All posts by meganwoodward

With local consent: aid in Guatemala

20th century, 21st century, Humanities, Modern, Social Sciences

In the middle of the day on Sunday 3 June 2018, Guatemala’s Volcán de Fuego erupted. The 3,763 metre high stratovolcano, situated 27 miles southwest of Guatemala City, belched a column of ash some 33,000 feet into the sky and spat torrents of molten rock down its south side.[1];[2] Pyroclastic flows, generated when the ash column collapsed in on itself, engulfed the communities of El Rodeo and San Miguel Los Lotes; local residents were unable to implement emergency procedures because of the speed of the volcanic activity.[3] Almost 200 people have been recorded missing thus far, with at least 110 dead.[4] An estimated 1.7 million Guatemalans have been affected by the eruption, with 12,000 people evacuated and 3,000 in temporary shelters.[5]

 

Oxfam is on the scene. On 5th June it was ‘evaluating the situation on the ground in close coordination with the Guatemalan government’ and intended to ‘begin distributing water filters and hygiene kits to the affected areas’.[6] Two days later Ana María Méndez, Oxfam in Guatemala Country Director, expressed concern that ‘rescue efforts are being severely hampered by the lack of adequate equipment, poor visibility and roads closed due to the ash, lava flows and mudslides. A planned humanitarian assessment had to be postponed due to perilous conditions’.[7]

 

Volcán de Fuego is one of the most active volcanos in Latin America, but the current emergency constitutes the volcano’s worst eruption in a century. Its last major eruption was in 1974, when no deaths were officially recorded.[8] However, Guatemala endured its fair share of natural disasters during the course of the twentieth century, and over the years Oxfam has been involved in providing relief and rehabilitation to those affected.

 

Two years after the 1974 Fuego eruption Guatemala experienced a catastrophic 7.4 magnitude earthquake. Centred on the Motagua Fault, 99 miles north-east of Guatemala City and near the town of Los Amates, the earthquake ripped across the country. 23,000 people were killed, largely due to the collapse of residential buildings, and 76,000 were injured.[9] 19% of the country’s population was rendered homeless.[10]

Map showing the location of Volcán de Fuego in relation to Los Amates, near the epicentre of the 1976 earthquake. Image courtesy of Google Maps.

The Oxfam project file ‘GUA 028’ documents Oxfam’s response to the 1976 earthquake. It operated alongside numerous other humanitarian agencies, including Catholic Relief Services (CRS), The Evangelical Alliance Relief (TEAR) Fund and the United Nations Disaster Relief Organisation (UNDRO). The project file details the genuine efforts of relief agencies like Oxfam to alleviate the suffering inflicted by natural disasters, but also suggests some of the inevitable pitfalls associated with foreign agencies intervening in complex and unfamiliar societies.

A particularly revealing document within the project file is one produced by CRS. ‘Guatemala Earthquake – Evaluation of Guatemala Supported Food/Cash Community Development Programme’ evaluates the success of food- and cash-for-work schemes implemented in the areas around Tecpán, Santo Domingo Xenacoj, Chichicastenango and Patzún. The schemes involved community groups working on road projects, housing and school construction, and water system installation. 13,836 work-days were fed into 15 projects with a total of 1,673 workers involved, but the socio-cultural makeup of the targeted communities meant the schemes were not as effective as they might have been.[11]

 

For instance, villagers of Xenimajuju in Tecpán were initially unwilling to work for cash: ‘they either viewed it as a leftist conspiracy, or a ruse by foreigners to gain influence and take over their lands… they had had poor experiences when organizations had offered them aid, which generally never was given.’ In Tzanimacabaj and Chuguexa there were complaints that road projects had resulted in individuals losing land on road margins as the through-ways were expanded. There were additional fears that the new roads would encourage exploitative activities by loggers. Of 29 workers presented with an evaluative questionnaire by CRS, ‘almost everyone felt that cash would have a negative effect on the traditional system of voluntary community labour, and also create drastic negative changes… as people begin to rely more on outside assistance’. CRS acknowledged that the ‘programme was not very successful’.[12] Despite the best of intentions, an external agency had failed to understand the complex socio-cultural makeup of the communities it was trying to help.

