• DOI:10.35295/OSLS.IISL/0000-0000-0000-1067
• Corpus ID: 201316346

“Let’s help our own”: Humanitarian compassion as racial governance in settler colonialism

@inproceedings{Murdocca2020LetsHO,
  title={“Let’s help our own”: Humanitarian compassion as racial governance in settler colonialism},
  author={Carmela Murdocca},
  year={2020}
}

• Carmela Murdocca
• Published 1 December 2020
• Political Science

This article explores narratives of humanitarian compassion as rendered intelligible through the relational intersecting concerns about Syrian refugees and the suicide crisis in the Indigenous community of Attawapiskat, Ontario. Fuelled by a combination of anti-refugee rhetoric, racism and ongoing colonialism experienced by Indigenous people and communities, public and media discourse reveals how humanitarian governance is constitutive of the genealogy of settler colonialism. I suggest that examining the political genealogy of humanitarian governance in white settler colonialism assists in revealing the centrality of racial colonial violence in producing public and media discourse that is contingent upon the relational currencies of anti-refugee rhetoric, racism and humanitarian compassion. As expressions of a grammar of racial difference in liberal settler colonialism, these discourses ultimately reveal how racial colonial violence is constituted through the genealogy of humanitarianism. Este articulo examina las narrativas de compasion humanitaria entendidas a traves de las preocupaciones interseccionales de relacion sobre los refugiados sirios y la crisis de suicidios en la comunidad indigena de Attawapiskat, Ontario. Alimentado por una combinacion de retorica antirrefugiados, racismo y colonialismo persistente experimentado por los pueblos indigenas, el discurso publico y mediatico revela que la gobernanza humanitaria es constitutiva de la genealogia del colonialismo de asentamiento. Propongo que un examen de la genealogia politica de la gobernanza humanitaria en el colonialismo de asentamiento blanco ayuda a revelar la centralidad de la violencia colonial racial en la produccion de un discurso publico y mediatico que es contingente a la moneda de cambio relacional de la retorica racista y antirrefugiados y de la compasion humanitaria. Como expresiones de la gramatica de la diferencia racial en el colonialismo liberal del asentamiento, estos discursos finalmente revelan como la violencia colonial racial se constituye a traves de la genealogia del humanitarismo. Available from: https://doi.org/10.35295/osls.iisl/0000-0000-0000-1067