{"id":{"repo_id":"cambridge","oai_identifier":"oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/393897"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/cambridge/oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/393897","repository":{"repo_id":"cambridge","name":"Cambridge University","base_url":"https://api.repository.cam.ac.uk/server/oai/request"},"display":{"title":"Ordering British Famine Relief Efforts in India, Ottoman Anatolia, and Qing China, 1873–1879","abstract":"This dissertation analyses the discursive process through which British famine relief advocates weighed competing claims to humanitarian assistance from famine-affected communities in different regions of the world in the 1870s: namely, during the famines in Bihar (1873–1874), Asia Minor (1873–1875), Madras (1876–1878), and Shanxi (1876–1879). In doing so, I argue that these Britons’ decisions about which famine sufferers ‘deserved’ humanitarian aid took shape through a universalising hierarchical logic of triage, which I call their ‘hierarchy of sympathy’. The term ‘hierarchy of sympathy’ is my own coinage, which I define as a comparative heuristic framework used to prioritise which famine sufferers’ lives ‘mattered’ as well as to dictate how those lives should best be saved and ‘improved’. The hierarchy of sympathy is, therefore, a framework for explaining not only how relief advocates prioritised specific recipients in their allocation of humanitarian aid but why they organised famine relief in distinct ways according to the specific geopolitical conditions of a given famine relief campaign. I contend that this heuristic broadly functioned in four interrelated ways in each of the four famines. Firstly, relief advocates used the hierarchy of sympathy to channel aid towards specific famine-affected communities whilst avoiding overlap between state relief and private charity. Secondly, this heuristic directed British famine relief efforts towards remedying the perceived causes of both individual famine sufferers’ bodily distress and famines themselves. Although relief advocates placed varying emphases on climate, misgovernment, and character in causing each famine, they identified and sought to remedy the same ultimate ‘evil’ in all four cases: namely, the perceived failure of each society to adopt Britain’s own standards of ‘civilisation’. Thirdly, it functioned to naturalise the hierarchical model of triage as the only legitimate and necessary procedure to allocate ‘scarce’ aid resources. Lastly, this framework channelled British famine relief efforts towards ‘managing’ the human costs of famine whilst upholding (and, where possible, expanding) the hierarchical structural relations that made famines possible in the first place. The hierarchy of sympathy, in sum, was at once a normative vehicle for effecting the ‘civilisation’ of famine-affected societies in Britain’s image and facilitating Britain’s global exercise of power.","abstract_html":"This dissertation analyses the discursive process through which British famine relief advocates weighed competing claims to humanitarian assistance from famine-affected communities in different regions of the world in the 1870s: namely, during the famines in Bihar (1873–1874), Asia Minor (1873–1875), Madras (1876–1878), and Shanxi (1876–1879). In doing so, I argue that these Britons’ decisions about which famine sufferers ‘deserved’ humanitarian aid took shape through a universalising hierarchical logic of triage, which I call their ‘hierarchy of sympathy’. The term ‘hierarchy of sympathy’ is my own coinage, which I define as a comparative heuristic framework used to prioritise which famine sufferers’ lives ‘mattered’ as well as to dictate how those lives should best be saved and ‘improved’. The hierarchy of sympathy is, therefore, a framework for explaining not only how relief advocates prioritised specific recipients in their allocation of humanitarian aid but why they organised famine relief in distinct ways according to the specific geopolitical conditions of a given famine relief campaign. I contend that this heuristic broadly functioned in four interrelated ways in each of the four famines. Firstly, relief advocates used the hierarchy of sympathy to channel aid towards specific famine-affected communities whilst avoiding overlap between state relief and private charity. Secondly, this heuristic directed British famine relief efforts towards remedying the perceived causes of both individual famine sufferers’ bodily distress and famines themselves. Although relief advocates placed varying emphases on climate, misgovernment, and character in causing each famine, they identified and sought to remedy the same ultimate ‘evil’ in all four cases: namely, the perceived failure of each society to adopt Britain’s own standards of ‘civilisation’. Thirdly, it functioned to naturalise the hierarchical model of triage as the only legitimate and necessary procedure to allocate ‘scarce’ aid resources. Lastly, this framework channelled British famine relief efforts towards ‘managing’ the human costs of famine whilst upholding (and, where possible, expanding) the hierarchical structural relations that made famines possible in the first place. The hierarchy of sympathy, in sum, was at once a normative vehicle for effecting the ‘civilisation’ of famine-affected societies in Britain’s image and facilitating Britain’s global exercise of power.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Wordsworth, Emma Kate"],"institution":"University of Cambridge","degree_name":"Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)","degree_level":"Doctoral","degree_discipline":null,"degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":[],"advisors":["Sen, Samita"],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2025,"date_issued":"2025-08-08","date_published":"2025-08-08","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:23:57Z","subjects":["famine","humanitarianism","Britain","nineteenth century","India","British Empire","Turkey","China","Ottoman Empire","Qing Empire","food security","globalisation"],"languages":["eng"],"rights":[],"rights_urls":["https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/24fac066-f583-4e59-971b-5c1f528f72da/download","http://purl.org/NET/rdflicense/allrightsreserved"],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.124036","outbound_label":"DOI","outbound_source":"dc:identifier.doi"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor.advisor","label":"Advisor","values":["Sen, Samita"]},{"key":"dc:contributor.sponsor","label":"Sponsor","values":["Cambridge Trust and the Smuts Memorial Fund (Prince of Wales and Smuts Cambridge International Scholarship)"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Wordsworth, Emma Kate"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date.issued","label":"Date","values":["2025-08-08"]},{"key":"dc:publisher.institution","label":"Dc