The principles of humanity, impartiality, neutrality and independence are intended to enable, characterise and guide the delivery of humanitarian assistance. However, as conflicts grow more complex, interpretations of humanitarian principles are being questioned, particularly in areas under the control or…
Over recent years, EU migration policies have negatively affected the conditions under which humanitarian actors can carry out their work along migration routes. National Red Cross Societies are witnessing with concern how these policies are narrowing the space for them…
I first made contact with Barbara in October 2011, after hearing a BBC radio interview with her in which she denounced as premature the planned invocation of the cessation clause for Rwandan refugees. Her defence of Rwandan refugees of different…
Barbara Harrell-Bond’s major works Imposing Aid and Rights in Exile (the latter co-authored with Guglielmo Verdirame) examine aid modalities in two different eras: Southern Sudan in the early 1980s, and Kenya and Uganda in the late 1990s. They are rich…
Founded by Barbara Harrell-Bond in 2003, the Africa and Middle East Refugee Assistance (AMERA) organisation embodied her philosophies of promoting refugee voices, ensuring accountability among the people and institutions mandated to decide refugees’ destinies, and achieving normative change within the…
Being affable was not one of Barbara Harrell-Bond’s qualities. Irascible, impatient and demanding, she alienated and inspired people in equal numbers with what at times seemed to be a one-person quest to advocate for refugees. She had no time for…
It is a pleasure to have this opportunity to acknowledge the centrality of Barbara Harrell-Bond as a personal mentor, as a founding member of a field that bridges study, activism and practice, and as the co-founder back in 1999 of…
Having lived and conducted research in a number of African countries, Barbara often acted as an expert witness in asylum cases. These related most frequently to the risk of female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) but occasionally also to other topics, such…
On a Wednesday evening in early 2001, the large lecture hall at the American University in Cairo (AUC) was packed. The audience was largely made up of representatives of Cairo’s growing numbers of Sudanese, Somali, Eritrean, Ethiopian and Sierra Leonean…
The study of displacement has a long history, yet it was not until the publication of Barbara Harrell-Bond’s seminal work Imposing Aid – Emergency Assistance to Refugees in 1986 that the entire system of international humanitarian assistance was submitted to…