The intimate politics of humanitarian labour

Power relations and aid professionals’ experiences in Jordan’s humanitarian aid sector

Abstract

Jordan is a large humanitarian aid hub that has played a significant role in addressing the needs of displaced people from the region. This thesis provides an in-depth exploration of power relations in the humanitarian aid sector in Jordan and examines the experiences of aid professionals working in this sector. By focusing on humanitarian labour in relation to power relations, it discusses the tensions and difficulties that aid professionals face in their work and the way they shape their own role within the sector. The research employs a qualitative approach and is based on one year of research in Amman, Jordan, and on in-depth interviews with thirty-nine aid professionals, both national and international. It analyses the experiences of these aid professionals to answer the following research question: ‘How are power relations in humanitarian aid in Jordan experienced by aid professionals and how do they navigate these dynamics?’. By building upon decolonial theories and broad integrated understandings of labour, this thesis shows how structures of ongoing coloniality and neoliberal influences shape humanitarian labour and the experiences of aid workers in Jordan. Furthermore, it argues that humanitarian labour is deeply personal while influenced by historically constructed power relations, such as ongoing coloniality and neoliberalism. This interplay and the power relations give rise to tensions and challenges within aid work that aid workers must manoeuvre. Humanitarian labour is a dynamic interplay between historically formed colonial power relations, neoliberal dynamics, and the agency of aid workers. The thesis highlights aspects of humanitarian work that often remain more hidden but are vital to the functioning of the humanitarian aid system, such as moral labour and everyday professional resistance. It also addresses other aspects that often go unseen such as the (under) valuation of aid work and aid workers’ precarity. Moreover, by focusing on the less visible aspects of humanitarian labour such as values, moralities, and emotions, this thesis demonstrates how the power relations and the configuration of humanitarian labour in Jordan engenders precarious subjectivities, hidden moral labour, and everyday forms of professional resistance. These power relations underlying humanitarian aid work and the tensions arising from it make aid professionals critique the aid system and express a desire for change. Yet, a central finding of this research is the importance of the personal and intimate in humanitarian work. It underscores how these personal and intimate dimensions, coupled with hidden forms of labour, sustain and reproduce the humanitarian system. This research focuses predominantly on national aid professionals, thereby contributing to the small but growing body of literature that looks at the experiences, roles, agency, and labour of national aid professionals who make up the vast majority of those performing aid work in the Global South. Furthermore, the thesis builds upon insights from humanitarian studies and social work studies to understand the experiences of aid professionals. By exploring the complexities of aid work in Jordan, this research illustrates how everyday realities and practices blur the lines between humanitarian aid and (international) social work, and how the professions are entangled. The thesis therefore argues for more exchange, integration, and collaboration between the fields of humanitarian aid and (international) social work. Finally, the implications of this research’s findings hold relevance for humanitarian aid, (international) social work, and social policy, in the ‘humble hope’ of contributing to a form of humanitarian aid and social provision that is more sustainable, equal and just, and that allows for a ‘pluriversality’ of aid and social service provision.