Humanitarian Priorities and Inequalities of Displacement Responses

• In Event: Multimethods Approaches to Studying the Politics of Migration

Abstract

Displaced people are among the world’s most vulnerable populations, but not all displaced groups are created or treated equally by governments or the aid sector. This paper investigates three dichotomies through which these disparities of response manifest by comparing refugees and IDPs displaced by conflict and violence, environmental versus conflict displacement, and areas of response deemed to be crisis zones versus those classified as “humanitarian-development-peace nexus” zones. The research employs a qualitative comparative design drawing on in-depth interviews and observations conducted during field work in Cameroon. Many factors condition the response to certain populations and crises, resulting in their prioritization by humanitarian actors. The author argues that the prioritization of refugees over IDPs, conflict over environmental displacement, and crisis versus nexus zones results primarily from three broad mechanisms: i. political obstacles and challenges in humanitarians negotiating access and fundraising; ii. differences in organizational mandates and the path-dependency of humanitarian actor roles; and iii. the limitations of the international humanitarian coordination architecture and its political obligations.

Author

• Anne Della Guardia, London School of Economics and Political Science