Disappointment and awkwardness as ugly feelings

Abstract

Abstract  What does transnational humanitarianism look like when considered from the perspective of a “Global East”? Ethnographically studying the disappointment and awkwardness generated by two transnational humanitarian projects illuminates a sense of suspended agency among Montenegrin citizens that was developed after the end of the Cold War. Montenegrins are often simultaneously included in the racialized and class-based humanitarian discourses of the Global North and excluded from actual participation in transnational humanitarian projects due to structural constraints. The article suggests that suspended agency emerges when there is both a sense of belonging to a certain humanitarian endeavor that should enable particular kinds of action (e.g., transnational humanitarianism) and a lack of infrastructure capable of sustaining such a sense.