Private humanitarian responses to disaster vulnerabilities: The Chernobyl children from Belarus in Italy

Abstract

This article aims to understand how children’s vulnerabilities function in humanitarian aid programmes. Different types of vulnerabilities that emerged as a result of and in response to the consequences of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster (1986) during recuperation of the affected children from Belarus in their Italian host families are examined. It is shown that while the initiation of aid was based on directly disaster-related vulnerabilities (radiation-related vulnerabilities), the outcomes of this aid were influenced by indirectly disaster-related vulnerabilities (social vulnerabilities).

Keywords

Children disaster humanitarianism intersectionality vulnerability

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Babugura

(2008) Vulnerability of children and youth in drought disasters: A case study of Botswana. Children, Youth and Environments 18(1): 126–157.

Bakewell

(2000) Uncovering local perspectives on humanitarian assistance and its outcomes. Disasters 24(2): 103–116.

Baverstock

Williams

(2006) The Chernobyl accident 20 years on: An assessment of the health consequences and the international response. Environmental Health Perspectives 114(9): 1312–1317.

Bornstein

(2001) Child sponsorship, evangelism, and belonging in the work of World Vision Zimbabwe. American Ethnologist 28(3): 595–622.

Cheney

(2014) Giving children a ‘better life’? Reconsidering social reproduction and humanitarianism in intercountry adoption. European Journal of Development Research 26(2): 247–263.

Crivello

Fiddian

Chatty

(2006) Holidays in peace: Sahrawi children visit Spain. Forced Migration Review 25: 59–60.

European Commission (2003) Assistance Through Temporary Children’s Holidays: Guidelines and Intervention Models – REMATCH (Ref.: 2002-102-YC). Brussels: European Commission.

Fereday

Muir-Cochrane

(2006) Demonstrating rigor using thematic analysis: A hybrid approach of inductive and deductive coding and theme development. International Journal of Qualitative Methods 5(1): Article 7.

Fothergill

(2018) Children, youth, and disaster. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Natural Hazard Science. Epub ahead of print July 2017. DOI: 10.1093/acrefore/9780199389407.013.23.

10.

Fushiki

(2013) Radiation hazards in children: Lessons from Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and Fukushima. Brain & Development 35: 220–227.

11.

Gilson

(2011) Vulnerability, ignorance, and oppression. Hypatia 26(2): 308–332.

12.

Gilson

(2016) Vulnerability and victimization: Rethinking key concepts in feminist discourses on sexual violence. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 42(1): 71–98.

13.

Guest

Bunce

Johnson

(2006) How many interviews are enough? An experiment with data saturation and variability. Field Methods 18(1): 59–82.

14.

Halman

van de Fliert

Khan

, et al. (2018) The humanitarian imperative for education in disaster response. Disaster Prevention and Management: An International Journal 27(2): 207–214.

15.

Hilhorst

Jansen

(2010) Humanitarian space as arena: A perspective on the everyday politics of aid. Development and Change 41(6): 1117–1139.

16.

Ioffe

(2007) Belarus and Chernobyl: Separating seeds from chaff. Post-Soviet Affairs 23(2): 353–366.

17.

Long

(1990) From paradigm lost to paradigm regained? The case for an actor-oriented sociology of development. European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies 49: 3–24.

18.

Lykke

(2010) Feminist Studies: A Guide to Intersectional Theory, Methodology and Writing. New York: Routledge.

19.

Maeda

(2017) Mental health consequences and social issues after the Fukushima disaster. Asia Pacific Journal of Public Health 29(2): 36S–46S.

20.

Marples

(1996) Belarus: From Soviet Rule to Nuclear Catastrophe. New York: St. Martin’s Press.

21.

Masten

Narayan

(2012) Child development in the context of disaster, war, and terrorism: Pathways of risk and resilience. The Annual Review of Psychology 63: 277–257.

22.

Mela

(2007) Dopo Chernobyl: i punti di vista italiani e bielorussi sui progetti di solidarieta [After Chernobyl: Italian and Belarusian points of view on solidarity projects]. Tesi di Dottorato, Università Cattolica di Milano, Milano.

23.

Osofsky

(2018) Challenges in building child and family resilience after disasters. Journal of Family Social Work 21(2): 115–128.

24.

Peek

(2008) Children and disasters: Understanding vulnerability, developing capacities, and promoting resilience. Children, Youth and Environments 18(1): 1–29.

25.

Schnabl

(2000) ‘Le “vacanze di risanamento” in Italia per bambini di Chernobyl: spunti da un’indagine tra le famiglie ospitanti’ [Recuperative holidays in Italy for children of Chernobyl: Results from a survey with host families]. Studi Zancan 5: 107–132.

26.

Slay

(2009) Poverty, inequality, and social policy reform in the former Soviet Union. UNDP Bureau for Europe and CIS. Available at: http://www.undp.org/content/dam/rbec/docs/Poverty-inequality-and-social-policy-reform-in-the-former-Soviet-Union.pdf.

27.

Timmermans

Tavory

(2012) Theory construction in qualitative research: From grounded theory to abductive analysis. Sociological Theory 30(3): 167–186.

28.

Tuana

(2006) The speculum of ignorance: The women’s health movement and epistemologies of ignorance. Hypatia 21(3): 1–19.

29.

World Health Organization (2016) 1986–2016: CHERNOBYL at 30. An Update, 25 April. http://www.who.int/ionizing_radiation/chernobyl/Chernobyl-update.pdf

30.

Zhukova

(2017) Foreign aid and identity after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster: How Belarus shapes cooperation with Germany, Europe, Russia, and Japan. Cooperation & Conflict 52(4): 485–501.

31.

Zhukova

(2018a) Chernobyl brought Italy and Belarus closer together – Their approach could do the same for other nations. The Conversation, 8 May. Available at: http://theconversation.com/chernobyl-brought-italy-and-belarus-closer-together-their-approach-could-do-the-same-for-other-nations-95820.

32.

Zhukova

(2018b) Chernobyl, responsibility, and national identity: Positioning Europe and Russia in the media of Belarus and Ukraine (1992–2014). Europe-Asia Studies 70(7): 1055–1082.

33.

Zhukova

(2018c) The anthropology of humanitarianism: Rethinking the role of the apolitical and private in humanitarian space. Public Anthropologist Journal Blog, 2 October. Available at: http://publicanthropologist.cmi.no/2018/10/02/the-anthropology-of-humanitarianism-rethinking-the-role-of-the-apolitical-and-private-in-humanitarian-space/.

34.

Zhukova

(2019a) Kinning as intimate disaster response: From recuperation in host families to educational migration of the Chernobyl children from Belarus to Italy. Identities. Epub ahead of print 13 November. DOI: 10.1080/1070289X.2019.1686877.

35.

Zhukova

(2019b) Nuclear disaster as chronic crisis: Accounts of radiation embodiment by survivors of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster from Belarus born before, in and after 1986. Health. Epub ahead of print 13 February. DOI: 10.1177/1363459319829190.

36.

Zhukova

(in press) Kinning as intimate disaster response: The Chernobyl children from Belarus in Italy. Identities Journal Blog.