Browsing by Author "Nozon, Helene"

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Local Humanitarian Workers in Turkey Under the Eu-Turkey Statement. a Narrative Study on Politics and Anti-Politics in Humanitarian Work
(Kadir Has Üniversitesi, 2020) Nozon, Helene; Kartarı, Asker; Kartari, Asker
This qualitative research analyzes the perspectives of local humanitarian workers in Turkey on their own humanitarian work, in relation to politics in general, and the EU-Turkey Statement of 2016 in particular. Relying on methods of narrative analysis, the thesis demonstrates that the interviewees are active protagonists in a set of complex power relations. It shows how they draw on similar discourses of humanitarian ethics and professionalism as international humanitarians, but also establish their own principles and standards locally. The alleged separation between "unethical" politics and "ethical" humanitarianism emerged as a key issue in the interviews. By tracing the ways in which interviewees still recount the intersections of the two realms in their work, the analysis presents local humanitarian workers as both political and anti-political agents. Through their perspectives, it becomes apparent that the EU-Turkey Statement led to a temporary inflation of the humanitarian sector, as well as its professionalization. The latter was perceived to have a more sustainable effect. Despite these apparent impacts on the humanitarian sector, the Statement did not qualify as a humanitarian endeavor in the eyes of the humanitarian workers funded through it. Thereby, the perspectives of these workers sustain a more critical evaluation of the Statement in opposition to official accounts.