Humanitarianism and Mediterranean Europe: A Transnational and Comparative History (1945-1990)

2026-07-22

In recent years, international humanitarianism has increasingly attracted the interest of historians. A great deal of research has reconstructed aid programmes for those who are victims of war, natural disaster or economic disadvantage. These studies have mainly examined the experience of donor countries in northern Europe, as well as the United States, while the countries of southern Europe have largely been overlooked. HumanEuroMed challenges this unbalance. It puts the countries of Mediterranean Europe at the centre, and it explores the experience of different actors (institutions, administrators, experts, non-governmental organisations) in a comparative and transnational perspective. This project seeks to reframe the history of international aid in the second half of the 20th century by restoring to view the contributions of Mediterranean Europe to shaping the contemporary humanitarian regime. It will achieve this objective by addressing three thematic axes which are able to capture the specific humanitarian undertakings of the countries under investigation (Portugal, Spain, Italy, Yugoslavia and Greece) and make them comparable: 1. the entanglements between international aid, decolonisation and the complex configuration of the post-colonial world; 2. humanitarian diplomacy and the transnational networks (both formal and informal networks, between institutions, non-governmental organisations, professionals and experts) that interconnected the countries of Mediterranean Europe between themselves and to the Global South; 3. the linkages between international relief and national welfare, with a focus on the intertwining of policies, practices and cultures of social care on a national level and those of international relief programmes. HumanEuroMed will contribute to paving the way towards a multifaceted and multi-level history of the contemporary humanitarian regime.

Italy

2026-02-15