NEWS: New IHSA President and Board elected at Dhaka Conference
The International Humanitarian Studies Association (IHSA) has elected a new President and Board at a General Assembly during its bi-annual conference in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Antonio De Lauri (Chr. Michelsen Institute, Bergen) will lead the Association until 2027.
Outgoing President, Dorothea Hilhorst (International Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam): “I’m delighted that Antonio will be leading the International Humanitarian Studies Association for the next few years: he is an excellent academic – a formidable intellectual that has a strong track record in field research in humanitarian arenas. He is a great networker and I am convinced he will be a wonderful IHSA President. I look forward to him working with the new board to to bring the Association to a broader audience and take the IHSA community to become yet more meaningful to its members.”
Incoming President, Antonio De Lauri: “I am very thankful to the IHSA members for their trust. IHSA is an important and dynamic platform where scholars and practitioners can convey the expertise and knowledge essential to understand and address global humanitarian challenges in these difficult times. I embark on this new journey with passion and dedication.”
Dorothea Hilhorst – one of the founding members of IHSA in 2009 – was the third President of IHSA after Alex de Waal and Peter Walker whom she succeeded in 2016. IHSA will now be hosted at the Humanitarian Studies Centre in The Hague, and will benefit from two new staff members, increasing the capacity of the organization exponentially. An exciting programme of events and initiatives is planned for the coming years.
Board Members elected
Members of the Association also voted for new Board members to join the 10-person board. Palash Kamruzzaman (University of South Wales), Carla Vitantonio (CARE), and Juan Ricardo Aparicio Cuervo (Universidade de Los Andes) were newly elected, whilst Rodrigo Mena (International Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam) and Andrew Cunningham were both re-elected. Board members serve for four years, and the newly elected members join existing members Susanne Jaspars (SOAS), Nazanin Zadeh-Cummings (Deakin University), Patrick Milabyo Kyamusugulwa (ISTM-Bukavu), and Maryam Zarnegar Deloffre (George Washington University).
Mohamed Jelle (UCL), Diego Otegui (University of Central Missouri) and Virginie Troit (Fondation Croix-Rouge) have left the board following the end of their terms; IHSA would like to thank them for their work and dedication over the last four years.
The IHSA Conference took place in collaboration with North South University in Dhaka, Bangladesh, between November 5-7 with the theme ‘Humanitarianism in Changing Climates’.
About Us
The International Humanitarian Studies Association is a network engaged with the study of humanitarian crises caused by disaster, conflict or political instability. Humanitarian studies concern how humanitarian crises evolve, how they affect people and their institutions, communities and societies, and the responses they trigger.
We form a platform for the different disciplines that address humanitarian studies. It offers a venue where these scholarly communities can meet and debate their different insights and understanding of humanitarian crises, in dialogue with policy actors and implementing agencies. IHSA equally welcomes academic scholars, consultants, policy researchers, and reflective practitioners among its membership.
If you are not a member already, please join us today! If you want to find out more about IHSA Governance and how we function please have a look at our Governance page.
Our Biennial Humanitarian Studies Conference
Every two years, the International Humanitarian Studies Association organizes an international conference on humanitarian studies. Our conferences take place in a different part of the world each time. We started in 2009 in Groningen, the Netherlands, and afterwards moved the conference to Boston, Addis Ababa, Istanbul, the Hague and Paris. Our latest eddition of the IHSA conference took place in Dhaka, Bangladesh. For more information click the banner or visit our conference page here.
Our conferences bring together a wide range of academics and practitioners that exchange knowledge on different topics within humanitarian studies. More information about our previous conferences can be found here.
Relevant resources
As a part of our efforts to connect the actors in the humanitarian sector, we have created a selection of humanitarian resources for our community.
This selection includes a wide variety of topics and resources like:
- A humanitarian organizations database
- A humanitarian blogs database
- Our weekly humanitarian blog post selection
- We also have created more useful selections of movies, documentaries, and journals among others.
Membership
IHSA offers two types of membership. Individual membership and institutional membership. We equally welcome academic scholars, consultants, policy researchers, and reflective practitioners among our membership. Do you think your institution might be interested in joining IHSA please send us an email. More information about institutional membership can be found here.
The individual membership fee is 25 Euro per year. You can fill in the membership registration form to become a member.
Members:
- Are entitled to elect the officers of the Board of IHSA
- Receive a discount on any book in the IHSA/ Routledge Humanitarian Studies series
- Can participate in IHSA web-based activities
- Can join, or start, IHSA Working Groups
- Are entitled to a discount fee for the IHSA conference on Humanitarian Studies
- Receive a regular IHSA newsletter
