Global South to the rescue: Emerging humanitarian superpowers and globalizing rescue industries.

• Author: Amar, Paul
• Position: Book review

The volume edited by Paul Amar critically analyzes the role that the Global South is thought to play (or not play) in the humanitarian domain. The contributors bring in examples from different parts of the world to criticize two sets of approaches: (i) the conventional Eurocentric approach that portrays the Global South only at the receiving end of the humanitarian missions and; (ii) the more critical approach that sees the increasing involvement of the Global South in humanitarian missions as a testament of how the problems embedded in liberal global governance are slowly being erased. Instead, the contributors first illustrate that changing the ethnic, racial or gender composition of humanitarian missions does not necessarily result in overcoming the problems embedded in these missions or in the general working of global governance. Second, the volume also highlights that while it is important to take the Global South's agency seriously in the humanitarian domain, such agency should be analyzed critically with an eye on the dynamics and intentions of these countries' involvements rather than romanticizing them.

The first section of the book, "Globalizing Peacekeeper Industries" is composed of three chapters and focuses on how the change in national and gender composition of humanitarian missions as well as the mercenary sector affect the overall functioning and the effectiveness of these sectors. While the mercenary sector has always been approached with a considerable level of criticism, putting the UN missions' practices under the spotlight for problems embedded in their structure and misconducts is relatively new. As a result of increasing concerns regarding the allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse conducted by UN forces, a number of steps were taken both to have a stricter oversight of the personnel as well as to change the gender composition of the missions. The chapters in this section raise concerns about such steps: Henry argues that all-female UN peacekeeping mission units neither marks emancipation for female soldiers nor increases the dialogue between the local communities and the missions. Higate takes a look at the mercenary sector and argues that the increasing role of soldiers from the Global South within the sector is a reflection of the colonial notions of these nations as warriors and does not indicate a rising equality between countries. In the last chapter of this section Christie critically evaluates the...