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David Jefferess

@djefferess.bsky.social
324 followers 585 following 414 posts

Parent. University teacher. Gardener. Research and teach on the colonial and racial politics of humanitarianism, and heritage/public memory practices. Live in Syilx Okanagan territory.

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Reposted by David Jefferess
David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Wtaf is this question my university just asked me about my project?
Does the project involve any work that could be interpreted as promoting DEIA, climate change research, or non-compliant to any Presidential Executive Orders?
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Reposted by David Jefferess
Conor Curtis @conorcurtis.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
It speaks to me to the only coherent plan by the Fed. Govern. being deregulation, privatization, & subsidies for wealthy interests. We saw this at the Canada Investment Summit. That again brings me to the fine print, because that’s where airport privatization was hidden. And it is privatization.
canadiandimension.com
Carney’s airport privatization is a looming disaster: ‘Highway 407 of the skies’
Mark Carney took another giant step in his right-wing crusade Tuesday, announcing a plan to effectively privatize four of Canada’s largest airports. The deal risks becoming “Highway 407 of the skies”:...
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Reposted by David Jefferess
Tom Slatter @tomslatter.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
One of the most interesting things about this AI stuff is it has helped me learn a lot of people take language other people use much more literally than I realised. Very surprised most people don't immediately think hallucination? I think you mean 'error'.
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Reposted by David Jefferess
MiningWatch Canada @miningwatch.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Lac Simon Chief Lucien Wabanonik says the Novador project was approved without Lac Simon’s consent. Now the community is turning to the courts.
aptnnews.ca
Lac Simon First Nation evicts gold mine from its ancestral territory
Drilling on the project stopped weeks ago when Lac Simon issued an eviction notice to Mexican mining company Fresnillo.
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David Jefferess @djefferess.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Ed Sheeran will symbolize so well the ideal of "not taking sides" when he is standing all alone on that giant stage. Hopefully the seats will be empty too.
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David Jefferess @djefferess.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
The Anglo imperial powers have been seeking to destabilize and control Iran/Persia for more than a century, and continue to do so, along with Israel. Carney talks big about the end of US hegemony while supporting US/Anglo/Western imperialism at every turn.
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David Jefferess @djefferess.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
In world war I, the UK & Russia invaded NEUTRAL Persia and killed more than 2 million people. In world war II, the UK & USSR invaded NEUTRAL lran. The democratically elected government of Iran was overthrown by the US CIA in 1953, who installed a brutal dictatorship www.canada.ca/en/global-af...
canada.ca
Canada condemns Iran’s destabilizing actions in the Middle East
Today, the Honourable Anita Anand, Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Honourable François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Finance and National Revenue, issued this statement:
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David Jefferess @djefferess.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Dear CBC As Israel has killed tens of thousands of people in Gaza, destroyed all infrastructure, rounded up people in small camps, "removing" Palestinians can never be construed as "voluntary." Lead with the fact that Israel continues to commit war crimes cbc.ca/news/world/d...
Screen grab of headline from CBC website: "Israel prepared to remove Palestinians from Gaza if U.S. approves, defence minister says. Officials describe move as 'voluntary' but Palestinians fear forced expulsion, which would be war crime.
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David Jefferess @djefferess.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
CBC calls it a "Taliban killing ground" but it was the Taliban and Afghan civilians who were overwhelmingly those who were killed, while it was Canada and it's Nato partners doing the killing. 12 Canadian soldiers were killed while they killed 40 Afghan civilians. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operati...
en.wikipedia.org
Operation Medusa - Wikipedia
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David Jefferess @djefferess.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Today, CBC is doing nostalgia of imperial wars. According to the synopsis, Canadian troops just "walked into a Taliban killing ground," as if "Operation Medusa" wasn't a an attack by foreign powers (NATO forces including Canada) against the Taliban. cbc.ca/news/politic...
Screen grab of headline and synopsis of CBC news story, posted Sept. 2 2026. 
"The battle that made Canada bleed: Operation Medusa, 20 years later"
"It has been 20 years since Canadian soldiers walked into a Taliban killing ground west of Kandahar..."
