The claim to humanitarian sovereignty in the Arab world: the Egyptian Red Crescent (1940-1975)

By focusing on the Egyptian Red Crescent, Esther Möller's project aims to investigate the specific characteristics of humanitarian engagement in a non-European context.
It thus contributes to continuing research on global history which tries to present humanitarian aid not only as being directed from Europe to the rest of the world, but also understands the various regions of the world as active, though not always equal, participants in a global movement of humanitarian aid. As the Egyptian Red Crescent has, until now, never been the subject of historical research, its relations with the British Red Cross as well as with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) will be analysed. Based on archival research in Cairo, Geneva and London, the project explores humanitarian governance as part of political, cultural and social processes of the period in question, and in particular in the context of colonialism, nationalism and decolonization.