“Critical Investigations into Humanitarianism in Africa,” a new online course focused on the causes and consequences of humanitarian aid in Africa, builds on a decade of research and cross-continental collaboration by UCI political science professor, Cecelia Lynch. Critical to the course, as well as Lynch’s work, is the inclusion of African perspectives—those of academics, practitioners, and recipients—in discussing the complicated religious and colonial roots of humanitarian practices. Students will learn directly from scholars and leaders in and outside of Africa.

As all students UC-wide move to remote instruction for spring quarter, a timely and previously planned online course with transcontinental dialogues offers an opportunity to study causes for and consequences of humanitarian aid delivery in Africa. Led by UCI political science professor Cecelia Lynch, “Critical Investigations into Humanitarianism in Africa” (CIHA, based on an ongoing blog of the same name, found at www.cihablog.com) offers a deep dive into the global north’s humanitarian and developmental aid practices in the continent that include a critically important perspective: that of African scholars, practitioners and recipients whose voices are often minimized in the conversation.

“African scholarship and leadership are paramount to this conversation, yet aid debates still too often take place as though they do not exist,” says Lynch. “By creating a course collaboratively that includes these voices and perspectives, we’re hoping to change that.”

Supported through a $90,000 Innovative Learning Technology Initiative grant from the University of California Office of the President, the course lessons draw from Lynch’s decade-long CIHA project which has expanded engagements and ongoing dialogues with research institutes in Africa on topics including war, health, gender and religion, and governance. Findings – which are available publicly through the CIHA Blog – are supported by generous, on-going grants from the Henry Luce Foundation. The foundation awarded UCI another two-year, $330,000 grant in July, bringing its total funding of CIHA to $820,000.

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