From Soldiers of the Faith to Experts in Development

This paper seeks to explain the transformation of American humanitarianism in the early 20th century from religiously motivated charity and educational work to developmental and aid projects in the Middle East. It traces the response of American missionaries and other humanitarian actors in the American empire to the three events of violence against Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. Building on Elisabeth Clemens' work and Bourdieusian field theory, I argue that the humanitarian responses to the 1894-1896 and 1909 massacres took the form of “iterated problem-solving” and “intentionless invention.” These moments of crisis also highlighted a tension within the American Protestant field: the humanitarian logic of neutrality clashed with the logic of conversion and religious solidarity. In these instances, a developing humanitarian field remained subordinated to the Protestant one. The Armenian Genocide of 1915 created a crisis on an unprecedented scale, leading to the development of an autonomous global humanitarian field building on previous American structures but transcending them. The Near East Relief replaced the ABCFM as the central actor in the region after 1919. Contrary to previous practice, this now autonomous field of humanitarianism redefined what ‘neutrality’ means and transformed the vision of aid from a return to the status quo ante to addressing the root causes of violence and building institutions for future development. The transformation of overseas American humanitarianism in this process further redefined the way how international humanitarianism is understood and practiced during the interwar period. The paper ends with discussing the legacies of this moment and its consequences for how INGOs engage with populations in the Global South.