Humanitarianism and the Non-European World

Analyses of Turkey’s role as a humanitarian state rest on two assumptions. The first assumption is that Turkey is a late-comer to the international humanitarian field. The second assumption is that Turkey is an essentially different humanitarian actor when compared to Western actors and institutions. With a particular focus on refugee humanitarianism, this chapter rejects the taken-for-granted view that Turkey is a follower of humanitarianism whose origins lie elsewhere. It reviews the recent calls for decentering European Union studies on migration and refugees. Decentered approaches to migration and refugee governance have emerged as a reaction to the perceived Eurocentrism of the field. The main argument is that academic studies have largely neglected the actors and viewpoints of the countries which are interlocutors of EU countries in migration and refugee control. The chapter uses the Jewish immigration to the Ottoman lands to make visible an alternative account of the history of the humanitarian present.