Institute of International Health, Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Germany.
Global Health Justice Partnership, Yale Law School, United States.
Disasters. 2025 Jan;49(1):e12651. doi: 10.1111/disa.12651. Epub 2024 Jul 15.
Public discourse is rich in meaning, reflecting consensus, dissent, and change. Yet, very little public discourse on the humanitarian sector has been authored by aid workers themselves. We conducted a thematic analysis of the 'Secret Aid Worker' (SAW) series, published in The Guardian newspaper between 2015 and 2018, the only corpus of data on humanitarian life experiences publicly accessible through mainstream media. Our research questions were twofold: how did authors frame their work and appraise humanitarian structures?; and how did they reflect and amplify humanitarian issues of the time? The main themes included: personal challenges of humanitarian life; characterisation of stakeholders; and systemic issues within the humanitarian sector. The SAW narratives reveal a powerful discourse of discontent. They planted seeds of change regarding shifting power, coloniality and racism, sexual abuse, and duty of care. We argue that such public discourse has symbolic power, calling for greater accountability, equity, and justice in remaking the future of the humanitarian sector.
公共话语内涵丰富，反映了共识、分歧和变化。然而，关于人道主义领域的公共话语却很少出自援助工作者自己。我们对《卫报》（The Guardian）在 2015 年至 2018 年期间发表的“秘密援助工作者”（SAW）系列文章进行了主题分析，这是通过主流媒体公开获取的唯一关于人道主义生活经历的数据资料。我们的研究问题有两个：作者如何构建他们的工作和评估人道主义结构？他们如何反映和放大当时的人道主义问题？主要主题包括：人道主义生活的个人挑战；利益相关者的特征；以及人道主义部门内的系统性问题。SAW 的叙述揭示了一种强烈的不满言论。它们为权力转移、殖民主义和种族主义、性虐待以及照顾责任等问题播下了变革的种子。我们认为，这种公共话语具有象征力量，呼吁在重塑人道主义部门的未来方面加强问责制、公平性和正义性。
