CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2018
| Author | László, Luca Janka |
|---|---|
| Title | Power Relations, Humanitarianism, Agency: Case Study Of The Let's Help The Refugees Together Group |
| Summary | The focus of my thesis is a Hungarian grassroot organization called Let’s help the Refugees Together, that helped the newcomers arriving to Hungary from the summer of 2015. The volunteers had to step in, because the state not only refused to provide services, but even contributed to the escalation of the crisis, and focused only on its xenophobic propaganda, while the big charity organizations were unprepared. The untrained, and mostly unexperienced volunteers worked in an informal setting, with no effective supervision. Through a focus group discussion with volunteers of the Let’s Help The Refugees group I mapped the most important problems they faced, and examined their legitimization for their decisions. While praising the hard work of the volunteers, I draw attention to the dangers of their unsupervised work. In an unequal power situation, the helpers might ignore the agency of the beneficiaries. The literature on humanitarianism, agency and power relations between helpers and beneficiaries claims that humanitarian workers are not always aware of inequality caused by dependence, and they often ignore the will or decisions made by aid recipients, justifying it with a crisis situation, emergency, or simply not seeing them as human beings with agency only as victims. Contrary to this, the volunteers working in the informal groups were much more aware of their power and the responsibility they took. |
| Supervisor | Pap, András László |
| Department | Nationalism Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2018/laszlo_luca.pdf |
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