Dans cette contribution, j\u2019appelle \u00e0 centrer l\u2019\u00ab\u2009humanitarisme global\u2009\u00bb en Afrique. Je consid\u00e8re que l\u2019humanitarisme global comprend ce qu\u2019Alex de Waal appelait en 1997 \u00ab\u2009l\u2019international humanitaire\u2009\u00bb, c\u2019est-\u00e0-dire \u00ab\u2009l\u2019\u00e9lite transnationale des travailleurs humanitaires, fonctionnaires charg\u00e9s de distribuer l\u2019aide, universitaires, journalistes et autres, ainsi que les institutions pour lesquelles ils travaillent\u2009\u00bb (de Waal 1997\/2006, xv). Mais selon ma lecture, le terme d\u2019humanitarisme global comprend bien plus que la d\u00e9finition de Alex de Waal. Le terme fait r\u00e9f\u00e9rence non seulement \u00e0 un positionnement g\u00e9ographique, mais aussi conceptuel, \u00e9pist\u00e9mique\/\u00e9pist\u00e9mologique, et cosmologique-religieux. Il fait r\u00e9f\u00e9rence non seulement \u00e0 la myriade d\u2019organisations [organisations non gouvernementales internationales (ONGI), organisations non gouvernementales (ONG), organisations confessionnelles (OC), organisations intergouvernementales (OIG), \u00c9tats, grandes fondations donatrices] et de personnes qui s\u2019engagent dans l\u2019aide humanitaire et l\u2019assistance \u00e0 long terme, mais aussi aux structures de connaissance dont elles viennent et qui fournissent leur \u00e9thos op\u00e9rationnel et organisationnel et aux pratiques qu\u2019elles exportent dans le monde entier, y compris sur le continent africain. Ces structures de connaissance sont actuellement modernistes au sens o\u00f9 elles incluent une croyance et un engagement envers\u2009: a) la valeur du progr\u00e8s lin\u00e9aire, b) des indicateurs et des programmes con\u00e7us pour obtenir des r\u00e9sultats pr\u00e9d\u00e9finis, et c) des fa\u00e7ons techniques et scientifiques d\u2019acc\u00e9der aux probl\u00e8mes et de les r\u00e9soudre. Elles tendent \u00e9galement \u00e0 int\u00e9grer l\u2019acceptation (parfois \u00e0 contrec\u0153ur) de l\u2019autorit\u00e9 de l\u2019\u00c9tat-nation et des organisations internationales, et une croyance ainsi qu\u2019un engagement envers l\u2019observance universelle des droits de l\u2019homme (bien qu\u2019on puisse contester cela au niveau des d\u00e9tails). Enfin, elles sont \u00e0 la fois s\u00e9cularistes dans leur conscience primaire de soi, et pourtant majoritairement chr\u00e9tiennes dans leur \u00e9volution historique. Chacune de ces caract\u00e9ristiques fa\u00e7onne des aspects importants de l\u2019international humanitaire contemporain. <\/p>\n\n
Aligning with the purposes of Global Africa, particularly to \u201c(re)problematize global challenges and their governance from Africa,\u201d there are at least three critical reasons to reconfigure and re-center global humanitarianism in Africa. Instead of beginning with the problematic aspects of humanitarianism, I start with the most important rationale, which is cosmological-religious, ontological, and epistemological. Drawing on the rich multiplicity of African worldviews, ways of being, and ways of knowing; of relationality between giver and recipient, and the human and non-human, of cosmologies that reconfigure temporality and prioritize wholeness, is critical for reconfiguring the humanitarian enterprise to achieve its purported objectives. In this sense, African worldviews and spiritualities raise up modes of knowing and relating between humans and among them and non-humans that center ecological healing, which must be central to current and future humanitarian goals, and that correspondingly downgrade market-based developmentalism, which from this perspective has caused enormous harm. In other words, they completely reverse the current knowledge hierarchy present in developmentalist humanitarianism, providing new ways of understanding humanitarian buzzwords such as \u201cpartnership,\u201d \u201csustainability,\u201d and \u201cresilience.\u201d In doing so, they reconfigure conceptions of healing, health and well-being\u2014the core of humanitarian objectives\u2014that do not rely exclusively on externally imposed onto-epistemologies (Phiri and Nadar 2006; Ogunnaike 2020). They also connect with similar cosmologies around the globe, including Celtic, Arctic, Latin American, and South and East Asian cultures and religions. <\/p>\n\n
