ABSTRACT
Chapter 3 provides the foundations of an alternative way to view the complex world of humanitarian protection. It is a world reflected in the work of many development scholars, who see international development as a complex set of local, national and cross-cultural social interactions. This chapter discusses further the works of these development ethnographers, which will form the foundations to move beyond the official narratives of humanitarian protection, examine the agency of humanitarian actors and build an understanding of the role they have in the broader humanitarian network. Drawing from Mosse’s (2005) seminal ethnography of development policy and practice and related critical theorists (de Certeau, 1984; Scott, 1990), I build a three-tiered conceptualisation of humanitarian protection. First, humanitarian protection is a category of practice; it is shaped through the interaction among a complex group of actors. Secondly, the humanitarian frameworks and principles help build a level of consensus and establish relationships to ultimately provide what we know as humanitarian protection to at-risk groups. In other words, they are a unifying narrative. Finally, humanitarians, positioned at the junctures between these different actors, play a central role in sustaining this unifying narrative, modifying its meaning according to the context.
