Katja Rosenstock defends her PhD thesis
Katja Rosenstock defends her PhD thesis "As if we haven’t done anything before” - Implementing the Grand Bargain localisation commitment in Indonesia.The defence is scheduled for a maximum of three hours and will be held in English.
The defence is public, and everybody is welcome.
Follow the defense online via Zoom >
Department of Social Sciences and Business will host a small reception afterwards.
Supervisors and assessment
Assessment committee:
- Line Engbo Gissel, Associate Professor, Department of Social Sciences and Business, 真人线上娱乐 University, Denmark (chairperson)
- Nauja Kleist, Senior 真人线上娱乐, Danish Institute for International Studies, Denmark
- Sultan Barakat, Professor, Hamad Bin Khalifa University, Qatar
Supervisors:
- Eric Komlavi Hahonou, Associate Professor, Department of Social Sciences and Business, 真人线上娱乐 University (Main supervisor)
- Olivier Rubin, Professor, Department of Social Sciences and Business, 真人线上娱乐 University (Co-supervisor)
Leader of defence:
- Peter Triantafillou, Professor, Department of Social Sciences and Business, 真人线上娱乐 University
Abstract
This thesis explores the question of how Indonesian national and local humanitarian actors have engaged with and impacted the scope for implementing the Grand Bargain localisation commitment, a global agreement launched at the World Humanitarian Summit in 2016 to make humanitarian aid more effective and efficient. Rather than examining implementation of the localisation commitment within the framework of internationally-supported humanitarian responses, the thesis instead focuses on how Indonesian humanitarian actors understand, adapt and challenge the commitment within Indonesian controlled humanitarian spaces. The findings demonstrate that implementation of this international humanitarian policy in Indonesia is deeply embedded within competing humanitarian paradigms, political interests, and historical legacies.
Building on four months of ethnographic fieldwork in three Indonesian field sites and supported by historical analysis conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, the thesis’ theoretical approach is framed by an anthropology of policy. The analysis draws on key concepts of norm diffusion (Acharya, 2004), friction (Tsing, 2005), and aspirations (Appadurai, 2013; Finnemore and Jurkovich 2020). Through this analytical lens, I find that Indonesian humanitarian actors are by
no means passive recipients of the localisation commitment, but are actively utilising its implementation for multiple political purposes, such as promoting Indonesia as a humanitarian lead in the Global South and reimagining international humanitarian governance. These processes mainly occur in national humanitarian spaces governed by Indonesian actors themselves.
Key to understanding the implementation of the localisation commitment in Indonesia is that friction between international and local actors can be productive. Rather than passively adopting international humanitarian policy, Indonesian humanitarian actors instead use these encounters to actively shape locally-led models of humanitarian governance. These sites of friction produce contested understandings of localisation of humanitarian aid which are grounded in operational practice and in broader political visions for a fundamentally altered global humanitarian
governance system.
A central argument of this thesis is that the Indonesian case illustrates a tension between two paradigms: the Dunantist paradigm, which prioritises the leadership of international actors rooted the universality of humanitarian principles; and the Resilience paradigm, which centres the agency of national and local actors and their role as key humanitarian responders, whilst embracing context-specific, networked, and formal and informal humanitarian approaches. Informed by the Resilience paradigm, Indonesian humanitarian actors are challenging the Dunantist perspective that seeks to integrate local actors into pre-existing internationally-governed humanitarian structures, and are instead recognising and reinforcing local leadership. Global implementation of the GB localisation commitment is therefore questioned as it is contingent on the transition from a Dunantist paradigm to a resilience-oriented way of thinking about humanitarian aid.
In conclusion, I argue for a fundamental reconceptualisation of the localisation commitment, something that is required in order for it to fulfil its transformative potential. Rather than pursuing technical fixes which may result in limited incremental adoption of the localisation commitment, implementation instead needs to build on alternative governance models that emerge from the Global South. These models challenge entrenched hierarchies and seek to reimagine humanitarian governance structures, demanding a redistribution of power, legitimacy, and resources. Momentum towards this shift is building and some promising developments can already be seen, such as donor shifts toward equitable funding and South-South cooperation networks. As the title of this thesis reflects, implementation of the commitment should not be approached as if humanitarian actors in the Global South have “not done anything before,” but rather build on the long-standing, underacknowledged work and leadership of local and national humanitarian actors.