Recentering exposes the second and third rationales, each of which reveals the weaknesses of the current humanitarian system. As numerous African and African-diaspora scholars have documented, ignoring and downgrading African cosmologies, religious traditions and practices was accomplished through colonial and mission violence, which structured African economic and political\/legal relations and cultural and religious relations, respectively, to reflect the dominant interests and cosmology of the metropole (for powerful perspectives on this history, see Rodney, 1972\/2018; Fanon, 1961; Phiri and Nadar 2006; Mbembe 2001; Mamdani 2018, among numerous others). Yet most commentators across \u201cthe Great Aid Debate\u201d (Gulrajani 2011) note that humanitarian (including development) practices emanating from the metropolitan cosmology and onto-epistemology have not \u201csolved poverty,\u201d created sustainable livelihoods, or engendered durable peace within or between some African states. In fact, according to Tim Murithi (2009), the result has instead been \u201caid colonialism\u201d; i.e., a perpetuation of external control through aid programs[1]. Moreover, numerous former aid workers and scholars from the global north itself have lamented the lack of genuine partnerships in aid decision-making, beginning with the crafting of Requests for Proposals for funding (RfPs) and extending through aid implementation (Autesserre 2014; Barnett 2017; Fassin 2012; Fast 2017; Johansson 2018). <\/p>\n\n
Instead, what Tanya Schwarz and I call \u201cdonor proselytism\u201d (Lynch and Schwarz 2016) continues to reinscribe a progressivist, linear temporality, privileging the search for project success through questionable metrics instead of egalitarian and equitable support of humanitarian projects. Donor proselytism \u201centails pressures to acquiesce in particular kinds of ideological commitments and practices on the part of NGOs.\u201d However, instead of requiring people to participate in \u201cprayer meetings as a condition for receiving aid,\u201d donor proselytism promotes neoliberal goals and methods (Lynch and Schwarz 2016). Such methods are \u201cpreached,\u201d inculcated and, more importantly, required as \u201cbest practices\u201d for professionalism and accountability. Yet, in many of my own interviews, FBO and NGO representatives in Kenya, Cameroon, and South Africa discussed the negative implications of donor proselytism, including but not limited to spending inordinate amounts of time on filling out reams of paperwork to document the kinds of measures required by donors, whether or not such metrics could demonstrate that aid recipients were better off as a result of assistance (e.g. Lynch 2011a). <\/p>\n\n
There are, however, some counterexamples to this kind of micro-control. The most prevalent, perhaps, is the tendency of numerous groups \u201con-the-ground\u201d to reconfigure aid projects to ensure formal accordance with donor reporting while creating openings for other ways of carrying out projects (e.g. Reiling 2017). Another more recent potential trend, apparently arising from the intersection of COVID-19, the Movement for Black Lives, and research showing positive outcomes for direct cash transfers, concerns awarding very large grants to cross-cutting groups of practitioners (and sometimes academics) over a significant period of time in order to provide necessary resources for deep reimaginings of \u201cintractable\u201d issues (e.g. global racial oppression to inequitable global relations to climate change), and allow greater flexibility for adjusting programs mid-course. The recent RFP by the Kellogg Foundation is a case in point: it states, \u201cthe systems that perpetuate inequity and injustice have been generations in the making. Racial Equity 2030 is a chance to reimagine and to build a future where equity is realized\u201d (Racial Equity 2030). The sums provided are considerable (USD 20 million over 10 years for the final three-to-five grantees), but the idea remains relatively unique among foundations. The process is also contested, however, for perpetuating \u201cmeritocratic decision-making [that] derives from market approaches\u201d instead of a movement-building approach (see, for example, Bezahler 2020)[2]. Despite attempts to reconfigure projects according to emerging needs, or to provide large and small cash transfers, therefore, funders generally continue to perpetuate unequal power relationships between donors and recipients. <\/p>\n\n
En recentrant l\u2019humanisme en Afrique, y compris ses contributions cosmologiques, religieuses et onto-\u00e9pist\u00e9mologiques, on peut d\u00e9montrer comment et pourquoi ces relations sont improductives et doivent \u00eatre invers\u00e9es. Les ressources devraient \u00eatre fournies \u00e0 long terme, de mani\u00e8re totalement transparente, et donn\u00e9es sans condition en tant que faisant partie de m\u00e9canismes int\u00e9gr\u00e9s de r\u00e9parations. Avec une telle configuration, la gu\u00e9rison du monde mettrait en sc\u00e8ne des projets cosmologiquement innovants, dont le \u00ab\u2009succ\u00e8s\u2009\u00bb est difficile \u00e0 mesurer de mani\u00e8re conventionnelle. <\/p>\n\n
