Living and Dying at Humanitarianism’s Limits

Abstract

This chapter explores the limits of humanitarian care and capacity and what it means to live and practice up against these limits. This condition is broadly described as a circumstance of “undercare,” where people are cared for, but the care they receive is systemically inadequate. Humanitarian limits include the difficulty of reaching populations across the imposition and change of borders, the inability to access people targeted for violent assault, the incapacity of the humanitarian apparatus to respond to health-care needs of the elderly, and the circumstances of dying in old age. The humanitarian inability to provide adequate care is received by Palestinians as part of a constellation of threats to the population. They see undercare as part of a concerted effort to undermine their collective existence.