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David Jefferess @djefferess.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
CBC leads with Iran's "attacks," as if Iran is the aggressor, & presents this as fact, while identifying only "reports" of a deadly strike on a wedding, without identifying who bombed the wedding and who was killed: It was the US who attacked civilians in Iran.
Headline and synopsis of CBC news story posted Sept 2 2026. Headline reads: "Taliban attacks U.S. bases across Gulf after reports of deadly strike on wedding."
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Reposted by David Jefferess
Julia Is Waving, Not Drowning @booktweeting.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
there are more than twice as many museum workers in the US than there are coal miners
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David Jefferess @djefferess.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
A 40% discount on the digital version of The Humanitarian Fable is available from Routledge until August 15. Use the discount code: THF50 www.routledge.com/The-Humanita...
routledge.com
The Humanitarian Fable: Saviorism, Race, and Aid
The Humanitarian Fable examines how popular humanitarian communication constructs global poverty as a moral narrative that reinforces unequal power dynamics between the Global North and Global South. ...
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Reposted by David Jefferess
Septima P. Snark @drsubini.blacksky.app · 31/07/2026
Dr. Tiffany Willoughby-Herard put her body on the line to protect students fighting for Gaza & police assaulted her. Instead of protecting her, UC Irvine has stripped her faculty role & her health benefits. Please sign petition, write a letter, signal boost robindgkelley.substack.com/p/in-support...
robindgkelley.substack.com
In Support of Dr. Tiffany Willoughby-Herard
Most academics in the U.S., as well as activists resisting the genocide in Gaza, are familiar with the case of Professor Tiffany Willoughby-Herard, a renowned Global Studies scholar at the University ...
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David Jefferess @djefferess.bsky.social · 26/07/2026
The word they were looking for was "domestic" but it's the cbc
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David Jefferess @djefferess.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
So, a white man (Swiss employee of weapons manufacturer) punches a Palestinian-Canadian woman, yells "I'm a f---ing racist and I'm proud of it", and is given an absolute discharge by the judge, who determines he was not racist but simply "emotional". www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...
cbc.ca
Swiss man who assaulted protester in Ottawa gets absolute discharge | CBC News
A Swiss man who pleaded guilty to punching a protester in the face outside an Ottawa defence conference in 2024 was given an absolute discharge Wednesday before exiting the courtroom to angry shouts f...
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Reposted by David Jefferess
David Jefferess @djefferess.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
Routledge is currently offering a 40% discount on the digital version of The Humanitarian Fable. Contact me for the promo code!
Image of the cover for The Humanitarian Fable (2026) overtop images from posters marketing humanitarian initiatives.
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David Jefferess @djefferess.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
Routledge is currently offering a 40% discount on the digital version of The Humanitarian Fable. Contact me for the promo code!
Image of the cover for The Humanitarian Fable (2026) overtop images from posters marketing humanitarian initiatives.
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David Jefferess @djefferess.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
"I have personally witnessed this phenomenon, what I term, “neo-racism” across my career as an international development practitioner, both in domestic and international spaces." www.jmb-consulting.co.uk/uncharitable...
jmb-consulting.co.uk
Racism - a Reality and a Scapegoat. By Themrise Khan — JMB Consulting
In the non-profit sector, in which I include foreign aid and philanthropy, race has become a tool  to both subjugate and gain power. I say this as a Brown woman from the Global South who has spe...
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Reposted by David Jefferess
The New Humanitarian @newhumanitarian.bsky.social · 10/07/2026
📝 "Humanitarianism has become a brand and every brand needs a narrative." Themrise Khan, researcher, writer, and analyst, shares a critical view of the current narrative tropes utilised within the aid sector. 🔗 Read the full piece here: bit.ly/4eOPcS4
thenewhumanitarian.org
The curse of the humanitarian narrative
Using narratives to communicate in the humanitarian and development space is particularly problematic. Here’s why.
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Reposted by David Jefferess
David Jefferess @djefferess.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
Chapter 5 - Saviourism, Post-Racialism, Modernity This chapter examines how humanitarianism functions as a signature of modernity. In order to shed the stigma of white saviourism, the aid industry reinforces the idea that humanitarianism models an ethic of colour-blindness.⬇️ bsky.app/profile/djef...
