(so herself something of an outsider to the local community) how she would
respond to the charge that a foreigner could never understand the perspective of
someone in another nation. After some thought she answered: “I have the greatest
difficulty understanding my own sister”.^131 The point here is that we should not
reify the position of the internal outsider as being neither too far nor too close from
the problems at stake, a perfect “Goldilocks” position as it were. There is never a
perfect distance from which to understand others. Rather, I wish to emphasise
something else. This is, that for all their criticism of the practices and bodies of
thought with which they engage, for their recognition of the various contingencies
that affect the liberal humanitarian outlook, they all retain a visceral commitment
to a purpose that can sometimes be taken for granted to the extent of
disappearing: the definition and defence of a shared humanity. It is the
connectedness and commitment to that liberal humanitarian outlook that allows
them to contribute so richly to the argument presented in this thesis. Such figures
are of crucial importance if the aim is not, say, simply to deconstruct ad infinitum
(and occasionally also ad nauseam ).
This last point is of particular importance, for many of the most interesting
insights on the excesses of humanitarianism have been made by more radical and
critical scholars of various persuasions.^132 I will briefly give an example from a writer
whose work reveals much and who will be used in this thesis, to make the point,
rather than devote large portions of the argument to a critique of a critique. On the
final page of Jenny Edkins’ insightful book on famine, Whose Hunger? , she writes:
“[the] practical political aim of this book is neither to understand famine nor to
provide a solution. These two logocentric approaches both abstract and
depoliticize.” Having argued that “there are no technical solutions” she goes on to
say that “[the] search for technical answers is itself political and supports the
powerful, not the suffering. It is the buttress for forms of governance that reduce
131
132 Martha C. Nussbaum, "Compassion & Terror", Daedalus 132, no. 1 (2003): 26.
See in particular David Campbell, "Why Fight: Humanitarianism, Principles, and Post-
Structuralism", Millennium: Journal of International Studies 27, no. 3 (1998).