The third reason for recentering humanitarianism within Africa is intimately connected to the other two, and concerns the issue of representation of aid recipients and aid givers, combined with the operating yet implicit definition of humanity itself on the part of actors in the humanitarian aid complex. Historically, beginning at least with the work of Frantz Fanon, the degrading of African personhood by colonial and missionary actors has been exposed and criticized. Humanitarianism today, it might be reasonable to assume, should by definition rectify the damaging modes of thought and the practices connected to them that constituted colonial forms of \u201caid,\u201d which created and maintained new forms of subservience. But to date, humanitarian organizations continue to prioritize forms of knowledge production that continue to patronize recipients at best, perpetuating reconfigured colonial-era representations into the present (e.g. Fassin 2012; Ngugi 2012; Kemedjio 2009). <\/p>\n\n
Here again, African scholarship and systems of thought regarding the \u201chuman\u201d are leading the way in refocusing our knowledge of humanity, humane relationships, and therefore humanitarianism. The feminist work of the Circle of Concerned Women African Theologians (\u201cthe Circle\u201d; Mombo 2003), the contextual work of South African theologians, the recognition of concepts of Ubuntu; Ukama, and terenga (Murove 2009); philosophical work on the human (e.g. Grovogui, forthcoming), and the leadership of African healers through PROMETRA and IGOs (https:\/\/prometra.org\/<\/a>; WHO 2013), provide numerous sources, in addition to the memories, rituals and practices of communities across the continent (e.g. Ngugi 2012). Such systems of thought, once again, generally posit holistic relationships with non-human entities. It is increasingly evident that such relationships are crucial for both human and non-human survival (see, for example, the August 2021 Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). Representation, therefore, has both onto-epistemological and material repercussions. <\/p>\n\n Il est devenu aussi bien \u00e0 la mode que n\u00e9cessaire, dans le milieu universitaire occidental (d\u2019abord pour l\u2019anthropologie, mais aussi d\u00e9sormais pour les sciences politiques interpr\u00e9tatives), d\u2019\u00e9noncer sa position quand on \u00e9crit sur les r\u00e9lations Nord\/Sud ou en fait sur pratiquement tous les types de relations intersectionnelles \u2013 principalement en vue de percevoir la situation g\u00e9ographique et le caract\u00e8re situ\u00e9 des chercheurs, et ainsi rejeter l\u2019illusion d\u2019une science sociale objectiviste. J\u2019\u00e9cris ceci \u00e0 partir de ma positionnalit\u00e9 de femme blanche, occidentale, cisgenre, sp\u00e9cialiste des relations internationales, de l\u2019humanitarisme, de la religion et de l\u2019\u00e9thique, dont l\u2019objectif principal dans cet article concerne l\u2019intersection de ces questions au niveau des relations entre les soci\u00e9t\u00e9s et \u00c9tats africains et ceux du Nord global. On pourrait se demander pourquoi j\u2019\u00e9cris. Je n\u2019\u00e9cris pas pour \u00ab\u2009orienter\u2009\u00bb la discussion sur le recentrage de l\u2019humanitarisme en Afrique ni pour cr\u00e9er une grande th\u00e9orie de l\u2019humanitarisme africain. Ce n\u2019est pas de mon ressort. Je suis plut\u00f4t motiv\u00e9e par des r\u00e9lations de longue date avec des chercheurs et des \u00e9tudiants africains, et par les mouvements d\u00e9-coloniaux dans le milieu universitaire, pour faire valoir le devoir qu\u2019ont des chercheurs comme moi de mettre en valeur et de suivre la voie trac\u00e9e par nos pairs continentaux dans nos propres travaux, et lorsque cela est possible, de jouer notre partition avec eux pour la relier \u00e0 d\u2019autres humanismes et holismes (par exemple, celtique, arctique, peuples premiers) l\u00e0 o\u00f9 nos propres positionnalit\u00e9s ou recherches nous m\u00e8nent3 . Un tel travail peut contribuer \u00e0 recentrer l\u2019humanitarisme sur le continent, ainsi qu\u2019\u00e0 d\u00e9coloniser le milieu universitaire et \u00e0 modifier notre compr\u00e9hension du \u00ab\u2009global\u2009\u00bb, en montrant comment les ontologies et les \u00e9pist\u00e9mologies longtemps