Objects and spaces of aid: An introduction

Abstract

Lisa Smirl (1975-2013) was a scholar of international relations and former aid worker who brought a deep understanding of the business and practice of aid alongside a rich appreciation of the academic literature. Her life was ended by cancer a few years after completing her PhD and taking up a lectureship at the University of Sussex (UK). Despite the brevity of her academic career, she had acquired a burgeoning reputation amongst colleagues studying humanitarian aid, conflict resolution and post-conflict reconstruction. Lisa was fascinated by the social world of aid and how its objects and spaces shaped humanitarian and development practice. Many of the questions which Lisa addressed in her academic work are now the subject of lively inter-disciplinary debate across anthropology, sociology, development studies and political science. This set of papers by contributors to a workshop as part of the International Studies Association annual convention held in Toronto in March 2014 is a direct engagement with Lisa’s work and constitutes a series of studies of the objects and spaces of international aid. One of the papers is a posthumously published paper of Lisa herself whilst the other three papers are written by peers who worked with and knew Lisa during her career.