The Humanitarian Networks and Partnerships Weeks which finished last week had an objective to gather together and look at how to reimagine the humanitarian system. The conference looked at the future of the humanitarian sector and explored models that can inspire this moment of radical transformation. Inspired by the normative agency of everyday interactions with politics and power, this piece presents a space for transforming what is normal into something new.

The anguish and turbulence confronting the aid and development world have spurred a valuable and much-needed outpouring of reflection amongst experts in the sectors. The challenges presented range across the platforms of policy and practice – from the essential questions of funding and access to more philosophical debates around the humanitarian principles themselves. One common theme across the discussions returns to the question of legitimacy. This directs discussion towards recognising an evolving identity that requires new ways of thinking and different patterns of engagement.

Almost all debates acknowledge the need for a new approach that moves beyond the current paradigms of policy and practice but too often return to variations of the existing mechanisms which are seen to be at the heart of the current dysfunction. A few have pointed towards the need for a much deeper cultural shift in the way humanitarian actors engage with the complexities of the social and political environment. One of the difficulties is that a new approach is seen to require a total revolution in the way policies are practiced and foresee that such disruption endangers the principles that guide humanitarian action: to use a much-worn phrase, that radical changes risk ‘throwing the baby out with the bathwater’.

A legitimate place for voluntary participation

I have argued elsewhere that people have always recognised the location of a place for participation with politics and power that is able to guide a functional approach to the needs of a community in distress. Anthropologists have long recognised this as a place of transformation, a ‘liminal space’ where society is able to navigate from one pattern of social practices to another, whilst retaining the cultural essences (principles) of their community. This can be translated into recognising and legitimating a functional ‘middle-ground’ for principled humanitarian action, where the community is enabled to participate with politics and power to define the terms of its engagement. It is a voluntary space for negotiation and transaction, where one can choose to opt in or opt out, depending on the ‘red lines’ defined by the approaches of each participant.

Most of the current debate directs discussion towards the principles of humanity, neutrality and impartiality, embraced by the United Nations through General Assembly Resolutions 46/182 (annex 1). My research has examined two of the seven Fundamental Principles of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement — Voluntary Service and Universality — that have for too long been orphaned from humanitarian debates. Whilst seen to be particular to the identity and membership of the Movement, I have argued that they have relevance across the broader humanitarian ‘system’ that is more representative of lived experiences and so more easily legitimated than many of the principles and practices that were defined and legitimated in the 19^th century, seen by many in the Global South as an outdated product of the Global North.

Auxiliary and Anarchist

An analysis of debates over the definition of the Fundamental Principles in the ICRC archives indicates that the humanitarian identity has never been static. The identity is temporal and adaptable according to context and culture but with one universal and non-negotiable red line: the right to a life with dignity and respect. Confining the debates on legitimacy and practice solely to issues of IHL loses sight of the fact that humanitarian action is a profoundly social practice as well as being inextricably attached to the political realities of the context it faces at any particular time. It is only by viewing its identity through a social and political lens that the humanitarian sector can understand people’s conditions and needs.

Humanitarian space is a social space and humanitarian society, like any other, needs solidarity, unity and cooperation to succeed. Recognising that context matters allows the humanitarian identity to be in solidarity with the most vulnerable, even if this risks a contradiction to more static definitions of principles for humanitarian action. As the jurist and former Vice-President of the ICRC, Jean Pictet, stated in his study of the Red Cross principles: a principle is simply a rule, based upon judgement and experience, which is adopted by a community to guide its conduct.

Viewed in this normative approach, Solidarity is not in contest with neutrality and can function alongside the other core values, all guided by the overriding principle of Humanity. The ‘radical’ approach presented here is to recognise this cultural shift away from the dominant and centralised platforms of the international humanitarian ‘system’ and instead work with a messier, more relevant and more representational humanitarian paradigm that accepts the imbalances and hierarchies of politics and power, and, as communities have always done, work alongside them in both cooperation and in contestation: an auxiliary when it works and an anarchist when it does not.

Not so radical after all

Critics of the current system see that humanitarians wield the principles as tools of transactional self-interest, criticisms aimed at the current dominant pattern from the Global North. However, self-interest is an unavoidable and perfectly reasonable position in any negotiation, whether humanitarian or commercial, local or international. A solution to the equation lies in engaging a discourse that is less arrogant and more inclusive: a participation that recognises the inequalities and hierarchies but works with them to reach toward an understanding of how interdependence and mutual self-interest may lead to more effective collaboration.

What sounds radical is not so radical after all. Connecting the tensions that appeared unbridgeable will redirect the revolution towards a recognised space for participation. This requires working with the community and acknowledging the realities of established and unestablished power, while rediscovering the normative added value of the UN and international partners in the search for relevance. Returning to the metaphor of the baby and the bathwater, and borrowing from a recent episode of the Trumanitarian, this does not mean discarding the parents in place of the baby in the urge for radical reform but participating with them in the space for transformation.