Iain Wilkinson, professor of sociology at the University of Kent (UK), has visited the University of Navarra to teach teaching in the Master's Degree in research in Social Sciences, which coordinates the Institute for Culture and Society (ICS). Wilkinson is an expert on issues related to the problems of social suffering and the sociology of humanitarianism. In his research he seeks to understand the cultural and social conditions that have led to the rise of humanitarianism, moral sentiments and the role of the politics of compassion.

Is the concept of humanitarianism universal or does it change between cultures and countries?
Of course, although there are certain common themes in modern humanitarianism. One is that pain and suffering are unacceptable and must be fought. Of course, this understanding is interpreted within a particular culture. Another common aspect is the connection between protests against suffering and social reforms. Now, the way they are carried out varies. 

One example is when Harriet Beecher Stowe, anti-slavery activist and author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, traveled to England to present her book. She refused to recognize English workers as worthy of humanitarian concern, only recognizing children and black slaves.

Could we define in each country the humanitarian work that is currently of most concern?
I'm not sure how we could draw a map of concerns. In the UK there is a more international humanitarianism because of the bequest of the British Empire and the Second World War. Oxfam started as a protest against the famine in Greece after this conflict. Meanwhile, Save the Children's activities are mainly in East Africa, India and Bangladesh, i.e., they have followed the shadow of what was the British Empire.

On the other hand, it can also be argued that the way in which governments have taken responsibility for humanitarian concerns has shaped the way in which people view their responsibilities to others. Where there is a strong tradition of moral democracy, as in Scandinavian countries or France, the state is expected to take charge. Where there are independent humanitarian organizations, such as the U.S., there is a tradition of localism, where individual communities take responsibility for health, Education and so on.

What about Spain?
In a country like Spain, with different regional policies and cultures, it is anticipated that humanitarian concerns vary according to the region and its government experience.
But all this also varies. For example, new forms of communication are reshaping current moral and political concerns. Jeremy Rifkin is interested in how digital technologies are enabling new kinds of global empathy. One example is the rapid response to the earthquake in Haiti in 2010, and it was, moreover, through cell phones.

What other changes has humanitarianism undergone in the 21st century? Beyond the speed of reaction
First of all-and I find this very interesting-we have begun to model institutions capable of helping us to order and channel reactions.
In my research, I try to discover the ways in which we are aware that we are inevitably involved in these conflicts in order to learn how to manage them pragmatically. For example, I don't think there are easy solutions, but I think the wisdom lies in the pragmatism of people like Jane Addams, who thought we should involve ourselves in social change to create the social conditions we hope to see.

To acquire this pragmatism, I advocate the Education moral. In this way, people will know what morality is. We must teach people to handle that emotional experience as part of a Education to be good citizens.

Couldn't this end up leading to the government trying to impart its ideology through the school curriculum ?
That is a typical post-truth problem: can we trust each other? Are we being played? What we need is a return to the pragmatism advocated by Jane Addams and John Dewey. We need to work on how to achieve democratic participation and this is a problem that modern democracies constantly face. Although today there are more facilities for active participation.

For example, the grassroots movements?
I think we are going in a direction in which it is necessary to recognize the need for localism, in terms of Education, suffrage... At present there are many problems with democracy in the UK because of the big gap between rich and poor. There are big differences between regions, as in Spain. So, the solution to these problems must go through democratic participation. How to achieve it is complicated because the social conditions in which we find ourselves understand rights as a demand.

What happens if governments do not have the same interests as the society they represent financial aid ?
Governments have a real practical problem: how to make a society work when it has all the competing interests. Inevitably, governments face a pragmatic problem that protest groups do not. And these problems vary if we go back to the question above: what subject democracy should we encourage?

I would also like to stress the importance of humanitarianism as a social understanding: understanding people as social beings. Although sociology has been very critical of this movement, I am interested in how the controversy created by humanitarianism establishes the social and our relations with the other. I would add that our ability to question what is morally good treatment of human beings has been made possible by controversy.

The origin of humanitarianism At what point does modern humanitarianism emerge? There is a conventional history of its inception, beginning with the founding of the Red Cross. In the late 19th century, with the Geneva Convention (1860), there was a shared speech about the meaning of humanitarianism: an effort to keep the peace or to look after disaster victims regardless of which side was wrong. I am critical of this because I believe there is a longer story. In my work I expose that there is much that we still don't know. Originally, the word 'humanitarian' was used in a negative way by orthodox theologians to denote Unitarian theology (which emphasized the humanity of Jesus Christ). I think the 18th century is also very important. What could be called a 'proto-humanitarianism' appears in activities such as those of Bartolomé de las Casas. So, can we conclude that humanitarianism was born as a reaction to the suffering of others? In the case of Bartolomé de las Casas, yes. For him, the suffering of the indigenous people meant that there was a moral problem that needed to be solved with social reform. Of course, the idea of unjust suffering was something totally radical at the time, since pain was understood as a divine intervention. In the 18th century this began to become more common and protests against suffering linked to reform movements arose. Undoubtedly, people like Bartolomé de las Casas have contributed to this change of understanding. There is an awakening in the seventeenth century, partly emotional, thanks to the emergence of novels and the cultivation of moral sentiment: feelings about pain were to lead to social organizations for reform. There is an explosion of protest pamphlets and the rights of women, children, animals and, of course, slaves.