A visit report by Ian Davis on behalf of TEAR Fund echoed the need for relief work to comply with local structures and values in Guatemala. He was told that ‘many visiting experts… made wild generalisations’ about indigenous Indian housing, assuming that because they were modest adobe constructions they must be ‘the product of poverty’. However, in such communities additional wealth was simply more likely to be invested elsewhere, for example in land purchase. Even the houses of affluent Indians remained relatively modest. Davis concluded that ‘modifications to the house pattern which may well be necessary for structural reasons [i.e., to improve earthquake resistance] will have to be made with local consent, rather than for local people’.[13]

Oxfam did attempt to address some of these issues in its response to the 1976 earthquake. While Oxfam was in some sense a ‘foreign’ agency in Guatemala, by 1976 it had an office in the country and staff who lived as well as worked there. It had previously been involved in an integrated development scheme in the Chimaltenango municipality of San Martin Jilotepeque, where in collaboration with the American agency World Neighbors it promoted a ‘barefoot’ approach to development, training local people  to run the scheme themselves. Project staff gradually became completely indigenous. While the earthquake claimed the lives of 3,000 people in San Martin, the network of promoters and cooperatives built up over the years formed the basis for post-earthquake reconstruction.[14]

As of 31st January 1977 Oxfam had received £768,480 in donations for the Guatemalan relief effort, including £60,365 donated by the general public. Much of this was invested in shelter and housing provision: ‘lamina’ corrugated roofing was widely distributed, and Oxfam produced 50,000 ‘comic-book style’ manuals on low-cost, earthquake-resistant construction techniques.[15] Oxfam did and continues to channel its funding into local partner organisations in an attempt to prevent local communities becoming passive recipients of development work. Hopefully this policy will mean that, in the present crisis, reconstruction and rehabilitation work will be conducted with local people, rather than for them. The desire to alleviate suffering in far-flung places is an admirable instinct; we need only ensure our efforts are well-executed, in addition to well-meaning.

 

[1] ‘Guatemala’s Fuego volcano: How the tragedy unfolded’, 5/06/2018, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-44369461, accessed 07/06/2018.

[2] ‘Guatemala volcano: Almost 200 missing and 75 dead’, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-44378775, 06/06/2018, accessed 07/06/2018.

[3] Ibid.

[4] ‘Fresh lava flows from Guatemala’s Mount Fuego as death toll rises to 110’, 10/06/2018, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/guatemala-volcano-fresh-lava-flow-evacuations-a8391886.html, accessed 11/06/2018.

[5] ‘Guatemala volcano: Emergency agency ‘failed to heed warnings’’, 07/06/2018, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-44393085, accessed 07/06/2018.

[6] ‘Oxfam in Guatemala is assessing its humanitarian response to “Volcano of Fire” eruption’, 05/06/2018, https://www.oxfamamerica.org/press/oxfam-in-guatemala-is-assessing-its-humanitarian-response-to-volcano-of-fire-eruption/, accessed 07/06/2018.

[7] ‘Over 12,000 people evacuated due to continued volcanic activity in Guatemala, Oxfam provides humanitarian aid’, 07/06/2018, https://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pressreleases/2018-06-07/over-12000-people-evacuated-due-continued-volcanic-activity, accessed 07/06/2018.

[8]  ‘Guatemala’s Fuego volcano: How the tragedy unfolded’, 5/06/2018, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-44369461, accessed 07/06/2018.

[9] ‘1976 Guatemala earthquake’, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1976_Guatemala_earthquake, accessed 07/06/2018.

[10] ‘Global Earthquake Model – Earthquake Consequences Database’, https://gemecd.org/event/11, accessed 07/06/2018.

[11] Ms. Oxfam PRF GUA 028.

[12] Ibid.

