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Ritual dynamics in humanitarian assistance
Author(s) -
Richards Paul
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
disasters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.744
H-Index - 70
eISSN - 1467-7717
pISSN - 0361-3666
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-7717.2010.01150.x
Subject(s) - humanitarian aid , livelihood , sierra leone , obligation , harm , humanitarian intervention , human rights , agency (philosophy) , sociology , political science , public relations , law , socioeconomics , social science , ecology , biology , agriculture
Those who intervene in crises must take care to ensure that assistance does not undermine the processes through which social cohesion is generated or restored. From a neo‐Durkheimian analytical perspective, feeding creates social loyalties as well as saves lives. Humanitarian agencies provide practical assistance to livelihoods, but they need also to create space for the ritual agency on which social cohesion depends. Attention to the rituals of food distribution helps humanitarian actors to address a potentially damaging dissociation between social and material facts. A post‐war food security project in Sierra Leone is used to illustrate the point. The lessons of this intervention have implications for the organisation of humanitarian assistance at all levels, both international and local. The paper argues that establishing space for ritualisation within humanitarian programmes is an obligation for those who wish to do no harm.