Introduction: Charity, Relief and Humanitarianism as a Means of Maintaining Social and Political Stability in the Middle East. A Longue Durée Analysis of Actors, Categories and Practices

Abstract

Different forms of charity, relief and humanitarian action can be jointly approached as a means of governance and social regulation. More precisely, in the Middle East the question of stability – social and political – can be considered as a central driver for local and international actors alike. This study adopts a broad historical framework, reaching from antiquity to the present day, with the aim of approaching the subject with an openness conducive to understanding the evolution of the actors, modes of action and representations underlying aid initiatives. The longue durée approach allows to show two main specificities of the modern and contemporary Middle East: firstly, the evolution of aid practices is directly linked to human mobility, since they are connected to religious practices, commerce or violence, which led to the need to take a census, to categorise and sometimes isolate populations in order to govern and control them. Secondly, in the absence of the welfare state as the most important provider of aid, the state has until today in the Middle East much less prominence among the multiplicity of aid providers, such as the family, non-governmental, religious and community organisations.