International Social Science Journal (Chinese Edition)

No.3, 2017

 

The problem of understanding modern humanitarianism and its sociological value

(Abstract)

 

Iain Wilkinson

 

This article is designed as a sociological contribution to the problem of understanding modern humanitarianism. This is not so much concerned with the status of humanitarianism as a political idealism but rather with the ways in which it is nurtured within and sustained by embodied forms of social life and modes of human sociality. While it is organised around a critical reading of Foucauldian critiques of humanitarianism, it aims to explain the potential for humanitarianism to instruct sociological understanding, especially where the latter concerns itself with the harms done to people in society and how we are socially and culturally disposed to care for others. While outlining a “sociology of humanitarianism” it also argues for the value of incorporating “humanitarian” culture and values into projects of social research.