In the face of the world’s disorders, moral concerns have provided a powerful ground for developing international as well as local policies. Didier Fassin draws on case materials from France, South Africa, Venezuela, and Palestine to explore the meaning of humanitarianism in the contexts of immigration and asylum, disease and poverty, disaster and war. He traces and analyzes recent shifts in moral and political discourse and practices — what he terms "humanitarian reason"— and shows in vivid examples how humanitarianism is confronted by inequality and violence. Deftly illuminating the tensions and contradictions in humanitarian government, he reveals the ambiguities confronting states and organizations as they struggle to deal with the intolerable. His critique of humanitarian reason, respectful of the participants involved but lucid about the stakes they disregard, offers theoretical and empirical foundations for a political and moral anthropology.

In the face of the world’s disorders, moral concerns have provided a powerful ground for developing international as well as local policies. Didier Fassin draws on case materials from France, South Africa, Venezuela, and Palestine to explore the meaning of humanitarianism in the contexts of immigration and asylum, disease and poverty, disaster and war. He traces and analyzes recent shifts in moral and political discourse and practices — what he terms "humanitarian reason"— and shows in vivid examples how humanitarianism is confronted by inequality and violence. Deftly illuminating the tensions and contradictions in humanitarian government, he reveals the ambiguities confronting states and organizations as they struggle to deal with the intolerable. His critique of humanitarian reason, respectful of the participants involved but lucid about the stakes they disregard, offers theoretical and empirical foundations for a political and moral anthropology.

Preface to the English Edition
Acknowledgments

Introduction: Humanitarian Government

PART I. POLITICS part
1. Suffering Unveiled
   Listening to the Excluded and the Marginalized
2. Pathetic Choice
   Exposing the Misery of the Poor
3. Compassion Protocol
   Legalizing Diseased Undocumented Immigrants
4. Truth Ordeal
   Attesting Violence for Asylum Seekers

LIMEN. FONTIERS
5. Ambivalent Hospitality
   Governing the Unwanted

PART II. WORLDS
6. Massacre of the Innocents
   Representing Childhood in the Age of Aids
7. Desire for Exception
   Managing Disaster Victims
8. Subjectivity without Subjects
   Reinventing the Figure of the Witness
9. Hierarchies of Humanity
   Intervening in International Conflicts
   
Conclusion: Critique of Humanitarian Reason

Chronology
Notes
Glossary
Bibliography
Index