ignor\u00e9es par la \u00ab\u2009modernit\u00e9\u2009\u00bb occidentale sont en fait pr\u00e9sentes dans toutes les r\u00e9gions du monde. <\/p>\n\n Dans cet article, j\u2019emploie le terme \u00ab\u2009cosmologie\u2009\u00bb pour d\u00e9signer une compr\u00e9hension de la \u00ab\u2009place\u2009\u00bb multidimensionnelle des \u00eatres (humains et non humains) dans l\u2019univers. Cela est proche, mais pas enti\u00e8rement synonyme, du terme qui en astronomie d\u00e9signe l\u2019\u00e9tude de \u00ab\u2009l\u2019origine et de l\u2019\u00e9volution de l\u2019univers\u2009\u00bb. Selon moi, cependant, la cosmologie est li\u00e9e \u00e0 des id\u00e9es portant sur ces origines et cette \u00e9volution, mais aussi \u00e0 des \u00ab\u2009traditions\u2009\u00bb religieuses, c\u2019est-\u00e0-dire \u00e0 des id\u00e9es sur la relation appropri\u00e9e des \u00eatres dans l\u2019univers entre eux. Ainsi, les perspectives cosmologiques sont g\u00e9n\u00e9ralement constitutives des perspectives religieuses (en utilisant une conception expansive de la religion). Elles sont \u00e9galement intimement li\u00e9es aux questions d\u2019ontologie et d\u2019\u00e9pist\u00e9mologie : Quelles sortes d\u2019\u00ab\u2009\u00eatre\u2009\u00bb (et d\u2019\u00ab\u2009\u00eatres\u2009\u00bb) sont per\u00e7ues comme comptant dans le monde pour les relations que nous \u00e9tudions, et comment nous nous y prenons pour les \u00e9tudier\u2009; c\u2019est-\u00e0-dire quelles formes de connaissance param\u00e8trent nos processus de collecte de savoirs et d\u2019interpr\u00e9tation des exemples recueillis dans le monde ? Certaines cosmologies et religions, en particulier, peuvent inclure des compr\u00e9hensions des \u00eatres et des fa\u00e7ons de les conna\u00eetre qui se meuvent entre les mondes immanent et transcendant\u2009; qui donnent la priorit\u00e9 \u00e0 l\u2019un ou l\u2019autre, ou qui posent des relations hi\u00e9rarchiques ou non hi\u00e9rarchiques entre les humains, et entre eux et les non-humains (animaux, plan\u00e8tes, feu, eau, air, esprits). Les cosmologies et les traditions religieuses peuvent \u00e9galement \u00eatre hybrides ou syncr\u00e9tiques. Par cons\u00e9quent, ce qui est souvent pr\u00e9sent\u00e9 comme une forte distinction entre les onto-\u00e9pist\u00e9mologies \u00ab\u2009modernes\u2009\u00bb et les onto-\u00e9pist\u00e9mologies \u00ab\u2009indig\u00e8nes\u2009\u00bb peut au contraire \u00eatre consid\u00e9r\u00e9 comme un \u00e9ventail \u00e0 multiples facettes de possibilit\u00e9s syncr\u00e9tiques. <\/p>\n\n We are now in an historical moment in which Global South thinkers are reconfiguring onto-epistemologies, including pushing forward theology allegedly \u201cfrom the margins\u201d (see De La Torre and Floyd-Thomas 2011; although perhaps we should actually say this is from a reconfigured core, given my previous assertion) and forcing openings to cosmological perspectives that provide an alternative to what has become known as (western) modernity. While such thinking never stopped (e.g. Oduyoye 2001; Ela 2005; Martey 2009), it is increasing in prominence (see, for example, Bongmba 2020; Opongo and Bere 2021; the dialogue between the Religion and Theology Programme at the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal (UKZN) and African Initiated Churches \u2013 AICs). Given the self-questioning of many white people in the west, prompted by the global Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) and the racism laid bare by current and former authoritarian governments in the U.S., Hungary, the UK, Poland, and Brazil, among others, more western scholars are using this moment to investigate their own disciplinary histories and biases. This is, therefore, a potent moment of challenge for modernity in its progressivist guise. There is a profound questioning of numerous facets of western modernity, emanating from its very bowels. In the United States, for example, the triumphalist narrative of conventional American history as liberative and rights-giving has been shaken to the core, coalescing around The 1619 Project (Hannah-Jones 2019), published in August 2019 by The New York Times. This project reconfigured United States history to begin not with the American Revolution of 1776, but instead with the arrival in 1619 of the first enslaved people on the shores of the state of Virginia. Since 2019, almost every school district in the country has been moved to act; either to institute curricular changes to incorporate (rather than ignore) the progression and multi-layered institutionalization of systemic racism from the era of colonization to the present; or to