In this post, Honours student Anna Wilkinson reflects on her time in Geneva at the IFRC Archive.
The overall aim of the Resilient Humanitarianism Project is to explore the League of Red Cross/ Red Crescent Societies and understand the organisation’s longevity and resilience. There are fewer better places to uncover these stories than from within the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent (IFRC) archives.
In February 2020, prior to starting my Honours thesis, I spent two weeks in the IFRC archives in Geneva, Switzerland. Flying into Geneva, I had an enormous amount of gratitude for being able to access the archives as a student and new researcher. I understood that this opportunity greatly assisted me in producing a unique contribution to the project.
The copious amounts of archival materials quickly revealed the breadth of new information still waiting to be accessed. Knowing that my thesis was limited but the archives were not, I decided to focus on the Development Programme, a 5-year funding scheme created to assist newly independent Red Cross Societies in the Global South. I understood, having undertaken a thorough literature review of the League’s history, that the Development Programme had yet to be examined. The Programme aligned with my interests in decolonisation and Southeast Asia. I had heard stories of people going into the archives and coming out weeks later with no clear lead. As a first-time ‘archive goer’, I was lucky.
Snapping away with my camera for two weeks, I compiled a sizable collection of primary sources. I quickly became acquainted with meeting notes, proceedings, resolutions, and everything in between. I found myself ensconced in sessions with the Board of Governors, as well as peeking into forums held around the world.
When I was not in the archives, I was able to explore Geneva. Wrapped in a jacket and scarf, I saw glimpses of the headquarters of the United Nations and the World Health Organisation when walking to the city centre. Real-time interactions with these mammoth institutions brought my archival findings to life.
I returned to Adelaide, eager to start the planning process. Little did I know that the archival evidence I returned with would have to last me a while. After all, hindsight is 2020!
A few weeks after I returned home, it became evident that the pandemic was a world-wide affair: borders closed, cities locked down, and archives became inaccessible. Despite the world halting to a standstill, my thesis did not.
Thankfully, my time in the archives provided me with more than enough to write an Honours thesis … or five. My experience helped me understand why historians have the need to go to the archives. The feeling of connection to the history in a tangible manner, to hold it in your own hands, is unmatched for a historian undertaking archival research.
In the following months of thesis planning and writing, I became more aware of the benefits beyond being able to access the archive itself. Having the experience of ‘going to the archives’ helped me understand the inter-relatedness between the knowledge contained in the IFRC archive, and the institutions surrounding it in Geneva. Within the archives, I found valuable information for my thesis and from outside the archives I gained a greater personal understanding of the role of the League itself.