What question did this study set out to answer?

The study aims to analyze Norwegian humanitarian volunteers' roles and emotional dynamics during the European refugee crisis.

April 11, 2026Open Access

Book review of Mogstad, Heidi 2023. Humanitarian Shame and Redemption: Norwegian Citizens Helping Refugees in Greece. New York: Berghahn Books, 278 pp.

Key Points

The study aims to analyze Norwegian humanitarian volunteers' roles and emotional dynamics during the European refugee crisis.
Extended ethnographic study of the organization A Drop in the Ocean (DiH)
Pilot study conducted in 2016 followed by 18 months of ethnography between 2018 and 2020
Multi-sited fieldwork in various contexts involving refugees and local communities
Mogstad reveals volunteers' attempts to critique neocolonial structures while being complicit in them.
The study highlights dilemmas faced by volunteers, including (de)politicization and the fetishization of victims.
Encounters with refugees and local communities expose the complexities of humanitarian work.

Abstract

Christian Michelsen Institute in Bergen, offers a vital analysis of the affective and political terrain of humanitarian volunteer organizations that emerged in response to the so-called European 'refugee crisis' of 2015 (Hagelund 2020).Anchored in an extended ethnographic study of the Norwegian volunteer organization Drpen i Havet A Drop in the Ocean (DiH), the book explores how the organization navigates 'filling humanitarian gaps' (Mogstad, p. 81) in Greece, while reflecting on the emotional and ideological journeys of volunteers.Drawing on a 2016 pilot study and 18 months of ethnography between 2018 and 2020, Mogstad offers a compelling account of the evolving political and social dynamics that shape the humanitarian organization.Mogstad's prolonged, multi-sited fieldwork allows her to capture subtle shifts at both the structural and individual levels.Throughout, she skillfully engages a wide range of theoretical frameworks, making the book not only empirically rich but also analytically ambitious in its contributions to debates on humanitarianism, affect, race, and national identity.A central contribution of the book is its reversal of the ethnographic gaze, away from the refugees towards those who typically remain invisible: the humanitarian volunteers.Rather than merely unmasking neocolonial or 'voluntourist' impulses, Mogstad maps the intricate emotional and political assemblages that shape volunteers' attachments to 'humanitarian hierarchies and national frames and imaginaries' (p.8).Mogstad's analysis reveals the complex position of volunteers, who often attempt to critique neocolonial systems of inequality while remaining partially complicit in them.Throughout, Mogstad moves across various analytical scales and sites to explore dilemmas facing Norwegian volunteers, such as (de)politicization, acting as a band-aid for structural neglect, professionalization, the fetishization of the 'perfect victim' (p.119), European paternalism, self-doubt, and overreach with unaccompanied minors.These challenges surface through encounters with refugees, local Greek communities, and state actors criminalizing humanitarian work; in conversations with the volunteers'

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