Publisher Institution","values":["University of Cambridge"]},{"key":"dc:relation.isreferencedby.uri","label":"Dc Relation Isreferencedby URI","values":["https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/393897"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["Thesis"]},{"key":"dc:type.qualificationlevel","label":"Dc Type Qualificationlevel","values":["Doctoral"]},{"key":"dc:type.qualificationname","label":"Dc Type Qualificationname","values":["Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["famine","humanitarianism","Britain","nineteenth century","India","British Empire","Turkey","China","Ottoman Empire","Qing Empire","food security","globalisation"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["eng"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/24fac066-f583-4e59-971b-5c1f528f72da/download","http://purl.org/NET/rdflicense/allrightsreserved"]},{"key":"dc:rights.embargodate","label":"Dc Rights Embargodate","values":["2026-12-15"]},{"key":"dc:rights.embargotype","label":"Dc Rights Embargotype","values":["embargo"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier.doi","label":"DOI","values":["https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.124036"]},{"key":"dc:identifier.uri","label":"Identifier URI","values":["https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/a100d32c-a416-4dd5-85c7-ebe694d9b695/download"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description.abstract","label":"Abstract","values":["This dissertation analyses the discursive process through which British famine relief advocates weighed competing claims to humanitarian assistance from famine-affected communities in different regions of the world in the 1870s: namely, during the famines in Bihar (1873–1874), Asia Minor (1873–1875), Madras (1876–1878), and Shanxi (1876–1879). In doing so, I argue that these Britons’ decisions about which famine sufferers ‘deserved’ humanitarian aid took shape through a universalising hierarchical logic of triage, which I call their ‘hierarchy of sympathy’. The term ‘hierarchy of sympathy’ is my own coinage, which I define as a comparative heuristic framework used to prioritise which famine sufferers’ lives ‘mattered’ as well as to dictate how those lives should best be saved and ‘improved’. The hierarchy of sympathy is, therefore, a framework for explaining not only how relief advocates prioritised specific recipients in their allocation of humanitarian aid but why they organised famine relief in distinct ways according to the specific geopolitical conditions of a given famine relief campaign. I contend that this heuristic broadly functioned in four interrelated ways in each of the four famines. Firstly, relief advocates used the hierarchy of sympathy to channel aid towards specific famine-affected communities whilst avoiding overlap between state relief and private charity. Secondly, this heuristic directed British famine relief efforts towards remedying the perceived causes of both individual famine sufferers’ bodily distress and famines themselves. Although relief advocates placed varying emphases on climate, misgovernment, and character in causing each famine, they identified and sought to remedy the same ultimate ‘evil’ in all four cases: namely, the perceived failure of each society to adopt Britain’s own standards of ‘civilisation’. Thirdly, it functioned to naturalise the hierarchical model of triage as the only legitimate and necessary procedure to allocate ‘scarce’ aid resources. Lastly, this framework channelled British famine relief efforts towards ‘managing’ the human costs of famine whilst upholding (and, where possible, expanding) the hierarchical structural relations that made famines possible in the first place. The hierarchy of sympathy, in sum, was at once a normative vehicle for effecting the ‘civilisation’ of famine-affected societies in Britain’s image and facilitating Britain’s global exercise of power."]},{"key":"dc:format.checksum.md5","label":"Dc Format Checksum Md5","values":["10b52873e3d04c5723e53cc3f86870dd","87eda9de84448d1f82354d60eee3eb5f"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Ordering British Famine Relief Efforts in India, Ottoman Anatolia, and Qing China, 1873–1879"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor.advisor":["Sen, Samita"],"dc:contributor.sponsor":["Cambridge Trust and the Smuts Memorial Fund (Prince of Wales and Smuts Cambridge International Scholarship)"],"dc:creator":["Wordsworth, Emma Kate"],"dc:date.issued":["2025-08-08"],"dc:description.abstract":["This dissertation analyses the discursive process through which British famine relief advocates weighed competing claims to humanitarian assistance from famine-affected communities in different regions of the world in the 1870s: namely, during the famines in Bihar (1873–1874), Asia Minor (1873–1875), Madras (1876–1878), and Shanxi (1876–1879). In doing so, I argue that these Britons’ decisions about which famine sufferers ‘deserved’ humanitarian aid took shape through a universalising hierarchical logic of triage, which I call their ‘hierarchy of sympathy’. The term ‘hierarchy of sympathy’ is my own coinage, which I define as a comparative heuristic framework used to prioritise which famine sufferers’ lives ‘mattered’ as well as to dictate how those lives should best be saved and ‘improved’. The hierarchy of sympathy is, therefore, a framework for explaining not only how relief advocates prioritised specific recipients in their allocation of humanitarian aid but why they organised famine relief in distinct ways according to the specific geopolitical conditions of a given famine relief campaign. I contend that this heuristic broadly functioned in four interrelated ways in each of the four famines. Firstly, relief advocates used the hierarchy of sympathy to channel aid towards specific famine-affected communities whilst avoiding overlap between state relief and private charity. Secondly, this heuristic directed British famine relief efforts towards remedying the perceived causes of both individual famine sufferers’ bodily distress and famines themselves. Although relief advocates placed varying emphases on climate, misgovernment, and character in causing each famine, they identified and sought to remedy the same ultimate ‘evil’ in all four cases: namely, the perceived failure of each society to adopt Britain’s own standards of ‘civilisation’. Thirdly, it functioned to naturalise the hierarchical model of triage as the only legitimate and necessary procedure to allocate ‘scarce’ aid resources. Lastly, this framework channelled British famine relief efforts towards ‘managing’ the human costs of famine whilst upholding (and, where possible, expanding) the hierarchical structural relations that made famines possible in the first place. 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