but the answers to those questions are more consequential than we may realise, because they reveal something deeper about who we believe will perpetually be an underclass, what’s deserving of an urgent reaction, and who we see as capable of providing humanitarian assistance.

These are questions Patrick Gathara has been contending with as The New Humanitarian’s first Senior Editor for Inclusive Storytelling. On the season 4 premiere of Rethinking Humanitarianism, co-hosts Heba Aly and Melissa Fundira speak to Gathara about the colonial weight of the term ‘humanitarian crisis’; why events in the Global North are rarely described as such; and how the definition of a crisis can mask – or perpetuate – the deeper systemic injustices that lead to crises in the first place.

Got a question or feedback? Email podcast@thenewhumanitarian.org or have your say on Twitter using the hashtag #RethinkingHumanitarianism.

Guest: Patrick Gathara, The New Humanitarian’s Senior Editor for Inclusive Storytelling