Swarthmore anthropology professor Sa’ed Atshan argued that aid organizations should move away from “humanitarianism” and towards a “paradigm of reparation” in an event at Steele Hall on Sept. 30.
Atshan serves as chair of the department of peace and conflict studies at Swarthmore, where his work focuses on the politics of contemporary Palestinian society, LGBTQ+ rights and humanitarianism.
In the event — which was co-hosted by the Dartmouth Society of Fellows, the women’s, gender and sexuality studies department, the Middle Eastern studies department and the Jewish studies department — Atshan argued that humanitarianism in Palestine has “enabled Israel to relieve itself of international legal obligations.”
“When humanitarian relief meant for the short-term is provided for chronic emergencies, it creates a unique context of prolonged humanitarianism where sustainable development is ever-elusive,” Atshan said.
He said that global organizations should see their aid as a “form of solidarity, rather than as interventional.”
“Rather than feeding Palestinians as subjects of charity to be pitied and to get crumbs of bread, [the international community] should engage in this much more politicized discourse of justice in the form of reparations,” he said.
Atshan introduced the concept of the “psychosocial-gender-security nexus,” which he described as the “intersection” between the security sector and international aid for mental health services and gender-based violence prevention programs.
“We usually think of these three domains as separate, but as I will show, they actually form a nexus,” Atshan said. “They are internally linked on the ground.”
On security, Atshan said that security forces in the West Bank engage in “interrogation, incarceration and repression,” which he said “would not be possible” without funding from international donors.
Atshan also spoke about how gender and sexuality intersect with security and surveillance in the West Bank. He argued that to recruit Palestinian informants, Israeli security forces “exploit Palestinian social norms” by threatening to expose female or LGBTQ+ Palestinians’ nonconforming relationships if they don’t cooperate.
Attendee Haadya Ahsan ’29 said hearing about “the state of social abandonment that so many Palestinians are in, because of social norms, was very insightful.”
Atshan recommended that humanitarian organizations treat Palestinian families as a “cohesive unit,” attending to the needs of “man, woman, and child.”
“If you care about the women, you need to care about their husbands and their sons,” he said. “You need to care about their fathers and grandfathers.”
A 30-minute Q&A between Atshan and the audience followed the lecture. One attendee asked Atshan to speak more about the integration of surveillance and the restriction of movement in the West Bank.
Atshan said Palestinians face “strict” restrictions on movement and rights based on where they live in the Palestinian territories, and added that Israel emerged as a world leader in surveillance and weapons technology because their technology is “field tested” on Palestinians.
“Palestinians become these kinds of guinea pigs,” Atshan said. “Trapped, surveilled, their bodies contained and controlled, and experimented on through these technologies.”
Attendee Kenneth Edwards ’27 said that he attended the lecture because his professor Faiza Rahman highly recommended it, and added that he wanted to get “a better understanding” of “global challenges.”
Ahsan said the event was “really interesting.”
“Hearing about the state of social abandonment that so many Palestinians are in because of social norms was also very insightful,” Ahsan said. “This is a really unique perspective that I don’t think most people hear.”
