Abstract

ASEAN member states have invested substantially in cooperation on humanitarian assistance and disaster relief. Despite broad support for the idea of ‘localizing’ humanitarian action, the emergence of regional mechanisms has in practice led to uncertainty and frictions between different stakeholders. This webinar presents new research on the narratives through which established and new actors construct and contest ASEAN’s role in Southeast Asian disaster relief. Strategic narratives are increasingly recognized as central mechanisms in the re-making of international order – both in the humanitarian field and beyond. Zooming in on the case of the ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on Disaster Management (AHA Centre), the event offers insights into humanitarian action in Southeast as a deeply political arena where different conceptions of order are asserted, contested and negotiated.

About the Speaker

Kilian Spandler is a Researcher at the School of Global Studies, University of Gothenburg, Sweden. His work explores the conditions of global and regional governance, both historically and against the background of the current transition towards a post-Western world. He is the author of Regional Organizations in International Society (Palgrave, 2018), which explores the evolution of ASEAN and the EU, and develops a theory of normative arguing for the analysis of regional organizations. Current research interests include humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, as well as the role of populism in regional and world politics. Kilian obtained his PhD from the University of Tübingen, Germany, in 2016. He has held various visiting research and teaching positions, including at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, Jakarta, The New School, New York City, and the University of Freiburg. In 2018, he joined the School of Global Studies, where he is currently involved in the research project “Regional Cooperation and the Transformation of National Sovereignty (TRANSFORM)”.