engage in vociferous debate about whether and how to teach slavery, the genocide of indigenous peoples, and ongoing structures of systemic racism. Some state legislatures, in significant denial and backlash, have forbidden the teaching of the 1619 Project, folding it into their misrepresentation of \u201ccritical race theory\u201d as a created phantasm of \u201creverse racism\u201d (Schwartz 2021; Baker 2021). <\/p>\n\n La reconnaissance du racisme syst\u00e9mique a \u00e9galement fait mouche dans certaines \u00c9glises chr\u00e9tiennes traditionnelles, surtout en 2020. Notamment, les organisations chr\u00e9tiennes traditionnelles aux \u00c9tats-Unis, qui reconnaissent leur r\u00f4le dans la violence du colonialisme \u2013 et certaines tentent m\u00eame d\u2019imaginer de possibles r\u00e9parations. Des groupes d\u2019\u00e9tude sur Zoom et des webinaires sur la \u00ab\u2009Doctrine de la d\u00e9couverte\u2009\u00bb ont fleuri. Cette doctrine du XVe si\u00e8cle, propos\u00e9e par le pape Alexandre VI, s\u2019appuyait sur le concept de \u00ab\u2009terra nullius\u2009\u00bb. Conjugu\u00e9 \u00e0 des hi\u00e9rarchies de classification des personnes d\u00e9termin\u00e9es par la race et la religion, il donnait aux colonisateurs europ\u00e9ens le \u00ab\u2009droit\u2009\u00bb de conqu\u00e9rir et coloniser des territoires non chr\u00e9tiens, tout en \u00e9radiquant, r\u00e9duisant en esclavage ou convertissant de force les populations indig\u00e8nes du monde entier. La doctrine \u00e9tait un fondement essentiel de l\u00e9gitimation de la traite transatlantique des esclaves dans le \u00ab\u2009droit international\u2009\u00bb naissant. Elle a d\u2019ailleurs \u00e9t\u00e9 int\u00e9gr\u00e9e au droit am\u00e9ricain par la d\u00e9cision de la Cour supr\u00eame des \u00c9tats-Unis dans l\u2019affaire Johnson contre M\u2019Intosh en 1823, devenant ainsi un fondement essentiel de l\u2019expansion am\u00e9ricaine sur le continent. Elle a ainsi institutionnalis\u00e9 la supr\u00e9matie blanche antinoire et anti-indig\u00e8ne, et justifi\u00e9 la violence politique et religieuse contre les \u00ab\u2009autres\u2009\u00bb, les Non-Europ\u00e9ens, chr\u00e9tiens ou non. <\/p>\n\n Activism against the doctrine coalesced in the early 2010s, when Indigenous groups in the United Nations\u2019 Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues called on the UN to repudiate the doctrine and \u201cinvestigate historical land claims\u201d (ECOSOC 2012); and the U.S. Episcopal Church\u2019s General Convention passed a resolution renouncing the doctrine in 2009 (Indian Country Today called it \u201ca first-of-its-kind action in the Christian world,\u201d Toensing 2009). The Catholic Church has not rejected the doctrine, asserting in the 2012 Indigenous Issues Forum that, according to the 1537 Papal bull and other decrees in 1741, \u201cindigenous peoples and others that were to be discovered by Christians were not to be deprived of their liberty. They could enjoy liberty and possession of their property.\u201d Lucas Swanepoel, the Holy See\u2019s representative, also noted that Vatican II condemned \u201cthe forced conversion of non-Christians,\u201d and that the Catholic Church \u201chad always sought dialogue and reconciliation\u201d with indigenous peoples globally (ECOSOC 2012). Not all Catholic sources have been so accommodating, however. The National Catholic Reporter (a major U.S.-based Catholic media source), for example, ran a five-part series in 2015 that was highly critical of the doctrine and its implications for Indigenous peoples in the Americas (Rotondaro 2015). <\/p>\n\n Depuis que les meurtres de George Floyd, Breonna Taylor et de nombreuses autres personnes en 2020 ont galvanis\u00e9 le Movement of Black Lives (M4BL) dans le monde, la doctrine et la complicit\u00e9 de longue date des \u00c9glises en mati\u00e8re de racisme aux \u00c9tats-Unis sont devenues la base d\u2019un auto-questionnement communautaire, dans certaines \u00e9glises am\u00e9ricaines traditionnelles, au niveau paroissial4 .<\/p>\n\n At the same time, \u201csecular\u201d development discourse is also changing, at least theoretically. \u201cDecolonizing\u201d development\u201d has become the most recent discursive trend. The influential UK-based Development Studies Association (DSA) began a study group in September 2020 focused on \u201cdecolonising development.