Reading Emergency Sex (and Other Desperate Measures) was extremely eye-opening. There is something so revealing about hearing a first hand account of what happened to someone, as opposed to hearing academic jargon about it.
Ken’s journey was the key story, in my opinion, in understanding the psychology behind humanitarian aid work. He came into the humanitarian sector with preconceived notions, an a lot of privilege, thinking he could save the world. He was soon humbled as he realized that only one person can do so much.
As Ken starts experiencing violence and comes to the realization of the true reality of humanitarian aid work, I can’t help but noticing the similarities between his experiences and that of our Skype guests. This sense of hope that Ken had at the beginning of the book slowly starts eroding as he experiences the violence and realities of humanitarian aid. Much like Genevieve, who was very optimistic but soon was slapped in the face by reality, the realities of the humanitarian aid sector can not only be more than one bargained for, but also psychologically damaging. Ken explains that he was “hell-bent on being an effective humanitarian in Cambodia and Somalia” but now his “naïve fog” is finally lifting (219).
Ken’s story actually perfectly aligned with the “Mission, Mercenary, Mystic, Misfit” concept. Which is basically just a theoretical framework for how humanitarian aid workers mentally navigate through the sector. This idea of a “moral career” was presented by Erving Goffman. Ken starts out wanting to save the world with very grandiose ideas. Next, after having a traumatizing experience in Somalia, he becomes the mercenary. He then goes to Rwanda, very aware of what happened to him psychologically in Somalia and it much more aware of the challenges that face the humanitarian aid sector. He eventually becomes the misfit finally when he is looking for an escape route. The entire process disillusioned Ken like so many of our Skype guests and other account we have heard, however, this story particularly resonated with me because of the form in which the story was presented. I think all majors in college should be required to read this book, because the sociological implications are so important and can be applied to so many different disciplines. We also read this around the time in the course when I started to realize how little people are really educated about this sector (even beginning aid workers can be misinformed about the nature of the sector) and what aid workers truly have to deal with. It troubles me that there is not more spotlight on the journey’s of aid workers.