Comparative Humanitarianism in Egypt & the Himalayas: Amira Mittermaier & Sienna Craig
Channel: Simpson Center
Date: 2021-03-09

Amira Mittermaier & Sienna R. Craig discuss comparative humanitarianisms in Egypt & the Himalayas. Both articulate the need to move away from human-centric, conventional humanitarianisms by bringing to light the Islamic, Tibetan, & Himalayan logics of giving & aid in Egypt, Himalayas, & the U.S. Abstracts, bios, & chapter markings below. Recorded from live webinar February 4, 2021

Part of the Mellon Sawyer Seminar speaker series "Humanitarianisms: Migrations & Care through the Global South." Made possible by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation & supported by the Simpson Center for the Humanities.  

*Learn more about the series:* 
✔ https://www.humanitarianisms.org/ 

Clickable Chapter Markers:
3:30 Introduction to speakers & discussant
4:55 Amira Mittermaier: “God, Humans, & an Islamic Ethics of Care”
5:55 Critiques of humanitarianism & the limits of the human
6:55 Non-humanitarian giving in Egypt, imagining forms of care beyond the human
7:55 Shayhk Salah, Sufi hospitality, & the ethics of immediacy
8:55 Resala, a non-humanitarian organization, & Islamic logics of care
9:55 Triadic giving & how God disrupts human-human dyadic logics
10:55 Concluding remarks: Rethinking the human in humanitarianism
11:55 Sienna R. Craig: “Himalayan Humanitarianisms: Crisis Response to Earthquakes to Pandemics”
12:55 Three sites of Humanitarian crisis: Yushu (2010), Nepal (2015), & Queens (2020)
13:55 Sowa Rigpa humanitarianism, local logics of care within global politics of compassion
14:55 The impact of coronavirus on Himalayan & Tibetan New Yorkers
15:55 Tibetan & Himalayan cultural orientations towards disasters
16:55 Tibetan medicines & forms of protection in response to natural disasters
17:55 Concluding remarks: Himalayan Humanitarianisms informed by Tibetan Buddhist ways of being & knowing. 
39:45 Discussion w. Cristian Capotescu
58:58 Q&A moderated by Gözde Burcu Ege
01:10:06 Next Event

Produced & edited by Simpson Center for the Humanities Program & Events Manager Caitlin Palo; assistance from Simpson Center Communications Manager C.R. Grimmer.

Full Webinar Credits: 
Co-Convened by Professors Arzoo Osanloo (Law, Societies, & Justice; Director, Middle East Center, UW) & Cabeiri Robinson (International Studies, Comparative Religions, & South Asian Studies, UW) & 
Discussant: Cristian Capotescu (Mellon Sawyer Postdoctoral Scholar)
Moderator: Gözde Burcu Ege (Mellon Sawyer Doctoral Fellow)
Chapter Markings: Mediha P. Sorma (Mellon Sawyer Doctoral Fellow)
Poster & Background Graphic Design: Ana Karina Luna 
Intro/Outro Music:  Lobo Loco, “Night at Sahara Dune” on Diversity of Life. CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. 
Video Production, Editing & Intertitles by Caitlin Palo 
Video Consultant: C.R. Grimmer

*Description of Amira Mittermaier’s & Sienna R. Craig’s prepared remarks 
Amira Mittermaier presents “God, Humans, & an Islamic Ethics of Care”

Caring for those in need is a central pillar of Islam. But caring for is not necessarily the same as caring about. Drawing on fieldwork in informal spaces of giving in post-2011 Egypt, this talk lays out an Islamic ethics of care—one not driven by compassion or pity but centered on divinely prescribed rights & responsibilities.   

Sienna R. Craig presents “Himalayan Humanitarianisms: Crisis Response from Earthquakes to Pandemics” 
How does “humanitarianism” surface in contexts that are primarily non-biomedical & that emerge from Tibetan Buddhist worldviews? What ideals, materials, & practices shape such encounters? Building on ethnographic research that focuses on Tibetan medical camps in India & Nepal, & incorporating recent events related to Tibetan medical responses to COVID-19 in North America & Asia, Craig considers how local logics of care intersect with a global politics of compassion.

*Speaker bios*
Amira Mittermaier is Professor of Anthropology & the Study of Religion at the University of Toronto. She is the author of Dreams that Matter: Egyptian Landscapes of the Imagination (U. of California Press, 2011) & Giving to God: Islamic Charity in Revolutionary Times (U. of California Press, 2019).   
Sienna R. Craig is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Dartmouth College. She is the author most recently of The Ends of Kinship: Connecting Himalayan Lives Between Nepal & New York (U. of Washington Press, 2020).  

*Books by our Speakers:
✔ https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520300835/giving-to-god 
✔ https://uwapress.uw.edu/book/9780295747699/the-ends-of-kinship/

*Teaching resource for Sienna R. Craig’s book, The Ends of Kinship*
✔https://sites.dartmouth.edu/endsofkinship/ 

*Learn more about the series:*
 ✔ https://www.humanitarianisms.org/
 
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✔ https://simpsoncenter.org/