\u201d According to the DSA, \u201cWhen 33% of UK, 32% of Japanese, 30% of French 27% of Dutch respondents respectively report that they think the countries they formerly colonised are \u2018better off\u2019 for being colonised\u201d (YouGov Poll 2020), there is a timely need for critical discussions on the ways in which history influences contemporary conceptions of power and nation (https:\/\/www.devstud.org.uk\/studygroup\/decolonising-development\/<\/a>). <\/p>\n\n Still, at present there is a large gap between these processes of reckoning and their translation to a) cosmological and onto-epistemological openness, and b) conceptualization and implementation of actual humanitarian programs. Self-examination by churches, NGOs and FBOs, academics, and donors needs to include open exploration of alternative cosmological-religious ways of accessing and being in the world. A look at several prominent NGO and FBO sites (including Catholic Relief Services \u2013 CRS, Episcopal Relief & Development \u2013 ERD, Lutheran World Relief \u2013 LWR, Mennonite Central Committee \u2013 MCC, American Friends Service Committee \u2013 AFSC, Medecins sans fronti\u00e8res \u2013 MSF, and Oxfam), demonstrates that only the MCC and the AFSC have begun to examine the meaning of colonial and mission histories for their work. The MCC\u2019s staff is undergoing a year-long exploration of The Color of Compromise: The Truth About the American Church\u2019s Complicity in Racism, by Jemar Tisby (2019); and the site features a webinar from the Anabaptist movement, \u201cDismantling the Doctrine of Discovery\u201d (https:\/\/dofdmenno.org\/<\/a>), although the rest of the site features the conventional relief and development appeals and stories. The AFSC does not include an explicitly historical self-examination on its site, but its central focus is on economic and social justice (which is fairly unique among humanitarian groups), and includes support of Black Lives Matter (BLM) and a call to dismantle systems of white supremacy (https:\/\/www.afsc.org\/newsroom\/we-wont-stop-until-we-dismantle-whole-racistsystem<\/a>). <\/p>\n\n Le fait de reconna\u00eetre le racisme du pass\u00e9 colonial et missionnaire ainsi que de l\u2019humanitaire actuel tend \u00e0 ouvrir un questionnement sur les onto-\u00e9pist\u00e9mologies coloniales et missionnaires qui ont soutenu de telles constructions. L\u2019\u00e9tape suivante consiste \u00e0 se demander quelles \u00ab\u2009alternatives\u2009\u00bb pourraient exister, ce qui peut conduire \u00e0 une ouverture plus cosmologique\/religieuse. Le recentrage aussi bien figuratif que litt\u00e9ral est une partie importante de ce processus. Mais il est \u00e9galement important de comprendre la profondeur et l\u2019ampleur de l\u2019\u00e9chec du syst\u00e8me humanitaire actuel. <\/p>\n\n The relative lack of historical self-interrogation by NGOs and FBOs is interesting because, as numerous scholars\/former aid workers themselves have noted, \u201creligious\u201d and \u201csecular\u201d humanitarian projects, including their developmentalist components, frequently fail (Anyidoho 2012; Johansson 2018; Fast 2017; Autessere 2014; Ager and Ager 2015; Lynch 2015, 2016; Fassin 2012). Scholars and activists from the west\/Global North attribute these failures to several causes, including the industry norm of elevating \u201ctechnical\u201d over \u201clocal\u201d knowledge (Autesserre 2014), the problem of not listening (Johansson), the unwillingness to share decision-making and authority (Fast), and the secularist biases of the humanitarian industry (Ager and Ager 2015), which preclude understanding the importance of spirituality and other non-physical needs of aid recipients[5]. These authors elucidate significant elements of the problem. In addition, however, the western aid complex of activists and scholars needs to acknowledge the ontological, epistemological and cosmological failings of a desire to aid others that is divorced from historical, racist, and intersectional reckonings, and that still remains far too closed to relational and holistic ontologies that diminish or reject progressivist temporalities. These progressivist temporalities, in turn, are constitutive of neoliberal, market-based \u201cdonor proselytism,\u201d that prioritizes measures of efficiency and success. At the same time, the humanitarian desire of westerners \u2013 i.e., to aid others who are suffering or otherwise in need \u201celsewhere\u201d (e.g. Malkki 2015) \u2013 reinforces hierarchies between those who are givers versus those who are receivers, the worlds of immanence versus transcendence, and \u201cworld religions\u201d (in the Weberian sense) versus \u201cindigenous\u201d or \u201ctraditional\u201d ones. <\/p>\n\n Demonstrations of such binaries and temporalities remain typical of the NGO\/FBO websites noted above (with the