Politicians, pathogens, and other threats to aid workers: a material semiotic analysis of violence against health care in the Syrian conflict

Abstract

This paper analyses humanitarian security in the framework of Donna Haraway’s political material semiotics. It begins by arguing that targeted violence against health care constitutes a trope: a figure of speech that challenges and disrupts the established narrative of humanitarian security. Drawing on 20 in-depth expert interviews, the paper explores a case study of weaponisation of health care in the Syrian conflict (2011-present). It illustrates how different material-semiotic actors–such as politicians, pathogens, and medical infrastructure–condition and shape the security of humanitarian health workers in the opposition-held parts of the country. Taking medical facilities as its key unit of analysis, the paper shows how armed violence is not only directed towards these material-semiotic entities but amplified and transformed as it passes through them. In doing so, the paper sheds light on the formative role that nonhuman materialities play in the protection of aid workers and other civilian entities in armed conflict. The paper's findings also contribute towards an improved understanding of how previously under-appreciated variables impact the delivery of medical aid in complex humanitarian emergencies.