Descrizione del progetto
La dimensione religiosa dell’aiuto umanitario
I missionari e gli aiuti umanitari europei in Medio Oriente sono una parte importante del coinvolgimento dell’Europa nel mondo arabo. Il progetto HUMANE, finanziato dall’UE, si concentrerà sulla dimensione religiosa, studiando in particolare l’Associazione cattolica per l’assistenza sociale nel Vicino Oriente (CINEWA), un gruppo fondato negli Stati Uniti nei primi anni Venti del Novecento per aiutare i cristiani d’oriente e per promuovere la conversione dei cristiani ortodossi. Inoltre, HUMANE studierà la Missione papale per la Palestina, istituita nel 1949 per aiutare i rifugiati cristiani palestinesi. I risultati chiariranno l’interazione tra gli aspetti missionari, il lavoro umanitario e i programmi politici, oltre a fornire nuove informazioni sulle dinamiche tra la religione e la secolarizzazione nel mondo contemporaneo.
Obiettivo
This project examines the religious dimension of practice, conception and reception of modern humanitarianism between Europe, the US and the Middle East in the XXth century up to recent times. It sheds light on the transnational Catholic networks to assist Middle Eastern populations after the First World War and the Armenian genocide. More specifically, it focuses on the Catholic Near East Welfare Association (CNEWA), which was founded in the United States in the early 1920s to help Eastern Christians, curb the influence of Protestantism and promote the conversion of Orthodox Christians. It also looks at the Pontifical Mission for Palestine (PMP), established in 1949 for Palestinian Christian refugees, before turning over the years into the executive agency of CNEWA in the Arab Middle East. Drawing upon a mass of unpublished archival documentation located in Lebanon, the Middle East, Europe and the United States, as well as fieldwork investigations, this research explores the entanglement between missionary issues, humanitarian efforts, and political agendas. In doing so, it enlightens the engagement of the papacy in the Levant, provides new insight on the refugee history and helps re-think the dynamics between religion and secularisation in the contemporary world.
A fellowship at the Ecole française de Rome (EfR) and the Institut français du Proche-Orient (Ifpo) in Beirut will situate this project in leading scholarship on the history of Christianity, migrations and Middle Eastern studies, while providing direct access to essential primary sources. Drawing on the candidate’s expertise in the history of international affairs, Vatican diplomacy and interreligious relations, the MSCA-GF will expand these research interests to new competences in faith-based humanitarianism and the transnational history of Mediterranean. It will result in a book at the intersection of these multiple fields.
Campo scientifico
Programma(i)
Argomento(i)
Meccanismo di finanziamento
MSCA-IF-GF - Global FellowshipsCoordinatore
00186 Roma
Italia