Stanford historian uncovers the dark roots of humanitarianism

Modern humanitarian endeavors are generally perceived of as works by good-willed people, selflessly striving to improve the lives of the less fortunate.

We have little reason to think that these individuals might be motivated by the same hubris that led 19th-century Europe to establish empires across the world.

Stanford historian JP Daughton wants to change that.

An associate professor of modern European history, Daughton's research interests span imperialism and the history of humanitarianism. His latest work traces the roots of modern humanitarianism to a set of colonial development projects in the early 20th century.

Most histories of humanitarianism jump from international efforts to end slavery in the early 19th century to post-World War II humanitarian and refugee efforts. But Daughton says this approach misses a key point: Defenders of empire in the 19th and 20th centuries regularly saw imperialism as a fundamentally humanitarian enterprise.

Many people have traditionally thought that "Western industrialized countries can come in and transform societies and make them wealthier and happier and more stable," says Daughton. But, he argues, not only can this process be outwardly violent and destructive, it also oftentimes has very unexpected consequences.

Daughton's project attempts to fill in the missing middle, asserting that humanitarianism, in fact, evolved out of colonial debates.

Currently a fellow at the Stanford Humanities Center, Daughton believes that his discoveries demonstrate the extent to which contemporary notions of human rights and humanitarian development "came out of this period of colonialism, which – ironically – was obviously extremely violent and based on great iniquity and domination."

Daughton's current book project, Cover Not My Blood: Humanitarianism, Brutality, Disease and Denial in the Building of a French Colonial Railroad in the Congo, is based on research in archives on three continents. It explores the construction of the Congo-Océan Railway in French Equatorial Africa, in today's Republic of the Congo.

The construction of this railroad, in the years between the world wars, cost thousands of lives and lasted over a decade. It fits in well with Daughton's research, which looks at what he describes as "the intersection of violence and humanitarianism that has been such a central, if troubling, feature of modern imperialism."

This history, he thinks, should give Westerners today pause in their belief that they alone have the solutions to the problems of the developing world.

Because this research "suggests that European ideas about development and humanitarianism often have had very unintended consequences and can potentially do as much harm as good," Daughton says, "we can only learn from looking at events such as this and see the ways in which men and women before us have defined, defended and critiqued efforts to remake non-industrialized societies."

This project, says Daughton, demonstrates that "the history of humanitarianism is inextricably linked with imperialism and with beliefs that liberal capitalism offers the only route to modernity." ...