KEYNOTE III: JULIA IRWIN
Relief, reform, and realpolitik: International medical humanitarianism and the messy politics of U.S. foreign disaster assistance
In her keynote lecture, Julia F. Irwin explores the links between the history of disasters, the histories of medicine and health, and the complex politics of global humanitarian relief. Catastrophes caused by earthquakes, tropical storms, floods, and other natural hazards, as Irwin will discuss, must be understood as comprehensive medical and health crises. Aid to disaster survivors, by extension, has often focused on ameliorating the physical and mental harms that such catastrophes precipitate. Yet, disaster aid has never been purely altruistic. Historically, it has also functioned as a valuable instrument of foreign policy, a tool for promoting the diplomatic, strategic, and economic interests of donor nations.
To illustrate these points, Irwin presents case studies of U.S. responses to multiple disasters in East Asia and Central America during the early twentieth century. While highlighting the centrality of medicine and health to American foreign disaster assistance efforts, she also analyzes the messy politics and power dynamics that underpinned these humanitarian operations. In the wake of these crises, as she will discuss, American humanitarians found auspicious opportunities to exert medical influence, exercise biomedical power, and promote the United States’ image as a benevolent nation. By thinking more critically about the medical and political histories of disasters, Irwin emphasizes, perhaps we can improve our collective responses to future global crises.
BIO
Julia Irwin is Professor of History at Louisiana State University. Her research focuses on the politics of humanitarian assistance in 20th century U.S. foreign relations, international history, and the history of medicine, in the context of both armed conflicts and disasters stemming from natural hazards.
Her first book, Making the World Safe: The American Red Cross and a Nation’s Humanitarian Awakening (Oxford University Press, 2013) is a history of U.S. foreign relief efforts in the early 20th century, particularly during the First World War and its aftermath. Her second book, Catastrophic Diplomacy: U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance in the American Century, will be published in 2023 by the University of North Carolina Press. Catastrophic Diplomacy examines how the U.S. government, U.S. military, and American voluntary organizations responded to sudden disasters in other countries during the 20th century, with a focus on humanitarian emergencies caused by tropical storms, earthquakes, floods, and other natural hazards. Investigating the messy politics and complex power dynamics associated with these relief and reconstruction operations, the book analyzes the use of foreign disaster assistance as a tool of U.S. foreign policy.
She has also published more than twenty journal articles and book chapters on the histories of U.S. foreign aid, international humanitarianism, and medical relief. Her work has appeared in such journals as The Bulletin of the History of Medicine, Isis, Diplomatic History, Nursing History Review, and the Journal of American History, and in volumes published by Oxford and Cambridge University Presses and Georg Editeur. Recently, she became a founding editor of the Journal of Disaster Studies. Aimed at disaster researchers across the humanities and social sciences, this international journal seeks to advance interpretive theory, methods, and empirical research on hazards, disasters, and humanitarian governance globally.