Security Aid

"In Security Aid, Jeffrey Monaghan explores Canadian humanitarian practices that focus on countries in the Global South. These practices have increasingly focused on enhancing regimes of surveillance, policing, prisons, border control and security governance. Monaghan's critical analysis of the securitization of humanitarian aid combines interviews with security experts and declassified material made available via the Access to Information Act. Canadian humanitarian assistance has commonly been framed around altruistic impulses however Monaghan reveals that in practice, these ideals are subordinate to two overlapping objectives: the advancement of Canadian strategic interests and the development of security states in the 'underdeveloped' world. The thousands of documents obtained over a five year period will be made available by the website www.securityaid.ca. Three cases studies of the major aid programs in Haiti, Libya, and South East Asia offers comprehensive analysis and reinterpretation of Canada's place in global affairs. Security Aid's unique account of Canada's role in global affairs forces us to reconsider dominant assumptions of Canada as a nation with a principled foreign policy."--