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David Jefferess @djefferess.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
The Humanitarian Fable is now widely available digitally via university libraries. If you are an academic and can't access it, please ask your library to get access. If you are not an academic, ask your local library system to get access. Thanks. www.routledge.com/The-Humanita...
routledge.com
The Humanitarian Fable: Saviorism, Race, and Aid
The Humanitarian Fable examines how popular humanitarian communication constructs global poverty as a moral narrative that reinforces unequal power dynamics between the Global North and Global South. ...
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David Jefferess @djefferess.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
Unlike earlier heroic saviour figures, such as Schweitzer, or contemporary figures like Geldof & Bono, these narratives emphasize how these men disrupt dominant forms of white masculinity and seem to achieve a sense of belonging in the places they provide aid. ⬇️
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David Jefferess @djefferess.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
I provide a close reading of the way Paul Farmer, Greg Mortenson, and James Orbinski are presented as transcending race in life narratives about their work. ⬇️
Image of the cover of Tracy Kidder's biography of Paul Farmer, Mountains Beyond Mountains.Image of the cover of Greg Mortenson's memoir, Three Cups of Tea, co-authored with David Oliver Relinimage of a poster for the documentary Triage: Dr. James Orbinski's Humanitarian Dilemma.
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David Jefferess @djefferess.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
Yet, because humanitarianism is tied to the idea of colour-blindness—which only has meaning within the context of Western racism and white supremacy—I argue that white people continue to be presented as the best models of the humanitarian ethic. ⬇️
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David Jefferess @djefferess.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
This includes a shift towards more racially diverse representations of donors and volunteers by Western development NGOs. They remove the white person from the narrative, but retain the script of humanitarian orientation. I analyze a World Vision series.⬇️ www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nlth...
youtube.com
World Vision Canada – Ngozi's Story
YouTube video by World Vision Canada
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David Jefferess @djefferess.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
Responding to critiques of the white saviour complex, many humanitarian NGOs have sought to evade the stigma of that figure while nonetheless reaffirming saviourism as a framework for understanding inequality. ⬇️
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David Jefferess @djefferess.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
Craig Kielburger’s MTV Cribs episode provides a troubling example of the normalized racism within humanitarian communications. Disturbingly, videos like this functioned to produce Kielburger as a “cool” model of "global citizenship." ⬇️ vimeo.com/49975157
vimeo.com
MTV Cribs: Craig Kielburger Epsiode
Haddon Strategy directed and field produced a unique episode of MTV Cribs. We shot it with Craig Kielburger, founder of Free the Children and Me to We, in the Maasai Mara in Kenya! A spoof on fancy ca...
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David Jefferess @djefferess.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
For instance, like Albert Schweitzer or Band-Aid's "Do They Know it's Christmas," prominent Canadian humanitarian figures, like Craig Kielburger and Samantha Nutt, utilized overtly racist tropes. ⬇️
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David Jefferess @djefferess.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
Indeed, a disturbing racial logic persists, including the construction of the humanitarian figure against depictions of the exotic other who is not-yet-modern. ⬇️
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David Jefferess @djefferess.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
The performance of humanitarian care is constructed as necessary in order to be seen as fully human or modern. I argue that the presumption that humanitarianism is “impartial” and “colour-blind” is not evidence of an anti-racist approach, but a means of ignoring racial power. ⬇️
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David Jefferess @djefferess.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
Chapter 5 - Saviourism, Post-Racialism, Modernity This chapter examines how humanitarianism functions as a signature of modernity. In order to shed the stigma of white saviourism, the aid industry reinforces the idea that humanitarianism models an ethic of colour-blindness.⬇️ bsky.app/profile/djef...
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Reposted by David Jefferess
Eiynah 🇵🇸 @nicemangos.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
Queens University hosting, not just guests from a genocidal apartheid state, but guests who are sexual predators too
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David Jefferess @djefferess.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
Much gratitude to Themrise Khan for engaging with my recent book, The Humanitarian Fable, addressing some of my arguments in relation to the current calls for a 'humanitarian reset.' Please check out her article in The New Humanitarian.
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Reposted by David Jefferess
Cory @booksareneat.bsky.social · 03/07/2026
This turned into a magnet for entitled Americans looking to excuse their nationalism. It's really pathetic, their country is the number one exporter of misery around the globe and yet they feel zero responsibility to do anything about it. "What do you want us to do about it?" Anything!