exception of the AFSC). This is the case even as community\/grass-roots\/\u201clocal\u201d partnerships have become one of the most significant claims of NGOs and FBOs \u2013 such attempted partnerships are also regularly criticized for falling well short of the mark (Johansson 2018). NGO and FBO sites are always forward-looking in ways that slide over the specifics of how past injustices were created, promise community-based programs, and provide metrics of success. Oxfam\u2019s \u201cWhat We Believe\u201d page, for example, explains: \u201cThe way we see it, poverty is solvable\u2014A problem rooted in injustice. Eliminate injustice and you can eliminate poverty. We\u2019re not saying it will be quick or easy, but it can be done\u201d (https:\/\/www.oxfamamerica.org\/about\/what-we-believe\/<\/a>). Injustice is named, but not given any specific history in this rendering. CRS and ERD link their work to \u201clasting change\u201d and \u201cauthentic, lasting results,\u201d respectively. CRS states, \u201cWe put our faith into action to help the world\u2019s poorest create lasting change,\u201d prominently displaying the words \u201cfaith.action.results\u201d (https:\/\/www.crs.org\/about\/mission-statement<\/a>); while ERD\u2019s work focuses on \u201cthree life-changing priorities [children, women, climate] to create authentic, lasting results\u201d (https:\/\/www.episcopalrelief.org\/<\/a>). Such statements assuring donors of results are typical. LWF goes further, however, in promising \u201cto help people build self-sufficiency and create new community-owned approaches to problem-solving that will last long after our projects end\u201d (https:\/\/lwr.org\/about-lwr<\/a>). Most groups provide metrics of specific numbers of people served at various places on their websites, but MSF\u2019s homepage features running total numbers of outpatient consultations, malaria cases treated, patients admitted, and countries in which it operates (88) (https:\/\/www.msf.org\/<\/a>). While MSF (as well as the other organizations) do provide critical care, it is also evident that consultations and patients admitted do not tell us anything about the health of the people served post-admittance. <\/p>\n\n Ces exemples sugg\u00e8rent que les bases n\u00e9olib\u00e9rales et progressivistes du monde de l\u2019aide humanitaire sont bien ancr\u00e9es et aussi extr\u00eamement multiformes. Cela signifie que, si \u00e0 bien des \u00e9gards, elles sont profond\u00e9ment contest\u00e9es par les participants et les observateurs africains, elles sont aussi fr\u00e9quemment accept\u00e9es et observ\u00e9es par des groupes sur le continent. La multiplicit\u00e9 des strates et ramifications se traduit par la coexistence d\u2019un large \u00e9ventail d\u2019approches de la mani\u00e8re de faire de l\u2019humanitaire en Afrique. Il se trouve que les universitaires africains et occidentaux, les organisations d\u2019aide bas\u00e9es en Afrique et en Occident, ainsi que les travailleurs humanitaires africains et occidentaux expriment souvent des sentiments contradictoires vis-\u00e0-vis des crit\u00e8res de performance, des expressions \u00e0 la mode (\u00ab\u2009renforcement des capacit\u00e9s\u2009\u00bb, \u00ab\u2009durabilit\u00e9\u2009\u00bb, \u00ab\u2009partenariat\u2009\u00bb) et du ph\u00e9nom\u00e8ne de \u00ab\u2009d\u00e9pendance\u2009\u00bb. <\/p>\n\n Par cons\u00e9quent, on en vient \u00e0 se demander quels changements se produiront si l\u2019humanitarisme mondial continue d\u2019\u00eatre centr\u00e9 en Occident \u2013 comme c\u2019est le cas depuis des g\u00e9n\u00e9rations \u2013 plut\u00f4t qu\u2019en Afrique. Il existe certainement des similitudes de sensibilit\u00e9s humanitaires entre continents. Depuis deux ans, l\u2019\u00e9coute d\u2019\u00e9tudiants, tant kenyans, sudafricains et s\u00e9n\u00e9galais que californiens, lors de mes s\u00e9ances de formation en ligne \u00ab\u2009Critical Investigations into Humanitarianism in Africa\u2009\u00bb, le travail de co\u00e9dition du CIHA Blog (www.cihablog.org<\/a>), ainsi que mes entretiens avec des travailleurs humanitaires \u00e0 travers le continent, pour mes propres recherches, confirment ce large \u00e9ventail de perspectives. Le recentrage de l\u2019humanitarisme en Afrique devrait n\u00e9cessairement prendre en compte ces engagements multiformes envers certains aspects de l\u2019aide humanitaire contemporaine, y compris ses hypoth\u00e8ses n\u00e9olib\u00e9rales et bas\u00e9es sur des indicateurs \u2013 actuellement dominantes\u2009; reprendre les remises en question de ces hypoth\u00e8ses et des pratiques impos\u00e9es \u00e0 ceux