Spaces of Aid : How Cars, Compounds and Hotels Shape Humanitarianism

"Aid workers commonly bemoan that the experience of working in the field sits uneasily with the goals they've signed up to : visiting project sites in air-conditioned Land Cruisers while the intended beneficiaries walk barefoot through the heat, or checking emails from within gated compounds while surrounding communities have no running water. Spaces of Aid provides the first book-length analysis of what has colloquially been referred to as Aid Land. It explores in depth two high-profile case studies, the Aceh tsunami and Hurricane Katrina, in order to uncover a fascinating history of the objects and spaces that have become an endemic yet unexamined part of the delivery of humanitarian assistance." -- Publisher's web site Front Cover 1 About the Author 2 Title 4 Copyright 5 Contents 6 Figures 7 Note to the Reader 8 Foreword 9 Acknowledgements 11 Preface 13 Abbreviations 17 Introduction 20 The Argument 23 Methodology 32 The Structure 34 1: Stories from the Field, Stories of ‘The Field’: How Aid Workers Experience the Space of the Field Mission 39 Aid Work as Rite of Passage 40 Liminal Spaces, Affective Constraints 58 Conclusion: Setting the Stage 64 2: Exploring the Humanitarian Enclave 66 Perceptions of Insecurity Among Aid Workers 67 The Evolution of Physical Securitization in the Field 77 The Compound as the New Archetype of Humanitarianism 87 Conclusion 95 3: How the Built Environment Shapes Humanitarian Intervention 99 How the Material Matters: A Framework for Analysis 101 Auxiliary Space 106 The Impact on ‘Others’ 110 The Impact on the Aid Workers: Gated Communities 116 Sport Utility Vehicles 120 The Grand Hotel 125 Conclusion 131 4: Building Home Away from Home: Post-Tsunami Aceh, and the Single-Family House 133 Mapping the ‘Second Tsunami’ 136 The Single-Family House 144 The Gift of the House 151 The House as Commodity 162 From Donors to Contractors 178 5: Playing House: Rebuilding the Gulf Coast after Katrina 184 The Appeal of the Blank Slate 185 Make It Right or Making It Wrong: The Solution of Green Architecture in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth 188 Imagined Communities: New Urbanism and the Post-Katrina Gulf Coast 198 The Katrina Cottage: Emblem of the Reconstruction 202 A Shotgun Reconstruction 210 Conclusion 221 A Tripartite Model of Space 222 Implications for Theory and Policy 225 Future Research Directions 227 Bibliography 230 Index 252 Back Cover 265 A landmark work that - through analysing the three key symbolic sites of the grand hotel, the SUV and the compound - shows why we urgently need to think differently about humanitarian theory and practice.