Call for Papers, The League of Red Cross Societies in Historical Perspectives, 1919-1991

We will be hosting a two-day symposium at the IFRC in Geneva on Thursday and Friday 15-16 June 2023.

Please see the PDF for more details:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/11pNasfCIECnWuAOgI04b9Oi8OFdyLz6t/view?usp=sharing

For this symposium, we seek contributions from scholars working on major platforms of the League of Red Cross Societies such as health and public health policy, disaster management, aid and relief, the Junior Red Cross, and the development of national Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and League infrastructure, and international collaborations with other international bodies such as WHO and the United Nations. We are particularly interested in hearing from those working on the post-World War II period and the emergence of new national Red Cross and Red Crescent societies following national independence and how those new national Societies interacted with the League in Geneva.

Questions to consider include, but are not limited to:

  • How did the LRCS develop as an institution of its own? How did it navigate the period 1920-45? What programs did it support?
  • How did the LRCS interact with newly established national Red Cross/Red Crescent societies of recently independent countries in the Middle-East, Africa and Asia?
  • What programs did the LRCS establish in the post-WWII period, and were they successful on the ground? (eg public health, disaster relief, first aid, etc.)
  • How did the LRCS navigate the Cold War and its relations with Soviet republics and their allies?
  • What roles have gender, volunteering, and climate change played? How can we explain the League’s institutional resilience in the twentieth century?

We will be joined by Emeritus Professor David P. Forsythe (University of Nebraska-Lincoln). A welcome reception will be held on the evening of Wednesday 14 June at the IFRC.

Please send a 300-word abstract and a 100-word biography to resilienthumsymposium2023@gmail.com by 9 September 2022.

Contact melanie.oppenheimer@anu.edu.au for more information.