Beyond Compassion: Gender and Humanitarian Action

This is a call to engage with the histories of emotions and the senses, as well as with the new history of experiences, in order to write a gendered history of humanitarian action. This Element challenges essentialist interpretations according to which women have undertaken humanitarian action because of their allegedly compassionate nature. Instead, it shows how humanitarianism has allowed women to participate in international politics by claiming their rights as citizens, struggling again...