Humanitarian aid poses a paradox: It provides a critical lifeline, yet deepens inequality by dependency. Its existence affirms our shared humanity and is the key to countering its unintended dehumanizing effects. 

This is a conclusion reached by anthropologist and Middle East expert Sa’ed Atshan ’06, who drew on more than a decade of research to explore this paradox in his forthcoming work In a Land of Aid: Essays on the Palestinian Condition (Stanford University Press, 2026). Throughout his ethnographic essays, which will be published November 17, Atshan offers an urgent examination of Palestine’s humanitarian crisis, revealing international aid as both facilitating and subverting colonial power.

“Understanding global humanitarianism and modern Palestine means confronting the role of aid,” Atshan says. “My book offers an anthropological understanding of the contemporary realities of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.” 

In In a Land of Aid, Atshan highlights Palestinians’ growing ambivalence toward the prevailing humanitarian discourse and the inherited resistance narratives that no longer fully capture their embodied experiences. He includes the voices of foreign aid workers, policymakers, scholars, and Palestinians navigating political constraints. 

“I have strived for my analysis of humanitarianism in Palestine in these essays to honor our family’s stories, acknowledging both pain and sumud,” Atshan writes in his preface. “Translated as endurance, steadfastness, patience, or persistence in the face of suffering, this Arabic term has become a central staple of the Palestinian lexicon to describe the condition of living in the Occupied Territories.”

As a fervent supporter of the arts, Atshan wanted the book’s cover to feature artwork that represents the spirit of the text. With permission from the late Palestinian artist Sliman Mansour (1947-2026), a founder of the Palestinian contemporary art movement, the cover of In a Land of Aid features Mansour’s 2018 oil painting, Temporary Escape (هروب مؤقت).

While many of Mansour's paintings feature bright colors and patterns, Temporary Escape is subdued. 

“I am deeply honored Sliman allowed me to use this painting because, to me, it symbolizes the precarious vulnerability of Palestinians forced to rely on humanitarian aid,” Atshan says. “The figures stand submerged in water, straining their necks to keep their faces above the surface. They’re not drowning, but they may not survive.”

Atshan is an associate professor of peace & conflict studies and anthropology at Swarthmore. His research focuses on health and humanitarianism, contemporary Palestinian society and politics, global LGBTQ social movements, and Christian minorities in the Middle East. Atshan is the author of Queer Palestine and the Empire of Critique, the co-author of The Moral Triangle: Germans, Israelis, Palestinians (Duke, 2020​), and the co-editor of Reel Gender: Palestinian and Israeli Cinema (Bloomsbury, 2022). He is currently serving as a visiting scholar at the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography at the University of Oxford for the 2026-2027 academic year.