qui les mettent en \u0153uvre ainsi qu\u2019\u00e0 ceux qui re\u00e7oivent l\u2019aide\u2009; et se fonder sur la red\u00e9finition des cosmologies religieuses et des onto-\u00e9pist\u00e9mologies auxquelles les populations du continent ont acc\u00e8s pour comprendre les relations entre les \u00eatres sur la plan\u00e8te. En outre, le concept premier qui fa\u00e7onne la distribution des fonds humanitaires et pratiques connexes devrait \u00e9merger d\u2019une relation donneur-r\u00e9cepteur radicalement invers\u00e9e. <\/p>\n\n More specifically, such a reversal in perspective leads to the third rationale for centering humanitarianism in Africa, and accords with a powerful perceptual construct articulated by Ngugi wa Thiong\u2019o. In his 2009 book Something Torn and New, as well as his comments at a 2009 conference at the University of California, Irvine, Ngugi called for reversing our understanding of who is the giver and who is the recipient in the aid relationship between the west and Africa. \u201cIn my view, Africa is always giving, literally\u201d (UCI 2009). \u201c[T]he continent\u2019s relationship to the world has thus far been that of a donor to the West. Africa has given her human beings, her resources, and even her spiritual products through Africans writing in European languages. We should strive to do it the other way around\u201d (Something Torn and New, p. 128). Ngugi\u2019s call is primarily for Africans to reclaim memory (especially through the use and appreciation of African languages); i.e., to move away from \u201cthe European post-renaissance memory and seize back the right and the initiative to name the world by reconnecting to our memory\u201d (Something Torn and New, p. 130). Re-membering, in this sense, is both a physical and a metaphysical act. It is knowing that colonizers took great care to dis-member resisters and destroy sacred sites, and that missionaries actively suppressed religious rites and languages, physically punishing students who used their languages in missionary schools (Ngugi 2012). <\/p>\n\n Cette troisi\u00e8me raison de recentrer l’humanitarisme mondial en Afrique concerne donc la n\u00e9cessit\u00e9 d’inverser la d\u00e9shumanisation s\u00e9culaire des peuples et des personnes africaines par le biais de pratiques de discours et de repr\u00e9sentation depuis \u00ab\u00a0l’\u00e2ge de l’exploration\u00a0\u00bb sur le continent jusqu’\u00e0 aujourd’hui. Cette d\u00e9shumanisation, comme nous le savons maintenant, a \u00e9t\u00e9 accomplie par la cr\u00e9ation de cat\u00e9gories raciales hi\u00e9rarchiques qui pla\u00e7aient les Africains au bas de l’\u00e9chelle, et par la croyance en des hi\u00e9rarchies religieuses qui pla\u00e7aient les religions \u00ab\u00a0modernes\u00a0\u00bb ou \u00ab\u00a0mondiales\u00a0\u00bb au-dessus des religions \u00ab\u00a0primitives\u00a0\u00bb (c’est-\u00e0-dire indig\u00e8nes) (comme dans Weber, [1920]1993). Ngugi, dans d’autres travaux, a parl\u00e9 de la n\u00e9cessit\u00e9 de d\u00e9terrer et d’\u00e9liminer les fa\u00e7ons dont cette d\u00e9shumanisation a \u00e9t\u00e9 int\u00e9rioris\u00e9e par les peuples africains comme de la n\u00e9cessit\u00e9 de \u00ab\u00a0d\u00e9coloniser l’esprit\u00a0\u00bb (Ngugi, 1986). Dans l’ensemble, la d\u00e9shumanisation des peuples africains combin\u00e9e \u00e0 la prise de conscience que l’Afrique et les Africains sont des donneurs et les Occidentaux des receveurs exige que la perception\/repr\u00e9sentation actuelle et dominante de la relation change radicalement et se recentre sur le continent lui-m\u00eame. Eileen Wakesho and Omaymi Gutbi (2018) point out that Africa\u2019s giving to the west continues through illegal extraction. In 2015, the UN issued a joint report with the African Union (AU), which calculated \u201cthat USD 60 billion leaves Africa illegally each year\u201d, did not, however, include ongoing \u201clegal\u201d expropriation and extraction in its calculations[6]. The intersection of illegal and legal forms of extraction\/depletion of the continent\u2019s resources depends on greed (the antithesis of the humanitarian impulse) in the service of racist representations of the human. The humanitarian response provides care instead of greed, but also a softer version of similar racialized representations to construct African peoples as passive victims in need of external knowledge and expertise (Kemedjio 2017). <\/p>\n\nOuvertures et mandats cosmologiques et onto-\u00e9pist\u00e9mologiques<\/h2>\n\n
Objectifs humanitaires d\u00e9faillants et vacillants<\/h2>\n\n
(Mauvaise) repr\u00e9sentation et renversement de perspective<\/h2>\n\n