Abstract

This discussion is prompted by a provocative critique by Monk and Herscher, “The New Universalism: Refuges and Refugees between Global History and Voucher Humanitarianism,” an essay that finds an unexpected epistemic affinity between humanitarianism and global history writing. The Editors solicited responses from across the range of fields most directly implicated in their critique. At stake in the discussion are the meanings of a constellation of interrelated concepts—“human,” “humanism,” and “humanitarian” and “refugee”; “shelter,” “refuge,” “architecture”; “debt,” “credit,” and “value.” Ticktin questions the historical horizons and moral valences of humanitarianism; Siddiqi is concerned to salvage the methodological and political efficacy of microhistory; Allais addresses the fragmentation of architecture within a changing “international order” as a specifically institutional project; Muzaffar calls for constructing a politics beyond the work of negative dialectic; and Jarzombek and Chattopadhyay each articulate substantially different methods for pressing forward with a sufficiently “global” architectural history. The series of essays concludes with a summary response by Monk and Herscher.