This study sheds light on the often overlooked relations between local actors in the localisation of humanitarian assistance. It examines how local NGOs and refugee-led organisations (RLOs) in Turkey approach humanitarianism and localisation. By focusing on RLOs led by three distinct displaced communities—and their visions of humanitarianism rooted in faith, justice, and rights—the article offers a fresh perspective that highlights how refugees themselves shape humanitarian responses in similar displacement contexts.

Abstract

Two of the main recent trends in humanitarianism have been the increasing focus on decolonialisation and localisation of humanitarian assistance. Donors have committed to raising funding for local actors, especially to refugee-led organisations, with the hopes of tackling colonial power inequalities in humanitarianism and empowering local actors. Yet, the narratives used to maintain the hegemonic understanding of humanitarianism in localisation efforts and dismiss refugee-led organisations have not been comprehensively studied. Drawing on 130 interviews with refugee-led organisations, non-governmental organisations, international organisations and state officials in Turkey, this article shows that by characterising refugee-led organisations as charities with an assumed religious agenda, instead of humanitarian actors, national non-governmental organisations disparage these actors. I argue that the preconceived idea that refugee-led organisations do not adhere to traditional humanitarian principles fuels other non-­governmental organisations’ labelling of refugee-led organisations as charities, but this dismissal is also driven by worries about competition in the humanitarian sector. Adopting a decolonial framework, I assert that the reluctance to shift more power and resources to refugee communities is not only about ideology but also about political economy, an under-examined factor in the literature to date.”

Recommended Citation

Erdilmen, M. (2025). Against the charge of charity: refugee-led organisations, localisation and decolonising humanitarianism. Third World Quarterly,Ěý46(13), 1543–1564. 

There has been increased scholarly and policy attention to “localized” responses to displacement, in the hope that further empowering local actors may unlock new means of protecting refugees’ rights and addressing their needs. However, these efforts have often oversimplified power relations within localization processes, bringing some players into focus while occluding others, and devoting insufficient attention to how localization processes and the power dynamics surrounding them have evolved over time. In response, this article draws on theories of subalternity and subaltern agency from the field of postcolonial studies to develop a more nuanced conceptualization of power in localization processes in the refugee regime. We contend that subalternity is best understood as a fluid, relational position that changes over time, such that particular refugees and displaced groups may oscillate between dominant and marginalized, subaltern subject positions, within intersecting systems of power. We probe refugees’ subaltern agency in terms of resistance and persistence, and deepen this account through analysis of localized responses to Burundian refugees in Tanzania, focusing on the localization of efforts to secure durable solutions for refugees. We argue that localization scholarship, particularly in the context of the refugee regime, needs to move beyond homogenized, dehistoricized, and romanticized notions of grassroots, refugee-led responses and focus on complex and fluid power configurations among diverse local actors.