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David Jefferess @djefferess.bsky.social · 27/06/2026
bsky.app/profile/djef...
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David Jefferess @djefferess.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
The Humanitarian Fable is now widely available digitally via university libraries. If you are an academic and can't access it, please ask your library to get access. If you are not an academic, ask your local library system to get access. Thanks. www.routledge.com/The-Humanita...
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David Jefferess @djefferess.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
Examining Oxfam's marketing of the donor experience and the controversy around figures like Greg Mortenson and Craig Kielburger, I argue that humanitarian benevolence fulfills the desire to transcend the emptiness of material affluence without giving up the privilege it affords⬇️
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David Jefferess @djefferess.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
The ethical framework of humanitarianism paradoxically asserts shared human dignity while also entrenching notions of racial, cultural, and civilizational difference through the spectacle of the typically white Northern person trespassing into foreign places to provide care. ⬇️
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David Jefferess @djefferess.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
David Theo Goldberg argues that that “symbolic sign(post) of race in our (neo)liberal present reads “DO NOT TRESPASS.” Yet, organizations like MSF and narratives of humanitarian experience valourize the (white) humanitarian’s refusal to recognize borders. ⬇️
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David Jefferess @djefferess.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
The Entitlement to Trespass Drawing on Tori Hogan’s memoir-festo, Beyond Good Intentions, the chapter argues that humanitarians are presented as being at home anywhere, their work imagined as an act of hospitality. ⬇️
Cover of Tori Hogan's book, Beyond Good Intentions: A Journey into the Realities of International Aid.
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David Jefferess @djefferess.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
The humanitarian fable allows affluent people the assurance that they can live a good (benevolent) life while continuing to live the good (material) life. ⬇️
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David Jefferess @djefferess.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
The chapter critiques Singer’s popular use of the analogy of the bystander and drowning child, as well as his book, The Life You Can Save, in which he claims that the only way to be a ‘good’ person is to give to development orgs. ⬇️
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David Jefferess @djefferess.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
For instance, among many other examples, I examine a Clio award-winning UNHCR ad campaign, that utilized the slogan: ‘Refugees want the same problems you have’” ⬇️
UNHCR poster. Image of a woman in a desolate landscape. She is depicted doing laundry in a metal bucket. She is holding two garments that appear to be soaked in blood. The poster's title reads "Refugees want the same problems you have."
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David Jefferess @djefferess.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
Humanitarian marketing evokes in viewers a sense of guilt for their fortune in an unequal world and the shame of not doing enough to help others. The humanitarian fable evokes this shame and promises that this discomfort will be expiated by performing humanitarian acts. ⬇️
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David Jefferess @djefferess.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
While scholarship tends to focus on how NGOs evoke pity for poor others, the moral framework of humanitarianism focuses just as much on shame/guilt. ⬇️
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David Jefferess @djefferess.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
For philosophers like Peter Singer, and many popular development thinkers, the PROBLEM is that the global North doesn’t do enough to aid distant suffering others. The humanitarian fable, then, functions to convince affluent people to exert the moral will to care for the poor. ⬇️
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David Jefferess @djefferess.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
The popular moral rhetoric that privileged people have the responsibility to “give back” does not actually connote making restitution, recognizing how the accumulation of wealth requires taking resources from others. Rather, it is presented as an act of moral will. ⬇️
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David Jefferess @djefferess.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
Chapter 4 - The Burden of Benevolence By constructing poverty as a moral problem, the humanitarian fable teaches that inequality is not the result of racial capitalism, trade, debt, etc., but the North’s failure to provide sufficient, effective aid. ⬇️ bsky.app/profile/djef...
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David Jefferess @djefferess.bsky.social · 18/06/2026
For more on Patrice Lumumba, who Mboladinga is honouring, read: If you are intrigued by what Mboladinga is doing, read this brief introduction to Patrice Lumumba. africasacountry.com/2017/01/patr...
africasacountry.com
Patrice Lumumba (1925–1961)
"Africa will write its own history and in both north and south it will be a history of glory and dignity" (Lumumba, 1960)
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