[13] Ms. Oxfam PRF GUA 028 Rep.

[14] M. Black, A Cause for Our Times. Oxfam: the first 50 years (Oxford: Oxfam 1992) pp.198-199.

[15] Ms. Oxfam PRF GUA 028 Rep.

A sympathy for strangers: Oxfam and the history of humanitarianism

19th century, 20th century, Event, Event, Humanities, Modern, Social Sciences, , , , , , , ,

On Tuesday 31st October the Oxfam Archive Assistants attended a lecture at St Antony’s College by Princeton University’s Professor Jeremy Adelman, entitled Towards a Global History of Humanitarianism. Professor Adelman’s focus was primarily the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but his narrative had implications for the way we might view contemporary humanitarian agencies such as Oxfam.

 

Historians have not always been kind in their assessments of international humanitarianism. Alex de Waal was broadly critical of the role such agencies have played when dealing with famine on the African continent: by supplying aid externally, he argues, they inadvertently undermine the democratic accountability of African governments, disincentivizing humanitarian intervention or crisis prevention as a way of preserving political power.[1] To an extent, Adelman spoke in a similar vein: abolitionists may have helped stimulate the rise of humanitarianism in the nineteenth century but colonial penetration itself was often justified in terms of humanitarian intervention, where the white settler was morally and ethically obliged to ‘civilize’ the unsophisticated ‘native’. Humanitarian discourse, Adelman argued, is by its nature racialized, and it invariably reinforces the self-image of Western nations as occupying the apex of a civilizational hierarchy.

 

This might seem somewhat damning of all Oxfam does and stands for. However, Adelman also spoke of a ‘sympathy for strangers’ which grew out of increasing global connectedness and integration as telegraph cables, railways and steamships curtailed the spatial and intellectual distances between disparate peoples. The camera was, according to Adelman, a fundamental technological innovation in this respect and the relationship between photography and humanitarianism has in many ways been central to the development of charities like Oxfam. Borrowing from Susan Sontag, Adelman suggested that ‘moral witnesses’ – i.e., photographers – record public memories of pain, creating a connection between the ‘victim’ – the subject of the photograph – and the viewer.

 

In the 19th century missionaries armed themselves with Kodak cameras, and by producing lantern slide shows of their experiences in foreign climes hoped to raise money for future missionary work. But in the Congo Free State, rendered a personal possession of King Leopold of Belgium in 1885, missionaries began to use their cameras to record atrocities committed against Congolese rubber plantation workers. In the face of international scrutiny – which admittedly was somewhat more self-interested than compassionate – King Leopold was forced to cede Congo as a personal asset. It could certainly be argued that such photographs exploited the pain of others, titillating public interest at home without any true empathy for or understanding of the Congolese people. According to Susan Sontag, the ‘knowledge gained through still photographs will always be some kind of sentimentalism, whether cynical or humanist’.[2]

 

 

But the power of the photograph to reinforce moral or empathetic feeling can be – and has been – used for the genuine betterment of others. From 1957 to the early 1960s Oxfam sent simple Christmas ‘appeal’ cards to its donors, featuring a simple ‘thank you’ message and photographs of individuals helped by the charity. A card from 1958 showed a huge-eyed little girl, sitting wrapped in a coat and woollen socks with a spoon stuck into a beaker of food. The caption read ‘This little Greek girl was found as a baby hungry and dying… Now she is properly fed… because Oxfam sends food, and years ago was able to plant black-currant bushes in her village which are now bearing fruit.’ This photograph does not simply broadcast the pain of strangers. It broadcasts hope, and promises resolution through charitable action. While a healthy scepticism and constructive interrogation of the conduct of international agencies is to be encouraged, we should be careful not to overlook and devalue the charitable efforts inspired by genuine ‘sympathy for strangers’.

