Can you briefly describe your book?
The War on Rescue documents how governments block assistance to people in times of crisis. Focusing on the European Migration Crisis of 2015–2022 to address the reasons why governments do this, I discuss the strategies employed that prevent suffering people from receiving help. The European Migration Crisis motivated people around the world to offer assistance to needy refugees and migrants across Europe, the Mediterranean, and North Africa. Both large and small organizations rushed to bring food, medical care, and rescue to those stranded at sea. However, many European governments sought to prevent humanitarian assistance and deny safe haven to the desperate. Boats filled with those rescued were blocked from harbours, activists were arrested, and staff were threatened; some faced violence. The War on Rescue adds to social science understanding of and explanations for humanitarian assistance and the reasons why governments obstruct rescue efforts.
Why did you decide to publish it with Cornell University Press?
Cornell University Press has a long history of publishing ground-breaking research and analysis of humanitarian assistance, and international responses to crisis, and it therefore was a perfect home for my book.
Do you enjoy the writing process?
For the research for this book, I interviewed 150 aid workers from all over the world, who had some kind of connection to the humanitarian response to the European Migration Crisis. I had many fascinating, eye-opening, and at times emotional conversations with people who had struggled in their efforts to bring aid to refugees and migrants in need of humanitarian assistance. Though the conversations were often on heart-breaking topics, I was also able to bounce ideas of many experienced people, and had my thinking changed on many topics.
Who, or what, inspires you?
Firstly, the resilience of people facing adversity and crisis, and their ability to adapt and react to the challenging situations around. Secondly, people from all over the world, who take risks on their own shoulders to stand alongside people facing humanitarian crisis.
What book – for work or pleasure – would you recommend right now?
Vincent Delecroix’s book “Small Boat”. It tells the story of a group of refugees and migrants who are lost at sea when trying to cross from France to the UK. It is a heart-breaking account of loss and desperation, but also of the indifference that can lead to human suffering being ignored.
What advice would you offer to young academics wishing to follow in your footsteps?
As an academic, we prioritize trying to be right in retrospect. As a policy worker, you prioritize trying to be right in real time. But we should always be endeavouring to be both.
What’s next?
I am working on a new book draft on the subject of “humanitarian corridors”. Even though corridors are often called for in times of war and crisis, they are actually inherently problematic and dangerous. They are also often the tools of warring parties who want to depopulate an area or engage in ethnic cleansing. They are therefore a fascinating subject of research.
William Plowright is Assistant Professor of International Security at Durham University. The War on Rescue: The Obstruction of Humanitarian Assistance in the European Migration Crisis is published by Cornell University Press.