title: Save the Children, the humanitarian project, and the politics of solidarity: reviving Dorothy Buxton's vision.
abstract: This paper reflects on the foundational years of Save the Children, one of the oldest and largest Western humanitarian agencies and a mainstay of the humanitarian project. In doing so, it considers how and why, at an early stage, the organisation depoliticised its activities, centring its narrative on the innocent, pre-political child-the image of unsullied humanity. In addition, it seeks to recover the internationalist vision of Save the Children's 'forgotten founder', Dorothy Buxton. Save the Children's turn to non-politics is indicative of the broader depoliticisation of Western humanitarian action. Given the intensely contested spaces in which Western humanitarian non-governmental organisations (NGOs) operate, these entities cannot escape politics. This paper argues that Buxton's efforts to build an international solidarity network through humanitarian action after the end of the First World War in 1918 provide an instructive basis on which these NGOs can pursue a politics of solidarity in the present day.
authors.affiliation: Lecturer in 19th/20th Century British History, University of Bristol, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Emily
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Baughan
authors.affiliation: Head of Humanitarian Affairs, Save the Children, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Juliano
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Fiori
mesh_terms: D000533:Altruism; D002648:Child; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D007391:International Cooperation; D009938:Organizations / Q000458:organization & administration; D011057:Politics
keywords: Save the Children; humanitarianism; internationalism; politics; solidarity