[1] Alex de Waal, Famine Crimes: Politics and the Disaster Relief Industry in Africa (1997)

[2] Susan Sontag, On Photography (1973)

Looking back and pushing forwards: 75 years of Oxfam

20th century, 21st century, Event, Humanities, Modern, Social Sciences,

As an Archives Assistant spending the next twelve months helping to catalogue the Oxfam Archive, I probably shouldn’t admit how woefully ignorant I was of Oxfam before I started. I knew their shops sold cheap books and nice Christmas cards. I knew you could buy someone a goat or a toilet for Christmas, and that this goat or toilet would go to someone who lived somewhere without a sewage system or a supermarket selling pasteurized milk. But beyond this, I’d never really stopped to think who ‘Oxfam’ were and what they meant. It came as a surprise that ‘Oxfam’ wasn’t just a made-up word but came from Oxford Committee for Famine Relief, and that a charity which was born in one small city has spread its offices and infrastructure across the globe. I’ve learnt a lot in the two months since I started. But Oxfam’s 75th birthday party, held in Oxford’s town hall on Friday 6th October, taught me a lot more. 

some of the archive material used for the ‘show and tell’ sessions

 

At the Bodleian we were involved with preparations for the 75th anniversary in a low-key way, answering enquiries from Oxfam staff regarding photographs which would be used in exhibitions and slideshow presentations. Between the 4th and the 6th October there were also opportunities for Oxfam staff and volunteers to view some of the highlights of the Oxfam archive in the Bodleian, and this proved a learning experience for me as well. Through objects such as a scrapbook documenting fundraising and a damp-gnawed but still-legible gift-shop cashbook from 1948-9, I realised the importance of innovatory and motivated figures like Robert Castle and Joe Mitty, who respectively established the first permanent Oxfam shop and helped make the charity-shop phenomenon what it is today. A particularly memorable entry in the cashbook was simply ‘Dog’, which sold for 5 shillings – we presume the dog was ornamental, especially as an ‘Elephant’ was also sold at around the same time!

Oxfam’s first permanent shop on Broad Street, Oxford

 

The anniversary celebrations themselves took place on Friday 6th October in Oxford’s Town Hall. We were treated to cake and tea in the Assembly Room, and then moved into the ornate Main Hall where the Oxfam choir sung us into our seats. The full hall made me realise not only the importance of Oxfam as a UK employer, but also as a social institution which generations of people have grown up with. Many of the volunteers were elderly, but a gurgling baby at the back of the hall indicated that the Oxfamily spans all ages.

 

My job is to catalogue Oxfam’s project files, bundles of correspondence, receipts and reports which document how development work plays out on the ground. This is what Stan Thekaekara, founder-director of trade model ‘Just Change’ and one of the evening’s speakers, would call the ‘worm’s eye view’. I was much less aware of the ‘bird’s-eye view’, the need for an overarching vision and policy and the tension that can result between the bird and the worm, between the decision-makers at home and the boots on the ground. This was something discussed by the panel hosted by Duncan Green, strategic advisor at Oxfam GB. The panellists debated the need to reorient the global economic system away from exponential growth and a capitalistic zero sum game, but also the importance of listening to the communities worst-affected by this system and providing them with the knowledge that could help improve their lives.

the programme for the evening’s events

 

 

In a discussion on the future of Oxfam, Mark Goldring (Oxfam GB’s Chief Executive) suggested this focus on communities was already being embodied by Oxfam International, the worldwide confederation of Oxfam affiliates. Oxfam International Executive Director Winne Byanyima was optimistic as she announced that Oxfam International’s headquarters would shortly be moving to Nairobi, and the celebratory talks concluded with reiterations of Oxfam’s commitment to end poverty.

While the optimism and passion of the speakers was inspiring, I couldn’t help but notice the tragic irony of the fact that, twenty-five years ago, Oxfam’s 50th anniversary celebrations were overshadowed by the influx of Rohingya Muslims into Bangladesh, and that 2017 has witnessed renewed attacks and allegations of genocide by the Myanmar authorities. Despite Oxfam’s energy and determination, I can’t help but think that, while human hatred continues to fuel governments, human suffering will not be easy to uproot.